With the first half of 2025 officially in the books, I thought I’d report on how horror performed in North American theaters for the first six months. For this report, I’m reviewing the numbers on 16 horror films based on Box Office Mojo’s year-to-date figures from Jan. 1 to June 30.
Horror in Theaters: First Half Recap of 2025 – Two big winners
Without a doubt, Sinners is the big horror movie winner in the first half of 2025 (and probably for the year). The other big winner is Final Destination: Bloodlines.
Sinners delivered a monumental haul of $278 million, good enough for third-most among all movies so far in 2025. Sinners only trailed family films Minecraft: The Movie ($423.9M) and Lilo & Stitch ($400M). Directed by Ryan Coogler (Black Panther) and starring Michael B. Jordan, Sinners is not only one of the best reviewed films of the year, it’s also a genuine crowd-pleaser. 97% of critics gave the film thumbs-up on the review site Rotten Tomatoes, while the audience score is a high-flying 96%. You can check out J. Brams’ detailed review on Sinners here.
Final Destination: Bloodlines is the only other horror movie to top $100M in the first half. The sixth installment in the franchise and the first since 2011, Bloodlines rejuvenated the brand, grossing more than double the box office of any previous entry in the series. Like Sinners, Bloodlines enjoyed both the highest critical praise (92%) of any of the previous films and audience approval (82%).
Not buying hype
I’m just a casual moviegoer, but I do see the huge amount of advertising — particularly online — spent on certain films. What surprised me most about the first half of 2025 is that the most-hyped horror movies failed to catch fire in theaters.
28 Years Later, Bring Her Back, Megan 2.0, and Clown in a Cornfield seemed poised for healthy hauls at the box office, but 28 Years Later is the only one to gross $50M in domestic theaters. The other three films failed to crack the Top 10, grossing less than more obscure projects like The Woman in the Yard and Companion.
And it’s not that they were bad films. All these movies enjoyed solid scores either among critics or audiences or both, according to Rotten Tomatoes.
28 Years Later received excellent response from critics (89%). Bring Her Back scored high among critics (89%) and audiences (79%). Clown in a Cornfield enjoyed solid praise among critics (79%). M3GAN 2.0 didn’t fare well among critics (57%) but had the highest audience score (83%) of the group.
And it wasn’t a case of the same old, same old either. Yes, 28 Years Later and M3GAN 2.0 were sequels, but one is a somber apocalyptic tale and the other is pure campy entertainment. You also had a fun slasher with Clown in a Cornfield directed by Eli Craig (Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil) and grim ritualistic horror with Bring Her Back.
So, audiences had choices. Maybe it’s a case of moviegoers saving their theater dollars for the big event films and waiting to watch smaller budget movies on streaming. What do you think?
The good news is most horror film budgets are low and don’t have the pressure of having to make a ton of money in theaters to earn a profit. We’ll still have plenty of horror movies to watch in the future.
The Top 5
With the original director and writer of 28 Days Later returning, 28 Years Later seemed destined for a successful run at the North American box office. The third film in the franchise opened strong ($30M) and finished with $50.3M for the first half. That’s good enough for third-most among horror movies so far in 2025. It also surpassed 28 Days Later ($45M in 2002) and 28 Weeks Later ($28.6M in 2007) in box office earnings, but that’s not accounting for inflation.
The fourth-highest grossing horror film of the first half is Nosferatu. It opened on Christmas day last year and earned about half its total in theaters before the new year. The well-reviewed classic vampire movie grossed $47.4M in 2025, but the film’s overall take is $95.6M when including its 2024 box office take.
Rounding out the Top 5 is The Monkey, a film directed by Osgood Perkins and based on an old Stephen King short story. The cursed toy monkey movie earned $39.7M in theaters. Not a bad showing for a horror film, but with King’s pedigree and the director of 2024’s Longlegs behind the camera, I expected a bit more. It enjoyed 78% positive feedback from critics, but the audience score was a middling 56%.
Rest of the Top 10
The Valentine’s Day serial killer slasher Heart Eyes grossed $30.4M, good enough for No. 6 on the first-half list of horror movies. With solid critic (78%) and audience (76%) scores, Heart Eyes introduced an effective new killer to the slasher genre.
Psychological horror film The Woman in the Yard grossed $22.4M to reach No. 7. While critics and audience scores were below 50%, the movie’s premise about a grieving mother protecting her children from a mysterious woman in black connected for some moviegoers with its exploration of depression.
Science fiction horror thriller Companion grossed $20.8M, the eighth-most popular horror film in the first half. Another well-received movie by critics (93%) and audiences (89%), Companion delivers a suspense-filled twist on relationships and technology.
Monster movie Wolf Man grossed $20.7M to claw its way into the first-half Top 10. While director Leigh Whannell delivered an outstanding take on The Invisible Man in 2020, his Wolf Man didn’t resonate nearly as much with critics or audiences.
Until Dawn, a film based on the survival horror video game, grossed $20.1M to round out the Top 10. Until Dawn is about a group of friends trapped in a time loop who die and wake up to face death again. It received middling critic (53%) and audience scores (67%).
Beyond the Top 10
Here are the other six horror movies that had theatrical releases in the first half of 2025.
Bring Her Back ($19.2M): The critically acclaimed ritualistic horror film delivered the unsettling goods for critics (89%) and audiences (79%). Directed by the Australian brothers who helmed 2023’s breakout hit Talk to Me.
M3GAN 2.0 ($10.2M): After the popularity of 2023’s M3GAN, the snarky bot all but shed her horror roots and returned in a more action-oriented sequel. The result was a lukewarm opening more than $20M less than the original. The first M3GAN was released in the winter and enjoyed a $95.1M run at theaters. I think M3GAN 2.0’s summer release may have hurt its box office chances to match the surprising success of the first one.
Clown in a Cornfield ($7.2M): A movie based on Adam Cesare’s 2020 novel, Clown in a Cornfield introduces Frendo, a vicious new clown addition to the slasher genre.
Presence ($6.9M): Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich) directs an effective suburban supernatural thriller starring Lucy Liu. Written by David Koepp whose credits include Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, and Jurassic Park: Rebirth.
Hell of a Summer ($3.1M): A nostalgic comedy slasher about camp counselors trying to survive a masked killer on the loose. Written and directed by actors Billy Bryck (Ghostbuster: Afterlife) and Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things, It).
Dangerous Animals ($2.7M): An intense ocean survival thriller, Dangerous Animals follows a surfer trying to escape a serial killer on his boat before he feeds her to the sharks. Directed by Sean Byrne (The Loved Ones, The Devil’s Candy).
That sums up the first half of 2025 for horror films in theaters. The second half looks interesting. Among the upcoming releases are I Know What You Did Last Summer, Together, Weapons, The Toxic Avenger, a new Conjuring movie, an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Long Walk, The Strangers: Chapter 2, the Osgood Perkins film Keeper, Black Phone 2, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, and a comedic version of Anaconda starring Jack Black and Paul Rudd.
What horror movie are you most excited about to watch during the back half of 2025?