The 2022 Oscar nominations have been announced and, as expected, there’s no love for horror films. The closest thing we can find is Guillermo del Toro’s superb noir Nightmare Alley, Pablo Larraín’s horror-tinted look into the life of Princess Diana in Spencer, and Hugo Covarrubias’ animated short film Bestia which is a terrifying exploration of collective trauma generated from Pinochet’s dictatorship. The wonderful live-action short film T’es Morte Hélène about a man living with the (literal) ghost of his girlfriend didn’t make it into the nominations.
Since The Academy refuses to recognize how genius the horror genre can be, we’ve created a list of nominations using only horror films to highlight some of the outstanding work that 2021 gave us. We have a whodunnit, a powerful exploration of religious obsession, a vicious crusade of vengeance, a refreshing allegory of fame using the figure of the werewolf, a french body-horror masterpiece, and much more.
The categories we picked for this list are Best Picture, Best Direction, Best Actress (Lead & Supporting), Best Actor (Lead & Supporting), Best Screenplay, Best Makeup & Hairstyling, and Best Original Score. To populate the list we picked films that were made available to United States audiences in 2021 (Shudder, theaters, Netflix, etc…). Here’s the final result:
Best Picture
- Bleed With Me
- The Boy Behind the Door
- Censor
- The Feast
- The Night House
- Saint Maud
- Titane
- Vicious Fun
- Violation
- Werewolves Within
Best Director
- David Charbonier & Justin Powell – The Boy Behind the Door
- David Bruckner – The Night House
- Julia Ducournau – Titane
- Prano Bailey-Bond – Censor
- Rose Glass – Saint Maud
Best Actress
- Molly Quinn – Agnes
- Ariana Guerra – Madres
- Lauren Beatty – Bloodthirsty
- Niamh Algar – Censor
- Rebecca Hall – The Night House
- Mélanie Laurent – Oxygen
- Morfydd Clark – Saint Maud
- Agathe Rousselle – Titane
- Amber Goldfarb – Vicious Fun
- Madeleine Sims-Fewer – Violation
Best Actor
- Jim Cumings – The Beta Test
- Lonnie Chavis – The Boy Behind the Door
- Yahya Abdul-Mateen II – Candyman
- Gary Green – Fried Barry
- Tenoch Huerta – The Forever Purge
- Hilmir Snær Guðnason – Lamb
- Peter Outerbridge – The Oak Room
- Vincent Lindon – Titane
- Ari Millen – Vicious Fun
- Harvey Guillén – Werewolves Within
Best Screenplay
- The Boy Behind the Door – David Charbonier & Justin Powell
- Lucky – Brea Grant
- The Oak Room – Peter Genoway
- Titane – Julia Ducournau
- Saint Maud – Rose Glass
Best Makeup & Hairstyling
- Bloodthirsty
- Candyman
- Censor
- Last Night in Soho
- Titane
Best Original Score
- Candyman – Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe
- Censor – Emilie Levienaise-Farouch
- Last Night in Soho – Steven Price
- Shadow in the Cloud – Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper
- Titane – Jim Williams
What do you think of the Oscar horror nominations for 2022 list? What movies, performances, and crafts would you add to our nominations? Let us know on social media: @butwhythopc.
