From ‘Scream’ to ‘M3GAN 2.0,’ Nielsen Reveals the Most-Watched Horror Films Over the Last Five Octobers
- - From ‘Scream’ to ‘M3GAN 2.0,’ Nielsen Reveals the Most-Watched Horror Films Over the Last Five Octobers
Selome HailuOctober 30, 2025 at 6:00 PM
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“M3GAN 2.0” might not have been a box office success, but it was the first horror movie many viewers turned to as the Halloween season begun this year.
According to a special Halloween report from Nielsen summarizing horror movie viewership each October since 2021, the “M3GAN” sequel was the most-watched horror film on TV during the week of Oct. 1-7, with a total of 115 million viewing minutes on Peacock. (Data for the rest of this month is not yet available.) That statistic was counted across a combination of linear and streaming. Just behind it with 113 million minutes watched was the original “Scream” film from 1996, which aired on the Paramount Network and Showtime in addition to being available on multiple streamers.
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Along with “M3GAN 2.0,” the horror titles that premiered in 2025 and made the chart are “Bring Her Back” at No. 3, “28 Years Later” at No. 4 and “Sinners” at No. 8. And besides “Scream,” the only chart titles that premiered before the last decade are 1962’s “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” at No. 5 and 1990’s “Tremors” at No. 7.
The only titles from the 2025 chart that also appeared on one of Nielsen’s charts of the most-watched horror films in Octobers 2021-2024 are “Scream” and 2018’s “Halloween.” “Scream” charted once before, reaching No. 3 in 2021 with 458 million minutes watched across AMC and IFC. “Halloween” made No. 8 in 2021 with 362 million minutes watched on FX, No. 8 in 2024 with 370 million minutes watched across Netflix and Peacock and No. 9 in 2025 with 50 million minutes watched on Hulu.
Between 2021 and 2024, repeat titles include the original 1978 “Halloween,” “Thir13en Ghosts” and “House of Wax,” which all charted in 2021 and 2022; “Hubie Halloween,” “which charted in 2022 and 2023; and the 2023 “Haunted Mansion” remake, which charted in 2023 and 2024.
Nielsen also broke down horror viewership in Octobers 2021-2024 by demographic, taking a closer look at patterns in Hispanic, Black and Asian audiences as well as six different age groups. From 2022 to 2024, there were no differences across racial lines. “Curse of Bridge Hollow” was No. 1 for Hispanic, Black and Asian viewers in 2022, though it came in second after “Halloween Ends” with viewers of all races includes, per the chart above. In 2023 and 2024, the top title in these groups matched the top title overall: “Haunted Mansion” in 2023 and “Don’t Move” in 2024.
In 2021, however, Hispanic viewers gravitated to “I Am Legend” while the most-watched horror film among Black viewers was “Life” and “Night Teeth” was No. 1 among Asians. Of those, only “Night Teeth” made 2021’s overall Top 10.
Similarly to the data regarding racial demographics, 2021 saw five different top titles across the six age groups, but horror viewing became more homogenous over time. In 2022 and 2024, there were three top titles across the groups; in 2023, there was only one.
Horror movies made up 14.7% of all movie viewing in October 2021, before dipping just slightly to 14.6% in 2022 and ultimately peaking with 15.8% in 2024.
While Nielsen didn’t provide a data point comparing those percentages to horror viewership outside of the Halloween season, its sister company Gracenote has measured that as of September 2025, horror makes up 7.43% of movie viewership overall across Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Netflix and Paramount+. (It should be noted that, unlike the Nielsen data, that statistic isn’t include of linear television.)
Regardless, as the only source with first-party data across such a wide audience panel (more than 100,000 people and 75 million devices), Nielsen’s report credibly points to a surprising trend around Halloween: Despite increasing amounts of content to choose from, horror movies appear to be a unifier among audiences, less splintered across demographics than other genres, and horror fans continue to rediscover and elevate older films while catching new releases.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
