It has been 35 years since a horror movie not only won Best Picture at the Oscars, but did something very few movies in history ever accomplished. The Oscars never took horror movies seriously, with The Exorcist as the first horror film to ever receive a Best Picture nomination. However, this all changed in 1991.
Before 1991, no horror movie had ever won an Oscar for Best Picture, and while it wasn’t an immediate change, this movie has done a lot to open up the voters’ eyes to genre fiction and horror in general for major awards. There is still ground to make up, but The Silence of the Lambs opened the door.
The Silence Of The Lambs Proved Horror Could Win At The Oscars
The Silence of the Lambs came out 35 years ago, on February 14, 1991, and it changed everything about horror movie appreciation. Before this film, there were only two horror movies to ever receive Best Picture nominations at the Oscars, and they were prestige pictures. The Silence of the Lambs broke through the glass ceiling.
Previously, The Exorcist earned a Best Picture nomination following its 1973 release, and then Jaws earned a nomination after its release in 1975. There were other suspense and thriller movies that had earned Oscar nominations, and even won Oscars, but they were never categorized as horror.
However, with The Silence of the Lambs, the movie was a solid entry in the psychological horror thriller genre, and that meant its Oscar chances were slim. Its nomination helped it achieve success that few other horror movies ever did, as it had been 16 years since the last horror movie received a Best Picture nomination.
However, what happened next was shocking, to say the least. The Silence of the Lambs became the first horror movie to ever win the Best Picture Oscar, beating out movies like JFK and The Prince of Tides. This was also the same year that an animated film was nominated with Beauty and the Beast.
While the Academy Awards were not happy with an animated movie getting a nomination, they responded by creating a new Best Animated Feature category to try to stop that from happening again. However, for horror movies, there was no other alternative, and eight years later, The Sixth Sense followed with its own nomination.
There hasn’t been a flood of horror movies, but The Silence of the Lambs proved scary movies could win the big award, and it has allowed other horror movies like Black Swan (2010), Get Out (2017), and The Substance (2024) to also pick up nominations. With Sinners as the frontrunner, a second horror winner could happen this year.
The Silence Of The Lambs Was One Of Only Three Movies To Sweep Oscars
What makes The Silence of the Lambs special is that it is not only the only horror movie to win the Best Picture Oscar, but it is also one of only three films in history to sweep the top five categories, and being a horror film, this is even more impressive.
The top five categories include the Best Picture award, as well as Best Director, Best Screenplay (adapted or original), Best Actor, and Best Actress. The only other two movies to sweep the Oscars were It Happened One Night (1934) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975).
For The Silence of the Lambs, the movie won Best Picture, while Jonathan Demme won the Best Director award. Ted Tally won Best Writing (Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published). Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor for playing Hannibal Lecter, and Jodie Foster won Best Actress for playing Clarice Starling.
Horror Movies Have Experienced A Revival 25 Years Later
At the 98th Annual Academy Awards this year, there is a movie that has a chance to match The Silence of the Lambs for Best Picture winner, but it doesn’t have a chance to sweep the categories. Sinners is the frontrunner alongside One Battle After Another for the top prize.
On top of that, Ryan Coogler is competing for Best Director, once again with Paul Thomas Anderson as his closest competitor for One Battle After Another. Michael B. Jordan is nominated for Best Actor for playing two roles (Smoke and Stack) in Sinners. Finally, Coogler also has a screenplay nomination.
The only omission is that Sinners has no Best Actress nomination, as there was no lead actress in the film. However, Sinners was just the start of horror movies getting more love at the Oscars over the past few years.
While it didn’t receive a screenplay nomination, Weapons was represented in the Best Supporting Actress category, with Any Madigan earning a nomination. Frankenstein is also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Guillermo del Toro), Best Supporting Actor (Jacob Elordi), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Del Toro).
This follows last year’s Oscars, where The Substance received an Oscar nomination, and Demi Moore was nominated for Best Actress for her role in the movie, and Coralie Fargeat earned a Best Original Screenplay nomination.
While it has been 35 years since The Silence of the Lambs was released, and went on to sweep the Oscars that year, horror movies have continued to rise in prestige. They are seen as more than just disposable entertainment today, and The Silence of the Lambs deserves as much recognition as The Exorcist for changing things in Hollywood.