FANGORIA has announced the nominees for the 2026 Chainsaw Awards, the genre’s fan-powered celebration of the best in horror film, television, and gaming. Voting opens today, July 2, and runs through July 15 at fangoria.com/vote, giving horror fans worldwide the chance to pick this year’s winners.
Leading the pack this year are 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and Bryan Fuller’s Dust Bunny, each landing nine nominations. Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later sequel showed up across the board — Best Wide Release, Director, Screenplay, Score, and Makeup FX — while Dust Bunny picked up nods for Best Limited Release and Best Director, plus double Best Supporting Performance nominations for Mads Mikkelsen and Sigourney Weaver.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Backrooms wasn’t far behind with six nominations, and THE BRIDE!, Frankenstein, and Hokum each scored five. On the indie side, Obsession picked up four nods, including Best Director for Curry Barker and Best Lead Performance for Inde Navarette.
FANGORIA Editor-in-Chief Phil Nobile Jr. framed the slate as a rebuke to box-office-driven awards logic, noting that this year’s nominees prove horror fans champion the films that deserve a bigger audience, not just the ones that made the most money. Chainsaw Awards writer-director Michael Varrati echoed that sentiment, calling this year’s field a wide-ranging mix of the stories and creators horror fans have rallied behind since the last show.
Nominees were chosen by a body of industry professionals and tastemakers covering releases from July 2025 through June 2026. Winners will be announced October 25, 2026, during the FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards broadcast on Shudder.
Voting closes at 11:59 PM PT on July 15.
Congratulations to all of this year’s Chainsaw Awards nominees — good luck to everyone in the running!
Full List of 2026 FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards Nominees
Best Wide Release
- 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
- Backrooms
- THE BRIDE!
- Faces of Death
- Forbidden Fruits
- Hokum
- Leviticus
- Obsession
- Send Help
- Weapons
Best Limited Release Movie
- Dust Bunny
- Mārama
- Queens of the Dead
- The Serpent’s Skin
- Touch Me
Best Streaming Premiere
- I Am Frankelda
- Influencers
- Mother of Flies
- Reflection in a Dead Diamond
- V/H/S/Halloween
Best International Movie
- Alpha
- Exit 8
- Mārama
- Reflection in a Dead Diamond
- The Wailing
Best First Feature
- Backrooms
- Buffet Infinity
- Dust Bunny
- Iron Lung
- Queens of the Dead
Best Lead Performance
- Zazie Beetz, They Will Kill You
- Jessie Buckley, THE BRIDE!
- Peter Dinklage, The Toxic Avenger
- Chiwetel Ejiofor, Backrooms
- Ralph Fiennes, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
- Rachel McAdams, Send Help
- Inde Navarette, Obsession
- Toby Poser, Mother of Flies
- Adam Scott, Hokum
- Sophie Sloan, Dust Bunny
Best Supporting Performance
- Stacy Clausen, Leviticus
- Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
- Elle Fanning, Predator: Badlands
- Regina Hall, Scary Movie
- David Jonsson, The Long Walk
- Amy Madigan, Weapons
- Mads Mikkelsen, Dust Bunny
- Dacre Montgomery, Faces of Death
- Jack O’Connell, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
- Sigourney Weaver, Dust Bunny
Best Director
- Curry Barker, Obsession
- Zach Cregger, Weapons
- Nia DaCosta, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
- Bryan Fuller, Dust Bunny
- Maggie Gyllenhaal, THE BRIDE!
Best Screenplay
- Curry Barker, Obsession
- Zach Cregger, Weapons
- Alex Garland, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
- Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber, Faces of Death
- Damian McCarthy, Hokum
Best Cinematography
- Sean Bobbitt, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
- Jeremy Cox, Backrooms
- Andrew Droz Palermo & Rina Yang, Mother Mary
- Nicole Hirsch Whitaker, Dust Bunny
- Colm Hogan, Hokum
Best Score
- Gavin Brivik, Faces of Death
- Alexandre Desplat, Frankenstein
- Hildur Guðnadóttir, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
- Daniel Hart, Mother Mary
- Kane Parsons & Edo Van Breemen, Backrooms
Best Costume Design
- Olivier Bériot & Catherine Leterrier, Dust Bunny
- Kate Hawley, Frankenstein
- Carson McColl & Gareth Pugh, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
- Sandy Powell, THE BRIDE!
- David Tabbert, Queens of the Dead
Best Makeup FX
- Chris Gallaher, Nadia Stacey & Scott Stoddard, THE BRIDE!
- Mike Hill, Frankenstein
- Millennium FX, The Toxic Avenger
- John Nolan, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
- Arjen Tuiten, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy
Best Creature FX
- Legacy Effects, Dust Bunny
- Studio Gillis and Wētā Workshop, Predator: Badlands
- Millennium FX, Primate
- Werner Pretorius and Amazing Ape Productions, Backrooms
- Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Best Documentary Feature
- 1000 Women in Horror
- Chain Reactions
- In Search of Darkness: 1995-1999
- The Last Sacrifice
- Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror
Best Non-Fiction TV Series or Miniseries
- The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Titans
- Grave Conversations
- The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs
- Monstrum
- Svengoolie
Best Series
- Alien: Earth
- The Creep Tapes
- Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen
- The Vampire Lestat
- Widow’s Bay
Best Video Game
- Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake
- Little Nightmares III
- No, I’m Not A Human
- Resident Evil: Requiem
- Silent Hill f
