Okay, so last October we sat you down and told you horror was quietly taking over your TV. It’s October again, the fake spiderwebs are somehow already in your hair, and we’re back with the sequel.
The October chart, updated (plot twist included)
Let’s start where we left off. Last year we tracked horror’s slice of October movie watching across four Octobers and found a small but real bump, nearly a full point between 2023 and 2024. Now October 2025 has officially wrapped, so we added the newest data point. Horror made up 14.7% of October movie minutes, down from 15.8% in 2024 and right back in the 14.6% to 14.9% range of 2021 through 2023.
One reason horror may not have gotten as much love last October is Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters was in the midst of an epic run. In October alone, KPop tallied over three billion minutes, and inspired many a Halloween costume. True crime documentary The Perfect Neighbor (also on Netflix) was not far behind with just under three billion minutes, and those real-life horrors may have been another distraction from the fictional stuff.
Last year, revisited: the full-month top 10
Remember our first-week look, with Weapons in the top slot and Haunted Mansion breathing down her neck? Turns out October is not a one-episode series. Here’s some highlights on how the full month shook out:
Weapons: 640 million minutes and the newest title in the top three was also the month’s biggest streaming film, with 565 million streaming minutes (88% of its total) and another 76 million on HBO. Few films are this high on the list after arriving the same year.
It: 396 million minutes with linear contributing 183 million minutes (46%) and streaming 213 million, with AMC’s FearFest and IFC TV carrying the 2017 film on cable. Pennywise’s annual October return stayed on schedule.
Bring Her Back: 281 million minutes. The 2025 release closed out the list with 94% of its minutes coming from streaming. It was one of four 2025 releases in the top 10, along with Weapons, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and M3GAN 2.0.
Poltergeist: 278 million minutes, finishing roughly 2.4 million minutes behind Bring Her Back. Linear carried 59% of its viewing (163 million minutes) and streaming supplied 115 million. AMC’s FearFest alone accounted for 94 million of the linear minutes, with BBC America, FX Movie Channel, IFC TV, FX and FXX adding the rest.
Sleepy Hollow: 276 million minutes, following closely behind Poltergeist by 1.8 million minutes. Linear supplied 129 million (47%). Freeform alone accounted for 88 million of the linear minutes with FX and FXM adding to the rest. The headless horseman may have lost his head, but he did not lose out on a top 10 spot!
Streaming accounted for 72% of top 10 minutes overall, and the split differed by type of title. The four 2025 releases in the top 10 (Weapons, I Know What You Did Last Summer, M3GAN 2.0 and Bring Her Back) drew most if not all of their minutes from streaming. Weapons led all titles on streaming with 565 million minutes. Longer-established franchises were more evenly split or weighted toward linear: as mentioned, Poltergeist drew 59% of its minutes from linear, and It drew 46%. Scream was the exception among established franchises, with 86% of its minutes on streaming.
2026 so far: new faces, familiar franchises
Quick disclaimer, because we love a responsible footnote: this is January through September, nine months, so don’t compare these minutes to October’s. A bigger window means bigger numbers.
Sinners went from #13 last October to #1 this year with 2.69 billion minutes on HBO and HBO Max. It has not left the chat since April 2025. Behind it:
Eight of the ten are 2025 or 2026 releases, so the fresh stuff is eating.
Different generations, different favorites
Here’s the generation breakdown. Our standard age groups don’t align with the standard generational cohorts, so these groups were built as custom segments based on birth years: Gen Alpha (2–13), Gen Z (14–29), Millennials (30–45), Gen X (46–61) and Boomers (62–80).
Across these ten movies, Millennials are the horror enthusiasts. They make up about 31% of minutes, the biggest slice of any generation (Gen X is next at 27%, then Gen Z at 20%, boomers at 14% and Gen Alpha at 7%). Millennials are also at the top audience for six of the ten titles. They go hardest for The Bone Temple, where they’re 35.4% of viewing, the highest Millennial share on the list, and they are obsessed with Obsession (35.1%).
A few titles break the pattern:
Gen Z: The Black Phone is the only title where they’re the biggest audience (29.4% of minutes).
Gen X: They’re the top audience for Primate (31.8%), World War Z (30.1%) and Sinners (29.4%).
Boomers: They’re Sinners people, at 19.0% of its minutes against a 14.0% average.
Gen Alpha: The Black Phone is their favorite at 13.3%, roughly double their average share. M3GAN 2.0 is also the one title where both kids and boomers over-index, which looks suspiciously like multigenerational movie night. That’s just our theory, no notes.
While not necessarily as scary as the other fare we’ve covered, we want to give an honorable mention to some more family-friendly fare that always gets a spooky season boost. Haunted Mansion is an obvious one, taking second place on the list in October 2025. But there are others, like Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas that don’t quite earn the horror classification, but still provide those Halloween vibes.
Last year we called horror an audience unifier. We’re keeping that, with one edit: horror unifies, but every generation still has its own pick.
