The Conjuring Universe

The Conjuring Universe

Cover of The Conjuring Universe: 7-Film Collection (2022).

DIRECTORJames Wan (creator); various

STUDIOWarner Bros. / New Line Cinema

RELEASE DATE19 July 2013 – present

GENRESupernatural horror

STATUSOngoing

The Conjuring Universe is a shared American horror film franchise built around dramatised cases associated with paranormal investigators Ed Warren and Lorraine Warren, beginning with The Conjuring (2013). As of The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025), the franchise comprises ten released films, spanning the four core Conjuring films, three Annabelle films, two The Nun films, and The Curse of La Llorona. Combined, the franchise has grossed over $2.1 billion worldwide against a combined production budget of roughly $178.5 million, making it one of the most commercially successful horror franchises in cinema history.

Films

Film	Release date	Director	Notes
The Conjuring	19 July 2013	James Wan	Founding film; Perron family case
Annabelle	3 October 2014	John R. Leonetti	Prequel; origin of the Annabelle doll
The Conjuring 2	10 June 2016	James Wan	Dramatises the Enfield Poltergeist
Annabelle: Creation	11 August 2017	David F. Sandberg	Second Annabelle prequel
The Nun	7 September 2018	Corin Hardy	Origin of the demon Valak, introduced in The Conjuring 2
Annabelle Comes Home	26 June 2019	Gary Dauberman	Set in the Warrens' own artefact room
The Curse of La Llorona	19 April 2019	Michael Chaves	Loosely connected via a single crossover character
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It	4 June 2021	Michael Chaves	Dramatises the Arne Cheyenne Johnson case
The Nun II	8 September 2023	Michael Chaves
The Conjuring: Last Rites	5 September 2025	Michael Chaves	Billed as the final film to feature Wilson and Farmiga as the Warrens

Development of the franchise began over twenty years before the first film, when Ed Warren played producer Tony DeRosa-Grund a tape of Lorraine Warren's original interview with Carolyn Perron.

Synopses

The Conjuring (2013) — Director: James Wan. Starring: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ron Livingston, Lili Taylor.
Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren are called in to help the Perron family, whose newly-bought Rhode Island farmhouse has become the site of escalating, violent supernatural activity tied to the property's dark history.

Annabelle (2014) — Director: John R. Leonetti. Starring: Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Alfre Woodard, Tony Amendola.
A collector doll bought by an expectant couple becomes a vessel for a malevolent entity following a cult attack on their home, unleashing a wave of terror as the couple's newborn daughter becomes its next target.

The Conjuring 2 (2016) — Director: James Wan. Starring: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga.
The Warrens travel to Enfield, a borough of north London, to assist a struggling single mother whose youngest daughter appears to be exhibiting signs of demonic possession, in a case dramatising the real-life Enfield Poltergeist.

Annabelle: Creation (2017) — Director: David F. Sandberg. Starring: Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Lulu Wilson, Anthony LaPaglia, Miranda Otto.
Twelve years after the accidental death of their young daughter, a dollmaker and his wife take in a nun and several orphaned girls, unaware that the dollmaker's own possessed creation has set its sights on the children.

The Nun (2018) — Director: Corin Hardy. Starring: Demián Bichir, Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet.
Set in 1952 Romania, a priest with a troubled past and a novice on the verge of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate a nun's suicide at a cloistered abbey, uncovering the demonic entity Valak, later encountered by the Warrens in The Conjuring 2.

Annabelle Comes Home (2019) — Director: Gary Dauberman. Starring: Mckenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson.
While the Warrens are away on a case, their ten-year-old daughter Judy's babysitter and a friend accidentally unleash the assorted evil spirits held within the Warrens' locked artefacts room — including the Annabelle doll itself.

The Curse of La Llorona (2019) — Director: Michael Chaves. Starring: Linda Cardellini, Raymond Cruz.
Set in 1973 Los Angeles, a social worker and single mother must protect her own children from La Llorona, a vengeful spirit drawn from Latin American folklore who preys on the young; the film connects to the wider franchise only loosely, through a single recurring character.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) — Director: Michael Chaves. Starring: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga.
The Warrens assist the defence in a real-life murder trial after the accused claims to have been under demonic influence at the time of the killing, dramatising the case of Arne Cheyenne Johnson.

The Nun II (2023) — Director: Michael Chaves. Starring: Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Storm Reid, Anna Popplewell.
Sister Irene once again confronts the demon Valak as it continues a trail of destruction across Europe, several years after the events of The Nun.

The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) — Director: Michael Chaves. Starring: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy.
Billed as the Warrens' final case and Wilson and Farmiga's last appearances in the roles, closing out the core Conjuring film series after twelve years.

Relationship to the Warrens' real casework

The franchise draws its central premise from Ed and Lorraine Warren's real career as paranormal investigators, but individual films take substantial dramatic licence with the underlying cases. The Conjuring 2, for example, dramatises the Enfield Poltergeist with the Warrens as its central investigators, whereas the real case's lead investigators were Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair of the Society for Psychical Research — the Warrens' actual involvement in Enfield was limited and disputed by those directly involved in the original investigation.

Home media

Several multi-film boxsets have been released across the franchise's history. The Conjuring Universe: 7-Film Collection, released on Blu-ray on 31 May 2022, collects The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Annabelle, Annabelle: Creation, Annabelle Comes Home, and The Nun across seven discs with a combined runtime of 737 minutes. Notably, this particular collection excludes The Curse of La Llorona, the franchise's most loosely-connected entry.

WORK ASSESSMENT

TYPEFilm franchise

IMPORTANCEMajor

SUBJECTEd Warren and Lorraine Warren

SIGNIFICANCE

The Conjuring Universe is one of the most commercially successful horror franchises ever made, and has done more than any other body of work to fix the Warrens' cases — and their general style of demonological investigation — in mainstream popular culture worldwide.

ASSESSMENT

As a commercial and cultural phenomenon, the franchise's significance is not in question. As a record of the Warrens' actual casework, individual entries vary considerably in how closely they track the real investigations, ranging from loosely inspired (The Curse of La Llorona) to actively reassigning credit for real investigators' work to the Warrens (The Conjuring 2's treatment of Enfield). Readers using these films as a starting point for the underlying real cases should treat them as dramatisation rather than documentary.

See also

• The Conjuring
• The Conjuring 2
• Ed Warren
• Lorraine Warren
• Enfield Poltergeist
• New England Society for Psychic Research

External links

• Wikipedia — The Conjuring Universe
• Box Office Mojo — The Conjuring Universe
• Buy The Conjuring Universe: 7-Film Collection (Amazon Associates affiliate link — purchases made through this link help fund The EERIE Files)