“M3GAN 2.0” may not have been a box office success, but it was the first horror film that many viewers turned to at the start of the Halloween season 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 movie on television during the week of October 1-7, with a total of 115 million minutes watched on Peacock. (Data for the rest of this month is not yet available.) This statistic was counted on a combination of linear and streaming data. Close behind, with 113 million minutes watched, was the original 1996 film “Scream,” which aired on Paramount Network and Showtime in addition to being available on several streamers.
Along with “M3GAN 2.0”, the horror titles that premiered in 2025 and made the rankings are “Bring Her Back” at No. 3, “28 Years Later” at No. 4, and “Sinners” at No. 8. And aside from “Scream,” the only chart songs that were created before the last decade are “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” at #5 and 1990’s “Tremors” at #7.
The only titles on the 2025 chart that were also on one of Nielsen’s most-watched horror movie charts in October 2021-2024 are “Scream” and 2018’s “Halloween.” “Scream” has already ranked once, reaching third place in 2021 with 458 million minutes watched on AMC and IFC. “Halloween” ranked No. 8 in 2021 with 362 million minutes watched on FX, No. 8 in 2024 with 370 million minutes watched on Netflix and Peacock and No. 9 in 2025 with 50 million minutes watched on Hulu.
Between 2021 and 2024, repeat titles include the 1978 original “Halloween”, “Thir13en Ghosts” and “House of Wax”, all of which charted in 2021 and 2022; “Hubie Halloween,” “which was ranked in 2022 and 2023; and the 2023 remake of “Haunted Mansion,” which was rated in 2023 and 2024.
Nielsen also broke down horror viewership in October 2021-2024 by demographic, taking a closer look at Hispanic, Black and Asian audience trends as well as six different age groups. From 2022 to 2024, there was no difference along racial lines. “Curse of Bridge Hollow” was No. 1 among Hispanic, Black and Asian viewers in 2022, although it came in second to “Halloween Ends” with viewers of all races, according to the chart above. In 2023 and 2024, the first title of these groups corresponded to the first title overall: “Haunted Mansion” in 2023 and “Don’t Move” in 2024.
In 2021, however, Hispanic viewers gravitated toward “I Am Legend,” while the most-watched horror film among Black viewers was “Life” and “Night Teeth” was No. 1 among Asians. Of these, only “Night Teeth” made the overall Top 10 of 2021.
Like the data regarding racial demographics, 2021 saw five different major titles across the six age groups, but horror viewing has become more consistent over time. In 2022 and 2024, there were three debut titles in the groups; in 2023, there was only one.
Horror films accounted for 14.7% of all films viewed in October 2021, before dropping slightly to 14.6% in 2022 and finally peaking at 15.8% in 2024.
Although Nielsen did not provide data comparing these percentages to horror movie viewership outside of the Halloween season, its sister company Gracenote measured that as of September 2025, horror represented 7.43% of overall movie viewership on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Netflix, and Paramount+. (It should be noted that, unlike the Nielsen data, this statistic does not include linear television.)
Regardless, as the only source with first-hand data across such a broad audience span (over 100,000 people and 75 million devices), Nielsen’s report credibly highlights a surprising trend around Halloween: Despite increasing amounts of content to choose from, horror films appear to be a unifier among audiences, less split across demographics than other genres, and horror fans continue to rediscover and enhancing older films while catching new releases.
