If you love supernatural horror, you’ve undoubtedly crossed paths with Ed and Lorraine Warren’s haunted artifact room. What started as a single, terrifying haunted house movie back in 2013 has ballooned into the highest-grossing horror franchise of all time.

Because the franchise frequently jumps back and forth through time—traveling from 1950s Romania to 1980s Connecticut—watching it for the first time can feel like a riddle. To help you map out your next marathon, we’ve broken down all 9 released movies in their exact theatrical release order.

1. The Conjuring (2013)

• Release Date: July 19, 2013
• Plot Timeline: 1971 (with a brief opening in 1968 introducing the Annabelle doll)
• Director: James Wan
• Writers: Chad Hayes & Carey W. Hayes
• Notable Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor, Ron Livingston
• Summary: Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren come to the aid of the Perron family, who are experiencing increasingly terrifying and violent supernatural encounters in their newly moved-into Rhode Island farmhouse. They uncover a dark, malicious history tied to an 18th-century witch named Bathsheba.

2. Annabelle (2014)

• Release Date: October 3, 2014
• Plot Timeline: 1967
• Director: John R. Leonetti
• Writer: Gary Dauberman
• Notable Cast: Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Alfre Woodard, Tony Amendola
• Summary: Serving as a prequel to The Conjuring, this film focuses on John and Mia Form, a young expectant couple whose lives turn into a living hell after their vintage porcelain doll becomes a conduit for a malevolent entity following a brutal attack by occultists.

3. The Conjuring 2 (2016)

• Release Date: June 10, 2016
• Plot Timeline: 1977 (with a prologue detailing the 1976 Amityville investigation)
• Director: James Wan
• Writers: Chad Hayes, Carey W. Hayes, James Wan, David Leslie Johnson
• Notable Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Madison Wolfe, Frances O’Connor
• Summary: The Warrens travel to London, England, to investigate the infamous Enfield Poltergeist case, where a single mother and her children—particularly young Janet Hodgson—are being plagued by malicious spirits. Along the way, Lorraine faces a personal, demonic threat in the form of Valak, the Demon Nun.

4. Annabelle: Creation (2017)

• Release Date: August 11, 2017
• Plot Timeline: 1955 (with a tragic prologue set in 1943)
• Director: David F. Sandberg
• Writer: Gary Dauberman
• Notable Cast: Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Lulu Wilson, Anthony LaPaglia
• Summary: This origin story follows a dollmaker and his wife who open their home to a nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage. The children soon discover that the dollmaker’s creation, Annabelle, is possessed by a demon masquerading as the couple’s deceased daughter.

5. The Nun (2018)

• Release Date: September 7, 2018
• Plot Timeline: 1952
• Director: Corin Hardy
• Writer: Gary Dauberman (Story by James Wan & Gary Dauberman)
• Notable Cast: Demian Bichir, Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Bonnie Aarons
• Summary: Taking the franchise back to its earliest chronological roots, a Catholic priest with a haunted past and a novitiate nun are sent by the Vatican to an isolated Romanian monastery to investigate the mysterious suicide of a young cloistered nun. There, they confront the pure evil entity Valak.

6. The Curse of La Llorona (2019)

• Release Date: April 19, 2019
• Plot Timeline: 1973
• Director: Michael Chaves
• Writers: Mikki Daughtry, Tobias Iaconis
• Notable Cast: Linda Cardellini, Raymond Cruz, Patricia Velásquez, Tony Amendola
• Summary: Though it stands mostly on its own, this entry connects to the universe via Father Perez (Annabelle). Set in Los Angeles, a social worker and her children are targeted by the weeping ghost of Latin American folklore, La Llorona, who seeks to steal children to replace her own.

7. Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

• Release Date: June 26, 2019
• Plot Timeline: 1972
• Director: Gary Dauberman
• Writer: Gary Dauberman (Story by James Wan & Gary Dauberman)
• Notable Cast: Mckenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga
• Summary: Determined to keep her from wreaking more havoc, Ed and Lorraine Warren lock the possessed doll in their artifacts room. However, a night of babysitting their daughter Judy turns into a nightmare when a curious friend accidentally unlocks Annabelle’s glass case, awakening all the evil spirits dormant in the room.

8. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

• Release Date: June 4, 2021
• Plot Timeline: 1981
• Director: Michael Chaves
• Writer: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (Story by James Wan & David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick)
• Notable Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Ruairi O’Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook
• Summary: Moving away from standard haunted houses, this entry follows the Warrens as they investigate a chilling real-world murder case. It marks the first time in US history that a murder suspect used demonic possession as a legal defense, forcing the Warrens to trace a sinister curse back to its source.

9. The Nun II (2023)

• Release Date: September 8, 2023
• Plot Timeline: 1956
• Director: Michael Chaves
• Writers: Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, Akela Cooper
• Notable Cast: Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Storm Reid, Anna Popplewell
• Summary: Set four years after the events of the first film, Sister Irene is called upon once again by the church when a series of violent deaths across European churches indicates that Valak has returned. The demon is hunting down a powerful holy relic hidden inside a French boarding school.

10. The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025)

• Release Date: September 5, 2025
• Plot Timeline: 1986 (with a tragic opening prologue set in 1964)
• Director: Michael Chaves
• Writers: Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (Story by James Wan & David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick)
• Notable Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy
• Summary: Marketed as the epic finale to the Warrens’ main storyline, the film is based on the infamous real-life Smurl haunting case in Pennsylvania. An aging Ed—battling a worsening heart condition—and Lorraine are pulled out of retirement when a malicious demon targets a family, leading to a deeply personal battle that threatens their own daughter, Judy, and forces them to confront a cursed mirror from their very first investigation.