The Conjuring Universe in Order: Every Movie by Release Date and Story Year

The Conjuring universe has nine official films plus one disputed extra, and their stories jump around between 1952 and 1986. This guide gives you both viewing orders, the year each story takes place, cinema runtimes for planning a marathon, and a shorter route if you only have one weekend. It also explains where The Curse of La Llorona fits and lists only the follow-ups that have been officially announced.

The Conjuring universe in release order

Release order is the order audiences first saw the films, and it keeps every reveal where the filmmakers intended. US theatrical dates come from Warner Bros.’ own title pages, except The Nun II, which comes from its Rotten Tomatoes page. Runtimes are the cinema versions listed by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), rounded to the nearest minute.

#	Film	US release	Runtime (min)	Story year
1	The Conjuring	July 19, 2013	112	1971
2	Annabelle	October 3, 2014	99	1969
3	The Conjuring 2	June 10, 2016	134	1977
4	Annabelle: Creation	August 11, 2017	110	1955
5	The Nun	September 7, 2018	96	1952
6	The Curse of La Llorona (disputed)	April 19, 2019	93	1973
7	Annabelle Comes Home	June 26, 2019	106	Opens in 1968
8	The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It	June 4, 2021	112	1981
9	The Nun II	September 8, 2023	110	1956
10	The Conjuring: Last Rites	September 5, 2025	135	1986

Total runtime: the nine official films add up to 1,014 minutes (16 hours 54 minutes). With The Curse of La Llorona, it’s 1,107 minutes (18 hours 27 minutes).

A note on runtimes: the BBFC lists some UK home-entertainment versions a few minutes shorter than the cinema cuts. The Conjuring, for example, is 111m 46s in cinemas and 107m 17s for home entertainment. We use the cinema figures throughout. The Devil Made Me Do It also opened in theaters and on HBO Max on the same day, June 4, 2021.

The Conjuring universe in chronological order

Story order follows the in-universe calendar. We only give a year where the film or a reliable review states one, and the source for each year is linked in the table.

#	Film	Story year	Where	Runtime (min)
1	The Nun	1952	Romania	96
2	Annabelle: Creation	1955	California	110
3	The Nun II	1956	France	110
4	Annabelle	1969	Santa Monica, then Pasadena	99
5	The Conjuring	1971	Rhode Island	112
6	Annabelle Comes Home	Opens in 1968; main story undated	The Warrens’ Connecticut home	106
7	The Curse of La Llorona (optional)	1973	Los Angeles	93
8	The Conjuring 2	1977	Enfield, north London	134
9	The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It	1981	Not specified in our sources	112
10	The Conjuring: Last Rites	1986, with a 1964 prologue	Pennsylvania	135

Annabelle Comes Home is the one entry without a firm year in the sources we checked. Its opening returns to the 1968 nurses’ scene from the first film, and the main story picks up after the doll has been locked in the Warrens’ artifacts room. Variety’s chronological guide places it right after The Conjuring, and we do the same.

The timeline has one wrinkle

The dates don’t line up perfectly. Annabelle is set in 1969, according to Variety’s review. But the scene where the Warrens first collect the doll from two young nurses is set in 1968, as The Hollywood Reporter notes. That doesn’t change the viewing order. It’s just a sign that the spin-offs were written years apart and the calendar wasn’t always kept tidy.

What is the first Conjuring movie chronologically?

The Nun. It follows a priest and a young novitiate whom the Vatican sends to look into a young nun’s death in remote Romania in 1952. The Nun II picks up four years later in France, which is why the two Nun films sit close together at the start of story order. Annabelle: Creation slips between them by year.

Release order or story order: which should you pick?

First time through? Use release order. The first Conjuring introduces the Warrens, their artifacts room and the Annabelle doll. Later films assume you’ve seen that. Valak, the demon nun, also lands harder in The Conjuring 2 if you haven’t already watched her full origin story.

Rewatching? Try story order. You get the demon nun’s arc first, then the doll’s backstory, then the Warrens’ cases in the order they took them. It works best as a binge, because the spin-offs feed into the main films rather than the other way round.

Do you need to watch Annabelle before The Conjuring?

No. The Conjuring stands on its own, and it’s where the doll first appears. Annabelle and Annabelle: Creation are prequels about how the doll became dangerous. They make more sense as backstory once you already know why the Warrens keep her behind glass.

Short-path marathon: the fastest way through

Not everyone wants 17 hours of horror. These routes are built from the runtimes above, so you can plan a night or a weekend.

Path	Films, in this order	Total runtime
Warren core	The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2, The Devil Made Me Do It, Last Rites	493 min (8 h 13 min)
Warren core plus the doll	Add Annabelle Comes Home after The Conjuring	599 min (9 h 59 min)
Weekend path	The Nun, Annabelle: Creation, The Conjuring, Annabelle Comes Home, The Conjuring 2, The Devil Made Me Do It, Last Rites	805 min (13 h 25 min)
Full official run	All nine official films	1,014 min (16 h 54 min)
Completist	All nine plus The Curse of La Llorona	1,107 min (18 h 27 min)

Why these cuts work: the four main Conjuring films tell the Warrens’ story from start to finish, and Last Rites closes it out. Warner Bros. bills Last Rites as the final appearance of Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine. Annabelle Comes Home is the spin-off most tied to the Warren family, since it centers on their daughter Judy. The weekend path adds the two origin stories (Valak and the doll) that the main films keep referring back to.

Easiest to skip: Annabelle (2014) and The Nun II if you’re short on time, plus La Llorona, which the producers don’t count.

Is The Curse of La Llorona part of the Conjuring universe?

Officially, no, even though it has clear links. The film features Father Perez, the priest Tony Amendola played in Annabelle, and a brief glimpse of the Annabelle doll. It opens in 17th-century Mexico before jumping to 1973 Los Angeles.

Director Michael Chaves told Dread Central that the film sits outside the universe because it was made without one of the franchise’s core producers, and that the nods were meant only as a wink. Producer Peter Safran was blunter, telling Entertainment Weekly in 2023, “You can’t count it!” as /Film reported. When Variety reported the TV series announcement in 2023, its list of the universe’s films left La Llorona out.

Our take: treat it as an optional side story. If you include it, put it after Annabelle Comes Home and before The Conjuring 2, where its 1973 setting falls.

Which Conjuring films are based on real cases?

Ed and Lorraine Warren were real paranormal investigators, and the four main films take their starting points from cases the couple were involved in. The films add a great deal of invented material, and what really happened in these cases is still disputed. According to The Hollywood Reporter:

• The Conjuring draws on the Perron family, who moved into a Rhode Island farmhouse in 1971.
• The Conjuring 2 is based on the Enfield poltergeist case in London, where a family reported supernatural events between 1977 and 1979.
• The Devil Made Me Do It draws on Arne Cheyenne Johnson’s 1981 murder trial. The witchcraft storyline was made up for the film.
• Last Rites is inspired by the Smurl family haunting in West Pittston, Pennsylvania.

The Annabelle and Nun films are spin-offs built around the doll and the demon nun introduced in the main series.

What’s next: officially announced Conjuring projects

Only titles confirmed by the studio or the major trades are listed here. Dates are “scheduled,” meaning they can still move.

Title	Type	Status as of October 30, 2026
The Revenge of La Llorona	Film, sequel to The Curse of La Llorona	Scheduled for February 26, 2027
The Conjuring: First Communion	Film, prequel	Scheduled for September 10, 2027
The Conjuring (TV series)	HBO Max series	In development; no premiere date announced

The Conjuring: First Communion (2027)

Last Rites was billed as the end of the series, but Variety reported in fall 2025 that a prequel was in development and expected to focus on the Warrens’ early years. Rodrigue Huart directs from a script by Richard Naing and Ian Goldberg, who also co-wrote The Nun II and Last Rites. Garrett Wareing and Amanda Fix play the young Ed and Lorraine, and Peter Safran is producing. No plot or story year has been announced, so we haven’t placed it on the timeline yet.

The Revenge of La Llorona (2027)

The sequel started production in Buffalo in October 2025. Santiago Menghini directs from a script by Sean Tretta, and James Wan, Gary Dauberman and Emile Gladstone return as producers. Jay Hernandez and Monica Raymund star, and Raymond Cruz comes back as the curandero from the first film. Warner Bros. moved it up from April 9 to February 26, 2027. Because the first film isn’t counted as canon, expect the same debate about where this one belongs.

The Conjuring TV series

HBO Max first announced the series in April 2023, saying it would continue the story of the films. In September 2025, Variety reported that Nancy Won had joined as writer, executive producer and showrunner, with Peter Cameron and Cameron Squires also writing. Peter Safran is an executive producer and James Wan’s Atomic Monster is producing. No cast or release window has been announced.

Beyond the films

The franchise also branched into games: Netflix set The Conjuring: Unspoken to launch on October 13, 2026. According to NME, players control a demonologist named Francesca Noakes, who is called to a centuries-old English pub. You don’t need it for any of the movie watch orders above.

More horror watch orders

Done with the Warrens? Our Insidious movies in order guide covers another haunted-family series. If you’d rather go grittier, try the Saw movies in order. For a slasher marathon this Halloween season, see the Halloween movies in order. And if you want to know which horror stars share your birthday, the Famous Birthdays Finder has a page for every day, starting with October 30.