How To Watch The Conjuring Universe In Chronological And Release Order (Without Losing Your Mind)

If you fell off the Conjuring train somewhere between demon nuns, haunted dolls, and the Weeping Woman, you are not alone. With The Conjuring: Last Rites landing Sept 5, 2025, I pulled the whole saga into one clean guide — updated Sept 2 — so you can either binge in release order like we all did in theaters, or go full nerd and watch it chronologically, which honestly makes the most sense with all the prequels, side quests, and surprise crossovers.

Release order vs. timeline (and why you might pick one over the other)

The Conjuring is the gateway drug here — the way Iron Man was for the MCU. It sets up the Warrens, teases Annabelle, and gives all the spin-offs some context. That said, because this universe loves a prequel, release order can get confusing fast. If you want the story to build like history (and avoid 'wait, when is this?' whiplash), go chronological. Just know a few entries hop time at the beginning or end, so there is a little overlap.

For the record, if you care how they hit theaters, the rollout was: The Conjuring (July 19, 2013), Annabelle (Oct 3, 2014), The Conjuring 2 (June 10, 2016), Annabelle: Creation (Aug 11, 2017), The Nun (Sept 7, 2018), The Curse of La Llorona (Apr 19, 2019), Annabelle Comes Home (June 26, 2019), The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (June 4, 2021), The Nun 2 (Sept 8, 2023), and The Conjuring: Last Rites (Sept 5, 2025).

The Conjuring Universe chronologically (with release dates)

• The Nun (2018) — set in 1952
• Annabelle: Creation (2017) — set in 1955
• The Nun 2 (2023) — set in 1956
• Annabelle (2014) — set in 1967
• The Conjuring (2013) — set in 1971
• Annabelle Comes Home (2019) — set in 1971–1972
• The Curse of La Llorona (2019) — set in 1973
• The Conjuring 2 (2016) — set in 1976–1977
• The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) — set in 1981
• The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) — set in 1986

The Nun (1952)

Before the Warrens ever heard the name Valak, a Romanian abbey did. Christian knights locked the demon away centuries earlier, but WWII bombing cracked the seal, and by the early 50s Valak was tormenting nuns and hitching rides in whoever it could. You do not get a full origin story here, but you get the vibe — and a handful of subtle connective tissue to the larger saga if you are paying attention.

Why start with this one? It lays groundwork for the evil that will stalk the franchise and plants a bunch of blink-and-you-miss-it ties to later films.

Annabelle: Creation (1955)

After Samuel and Esther Mullins lose their young daughter, grief opens the door to something pretending to be her. Twelve years later, Sister Charlotte brings six orphaned girls into the Mullins home, and the demonic presence sets its sights on a human host. This is the Annabelle doll’s real 'how it started' chapter.

Inside baseball: this movie quietly links to The Nun. Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) has a photo from a Romanian convent — and if you look into the shadows, Valak is literally photobombing. Stick around through the credits and you get a candlelit tease that is basically a calling card for The Nun. Also fun: the timeline puts these stories just three years apart. Cozy.

The Nun 2 (1956)

Sister Irene returns, tracking Valak to Tarascon, France. The demon’s game plan gets clearer: as a fallen angel, it is hunting the bloodline of St. Lucy to get its hands on a potent relic. Irene’s a Lucy descendant, which is why Valak can not burn her. She faces down a possessed Maurice, banishes Valak (well, she thinks she does), and frees her friend.

Neat connection: Taissa Farmiga (Sister Irene) and Vera Farmiga (Lorraine Warren) are sisters in real life, and the franchise actually bakes that into canon. Irene has a vision of other St. Lucy descendants — Lorraine among them — which makes Valak’s later obsession with Lorraine feel less random and more decades-in-the-making.

Annabelle (1967)

At the end of Creation, cops pull the doll from the Mullins house. Cut to a few years later: it pops up in an antique shop, where John Form gifts it to his pregnant wife Mia. The demon reattaches to the doll specifically to get close to Mia and take her body. People die, the doll vanishes, and the 'true' Annabelle legend finally clicks into place.

Franchise mechanics worth noting: Warner Bros. fast-tracked this after The Conjuring blew up, turning it around in 13 months. Reviews were rough (only The Nun is rated lower on Rotten Tomatoes), but Annabelle still launched its own mini-trilogy with a messy timeline — Creation is the prequel, this one leads into The Conjuring, and Annabelle Comes Home wedges itself between Conjuring 1 and 2. Yet another reason chronological viewing helps.

The Conjuring (1971)

The one that started it all opens on the Annabelle case and then jumps three years to the Perron family’s farmhouse from hell. Ed and Lorraine Warren step in, and it escalates fast: full-on possession, speaking in tongues, and Carolyn Perron nearly sacrificing her own daughter. Bathsheba is the malicious presence here, and the Warrens barely get everyone out intact.

Industry context: James Wan, fresh off Saw and Insidious, turned a $20 million haunted-house movie into a $320 million worldwide hit ($137 million domestic). WB hoped Man of Steel would kickstart a shared universe; ironically, it was this scrappy horror flick that quietly spawned a decade-long, ten-film saga.

Annabelle Comes Home (1971–1972)

The Warrens secure the doll, stick it in that 'do not touch' room, and everything should be fine. It would be — if a curious visitor did not open the case. With Ed and Lorraine out, their daughter Judy and babysitter Mary Ellen end up trapped overnight with Annabelle and a parade of cursed objects brought to life.

Continuity wrinkle: you can spot the music box from The Conjuring in the artifacts room. Given the way The Conjuring opens, this feels like it happens right before that movie, but the two play great back-to-back either way. Dealer’s choice on order.

The Curse of La Llorona (1973)

Folklore goes feral. La Llorona — the Weeping Woman — is a grieving specter who drowned her kids and now targets other children. It is a straight-up scare machine with an undercurrent of forgiveness, and against all odds it is tied to this universe.

How? Father Perez (Tony Amendola) shows up — same priest from Annabelle — and mentions he once dealt with a haunted porcelain doll. The movie is not officially treated like a core Conjuring chapter, but the shared character (and a lot of shared crew) effectively fold it in, the same way Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow retroactively became part of Fast & Furious because it introduced Han.

The Conjuring 2 (1976–1977)

There is a quick nod to Amityville up top, but the heart of this one is in London, where a cranky old spirit is being puppeteered by Valak. Lorraine realizes the demon has been clouding her visions and is convinced Ed will die if they take the case.

Behind-the-scenes oddity: The Crooked Man was lined up for a spin-off that never happened. Instead, The Nun broke out — even wilder when you learn Valak was added in reshoots about three months before release. Also, thanks to The Nun 2, we now know Valak has been hunting St. Lucy’s bloodline all along, which puts Lorraine directly in the crosshairs.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (1981)

Different flavor, same sleepless night. Arne Johnson accepts a demon into himself to save his girlfriend’s little brother, then gets charged with murder and claims demonic possession in court. When a second, near-identical killing happens, the Warrens trace both cases back to a human orchestrating the chaos — someone actively siccing a demon on victims.

Series shift: this is the first Conjuring movie that is not a haunted-house story and the first not directed by James Wan. Michael Chaves (The Curse of La Llorona) directs here, later steering The Nun II as well — making him one of the franchise’s key architects. It is also the entry that pushes the saga into the 80s. Release-wise, it was part of Warner Bros. 2021 day-and-date experiment (aka Project Popcorn), hitting theaters and Max at the same time.

The Conjuring: Last Rites (1986)

Five years after Devil, fifteen after the Perron case, Ed and Lorraine walk into what looks like another routine haunting and find something nastier than anything they have faced. The case morphs into their final ride. The movie is billed as the end of the Warren-led series — and possibly the end of the entire Conjuring run, at least for now.

Where does the franchise go from here? Even New Line is hedging:

"While this [The Conjuring: Last Rites] is the last of what we call phase one, we are hopeful that we can make more," and "Phase Two is TBD."

As of now, there are no additional spin-offs in development. If this is the curtain call, it wraps a story that stretches from 1952 to 1986 — a 34-year in-universe timeline told over 12 real-world years and ten films. It may not be the Infinity Saga or the Skywalker Saga, but WB and New Line built a sturdy, crowd-pleasing horror tapestry. Odds are it is going to be a Halloween-season staple alongside Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Saw, and Paranormal Activity for a long time.