‘Weapons’ Star Amy Madigan Praises the Horror Genre, ‘Sinners,’ and DEI Following Historic Oscar Win [Exclusive]

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‘Weapons’ Star Amy Madigan Praises the Horror Genre, ‘Sinners,’ and DEI Following Historic Oscar Win [Exclusive]


For decades, horror has had a weird relationship with the Oscars. The genre can dominate the culture, launch careers, and produce some of the most unforgettable performances of any given year, but when awards season rolls around, it still too often gets treated like it belongs off to the side. Amy Madigan knows that feeling exactly.

Fresh off winning Best Supporting Actress at the 2026 Academy Awards for her performance as Aunt Gladys in Weapons, Madigan spoke with Collider’s Maggie Lovitt and did not shy away from what the moment means for horror as a whole. Her win is already being framed as one of the biggest genre breakthroughs of the night, with multiple outlets noting how rare it still is for a horror performance to be recognized this prominently by the Academy. Asked what horror’s rise says about the industry right now, Madigan put it perfectly.

“You know, horror, as we all know, it was kind of looked at like you’re at the little kids table at Thanksgiving. You’re just kind of over there, which, as we know, is not true. You just look at the great silent horror films that started our business. I mean, you still need a great writer, you need a great director, you need wonderful actors and crew.”

It’s important to note that Madigan’s win did not happen in a vacuum. Weapons was part of a broader conversation around genre filmmaking during this awards season, with titles like Sinners and Frankenstein commanding far more serious attention than usual. Madigan herself tied that shift to the larger range of films being recognized right now.

“So, I mean, this year is pretty amazing. Look at ‘Sinners,’ deals with such racial inequities, but yet they do it in this vampire way with the Irish mind you, where my people are from. So, you know, it’s just kind of, I like DEI, because everybody can be in the mix, you know. So it just makes me feel really happy, and I hope it’ll continue to open it up for others.”

Madigan sees this year not just as a personal win, but as evidence that the Academy may finally be widening its idea of what prestige looks like, and it’s about time. Horror has been an important part of cinema since the dawn of the moving picture industry, and it’s high time it was more fully recognized.

Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz
Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie?

Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men

01
What kind of film experience do you actually want?
The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.






02
Which idea grabs you most in a film?
Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?






03
How do you like your story told?
Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.






04
What makes a truly great antagonist?
The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?






05
What do you want from a film’s ending?
The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?






06
Which setting pulls you in most?
Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.






07
What cinematic craft impresses you most?
Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.






08
What kind of main character do you root for?
The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.






09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time?
Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.






10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema?
The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?






The Academy Has Decided
Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.

Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.


Strap on Your Hockey Masks; It’s Friday the 13th — The Collider Movie Quiz!

Because today is Friday the 13th, let’s march our way through the iconic slasher franchise. Ch-ch-ch-ch. Ha-ha-ha-ha.

Who Else Stars in ‘Weapons’?

In addition to Madigan, the cast of Weapons is led by Josh Brolin as Archer Graff, Julia Garner as Justine Gandy, Alden Ehrenreich as Paul, Austin Abrams as Anthony, Cary Christopher as Alex Lilly, Benedict Wong as Andrew, Toby Huss as Captain Ed, and June Diane Raphael as Wendy. The supporting cast also includes Whitmer Thomas as Chad, Whitney Peak as Holly, Luke Speakman as Matthew, Marlene Forte as Marcus’ mother, Greyson Lewis as Logan, Molly Carden as Jenny, Shannon Woodward as Regina, Fabianne Therese as Margie, and Clayton Farris as Terry.

Stay tuned to Collider for more coverage from the 98th Academy Awards.



Release Date

August 8, 2025

Runtime

128 minutes

Director

Zach Cregger

Writers

Zach Cregger

Producers

Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, J.D. Lifshitz




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