All Six of ‘The Omen’ Movies, Ranked (2024)

6. The Omen IV: The Awakening (1991)

I cannot in good faith say that Jorge Montesi and Dominique Othenin-Girard’s made-for-television sequel, Omen IV: The Awakening is a good movie. I can’t tell you it’s particularly well-written or well-conceived. But what I can tell you is that it made me laugh, quite a lot, and for that reason, I can’t say that it’s not worth your time.

Set several years after Damien’s death in The Final Conflict, The Awakening sees the birth of a girl, Delia, who is adopted by a young Virginian congressman, Gene York (Michael York) and his wife Karen (Faye Grant). As Delia (Asia Vieira) grows into childhood, she begins exhibiting strange behavior along with a mean streak that veers into camp. For the most part, The Awakening is a far less effective retread of The Omen, and often borders on parody. I’d argue it plays better if you watch it as a parody. The addition of some new-age crystal nonsense, a snake-infested tent revival, and an overly complicated third-act reveal add a few more wrinkles to keep you awake, and from the film feeling entirely like a remake.

5. The Omen (2006)

Speaking of remakes, we all too quickly arrive at John Moore’s The Omen, which came out during the heyday of classic horror remakes. The remake isn’t a bad film, and it’s got a winning cast of actors to class it up with Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, David Thewlis, Pete Postlethwaite and Michael Gambon, which does give it a certain level of prestige lacking from other horror remakes at the time. The film’s biggest flaw, however, outside of making Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) look so conspicuously evil that it’s sometimes comedic, is how close it hews to the original, offering very little in the way of newness. The screenplay, written by Dan McDermott, was so similar to David Seltzer’s original that the WGA gave sole screenwriting credit to Seltzer despite, his having no involvement with the remake. Well-acted and shot with a recognizable style of mid-2000s gothic gloom, The Omen remake isn’t anywhere near being an insult to the original, but it lacks the ambition every other theatrical Omen film has had.

4. Damien: Omen II (1978)

Despite the original film’s implication that Damien would be adopted by the President and First Lady, and have free reign in the White House, Don Taylor’s sequel picks up with an adolescent Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) who is now living with his industrialist uncle Richard Thorn (William Holden) and aunt Ann (Lee Grant) in Chicago, and attending military school alongside his cousin Mark (Lucas Donat). The film successfully juggles the notions that Damien is burdened by his great and evil purpose, and is actually a decent, likable person, and could’ve remained so if not for the forces pushing him in the direction of evil. The original film touches on these devout forces operating on Damien’s behalf and this film pushes that even further, raising the question of whether Damien was born inherently evil or whether his servants’ belief allows such evil to form without consequences. There’s an engaging consideration of modern-day plagues through the lens of corporate science ventures, and a genuinely surprising third-act twist that adds some additional layers to the story. While not as startling as the original film, Omen II is a solid follow-up that teeters between the tone of the original and its sequel, keeping one foot in the realm of conceivable drama and the other into a somewhat absurdist, though welcome, arena of B-movie horror.

3. Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Graham Baker’s third installment in The Omen franchise features a devil so charming, you almost hate to see him go. Sam Neill turns on the smolder as 33-year-old Damien Thorne, an international businessman and recent appointee as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Damien has embraced his role as the Antichrist and is working to ensure mankind’s destruction. Yet, one thorn remains in his side, the coming of the new Christ child. While Christian assassins, led by Father DeCarlo (Rossano Brazzi), make plans to finally put an end to the Antichrist, Damien begins his own hunt for the new messiah, while also expanding his flock by romancing journalist Kate Reynolds (Lisa Harrow) and manipulating her son, Peter (Barnaby Holm), into becoming his disciple. Neil is great fun to watch and really drives the film, but The Final Conflict isn’t devoid of some splashy set pieces, and there’s a sequence in which Damien plays out Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents in a way that is still quite shocking. The Final Conflict goes headfirst into the ’80s, operating with an excess that sheds the classiness of where the franchise started and fully embraces religious horror with buck-wild, scenery-chewing enthusiasm.

2. The First Omen (2024)

The sixth entry in the Omen franchise lives up to the number of the beast, with director Arkasha Stevenson delivering a hellishly glorious film that takes full advantage of its ’70s setting through camerawork and Aaron Morton’s cinematography, which evoke that era of filmmaking. Set in the days before Damien’s birth, the prequel film centers on Margaret (Nell Tiger Free), a young American novitiate who is sent to care for orphans at a church in Rome. There, she connects with a mysterious young girl, Carlita (Nicole Sorace), and uncovers a dark conspiracy within the church. Prequels are often difficult, given their nature of leading to events we already know. But, The First Omen skillfully weaves through the familiar, making smart use of The Omen’s Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson), while creating something that feels new and that abstains from contradicting the events of the original film. It achieves what only the best prequels do, which is that it is additive to the experience of the original film. There’s also the factor that The First Omen is a damn creepy affair that pushes boundaries and, in moments, proves so shocking that it’s hard to believe this was a studio release (from Disney, no less) and wasn’t slapped with an NC-17 rating. Certainly, by today’s standards, the film is the scariest of the franchise. Free’s performance is a sight to behold, and in a franchise concerned with motherhood though rarely women, she creates a complex humanity within Margaret alongside a kind of inspiring respect as she becomes increasingly, dangerously, unhinged. While it’s following in the footsteps of The Omen, The First Omen also feels like a necessary investigation into the role of the church, women and what we have to fear in today’s society.

1. The Omen (1976)

Richard Donner’s seminal classic popularized the idea of the Antichrist in a world where Christianity was just beginning to take hold in America once again, with born-again Christianity popularized by then-presidential hopeful, Jimmy Carter. Carter wasn’t only responsible for bringing born-again Christianity to the mainstream, but he also helped close the divide between rural and urban demographics, uniting Democratic and Republican voters under his Democratic run. He succeeded and as a result, Republicans worked even harder to re-open that rift between voters in such a way it could not be closed again. All of this is crucial to understanding why The Omen works so well, and despite initial mixed reviews, struck a chord with audiences. Gregory Peck and Lee Remick play the unfortunate parents of Damien (Harvey Spencer Stephens), the Antichrist. While David Seltzer’s original script favored ambiguity over whether Damien was or wasn’t the son of Satan, Donner wanted deliberate confirmation, a clear answer that evil existed and hell was real — which, given the time of its release, only worked in the film’s favor. Looking back on The Omen today, it’s quite interesting how little time Peck’s Richard Thorn spends with Damien. There’s not a relationship established between them, so it’s less of an example of the housebound ‘evil child’ subgenre, and more of an investigative road trip with Thorn and photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) digging deeper into the nature of evil, until they lose themselves in the process. Donner’s Omen works as well as it does and stands apart from the other significant religious horror films of the time, Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Exorcist (1973), leaning on Donner’s previous experience directing detective-centric television series like Cannon, Kojak, and Bronk. While further films held a light up to the face of evil, diminishing some of evil’s mystique, Donner kept it largely in the shadows and let the mystery lead the characters, and audiences, further down into the dark.