The Conjuring Timeline Explained: From Annabelle to The Nun II

Warning! Contains major spoilers for The Nun II, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, and all other movies in the series!

Do you remember when the Conjuring films were marketed around the idea that these stories (at least in the mainline series) were based on “true events”? How quaint that seems a few years later when Warner Bros. Pictures and director/producer James Wan have built a sprawling, gargantuan shared cinematic universe filled with ghosts, ghouls, and good times in the desecrated church yards!

Indeed, not since the Universal Monsters and the first shared and connected film universe has there been an overarching horror brand as devilishly appealing to moviegoers as the Conjuring Cinematic Universe. With interconnected supernatural terrors that span the 20th century and increasingly tenuous “real events,” the films have turned a doll named Annabelle, the actual figure of legend La Llorona, and a nun with a nasty overbite into the closest thing this last decade has had to a Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolf Man. (But hey, don’t worry, in one of these movies there’s a werewolf too!).

Inevitably, it feels like these disparate threads will eventually come together and a kind of horror movie Avengers. In the meantime, though, it can be difficult to figure out who’s on first, who’s possessing who. That’s why we have assembled this handy dandy Conjuring universe timeline, which covers all the major events, from The Conjuring movie that started it all and through The Nun II!

The Nun

1952

The Nun takes place in Romania in 1952 and at this point is the earliest chapter in The Conjuring universe. Wan and the film’s director, Corin Hardy, seem to have designed the film to be an “origin of evil” type of story, which explores the genesis of The Conjuring’s big baddie and ultimate evil Valak. When a nun commits suicide at the Abbey of St. Carta, people begin to suspect that dark powers of Valak are involved. The film even powerfully opens on a sizzle reel of Valak’s damage, complete with Lorraine Warren’s foreboding voiceover, taken from The Conjuring 2.

The Nun digs into the individual who is responsible for summoning not only Valak into the world, but demons in general. The film depicts what is ostensibly the birth of the first evil that initiates all of the series’ supernatural trouble in the first place. There’s a flashback that goes all the way back to the Dark Ages as the Duke of St. Carta’s ritual to summon Valak gets shown in detail. The Nun also briefly jumps back in time to 1945 to show Father Burke’s first experience with demonic possession. Whether the force that takes control of Daniel is Valak or some other evil, Valak still uses Daniel’s spirit as a means to torture Burke throughout the film (and really plays into the “Marquis of Snakes” namesake).

After it looks like Sister Irene and company have defeated Valak, The Nun not only shows that they were unsuccessful, but the film then jumps to 1971 during the Warrens’ “three stages of possession” lecture from The Conjuring 2. The couple’s possession footage gets framed in new light as the twisted fate of The Nun’s Maurice (“Frenchie”) is revealed. It also shows that the Warrens initially encounter Valak much earlier than they realize.

Annabelle: Creation

1955

Even though Annabelle: Creation came out after both Annabelle and The Conjuring, it’s a prequel to both. In fact, it’s kind of remarkable that Annabelle: Creation is not only a fantastic horror film, but that it also connects so many dots throughout the franchise. It simultaneously ties up loose ends to the first Annabelle movie, as well as The Conjuring, but it also effectively ties into The Nun.

Annabelle: Creation is largely set in 1955 and follows Samuel and Esther Mullins as they open their home up to Sister Charlotte and six orphan girls who are in need, but the film begins with a brief detour in 1943 when the Mullins lose their daughter, Annabelle, in a car accident. The goal of Annabelle: Creation is to explain how the possessed doll from The Conjuring came into existence. Samuel Mullins is a dollmaker and after the death of his daughter, the Mullins are so desperate to see their child again they form a pact with a demon (that they believe is their daughter’s spirit) and allow it to possess a doll as a host. Janice, one of the orphans, forms an unusual friendship with the possessed doll and the awakened evil spirit is now hungry for a human conduit.

The film’s ending solidifies how this is a prequel to the previous Annabelle film, since the character of Janice goes on to become possessed, changes her name to Annabelle, and gets adopted by the Higgins family. The film then jumps 12 years in the future to the Annabelle prologue that’s set in 1967. The Satanic cult killings that kick off the other Annabelle film are shown (and now have a greater context), as well as the Form family, who are the protagonists of the next movie. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It has nods to these scenes too. The Satanic cult that Janice-as-Annabelle belongs to is called The Disciples of The Ram, and in The Devil Made Me Do It we meet Kastner (played by John Noble) who we learn was instrumental in bringing down that cult while his research into the occult and The Disciples of the Ram have a direct impact on the events of The Devil Made Me Do It.

Additionally at one point in the film, Sister Charlotte shows off a photo of herself and three other nuns from back when she was in Romania. The important thing about this is that an unnamed Valak is also present in the background of the photo as a fellow nun. While these nuns aren’t named, the photo originally appears on the wall of the convent within the Abbey of St. Carta in The Nun, placing Sister Charlotte’s photo before the year 1952. Furthermore, while the demon that possesses the Annabelle doll isn’t Valak, Valak conceivably helps this evil spirit complete its goal of possessing Janice due to how it temporarily takes the form of a nun-like figure.

Finally, a (rather shameless) post-credits scene that takes place in 1952 features Valak, in nun form, walking through Romania’s Abbey of St. Carta and looking as creepy as ever. Not only is the tag a nod to the events of The Nun, but the scene is also directly pulled from the film’s prologue.

The Nun II

1956

Jumping ahead only a few years after the events of The Nun, The Nun II plays a surprising role in essentially tying together the entire timeline of the Conjuring universe. Most of the story is set in 1956, putting it squarely between the Annabelle films. It is also in this year we find out that Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) is now living a reclusive existence in Italy. That changes when she and poor, poor Maurice “Frenchie” Theriault (Jonas Bloquet) are pulled into a new string of murders with implications that go back all the way to fourth century A.D.!

See, that was when the woman we now know as St. Lucy was said to have lived and died during the Diocletianic Persecution. In ancient Syracuse, a mob of Pagan Romans mutilated and murdered Lucy for her faith. But as revealed in The Nun II, they were hastened to the deed by the demon Valak, who nearly two millennia later still desires to hold her eyes, holy relics that were graced by God. As revealed to Sister Irene in 1956, Valak was one of the first angels God rejected from Heaven, hence the demon’s ferocious hatred of the most blessed like St. Lucy. And in the centuries since Lucy’s death, Valak has been hunting down the saint’s descendants, which is revealed to include Sister Irene!

As it turns out, Sister Irene (and presumably many others in the Conjuring universe) are gifted with clairvoyance to combat the supernatural due to their bloodlines connecting to holy saints. So in The Nun II, this means Irene has the ability to foresee that poor Frenchie has become possessed by the demonic entity of Valak (as comes to pass by the end of the movie). She uses that knowledge to try to save her old friend as well as help new acquaintances survive Valak’s latest spiritual attack. She is even blessed by her faith and family history to survive when Valak attempts to engulf her in magical hellfire. At the end of the film, Irene uses the discovered holy relic of St. Lucy’s eyes and memories of her mother’s love to send Valak back to Hell.

But that isn’t where the story ends. In what should have in retrospect seems obvious, The Nun II takes advantage of the fact that Taissa Farmiga and Vera Farmiga, real-life sisters, are playing characters in different eras. During Irene’s vision where she realizes she is a descendant of St. Lucy, she sees her mother’s eyes as well as Vera Farmiga/Lorraine Warren’s from The Conjuring 2. This means they are both descended from St. Lucy and both can credit their supernatural gift of sight from ancient bloodlines. With that said, we still do not know how Sister Irene and Lorraine Warren are exactly related since the earliest we’ve seen Lorraine in the timeline is during the first Conjuring film, which is set in 1971… Or have we seen her earlier?

Because in one of the cleverest recyclings of deleted footage we’ve seen in a while, The Nun II features a post-credits scene where our dear Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Farmiga) receive a phone call from Father Gordon, telling them there’s a case they need to see. Now this footage was actually a deleted alternate ending from 2021’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, which was previously confirmed on social media as such by director Michael Chaves (who also directed The Nun II). You can see a bit of it in this TV spot. But because it wasn’t used in the 2021 film, it seems to not be set in the 1980s despite the actors’ age and changed fashion sense between films, but instead before the events of 2013’s The Conjuring.

Recall that in the original film, we see actual unnerving footage of the man Frenchie is supposed to be, a sad possessed fellow who ultimately dies by suicide. In its new The Nun II context, the repurposed footage seems to suggest Father Gordon is calling the Warrens to tell them about Frenchie, suggesting that we may yet get a film where Sister Irene (who would be some years older) and her possessed friend will finally be introduced to the Warrens. Which in terms of filmmaking raises interesting questions since in real-life Taissa is Vera’s younger sister, but Sister Irene would be some years older than Lorraine Warren. In any event, it feels like things are coming full circle as The Nun II is using the St. Lucy bloodline and the demon Valak’s obsession with it to tie all the movies together…

Annabelle

1967

The Conjuring contains what’s essentially a terrifying Annabelle short film, so it’s no surprise to see how this evil doll quickly became a fan favorite. The Conjuring explains how the Warrens come in possession of the Annabelle doll, but Annabelle sets out to show some of the doll’s carnage before she gets locked up. Annabelle is set a mere four years before The Conjuring and it follows Mia and John Form, two fresh parents who unfortunately come in contact with the doll who’s eager for a human host. It’s worth pointing out that Annabelle begins with the death of Annabelle Higgins, aka Janice from Annabelle: Creation. It’s her death in the proximity of the Form’s doll that sets in motion the disturbing series of events that destroy their lives.

The desperate Forms turn to the church and the idea of an exorcism as their last resort. This is ultimately what gets Annabelle in the orbit of the Warrens. Father Perez even makes a sly reference to the Warrens (albeit not by name) as one of his solutions to the Annabelle problem, although he can’t reach them in time.

Annabelle concludes with a tag that’s set six months after the events of the film and cleanly leads into the incident seen in The Conjuring’s prologue. Both Rick and Debbie from The Conjuring make a brief appearance as Debbie’s mom buys the doll from an antique shop and the rest is history.

The Conjuring

1971

The Conjuring series excels at the creepy factor, but what makes the main Conjuring films such a success is that Ed and Lorraine Warren are such an incredible, loving couple. They bring a humanity to these films that can be absent in the other offerings. While the Warrens are alluded to in Annabelle and appear in The Nun through recycled footage, The Conjuring marks their first appearance as they try to help the Perron family with their supposedly haunted home.

Set in 1971, The Conjuring tells a fairly to the point haunted house story that checks off most of the expected boxes and culminates in a terrifying exorcism sequence. Wan and company were just trying to make a good horror film with the first Conjuring, not launch a layered horror universe, so it doesn’t try to set up a handful of other properties. The film doesn’t even feature Valak, but instead opts for an isolated evil spirit known as Bathsheba. The Conjuring benefits from not trying to overextend itself and the Warrens’ creepy curio of haunted antiques leaves plenty of inspiration.

Watch The Conjuring on Amazon.

Annabelle Comes Home

1971-1972

Some films in The Conjuring universe jump all over the place in order to fill in gaps in the timeline and connect dots. Annabelle Comes Home stays relatively put, although it is nicely nestled between the first two Conjuring pictures. Annabelle Comes Home begins in 1971, immediately after Ed and Lorraine Warren gain ownership of the haunted doll from Debbie, the nursing student, who’s seen in The Conjuring and teased at the end of Annabelle. The film shows the Warrens build the blessed cage that houses Annabelle (that’s also revealed to be made using the glass from a church window), along with the help of The Conjuring’s Father Gordon (Steve Coulter). 

After this, the film jumps a year later to 1972. We also know that it’s set after the events of the first film since the Warrens have gained a bit of notoriety for their work and the music box from the Perron case is also in their room of artifacts. Other than that, the film sets the groundwork for a bunch of new demonic entities as well as the growth of Judy Warren’s psychic abilities, which there are more hints of in The Conjuring 2, which is set after these events.

The Curse of La Llorona 

1973 

Michael Chaves’ The Curse of La Llorona is currently the film with the most tangential connection to the larger Conjuring universe, but it still fleshes out some important details about the characters from these films.  The most significant connection here is that Father Perez (Tony Amendola), the pastor with a wavering sense of faith, reprises his role from Annabelle. Perez uses his chilling experience with the possessed doll to properly prepare Anna Tate-Garcia for the spirit that’s attached herself to Anna’s family.

The Curse of La Llorona takes place during 1973 in Los Angeles (although there is a brief prologue set in 1673 that explores La Llorona’s origins, which is technically the earliest moment on the Conjuring timeline without including all of The Nun’s Spanish Inquisition nonsense). Furthermore, if the date didn’t already make it clear, Father Perez explicitly refers back to his encounter with Annabelle in Annabelle (the infamous doll makes a brief appearance via flashback). Not only that, but Father Perez basically implies that he’d also like to get the Warrens to handle the Garcia family’s case, but it’s only because they don’t have the luxury of time that he instead suggests Rafael Olvera (Raymond Cruz). The fact that this is set in 1973 also means that chronologically it would take place before The Conjuring 2 in 1977 and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It in 1981, but after the events of all of the other films.

It remains unclear where all of this may be heading, but with Father Perez experiencing more encounters with the paranormal, perhaps this will all culminate in an all-star demonic showdown where the Warrens, Olvera, and Father Perez all team up to take down the forces of evil in a future Conjuring film.

The Conjuring 2

1976-1977

Curiously, The Conjuring 2 begins with a brief introduction that’s set in 1976 while the Warrens attempt to investigate the infamous Amityville murders. The Amityville case isn’t the film’s focus, but it’s during a séance there that Lorraine Warren first experiences Valak, the Demon Nun (or so she thinks). After this warning, the film jumps forward to 1977 when the Hodgson family from Enfield, London requests the Warrens’ expertise.

The Hodgson family find themselves under the attack of the ghost of Bill Wilkins, the residence’s former tenant. However, it’s eventually revealed that Valak is actually the real threat here and he’s manipulated Bill Wilkins’ ghost to do his bidding (not unlike what Valak does to young Daniel’s ghost in The Nun). A lot of The Conjuring 2 pits Lorraine against Valak as her biggest challenge yet. The demon can even block Lorraine’s psychic powers, which is significant.

Lorraine tries to keep Janet Hodgson safe from Valak’s clutches, but the demon also chooses to manifest himself through the youngest Hodgson kid’s zoetrope toy. Ed helps protect Billy from the Crooked Man, a truly awful demon that makes The Babadook look friendly. The film ends with the Crooked Man’s zoetrope toy being added to the Warrens’ haunted antique collection, right next to the Annabelle doll and April’s music box from the first Conjuring.

The Conjuring 2 sees Lorraine effectively send Valak back to Hell and ends the threat that started in the Abbey of St. Carta all the way back in The Nun.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

1981

The third movie in the main Conjuring set which puts Ed and Lorraine front and center is another real life case taken from their files. This one is perhaps unusual since it involves an actual real life murder. The film centers around the story of Arne Johnson (here played by Ruairi O’Connor), a young man who stabbed to death his girlfriend’s employer and landlord and claimed he was possessed at the time. The Warren’s had been called in before the incident to help the Glatzel family who believed 11-year-old David Glatzel was possess after displaying increasingly strange behaviour. A number of exorcisms took place, at which Arne was present – he was dating Debbie Glatzel, David’s sister. According to witnesses, at one point Arne goaded one of David’s demons, which then took residence in Arne. After this event he began to display strange behaviour similar to David’s and some time later committed the murder.

The real events of Johnson’s case are the bookends around The Devil Made Me Do It while the body of the movie sees Ed and Lorraine delving into the background of the possessions and what might have caused them. This leads the Warrens to meet with Kastner, a former priest who had done much work into the occult including a long term investigation into The Disciples of the Ram. The Disciples, were the satanist group who Janice-as-Annabelle joined. In The Devil Made Me Do It we also meet The Occultist (Eugenie Bondurant), who we learn is responsible for calling upon the demon who possessed David, and before him Jessica and eventually Ed before the Warrens manage to banish this demon who takes the Occultist with it.

We are given a brief glimpse at the Occultist’s back story – she’s the adopted daughter of Kastner who kept her hidden from the world – but there is plenty more to explore here, with not just her but also The Disciples of the Ram. Another spin-off movie? We wouldn’t be surprised.