Ed Warren Conjuring Character: Actor, Story and Fate

Ed Warren is the husband and investigative partner of Lorraine Warren in the Conjuring films, a paranormal investigator who gathers evidence, performs rites and locks dangerous objects away, and Patrick Wilson plays him in every appearance the credits list. Wilson is billed second behind Vera Farmiga in The Conjuring (2013), directed by James Wan, and first in The Conjuring: Last Rites in 2025. If you are new to the series, think of Ed as the practical half of the pair: Lorraine senses what is in the room, while Ed sets up the cameras, runs the research and, when it comes to it, begins the exorcism.

The films are based on cases claimed by Ed and Lorraine Warren, so the on screen Ed is a dramatization of a claim and not evidence of anything paranormal. For the real history behind the films, see conjuring true story.

The next film in the series, Conjuring First Communion, is dated by Warner Bros. for September 10, 2027.

Ed Warren appears in seven films, in release order:

• The Conjuring (2013), directed by James Wan, as a lead.
• The Conjuring 2 (2016), directed by James Wan, as a lead.
• The Nun (2018), directed by Corin Hardy, in the closing lecture footage.
• Annabelle Comes Home (2019), directed by Gary Dauberman, in a supporting role.
• The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021), directed by Michael Chaves, as a lead.
• The Nun II (2023), directed by Michael Chaves, in a post credit scene built from archive footage.
• The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025), directed by Michael Chaves, as a lead.

The doll in Annabelle (2014) ends up in the Warrens' collection, but neither that film nor Annabelle Creation lists Ed in its cast. The Curse of La Llorona does not feature him either, and links back to the Warrens only through Father Perez. For the full cast across the saga, see conjuring cast.

Ed Warren starts the series as the man who closes cases and ends it as a father giving his daughter away, and the road between runs through four main films and three spin offs. The arc below follows release order, and the conjuring timeline shows where each stop sits in story order.

In The Conjuring (2013), a 1968 prologue shows the Warrens concluding that a haunted doll is only a tool for a demon. By 1971 the Perron family has moved into a farmhouse in Rhode Island, and when Carolyn Perron asks for help, Ed and Lorraine set up cameras and other equipment around the house. Their research turns up a former owner, Bathsheba Sherman, who was accused of witchcraft and is said to have sacrificed her infant before killing herself and cursing the land. The Warrens' daughter Judy is attacked as a warning. At the climax Ed starts an exorcism while Carolyn is bound to a chair, and he completes it only after Lorraine reaches Carolyn by reminding her of a happy family memory. A music box from the house goes home with the couple to their collection of dangerous objects.

In The Conjuring 2, the Warrens come home from the Amityville case shaken by Lorraine's vision of a demonic nun and of Ed's death. They travel to Enfield, north London, where the Hodgson family is plagued by moving furniture, knocking and strange voices, and Ed and Lorraine disagree about whether to take the case. After it is publicly discredited the Warrens step away, but they rush back when Lorraine realizes the old man speaking through Janet is a front for the nun. Ed saves Janet from falling from an upstairs window and is nearly impaled on a broken tree stump that matches Lorraine's vision. Lorraine learns the demon's name, Valak, and orders it back to Hell. At home Ed adds a haunted Crooked Man toy to the collection, next to the Annabelle doll.

The Nun (2018) reaches back to the first film. Its closing scene uses lecture footage in which Ed names a possessed man as Maurice, which is the real name of the farmhand called Frenchie, and so ties the Romanian abbey to the Warrens' first encounter with Valak.

Ed is mostly offstage in Annabelle Comes Home, and his absence drives the plot. He and Lorraine take Annabelle from two nurses and seal her in a glass case in the artifacts room, and on the drive back the doll stirs up spirits that attack Ed. A year later, with the Warrens away overnight, Judy and her babysitter Mary Ellen fight to contain the chaos after Daniela opens the case, and Judy plays recorded footage of Ed performing an exorcism on the Bride to free Daniela for a while.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It makes Ed vulnerable. At the 1981 exorcism of the eight year old David Glatzel in Brookfield, Connecticut, Arne Johnson dares the demon to take him instead, and Ed suffers a heart attack as the possession passes to Arne. After Arne kills his landlord, the Warrens argue in his defense that he was possessed, which would be a first in an American murder trial. Their search leads to an occultist, Isla, the daughter of a former priest named Kastner, who curses Ed and Arne. Ed is pulled under the curse until Lorraine reminds him of their love, and he breaks free and destroys the altar. A cup from the altar joins the artifact room.

The Nun II gives Ed only a post credit scene, which uses archive footage of Ed and Lorraine from The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.

In The Conjuring: Last Rites, a 1964 prologue shows the Warrens dealing with a cursed antique mirror as Lorraine's newborn daughter Judy survives a dangerous birth. By 1986 the Smurl family in West Pittston, Pennsylvania has received an antique mirror as a gift, and the aging Warrens are pulled toward one more case. The demon is hunting Judy in particular, and in the end Ed and Lorraine recite a prayer together that breaks the mirror's hold.

Ed's closest relationship is with Lorraine, and the films treat the marriage as the engine of the series. Lorraine Warren, played by Vera Farmiga, senses the spirits, while Ed builds the case around what she sees. The pattern repeats in the plots: her reminder of a happy memory lets Ed finish the exorcism in The Conjuring (2013), her naming of Valak saves the Hodgson house and Ed's life in The Conjuring 2, and her reminder of their love frees him from the curse in The Devil Made Me Do It. They do not always agree, since Ed and Lorraine argue over whether to take the Enfield case, but in each film the marriage is what resolves the crisis.

Their daughter is Judy Warren. Sterling Jerins plays her in The Conjuring (2013), The Conjuring 2 and The Devil Made Me Do It, Mckenna Grace plays her in Annabelle Comes Home, and Mia Tomlinson plays her as an adult in Last Rites, where she is in a relationship with Tony Spera (Ben Hardy). Judy is attacked as a warning in the first film, is lonely because classmates avoid her over her parents' work in Annabelle Comes Home, and gets the wedding at the end of Last Rites.

Ed's other ties are to the families whose cases he takes and the things he fights. The Perrons (Carolyn and Roger), the Hodgsons of Enfield (Peggy and Janet) and the Smurls of West Pittston all become Warren cases, while Arne Johnson and Debbie Glatzel bring the Warrens into a courtroom. On the opposing side, Valak the Nun is tied to Ed through the lecture footage in The Nun (2018) and the Enfield climax of The Conjuring 2. The Annabelle doll sits in his artifact room as a standing risk. For a wider view of the saga's monsters, see conjuring demons, and for the full roster see conjuring characters.

Ed Warren survives every Conjuring film, and he is still alive in the final scene of The Conjuring: Last Rites, the latest release in the series. Death hangs over him twice without arriving: Lorraine's vision of his impalement in The Conjuring 2 is tested against the broken tree stump in Enfield before he walks away, and the heart attack he suffers during the Glatzel exorcism in The Devil Made Me Do It leaves him in a hospital bed, not a grave. No film shows him dying, so there is no on screen cause of death to report.

In Last Rites the Warrens end the Smurl haunting by reciting a prayer side by side, after which the Smurls live on in their West Pittston home undisturbed. The cursed mirror goes into the Warrens' occult museum. The last sequence is Judy's wedding to Tony, with Ed escorting her down the aisle while Lorraine imagines a future crowded with family. It plays as a send off for the couple and not as groundwork for a direct sequel.

The story continues elsewhere: Conjuring First Communion is dated for September 10, 2027, and that wedding stays Ed's final scene in the films released so far. As for the real Ed and Lorraine Warren, the films dramatize cases the couple claimed, so the fate of the film character says nothing about the real man's life.

In my opinion, the best Ed Warren scenes are the ones where the investigator becomes the person in danger. My pick for the single best is the broken tree stump at the end of The Conjuring 2: it pays off a vision planted in the opening Amityville scene, and it makes Lorraine's premonition feel like a countdown, which works better than any jump scare. It is the clearest example in the series of a scare built from a promise the film made an hour earlier.

A close second is the curse in The Devil Made Me Do It. It could be argued that this is the most Ed story in the series, since the man who always has the equipment ready is rescued by something he cannot film, which is Lorraine reminding him of their love. It is a smaller set piece than the Enfield finale, but it says more about the marriage than any scene of the two of them talking.

Third, I would put the recorded exorcism footage in Annabelle Comes Home. The Warrens are away for the night in that film, and yet Ed still gets the decisive moment, because Judy plays the tape of him performing the rite on the Bride. It is a neat way to give the lead a role in a film where he is barely present, and it shows how much the series relies on the Warrens' collection as a character in its own right.

The quietest moment is the walk down the aisle in Last Rites, and perhaps the most deliberate. Perhaps the filmmakers wanted the series to end on a wedding and not a funeral, and after seven appearances over twelve years, that choice suits a character who spent the whole saga holding the line against the dark. If you want to watch these scenes in sequence, the conjuring movies in order guide has both release order and story order.