Lorraine Warren Conjuring Character: Played by Vera Farmiga

Lorraine Warren is the paranormal investigator who anchors the saga, a woman whose visions and sensitivity to spirits shape almost every case the Warrens take on. She is played by Vera Farmiga, who is billed first in The Conjuring (2013), in The Conjuring 2 and in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, and billed second behind Patrick Wilson in The Conjuring: Last Rites.

She also turns up outside the four main films. Farmiga is credited in The Nun (2018) and in Annabelle Comes Home, and a post credit scene in The Nun II uses archive footage of Ed and Lorraine from The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. A younger version of the character appears in the credits as "Lorraine Warren (teenage)", played by Megan Ashley Brown in The Devil Made Me Do It.

If you want the whole series laid out before you pick up her story, start with our guide to Conjuring movies in order, and see the full list of Conjuring characters.

Lorraine moves from a supporting investigator in the first film to the person who decides how each haunting ends, and her gifts are the thing the demons keep trying to cut off.

In The Conjuring (2013) the Warrens conclude in 1968 that a haunted doll is only a tool for a demon, then in 1971 they are called by Carolyn Perron to a Rhode Island farmhouse. Their research points to a former owner, Bathsheba Sherman, who was accused of witchcraft. During the climax Carolyn is bound to a chair while Ed performs an exorcism, and Lorraine reaches her by reminding her of a happy family memory, which lets Ed finish the ritual.

The Conjuring 2 opens with the Amityville case, where Lorraine sees a demonic nun and a vision of Ed being impaled. Ed and Lorraine disagree about whether to take the Enfield case on at all. After the case is publicly discredited, she realizes the old man's voice is only a front for the nun, a stronger demon that has been hiding from her and blocking her gifts. She learns its name, Valak, and orders it back to Hell. That name connects her to The Nun (2018), which ends with the lecture footage from The Conjuring.

In Annabelle Comes Home the Warrens seal the Annabelle doll in a blessed glass case in their artifacts room. When they leave for a night, Lorraine is mostly offscreen until the morning, when she passes on a comforting message from Daniela's late father.

The Devil Made Me Do It sets the Warrens in 1981 Connecticut, where Ed collapses with a heart attack during David Glatzel's exorcism, and the Warrens then help with Arne Johnson's defense. Last Rites then begins in 1964 with Judy's dangerous birth, jumps to the Smurl case in West Pittston, Pennsylvania in 1986, and closes the arc.

Lorraine's most important relationship is her marriage to Ed Warren, played by Patrick Wilson, and the films treat the pair as one working unit. Ed performs the exorcisms, and the two of them set up cameras and other equipment around the house. In The Devil Made Me Do It the dynamic reverses, because Ed is the one pulled under a curse and Lorraine reminds him of their love until he breaks free.

Their daughter is Judy Warren. Sterling Jerins plays her in the first two films and in The Devil Made Me Do It, Mckenna Grace plays her in Annabelle Comes Home, and Mia Tomlinson plays the adult Judy in Last Rites. Lorraine saves Judy as a baby in 1964 and saves her again as an adult.

Among the families they help, Carolyn Perron in the first film is the clearest example, since Lorraine talks her out of the spirit's grip. Daniela Rios in Annabelle Comes Home is another, and Lorraine's message from her father helps Daniela forgive herself.

On the other side stands Valak, the demon nun who haunts her visions in the second film and returns in The Nun II as the villain of the spin-off. The Annabelle doll sits in the Warrens' collection of dangerous objects, and the mirror from Last Rites ends up there as well.

Lorraine Warren is alive at the end of every film she appears in, and none of the seven shows her dying. Her last major scenes are in The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025), which reads as her goodbye to the saga.

In 1964 she is the mother of a newborn in danger, and by 1986 she is an aging investigator drawn into the Smurl case. She and Ed finish it by reciting a prayer together, and the mirror returns to their occult museum. The film then jumps to Judy's wedding to Tony Spera, where Lorraine has a vision of a family full of children and grandchildren.

That vision answers the dread of The Conjuring 2, where her sight showed a demonic nun and Ed impaled. Her status after the main saga is alive, with her family around her. The Conjuring: First Communion is dated for Sept. 10, 2027, according to TheWrap, and its status is tracked on the Conjuring First Communion page.

In my opinion, Lorraine's best scenes are the ones where she wins with empathy rather than equipment, and the saga repeats that idea often enough that it could be argued to be its central rule.

The first pick is the farmhouse climax in The Conjuring (2013), where Carolyn Perron is tied to a chair and Lorraine reaches her by reminding her of a happy family memory. A set piece built on shouting and holy water turns on a quiet reminder, and, perhaps, that is what makes it the strongest scene in the series.

Second is the moment in The Conjuring 2 when she finally understands that the old man is a mask for the nun. After the case has been publicly discredited, she names Valak and orders it back to Hell. It is the payoff to the Amityville vision the film opens with, and it is the neatest bit of plotting in any of her films.

Third is the reversal in The Devil Made Me Do It, where Ed is the one caught in the curse and Lorraine reminds him of their love until he breaks free and destroys the altar. Fourth, in Annabelle Comes Home, she delivers a message from Daniela's late father in a calm scene that helps Daniela forgive herself, a gentle change of pace for a film otherwise full of loose artifacts.

Last is the wedding vision in Last Rites. After years of visions that predicted pain, the final one is a happy family, which is as good a goodbye as the saga could give her.