The best celebrity costumes of Halloween 2026

Guys. Something shifted. Celebrity Halloween, usually reserved for bottomless budgets and extra cringe costumes, was… actually kind of good this year? I’m as surprised as you are, but it seems that the layman celeb has finally realised what we’ve been trying to tell them for years: overproduced, over-airbrushed photoshoots designed specifically for Instagram likes are getting kind of boring. Halloween is best when it’s a little rough around the edges. Sure, the budgets were still bigger than us mere mortals, but a real sense of fun has finally returned to Celeb-o-Ween. Scroll down for our favourite picks of this year’s costumes.

We all remember where we were when a floppy-haired and surprisingly well-dressed teenager stole the nation’s hearts with a rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely”. Styles revisited that X Factor audition look for this year’s ‘Harryween’ show, complete with a hipster scarf and fabric wristbands.

If you haven’t heard by now, Charli xcx loves films, so what better way to pay homage to the medium than dressed as one of her faves? For Kendall Jenner’s Halloween party, Charli dressed up as Lee Holloway, the titular character from Steven Shainberg’s Secretary, originally played by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Also going down the movie route was Alex Consani, who opted for slightly more mainstream fare: a Thumb Thumb henchman from the Spy Kids franchise.

We can always count on a drag queen to pull out an obscure Madonna reference. This year, Drag Race winner Aquaria was 1995 VMAs Madonna, wearing Gucci by Tom Ford and getting hit in the head by a projectile compact thrown by Courtney Love (“Courtney Love is in dire need of attention right now,” quipped Madonna, as Love emptied the contents of her bag at her).

Another niche Madonna reference, and this time it’s Rachel Sennott as 2007 Madonna leaving Claridge’s with her then-husband Guy Ritchie, holding a transparent plastic bag with a strap-on inside.

When Nancy Pelosi took a knee wearing kente cloth at the US Capitol in 2020, the moment was seared into our collective brains. Now, Canadian artist Chloe Wise has revisited it for Halloween 2026, down to the dead-eyed stare into the middle distance.

Artist and musician Kesh got into the alt spirit this year, dressing up as the single cover for Aphex Twin’s 1999 hit “Windowlicker”. “Nobody got it,” she wrote on Instagram. Well, we think it’s great!

Much was made of Lily Allen’s recent world tour furore, when the British singer was forced to downsize venues due to underwhelming ticket sales. In the face of such scrutiny, Allen did the only thing she knows how: responding to a gloomy situation with a heavy dose of irony. This Halloween, the famous polka dot puffer from Allen’s West End Girl album cover had been updated to resemble a Ticketmaster seating chart, each blue dot an unsold seat in the venue.

Rapper Molly Santana paid homage to OG Chief Keef from 2012, rocking a Gucci headband, Louis belt and ‘Lead Never Follow’ t-shirt.

This Halloween, we continue to uplift Tinashe by adding her to this list. In honour of her sleeper hit “Melatonin” – from the critically acclaimed album Popstar – Tinashe dressed up as a bottle of Melatonin, complete with 1mg pills for earrings.

If you’re gonna do a recent pop culture reference, then you better make it an instantly recognisable one. With that in mind, Lisa Rinna went for Kylie Jenner’s infamous Chrome Hearts look, where she matched with boyf Timothée Chalamet – also in pumpkin orange Chrome Hearts – at the Marty Supreme premiere last October.

The Heated Rivalry star went as Emma Stone’s character Michelle Fuller in Bugonia, and even roped in co-star Hudson Williams to play Jesse Plemons’ character for the Yorgos Lanthimos cosplay.

Lorde took us back to our childhoods this Halloween, transforming into the title character of the beloved book The Rainbow Fish, covering herself in shiny purple spray and sparkling scales. 

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Lili Reinhart dressed up as South Park’s Randy Marsh as a 16-year-old Lorde. Fun Halloween is back, baby!