With the staggering number of great A24 movies we have seen in the last decade-plus, there is no doubt that it is my favorite production company working today. I am always looking forward to upcoming A24 movies because, every time I see that iconic logo appear on the screen, I know that I am about to witness something highly imaginative, emotionally investing, visually entrancing, and, in some cases, even life-changing. The best A24 movies cover various genres but I only took general quality in mind when deciding on the following picks for the beloved, Award-winning studio’s greatest hits available on streaming, as a digital rental, or on physical media.
Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
Director: Rose Glass
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brien
What it’s About: A gym manager falls for an aspiring athlete, but their blissful romance is interrupted by a deadly mistake.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: Glass’ second A24 production after Saint Maud, Love Lies Bleeding, is part love story, part bodybuilding drama, and could be described as neo-Noir but truly defies genre in its unique execution.
How To Watch Love Lies Bleeding
Civil War (2024)
Director: Alex Garland
Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny
What it’s About: A group of journalists traveling across the country where danger lurks at every turn.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: Perhaps the most potent example of Garland’s flair for grounded executions of horrifying concepts is the haunting Civil War, which imagines a dystopian America divided beyond repair.
How To Watch Civil War
The Iron Claw (2023)
Director: Sean Durkin
Starring: Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White
What it’s About: The historic rise of a family of aspiring wrestlers is cut short by a series of heartbreaking tragedies.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: Seen mostly through the eyes of Efron’s wonderful portrayal of Kevin Von Erich, A24’s first foray into sports movies, The Iron Claw, is a biopic that put critics and audiences into a devastating headlock.
How To Watch The Iron Claw
Talk To Me (2023)
Director: Danny and Michael Philippou
Starring: Sophia Wilde, Alexandra Jensen
What it’s About: A group of young Australians discovers how to conjure spirits with a mysterious embalmed hand, but their thrilling activity begins to spiral horribly out of control.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: There are only so many demonic possession movies that feel somewhat unique but the Philippou Brothers achieved that rarity with their terrifying feature debut, Talk to Me.
How To Watch Talk to Me
Past Lives (2023)
Director: Celine Song
Starring: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo
What it’s About: A married Korean native begins to reexamine her life after catching up with a childhood friend.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: Widely considered to be one of the best movies of 2023, Past Lives is a moving tale that explores how the reemergence of long-dormant feelings can cause one to imagine the other ways their lives could have turned out.
How To Watch Past Lives
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
Director: Ari Aster
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Parker Posey
What it’s About: A deeply paranoid man runs into one uproarious and horrifying roadblock after another while taking a trip to his mother’s house.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: From its opening sequence to the very end of Beau is Afraid, Aster’s absurd and demented odyssey on par with The Wizard of Oz will keep you locked in a chokehold of inescapable anxiety.
How To Watch Beau is Afraid
Uncut Gems (2019)
Director: Josh and Benny Safdie
Starring: Adam Sandler, Idina Menzel
What it’s About: New York City jeweler Howard Rattner lets his self-destructive tendencies get in the way of his attempt to earn the biggest profit possible from a rare opal.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: Howard Rattner is one of the most unlikable movie protagonists in recent memory, but Sandler’s performance convinces the audience to root for him in the anxiety-fueled crime drama, Uncut Gems.
How To Watch Uncut Gems
Minari (2021)
Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Starring: Steven Yeun, Han Ye-ri
What it’s About: A South Korean immigrant moves his family from California to Arkansas in hopes of achieving a better life in the 1980s.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: Chung’s Oscar-winning, semi-autobiographical drama, Minari, is a moving reflection of the challenges that come from chasing the American dream.
How To Watch Minari
X (2022)
Director: Ti West
Starring: Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega
What it’s About: In the 1970s, a group of amateur filmmakers secretly shooting an adult film on a Texas farm suddenly fall prey to their elderly hosts.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: As a tribute to the best horror movies of the 1970s and a dark reflection of the era’s adult film industry, X is a cleverly nuanced and brazenly disturbing thriller.
How To Watch X
Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
Director: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan
What it’s About: A laundromat owner is suddenly tasked with traveling the Multiverse in order to save humanity and reconcile her dysfunctional family.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: The visually inventive, action-packed, and unapologetically absurd Everything Everywhere All At Once is unlike any Best Picture Oscar winner (let alone any other film) you may have ever seen.
How To Watch Everything Everywhere All At Once
Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (2022)
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Starring: Jenny Camp, Dean Fleischer Camp
What it’s About: An adorably naive, talking mollusk becomes the subject of a documentarian’s latest film.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: CinemaBlend’s collective staff pick for the best movie of 2022 was the charming documentary-style comedy Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, which was nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar.
How To Watch Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Locke (2013)
Director: Steven Knight
Starring: Tom Hardy
What it’s About: A family man and construction manager faces the life-altering consequences of a mistake over the course of one tumultuous night of driving down the highway.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: Told in real time and through a series of phone calls, Locke proves that a premise as simple as watching a man driving for nearly 90 minutes is enough to inspire heart-wrenching drama.
How To Watch Locke
Ex Machina (2015)
Director: Alex Garland
Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander
What it’s About: A young computer programmer is selected to test the humanistic appeal of a robot named Ava, forcing him to confront his own humanity in the process.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: Garland’s directorial debut, Ex Machina, is a shocking cautionary tale in the vein of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that questions what advantages (or disadvantages) could come from artificial intelligence if it does prove to be smarter than us.
How To Watch Ex Machina
Room (2015)
Director: Lenny Abrahamson
Starring: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay
What it’s About: A devoted mother known only as “Ma” tries to maintain a fulfilling environment for her young son, Jack, who has spent his entire life with her held captive by a kidnapper.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: Based on the hit novel by screenwriter Emma Donaghue and featuring an astounding, Oscar-winning performance by Larson in the lead, Room is an intense but beautiful thriller about the struggle to overcome boundaries and the fear of what lies beyond.
How To Watch Room
The End Of The Tour (2015)
Director: James Ponsoldt
Starring: Jason Segel, Jesse Eisenberg
What it’s About: Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky spends five days interviewing acclaimed, but troubled, Infinite Jest author David Foster Wallace.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: Based on Lipsky’s memoir, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, The End of the Tour is a staggering, inspiring achievement that never falls prey to pretentiousness, and features one of Segel’s best dramatic performances yet.
How To Watch The End of the Tour
The Lobster (2016)
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz
What it’s About: In a hopelessly bleak dystopia in which monogamy is a lawful priority, a divorced man struggles to find a romantic partner in 45 days or he will be surgically transformed into the animal of his choosing.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: For some, dating can feel like a race against time and the brutal, but hilariously bizarre, absurdist satire The Lobster imagines what would happen if the stakes really were that high.
How To Watch The Lobster
Moonlight (2016)
Director: Barry Jenkins
Starring: Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris
What it’s About: A Black man struggles with a neglectful, crack-addict mother, his sense of identity, and his sexuality, receiving little guidance in his childhood from anyone but a drug-dealer named Juan.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: Also starring Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes as the central character at three crucial stages of his life, Moonlight is a deeply moving and beautifully depicted drama that made history as the first LGBTQ+ movie to win the Best Picture Oscar.
How To Watch Moonlight
Lady Bird (2017)
Director: Greta Gerwig
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf
What it’s About: Christine McPherson longs for a more sophisticated and adventurous existence outside of her California Catholic high school environment.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: Early-2000s teen angst is given a name – “Lady Bird” – in the sleeper hit that is now considered one of the best high school movies for its clever, quirky, and brutally honest commentary on adolescent struggle and its wonderful performances.
How To Watch Lady Bird
Good Time (2017)
Director: Josh and Benny Safdie
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Benny Safdie
What it’s About: A young petty criminal goes to increasingly extreme and despicable lengths to get his younger, mentally challenged brother out of his jail.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: The Safdie Brothers show their mastery for breathless, high-energy thrills by crafting Good Time into a one-of-a-kind cinematic roller coaster that reeks of ‘80s, guerilla-style inspiration.
How To Watch Good Time
Hereditary (2018)
Director: Ari Aster
Starring: Toni Collette, Alex Wolff
What it’s About: A family’s suffering in the wake of a tragedy slowly curdles into an unexplainable, unmerciful nightmare.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: If Hereditary put cheesy taglines promising hysterics and paralyzing fear on its poster, this signature A24-produced horror movie with an indescribably perfect performance by Collette would have been telling the truth.
How To Watch Hereditary
Eighth Grade (2018)
Starring: Elsie Fisher, Josh Hamilton
What it’s About: A 13-year-old girl tries to fit in with her classmates despite her introverted personality.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: The horrors of a student’s final year before high school should not be underestimated, and that is proven in Eighth Grade – a beautifully authentic commentary on early teenhood.
How To Watch Eighth Grade
The Farewell (2019)
Director: Lulu Wang
Starring: Awkwafina, Shuzhen Zhao
What it’s About: A Chinese-American woman attends a family gathering in China for her unsuspecting terminal grandmother disguised as a wedding.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: The premise of The Farewell sounds improbable until you discover the rough, but amusingly funny foreign language film is based on Wang’s own experience with a real Chinese tradition to withhold a relative’s imminent death from them.
How To Watch The Farewell
Midsommar (2019)
Director: Ari Aster
Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor
What it’s About: A grieving young woman joins her emotionally distant boyfriend and his friends on a trip to a seemingly idyllic Swedish festival.
Why It’s One Of The Best A24 Movies: While not known for stories that are thematically bright and sunny, that is the aesthetic Aster chose for his sophomore effort, Midsommar – a unique blend of tranquil visuals with devastatingly twisted moments that make it an unforgettable, skin-crawling trip.
How To Watch Midsommar
I doubt that these will be the last A24 movies we recommend, so check out our upcoming 2024 movie schedule and any upcoming 2025 movies to see what the company has next in store. You can also keep an eye on what they have in store for the small screen with our upcoming A24 TV shows guide.
