Top 10 A24 Films
The cult of A24 is real, so we felt led to rank their best movies
In just 10 years, the production and distribution company A24 has built one of the strongest profiles in entertainment. The A24 logo appearing before a film has become a strong indicator of quality, as well as an artist-friendly brand. The typical A24 movie is highly unique, critically acclaimed, and driven by mood and/or vibe. They have won Best Picture twice (Moonlight, Everything Everywhere All at Once) and championed some of the most visionary filmmakers working today (Ari Aster, Yorgos Lanthimos, Joanna Hogg, Robert Eggers, the Safdies, to name a few). The over 100 films A24 has released haven’t all been successful, but they do have a remarkably high hit rate.
We’re ranking the best A24 movies today, because Aster’s new film Beau Is Afraid is out in theaters this weekend. The director got his start at A24 with Hereditary and he’s perhaps the young filmmaker most tied to the brand. Will any of his movies make our combined top 10? You’ll have to find out. You can also see our individual top 10s below. Thanks for reading, and let us know your favorite A24 joints in the comments!
DYLA’s Top 10 A24 Films
(tie) Enemy
Drew: Before Dune, Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, or Sicario, director Denis Villeneuve made this twisted little psychological drama with Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s a character study dripping with dread, and it proved Villeneuve had a rare mastery of tone and mood. Gyllenhaal pulls double duty playing two characters, and both of his excellent performances only deepen the mystery of Enemy.
(tie) Pearl
Billy: Sorry Drew, for loading this backend with horror movies. At least this one is actually fun. Director Ti West created this prequel to his horror slasher X in secret. The combo of not knowing a follow-up was happening and it having a completely different tone made this my favorite movie of 2022. Mia Goth is a revelation as the titular character. Her desire to get far away from her post WWI small town in Texas has you rooting for her at first. Then her obsession with fame turns a corner that should have had me turning on our character, but just wanted to see her go wild. And the wildness delivered, but in a way that will have me coming back to watch again and again.
Midsommar
Billy: After rewatching Hereditary this week my favorite Ari Aster is in question. While Hereditary is scarier in many ways I think Midsommar is a much more impressive movie. Almost completely shot during the daytime in the Swedish countryside. The daylight protects us from the scaries, or so I thought. Ari Aster is a master of creating extreme dread in his movies. It's almost like he gave himself the challenge of trying to keep that throughout his long runtime in the most beautiful place imaginable. He absolutely succeeded and made it so that he is a director that I won’t revisit often, but will be rushing to the theater to see.
(tie) Waves
Drew: Waves is the type of project that has been A24’s calling card: young director, promising cast, challenging material. However, this indie drama has a distinctive personal touch and emotional vulnerability that you don’t always see from its kind. This is a film that wants to wreck you and then build you back up. It’s not going to be the most entertaining or easy to watch, but it’s also an experience you absolutely won’t forget.
(tie) Under the Silver Lake
Billy: I have written about this movie a ton and I don’t intend to stop. This movie forces you to see more meaning in this movie than there probably is. Paranoia invades our main character Sam (Andrew Garfield) and by osmosis the mind of the audience… or maybe just me. The corrosive possibility of a conspiracy has infected more of our country’s population than possibly imaginable and Under the Silver Lake has a hilarious lens making fun of that and has fun with a “what if it's all true” possibility. Director David Robert Mitchell deserves to be in the A24 horror darling conversation with Ari Aster and Robert Eggers.
Ex Machina
Drew: Alex Garland had written screenplays for notable sci-fi and horror films (28 Days Later, Sunshine), but no one could’ve expected him to so skillfully direct his first feature. Ex Machina is very much in conversation with our modern times (artificial intelligence, innovation for its own sake, douchey tech CEOs), but it also works like gangbusters as a sleek and shocking thriller. Plus, it was further proof that stars like Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander were here to stay.
Uncut Gems
Billy: If it weren’t for Adam Sandler playing Howard Ratner this movie wouldn’t have gotten off the ground. Pure narcissism on screen, but narcissism is attractive if the right face is representing it. With that being said, Sandler has never had a performance like this before. Uncontrollable angst creates extreme anxiety for the audience once the intro to the story is finished. Howard is a degenerate gambler with many failed relationships, professionally and personally. He is addicted to the anxiety his life provides and I was as well with this movie. Sometimes a feeling I don’t love to feel in real life is a feeling I love to feel when watching a movie. The Safdie brothers with Uncut Gems amps that to the highest degree and I love experiencing it.
The Florida Project
Billy: One of the greatest gifts that film can provide is an empathetic lens into lives of people that don’t generally have that built in. The Florida Project follows a 5-year-old girl and her mother living in a long-stay hotel that is right outside the happiest place on earth, Disney World. Their lives are in shambles, and you see the chaos of the life the mom is living, but in the daughters’ eyes this is just life. Joy is ever-present and the mom is trying to maintain that any way possible. And then there is my favorite character of the 2010s, Bobby, played by Willem Dafoe. Because of who Willem Dafoe has played in the past and the structure of the movie there is a speculation of our hotel manager Bobby. Quickly that side eye fades away and the most wholesome/protective character emerges. The naivety of the child, fierce protection from the mother, and a stable presence from the hotel manager had me rooting for these characters more than any other movie.
First Reformed
Drew: A24 doesn’t only focus on young up-and-coming directors and actors. First Reformed is an example of the studio distributing the late-career masterpiece of a filmmaking legend. Writer and director Paul Schrader wrote his God’s Lonely Man archetype from Taxi Driver and Light Sleeper into a 21st century story of climate change anxiety amid a crisis of faith. As a struggling pastor, Ethan Hawke delivers one of his best performances in Schrader’s urgent knockout of a drama.
Moonlight
Billy: A24 was created in 2013 and was originally just a distribution company. 2016 marked their first year as a production company, co-financing the 2017 Best Picture winner Moonlight. Some of this industry is for sure dumb luck and this may be the most prime example of that. Did they really know that they were working with the best up-and-coming filmmaker in Barry Jenkins? Did they have any idea this would be in the Best Picture conversation? Regardless of if they knew or didn’t, Moonlight is one of the greatest films of the 21st century and gave A24 the credibility they so desperately needed.
Lady Bird
Drew: Coming-of-age movies this special only come around once in a generation or so. Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut is so confident and wise that you’d assume she’d been doing this for decades. (Credit A24 for bolstering yet another filmmaking talent.) Lady Bird is about a senior at a Catholic high school in Sacramento, but this specific premise becomes a universal and empathetic story centered on mother-daughter relationships and figuring out who we want to be. As an audience, we laugh, we sob, and we fully identify with Lady Bird despite all her youthful complexity.
Billy’s Top 10
The Florida Project
Uncut Gems
Lady Bird
Moonlight
Under the Silver Lake
Pearl
Eighth Grade
Midsommar
First Reformed
Under the Skin
Drew’s Top 10
Lady Bird
Moonlight
First Reformed
Ex Machina
Waves
Enemy
The Lobster
After Yang
Midsommar
The Witch