When it comes to cutting-edge indie fares, no other name comes before A24. The production company has grown from a little upstart to a respectable brand beloved by cinephiles worldwide. In a world of sequels, spinoffs, and reboots, A24 stands as a refreshing counterbalance that can sustain high quality AND originality across its films. They achieve that partly by allowing first-time filmmakers to unleash their creative vision on untried ideas. Since its inception in 2012, A24 has produced some of the best indie pics in the modern era.
Naturally, picking the 7 best among them is no easy task, but we’ll try! From tender romance to cult horror to existential science fiction, here are our picks of the top 7 best A24 films.
7. Lady Bird
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Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) is a high school senior who’s desperate to leave Sacramento and reinvent herself. Between fights with her mom, messy romances, and awkward friendships, she’s stumbling through growing up. Her dream of getting into an East Coast college becomes the fuel for every argument and every risk she takes. But every choice she makes pushes her closer to realizing who she actually is.
Best A24 Films
In her semi-autobiographical directorial debut, Greta Gerwig fashions a raw and vulnerable coming-of-age drama that exceeds the trappings of its genre. Featuring the luminous Saoirse Ronan as her on-screen proxy, Gerwig’s film captures vividly what it feels like to be both awkward and ambitious, two traits of youth that everybody can relate to.
6. Midsommar
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Reeling from tragedy, Dani (Florence Pugh) follows her boyfriend to a remote Swedish village for a midsummer festival. At first, it’s all sunshine, flower crowns, and rituals — until those rituals get disturbing. The villagers’ smiling faces hide a cult-like devotion that grows more violent with every ceremony. By the time she sees the truth, she’s in too deep to leave.
Best A24 Films
Deeply unsettling and unabashedly eerie, the Ari Aster film continues his horror one-two punch after the critically acclaimed Hereditary. This film breaks the notion that a good horror movie can only happen in dark and gloomy settings. The entirety of Midsommar is so vibrant, yet the sinister undercurrent always follows - all thanks to Aster’s masterful control of tone and Pugh’s game performance.
5. Room
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A young boy grows up believing a small locked shed is the whole world, because it’s all he’s ever known. His mother, held captive with him, plans a risky escape to give him a real life. Their daring breakout changes everything, but freedom comes with struggles they never expected. It turns out stepping outside proves just as overwhelming as the prison they left behind.
Best A24 Films
Featuring standout performances from Brie Larson (who ended up winning an Oscar) and Jacob Tremblay (who should’ve been nominated for an Oscar), this is one of A24’s earliest critical darlings, an early indicator of their refined taste. The tiny drama – literally, it takes place mostly in a shed – bursts with a huge heart thanks to the mother-son dynamic at the center of it. Thrown in the most horrific situation possible, their story is that of the undying power of love and hope.
4. Eighth Grade
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Kayla (Elsie Fisher), a painfully shy middle schooler, is stumbling through her last week of eighth grade. She posts videos about confidence that she doesn’t really feel, all while navigating crushes, parties, and her phone-addicted world. Between awkward encounters and small acts of bravery, she’s trying to hold on until high school gives her a fresh start. Everything she wants feels just out of reach — until she realizes the hardest part is just getting through right now.
Best A24 Films
In his directorial debut, Bo Burnham showcases his keen observation of the lives of modern-day adolescents. This teen movie has no hot jock savior, Cinderella transformation, or Mean Girl-esque comeuppance. It documents Kayla’s every awkward moment with such viscerality that it hurts. Unlike typical Hollywood teen flicks, this is perhaps the closest thing to a real middle school experience most kids go through, and Burnham captures it with such earnestness.
3. Past Lives
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Two childhood friends from Seoul reunite in New York decades after being separated. Their lives took very different paths, but seeing each other again stirs up feelings they never settled. Torn between her marriage and the pull of fate, Nora (Greta Lee) must face what their connection really means. Now they’re caught between what is, what was, and what might’ve been.
Best A24 Films
In her visually splendid directorial debut, Celine Song took inspiration from her own life and turned it into a cinematic rumination on fate. It’s not your typical love triangle drama, not least because Song imbues the script (which she also wrote) with a heartfelt and painfully honest examination of the many forms of love. In between, she weaves in her own experience as a third-world child caught between her origin and her present.
2. Hereditary
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After her secretive mother dies, Annie (Toni Collette)’s family starts unraveling under strange and terrifying forces. The deeper she digs, the more she realizes her family history hides something dark. Nightmares turn into reality as her children get drawn into the same twisted fate. What begins as grief turns into a nightmare no one can escape.
Best A24 Films
With its refined storytelling, A-grade acting, and atmospheric visuals, Ari Aster’s directorial debut ushered in the “elevated horror” era. Whereas horror used to be sidelined as B-type films full of cheap jump scares and mediocre production value, late 2010s horror films like Hereditary and Get Out use the medium to achieve grander ambitions. These films have deeper themes and posher treatment, with many critics regularly singling out Hereditary as the pinnacle of it all.
1. Everything Everywhere All At Once
Best A24 Films
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A laundromat owner gets pulled into the multiverse and discovers countless versions of herself. To stop a strange cosmic threat, she has to channel those alternate lives. As she battles kung-fu villains, googly-eyed bagels, and her own regrets, the line between absurd and profound starts to blur. But the real challenge? Figuring out if she can fix her broken family before the universe falls apart.
Best A24 Films
Directorial duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert a.k.a. The Daniels broke convention for what a science fiction and Oscar-winning film could be with this film. Frenetic and unabashedly absurd, the film features unconventional protagonists thrown into such a bizarre circumstance only to explore the generational trauma between a mother and daughter – and I said that with utmost respect. The film not only juggles multiple universes, but also multiple ruminations about the meaning of life. It’s such a wholly original creation that deserves all the kudos it received.
