The 24 Best A24 Movies of All Time, Ranked (2024)

Founded as a distribution/production company in 2012, A24 has steadily built a reputation in the following decade or so, becoming one of the most well-respected and noteworthy distributors in recent memory, if not the most well-respected and noteworthy. A24 is sometimes viewed as more than just a company that distributes and sometimes funds interesting movies, with the sense that there even exists an “A24 style,” for better or worse.

Such a reputation has developed because A24’s been selective in what its name gets attached to, helping to ensure interesting, unusual, and distinctive films reach wider audiences, thanks to partnering and/or working with plenty of fiercely independent, interesting, and often young filmmakers. A24 doesn’t “make” A24 films, exactly, but the company’s vital in distributing and/or producing plenty of modern classics released in the past decade or so. For current ranking purposes, A24 films can include those co-produced or distributed in at least one major territory by A24, with some of the best films attached to the ever-exciting company ranked below, starting with the very good and ending with the genuinely great.

24 'The Green Knight' (2021)

Director: David Lowery

Notable for being co-produced by A24, as well as for that company being its main distributor, The Green Knight takes a centuries-old poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and does something rather weird and interesting with it. Said poem’s already quite strange, sure, but The Green Knight takes the discomforting story and brings it to life with surreal visuals and a depiction of a most unusual adventure.

It's about the nephew of King Arthur setting out on a quest to confront the titular Green Knight following their initial meeting, which involved Gawain decapitating the Green Knight, but somehow not killing him. The Green Knight looks at things like destiny and forging one’s path in the world, all the while telling something of a twisted coming-of-age story. It’s unsettling, haunting, and undoubtedly unique among other films in the fantasy genre.

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23 'The Iron Claw' (2023)

Director: Sean Durkin

Since the start of the late 2010s/early 2020s, it has been more common for A24 to both produce and distribute its own movies, compared to the primarily distribution role it played during its earlier years. So, like The Green Knight, The Iron Claw can be classified as an A24 film in both ways, and it ended up being one of 2023’s most impactful films (though the crowded nature of that year meant it ultimately got snubbed come Oscar season).

The Iron Claw is a biographical film largely based on true events, and also stands as a particularly bleak sports drama, centering on the Von Erich family, mostly on several brothers who are all aspiring to make it as professional wrestlers. Few punches are pulled when it comes to depicting the tragic series of events that befell this family and its seemingly cursed nature, but the important real-life story is thankfully retold both honestly and sensitively.

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22 'Talk to Me' (2022)

Directors: Michael Philippou, Danny Philippou

Talk to Me takes a premise that might sound familiar or even a little by-the-numbers to anyone well acquainted with the horror genre, but thankfully finds a unique way to present said story, not to mention immerse viewers. It’s a supernatural horror movie that works well within a very modest budget, being about an embalmed hand that seems to allow the living to have contact with the dead.

It's not subtle in using this to explore ideas regarding peer pressure and drug use, given the high characters seem to get from using the hand, but Talk to Me touches upon these deeper themes relatively well in any event. Even then, the main draw is the dizzying visual style employed by Danny and Michael Philippou in their feature debut, with the tension and lightning-fast pacing of the story also making Talk to Me unsettlingly easy to fall into.

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21 'Under the Skin' (2013)

Director: Jonathan Glazer

While it was first screened in 2013, Under the Skin didn’t get a wider release until 2014, and was one of the earliest films A24 became attached to, as the company handled the film’s U.S. distribution. It’s a superbly unsettling and unusual science-fiction movie, following an alien creature that disguises itself as a woman and proceeds to target and entrap various men in Glasgow for seemingly sinister purposes.

There are plenty of questions raised throughout Under the Skin, and perhaps fewer answers are given than some viewers might like, but the mystery also adds to the film’s capacity to at first unsettle, and later horrify. Under the Skin is a movie that’ll stick with you, whether you want it to or not, and has immense value for providing an experience like little else out there.

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20 'Pearl' (2022)

Director: Ti West

Ti West’s earliest directorial credits date back to the 2000s, but he’s reached a new level of popularity and acclaim since the start of the 2020s, principally thanks to the X film series, which began in 2022 with X and its prequel, also from 2022, Pearl. Both are among the more exciting horror films released in this decade so far, naturally raising expectations for a third film in 2024, MaXXXine.

Of the two 2022 releases, Pearl is perhaps the stronger film overall, though X should also get an honorable mention. Co-produced and distributed by A24, it’s about the primary antagonist of X, the titular Pearl, back when she was younger, covering the first crimes she committed back in the late 1910s. It’s worth watching for the astoundingly committed central performance by Mia Goth alone, but it’s also just a well-made and unsettling psychological horror film in general, containing one of the most memorable end credits sequences of all time.

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19 'American Honey' (2016)

Director: Andrea Arnold

As some of the previously mentioned and soon-to-be-mentioned films have shown/will show, a good number of A24 films deal with coming-of-age stories or belong to the horror genre. Sometimes, they do both, but when it comes to American Honey, it’s firmly in the camp of the former, being something of an epic about a teenage girl’s journey of self-discovery, alongside a lengthy physical journey.

It's a road trip movie not so much about getting to a destination, but finding one… that might sound corny, but it’s accurate, and American Honey is thankfully grounded and honest enough to never feel cheesy or corny. It’s light on plot, but proves that having interesting characters with interesting arcs is more than enough to cover more than 2.5 hours of runtime, with things like dazzling visuals, a memorable soundtrack, and commendable performances across the board helping American Honey shine, too.

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18 'Green Room' (2015)

Director: Jeremy Saulnier

It’s easy to call a good many well-made thrillers unsettling and disturbing, but Green Room pushes things particularly far by the standards of horror/thriller movies. It’s claustrophobic and frequently terrifying, not relying on gore but nevertheless having some stomach-churning violence used to drive home just how much danger the main characters find themselves in throughout much of the film’s duration.

Green Room is about a punk rock band in a very wrong place at precisely the wrong time, bearing witness to something terrible and, in turn, getting targeted by the perpetrators of the crime in question who want to get rid of any potential witnesses. It’s a film about desperation and savagery, and doesn’t shy away from grisly violence and some truly hateful antagonists. It’s not an easy watch, but it is thoroughly absorbing and perhaps even soul-shattering.

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17 'Midsommar' (2019)

Director: Ari Aster

Ari Aster’s a filmmaker who’s particularly well-linked with A24, with the company co-producing and distributing all three of his feature films released so far, with the most recent being 2023’s Beau Is Afraid. That one was his most ambitious for sure, but his earlier features do go down a little easier… at least comparatively speaking, because those two movies are still traumatic and incredibly disturbing folk horror movies.

The second feature film of his, Midsommar, is one of the most well-known horror movies distributed by A24 so far, and for good reason. It’s eerily well-lit and sunny by horror standards, taking place during the summer solstice, resulting in the sun almost never setting in some regions at this time of the year. Midsommar utilizes the unique visuals that come about from this well, with its slow-burn story about a cult’s attempt to indoctrinate (or kill) various young people being supremely unsettling.

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16 'Lady Bird' (2017)

Director: Greta Gerwig

While Barbie was the first blockbuster success of Greta Gerwig’s filmmaking career, she wrote and directed two fantastic smaller films in the years preceding Barbie, with one of them, Lady Bird, being distributed by A24 in the U.S. It’s a coming-of-age movie that perfectly blends uncomfortably honest comedy with relatable and grounded drama, being about a high school senior trying to graduate in one piece while thinking about what lies next for her, beyond school.

Lady Bird does a fantastic job at covering one young woman’s personal story while also speaking to certain universal truths that come with being a teenager on the cusp of becoming a young adult. It’s an empathetic and extremely well-acted movie, with Saoirse Ronan (in the titular role) and Laurie Metcalf (as Lady Bird’s mother) being the two standouts.

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15 'Eighth Grade' (2018)

Director: Bo Burnham

Released one year after Lady Bird, Eighth Grade scratches a similar itch without feeling redundant, also balancing comedy and drama while telling the story of a young girl struggling with being a student. However, Eighth Grade deals with the unique struggles that come with being a student in the age of social media, not to mention also covering the life of a girl who’s about to start high school, as opposed to the title character of Lady Bird, who was finishing it.

Eighth Grade was directed by Bo Burnham, who’s best known for his unusual, hilarious, and also kind of heavy stand-up specials, and that’s the genre he’s tended to stick to when it comes to his directorial credits (directing his own specials and some for other comedians, including Jerrod Carmichael and Chris Rock). This 2018 film showed huge potential, though, with Burnham showing keen skill as a feature film writer/director, and it hopefully won’t mark the last time he directs a feature film.

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14 'C'mon C'mon' (2021)

Director: Mike Mills

Joaquin Phoenix has consistently appeared in a range of interesting and unique films within the past decade or so, making it safe to say that his post-I’m Still Here years have been remarkably fruitful. He’s been active enough as an actor that some of his best recent roles have kind of flown under the radar, with C’Mon C’Mon unfortunately doing just that, not really doing much beyond impressing critics and those who tried to seek it out, given it didn’t even make back its $8.3 million budget.

Still, it’s great it exists in any event, because it’s a heartfelt and exceedingly well-acted movie with a simple premise, following a man looking after his nephew because of struggles going on in the lives of the young boy’s parents. It’s moving without ever being sappy, Phoenix and child actor Woody Norman are both phenomenal, and the black-and-white presentation helps in giving the whole film a unique style/atmosphere.

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13 'The Zone of Interest' (2023)

Director: Jonathan Glazer

Taking a story set during World War II and doing something wholly unique with it, The Zone of Interest saw Jonathan Glazer return to feature filmmaking for the first time in 10 years, with his previous film being the aforementioned Under the Skin. Both Under the Skin and The Zone of Interest are unconventional and extremely unsettling, but in very different ways while belonging to vastly different genres.

The Zone of Interest is a Holocaust drama, but purposefully shows nothing by way of scenes inside any concentration camp, even with the majority of the movie taking place in a house built just outside Auschwitz. It’s a movie about willfully ignoring atrocities and the oddly mundane lives people responsible for great acts of evil can live, shedding light and commenting not just on the Holocaust, but other large-scale acts of violence that have been committed by powerful people/states in the decades since.

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12 'The Lighthouse' (2019)

Director: Robert Eggers

As far as arthouse movies go, The Lighthouse might actually be one of the more approachable, even though it is undeniably odd, unconventional, and startling at times (all by design, of course). It blends psychological drama, dark fantasy, crude humor, and intensely surreal horror all at once, telling the story of two lighthouse keepers slowly going mad on the tiny island they’ve both been made to live on.

It's a wild film, and the kind that feels like a rollercoaster in all the best ways, going from tense, to creepy, to hilarious, and then continuing to cycle through all these emotions (and more) from scene to scene. You never really know quite where The Lighthouse is headed, and while some might find that frustrating, those who are open to slightly unusual horror movies will likely find the whole experience thrilling.

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11 'Ex Machina' (2015)

Director: Alex Garland

Alex Garland’s working relationship with A24 kind of mirrors Jonathan Glazer’s, in some ways. Similar to how Under the Skin was distributed by A24 in the mid-2010s before A24 produced/distributed a later war film of Glazer’s (The Zone of Interest), Garland’s Ex Machina was a sci-fi movie, and the director later had his own (admittedly different) war movie, Civil War, produced/distributed by A24 almost a decade later.

Of the various films Garland has directed since Ex Machina, arguably none have been quite as great, with Ex Machina succeeding as a small-scale but thematically ambitious sci-fi/psychological drama film about artificial intelligence. It takes well-worn sci-fi ideas and narrative beats and finds thankfully fresh and interesting places to take them, being well-written, tightly paced, and thrillingly unpredictable from start to finish.

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10 'Marcel the Shell with Shoes On' (2021)

Director: Dean Fleischer Camp

No one will deny that Pixar, at least for a while, was the king of producing near-perfect animated movies, but by no means does the company have a monopoly on such films, as demonstrated by the heartwarming, funny, and moving Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. It’s a rare family-friendly movie distributed by A24, following the titular character – a tiny shell – as he tries to find the members of the community he once belonged to.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is told with a mockumentary style, feeling surprisingly realistic and making it easy to believe that Marcel is a real, living being. It’s a simple but incredibly creative movie, and one would have to have a pretty close-to-dead heart to be able to resist the charming qualities offered by such a film.

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9 'Good Time' (2017)

Directors: Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie

Whether or not you have a good time while watching Good Time will depend on how well you can handle extremely stressful movies, because this one rightly has a reputation for being one of the most nerve-wracking releases in recent memory. It’s a crime/thriller/drama film, and narratively revolves around a criminal’s desperate attempts to get his younger brother out of jail, following a robbery that went disastrously wrong.

While the Safdie Brothers had made some well-regarded films before Good Time, and Robert Pattinson had starred in a handful of non-Twilight movies, this 2017 film did ultimately reshape perceptions about what the Safdies were capable of as filmmakers, and what Pattinson was able to do acting-wise. The film is relentless and extremely well-made on a technical front, and Pattinson is astoundingly good in the lead role, with it being apparent that everyone involved in the making of Good Time was at the top of their respective games.

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8 'The Farewell' (2019)

Director: Lulu Wang

The Farewell was co-produced, distributed, and released by A24 in the same month as the aforementioned Midsommar, but is an entirely different sort of film. It’s a family drama with some comedy helping things from getting too upsetting, but it does end up being fairly honest about – ironically – dishonesty and generational divides, being about the members of a family who learn their grandmother’s been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and decide to keep it from her.

Exploring the farcical ways they try to hide this information while also showcasing the emotional toll it takes on the younger members of the family, The Farewell ends up being one of the most impactful dramedies in recent memory. It’s a quiet and gently-paced movie, but ends up being truly impactful, and the balancing act between its humorous and tragic moments is achieved exceptionally well.

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7 'Minari' (2020)

Director: Lee Isaac Chung

Even though it had its wide release during the COVID-19 pandemic, Minari ended up being a moderate success at the box office, considering its budget, while also receiving critical acclaim and six Oscar nominations, with Youn Yuh-jung winning Best Supporting Actress. It’s a movie about a Korean-American family trying to live out the American dream, struggling with the cultural differences between Korea and America but nonetheless continuing to persevere.

Minari might not sound exciting on paper, but it stands as an example of how to ideally execute a small-scale drama movie, emerging as a highlight of the 2020s so far, in the process. It’s slow, in some ways, but always emotional and very involving, and is also the kind of movie that gradually pulls you in and eventually ensures you forget you’re watching actors on screen.

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6 'Moonlight' (2016)

Director: Barry Jenkins

Moonlight is significant for being the first movie distributed/co-produced by A24 that ended up winning Best Picture at the Oscars, alongside also winning Best Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney). It’s a coming-of-age drama that showcases three stages of life for its central character, Chiron, seen in the film as a young boy, then a teenager, and, finally, a young man.

It explores themes surrounding masculinity, Black identity, and sexuality, covering a great deal of ground both emotionally and in terms of the timespan depicted throughout the film. Moonlight is personal and small-scale, but also achieves something of an epic feel thanks to everything it sets out to cover, balancing everything well and being one of the most striking cinematic character studies of the past decade or so.

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5 'Hereditary' (2018)

Director: Ari Aster

Though Ari Aster has continued making feature films beyond 2018, namely the aforementioned Midsommar and Beau Is Afraid, his first feature film, Hereditary, remains his best work to date. Going by global box office earnings, it was the biggest hit financially of the 2010s for A24, with the company being responsible for its distribution alongside co-producing it, marking the start of a beautiful friendship between Aster as filmmaker and A24 as distributor.

It is quite surprising that Hereditary became relatively popular, though, because even though it’s extremely high-quality as far as horror movies go, it’s also horrifically confronting and ultimately depressing, especially thanks to its unflinching exploration of grief and trauma. It’s a gut-wrenching drama that becomes more and more of a horror movie as it goes along, and while it’s a tough watch, it is one of the greatest works of horror of its decade.

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