Ranking The Greatest A24 Movies Ever Made
Bold, Unsettling And Totally Unforgettable
A24 has built a name for itself by being quirky yet relatable, blending horror, humor, and heart with ease. Over the years, the studio has explored countless genres, and today it stands among the biggest production houses in Hollywood. Here are some of the best A24 movies that define its unique identity.
25. Spring Breakers (2012)
This was one of the first films to put the A24 brand on the map. A neon-drenched, candy-coated nightmare, it follows four college students on a spring break trip that descends into a fever dream of crime. It's a hypnotic, provocative, and unforgettable critique of youth culture, featuring a truly bizarre performance from James Franco.
24. Under the Skin (2013)
Scarlett Johansson is an alien entity disguised as a woman, driving a van around Scotland and luring unsuspecting men to their doom. This is abstract, chilling, and visually stunning sci-fi horror. It’s a film you don't just watch, but experience—a truly unsettling masterpiece of atmosphere and dread.
23. Green Room (2015)
A punk band takes a gig at a remote neo-Nazi skinhead bar, only to witness a murder. What follows is a brutal, relentless, and claustrophobic siege thriller. Green Room is a masterclass in white-knuckle tension and practical, visceral violence, anchored by a fantastic final performance from the late Anton Yelchin.
22. A Ghost Story (2017)
A man (Casey Affleck) dies and returns to his home as a classic "sheet" ghost, forced to watch as time and the woman he loves (Rooney Mara) move on without him. It’s a divisive, high-concept, and deeply melancholic meditation on time, love, and existence. It's famous for its long, unbroken pie-eating scene, but its emotional weight is what truly endures.
21. X (2022)
Ti West’s loving homage to 1970s slasher films is a grimy, stylish, and incredibly fun ride. A group of amateur adult filmmakers rents a guesthouse on an isolated Texas farm, only to be terrorized by its very, very old-fashioned owners. It’s a smart, gory, and surprisingly layered take on the genre that kicked off a whole trilogy.
20. Pearl (2022)
Filmed in secret at the same time as X, this prequel is a technicolor-soaked character study of the villain, Pearl. Mia Goth delivers a tour-de-force performance, channeling The Wizard of Oz into a terrifying portrait of ambition and madness. Her climactic, 9-minute monologue is one of the most incredible feats of acting in modern horror.
19. Eighth Grade (2018)
No film has ever captured the excruciating, universal awkwardness of being 13 in the 21st century better than this. Elsie Fisher gives a painfully authentic performance as Kayla, a shy girl navigating the last week of middle school. It’s a deeply empathetic, funny, and cringe-inducing film that feels less like a movie and more like a documentary of our worst memories.
18. The Lobster (2015)
In a dystopian near-future, single people are sent to a hotel where they must find a partner in 45 days or be turned into an animal of their choosing. This is the film that defines A24's "quirky, deadpan, and deeply weird" side. It's a brilliant, bizarre, and hilarious satire of modern romance and societal pressure.
17. The Green Knight (2021)
A breathtaking and psychedelic adaptation of the 14th-century poem. Dev Patel stars as Sir Gawain, who embarks on a surreal quest to fulfill his side of a bargain with the mysterious Green Knight. It’s a visually stunning, ambiguous, and powerful meditation on honor, temptation, and the nature of courage.
16. Talk to Me (2023)
The breakout horror hit of 2023. A group of Australian teens discovers that a severed, embalmed hand allows them to conjure spirits, leading to the most terrifying party game ever. It's a relentlessly scary, modern, and practical-effects-driven nightmare that proved A24 still has the best eye for original horror.
15. Good Time (2017)
A grimy, neon-soaked, and panic-inducing crime thriller. Robert Pattinson is electric as Connie Nikas, a small-time bank robber on a desperate, one-night journey through the New York underworld to free his brother from jail. The propulsive synthesizer score and relentless pace make this feel like a 100-minute anxiety attack.
14. Ex Machina (2014)
A sleek, intelligent, and deeply claustrophobic sci-fi thriller. A young programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) is invited to the isolated home of a tech billionaire (Oscar Isaac) to perform a "Turing test" on an advanced AI (Alicia Vikander). It’s a smart, three-handed play that's part sci-fi, part psychological horror, with a now-iconic dance scene.
13. Room (2015)
This devastating and ultimately uplifting film earned Brie Larson her Oscar for Best Actress. She plays "Ma," a woman held captive for seven years, who raises her 5-year-old son, Jack, in a single, locked shed. It’s a powerful story of survival and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the bond between a parent and child.
12. Minari (2020)
A tender and beautiful story of a Korean-American family who moves to a small farm in Arkansas in the 1980s to pursue their "American Dream." It's a deeply personal and heartfelt film about resilience, faith, and family, featuring an Oscar-winning performance by Youn Yuh-jung as the unconventional, scene-stealing grandmother.
11. The Florida Project (2017)
Set in the shadow of Disney World, this film follows a mischievous 6-year-old girl, Moonee, living with her rebellious mother in a budget motel. The film is a vibrant, heartbreaking, and empathetic look at childhood innocence and poverty, featuring a career-best performance from Willem Dafoe as the motel's long-suffering manager.
10. Aftersun (2022)
This quiet, subtle debut is one of the most emotionally devastating films of the decade. It's a story told through the hazy, sun-bleached memories of a young woman (Sophie) looking back on a vacation she took with her father (Paul Mescal) 20 years earlier. It's a film about the moments you don't understand until it's too late, and it is absolutely heartbreaking.
9. Past Lives (2023)
A profoundly moving and mature look at love, fate, and the lives we almost lived. Two childhood friends from South Korea reconnect two decades later in New York, spending one fateful week together. It’s a beautifully subtle, bittersweet, and deeply human film that avoids easy melodrama in favor of a much more powerful, quiet truth.
8. Midsommar (2019)
Ari Aster's follow-up to Hereditary is a film that's just as disturbing, but in broad, Scandinavian daylight. A grieving woman joins her terrible boyfriend on a trip to a Swedish midsummer festival that is not what it seems. It's an epic, sun-drenched, folk-horror masterpiece about a toxic relationship and a truly horrific "breakup."
7. The Lighthouse (2019)
Two lighthouse keepers (Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe) in the 1890s are trapped on a remote, storm-lashed island and slowly descend into madness. Filmed in black-and-white and a claustrophobic aspect ratio, this is a wildly original, darkly funny, and mythic horror film, powered by two titanic performances. "HARK!"
6. The Witch (2015)
"Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?" Robert Eggers' feature debut redefined horror. A Puritan family, banished to the edge of a dark wood, is terrorized by a supernatural evil. With its period-accurate dialogue, oppressive atmosphere, and bone-chilling commitment to its folklore, this is a terrifying and revolutionary piece of filmmaking.
5. Uncut Gems (2019)
The most stressful two hours in cinema history. Adam Sandler gives a career-best performance as Howard Ratner, a gambling-addicted jeweler whose entire life is one long, chaotic, and terrible bet. It's a propulsive, high-anxiety masterpiece that doesn't let you breathe for a single second until its shocking, perfect conclusion.
4. Hereditary (2018)
This isn't just a horror movie; it's a two-hour-long panic attack that feels like a Greek tragedy. After a family death, a grieving mother (Toni Collette, in an all-time-great performance) watches as her family is torn apart by an insidious, inherited evil. It's a deeply unsettling, emotionally raw, and relentlessly terrifying masterpiece.
3. Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
The film that defines A24's boldest ambitions. What starts as a story about a laundromat owner (Michelle Yeoh) being audited by the IRS explodes into a maximalist, multiverse-hopping, sci-fi/kung-fu/family-drama epic. It's wildly inventive, hilarious, deeply moving, and an Oscar-sweeping phenomenon that proved a small, weird, heartfelt film could conquer the world.
2. Moonlight (2016)
A24's first Best Picture winner is a transcendent, poetic, and profoundly moving masterpiece. Told in three chapters, it follows the life of Chiron, a young Black man, as he grows up in Miami and grapples with his identity, sexuality, and place in the world. It is a stunning, intimate, and important piece of American cinema.
1. Lady Bird (2017)
Greta Gerwig's solo directorial debut is a perfect, heartfelt, and hilarious coming-of-age story. Saoirse Ronan is Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson, a high school senior navigating college applications, first love, and her fiercely loving, equally stubborn mother (Laurie Metcalf). It's a flawless film about the complicated love between mothers and daughters.
