A24: The best of the cult studio's films ranked, from Moonlight to Lady Bird

Independent

12-04-2025

There are few companies across the entire entertainment industry that evoke more brand loyalty than A24.
Over the past decade, the hip distributor has taken the world of film fanatics by storm, releasing a host of the most acclaimed indie films in recent memory, among them Aftersun, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Midsommar, The Zone of Interest and Ti West's X trilogy.
While the phrase 'an A24 film' has almost become a term with a specific set of stylistic connotations, the fact is that the company has released a multitude of different films, spanning all sorts of styles and genres.
From coming-of-age comedies to sweeping period epics, here are the 15 best A24 movies ranked...
15. Climax (2018)
A great workout playlist disguised as a grimy, slimy psychosexual thriller, Gaspar Noé's Climax plays out in a series of long takes (one is 42 minutes long), with a troupe of French dancers spiralling out of control after imbibing spiked sangria. Like the best of Noé's films (among them the 'stoner in film class' fave Enter the Void and the distressing Irreversible), Climax is practically designed to be divisive, and its striking mix of horror, psychedelia and pure aesthetic razzle-dazzle make it peak A24. Adam White
14. Under the Silver Lake (2018)
Another divisive A24 cult classic, Under the Silver Lake tends to inspire groans as often as it does praise – and that's really OK! Filmmaker David Robert Mitchell seemed to be given creative carte blanche after the success of his 2014 micro-budget horror It Follows, and voila: a chaotic, romantic neo-noir conspiracy tale that wears its inspirations, notably Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, on its sleeve, tosses in a great fake-band song ('Turning Teeth' by the fictional Jesus & The Brides of Dracula), and boasts an irresistibly committed performance by Andrew Garfield as an aimless Los Angeleno investigating his neighbour's disappearance. What a weird, wondrous pleasure. AW
13. The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)
Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth was the first answer to the decades-old hypothetical, 'What would a Coen film be like if Joel and Ethan separated?' (The second answer was, Ethan's 2024 romp Drive-Away Dolls.) This Macbeth is a pretty compelling answer, and remains one of the best, and most cinematic, Shakespeare adaptations put to screen. Denzel Washington is magnificent as the scheming king-to-be, while Frances McDormand sizzles as his poisonous paramour. Louis Chilton
12. Eighth Grade (2018)
Heartbreakingly honest when it comes to coming-of-age, Eighth Grade is anything but easy viewing. We follow young Kayla (a revelatory Elsie Fisher) as she transitions between years in school, her fears and anxieties rising to the surface while she desperately attempts to mask them. The specificities here – vlogging, iPhones, the internet – feel decidedly of the 2010s, but there's a universal melancholy to Eighth Grade that will strike a chord with audiences of any age. Shamefully, director Bo Burnham – a graduate of internet comedy – has yet to make his follow-up feature. AW
11. The Brutalist (2024)
Brady Corbet's architecture epic was a frontrunner for many of the major 2025 Academy Awards, and will partially be remembered as the film that birthed the most interminable Best Actor speech of all time (Adrien Brody's). Thankfully, The Brutalist is sure to be remembered for other things too: it's a film of staggering ambition, rich in meaning and audaciously stylish. It's one of the best films A24 has released, and one of the best films in recent memory. LC
10. Janet Planet (2023)
While A24 has certainly increased its commercial aspirations in the last year or two (most notably via films including Alex Garland's Civil War and indistinct horror comedies such as Death of a Unicorn and Opus), they are also a company still eager to make films like Annie Baker's tender, intimate Janet Planet. Zoe Ziegler is the quiet 11-year-old of the title, a girl trapped in a cycle of odd father figures and endless existential yearning courtesy of her mother (a spellbinding Julianne Nicholson). AW
9. Lady Bird (2017)
Greta Gerwig's debut feature as a solo director is a charming and specific coming-of-age story following 17-year-old Sacramento misfit Christine 'Lady Bird' McPherson (Saoirse Ronan). It's by turns funny, moving, world-wise, and wonderfully shot, with Laurie Metcalf turning in career-best work as Lady Bird's combative mother. This is the movie that really put Gerwig on the map as a filmmaker; it's no less than she deserved. LC
8. High Life (2018)
High Life is an utterly unique sci-fi drama from French maestra Claire Denis. Robert Pattinson plays a prisoner on board a spaceship bound for a black hole, alongside Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth and Andre 3000. Some clunky, stylised dialogue only heightens the weirdness of this film, which is all things to all people: vibrant, tactile, philosophical, sexually perverse and even, at times, quite moving. LC
7. Hereditary (2018)
Much like Robert Eggers's A24 folktale The Witch – which just missed a spot on this ranking – Hereditary felt like the birth of an incredibly special horror visionary. Ari Aster's haunting and genuinely scary feature debut revolves around a fractured family (led by Toni Collette and Gabriel Byrne) seemingly cursed by ancient evil. The film travels to ghoulish places consistently, notably in a shock end-of-act-one plot twist involving a telephone pole that entirely upends where you think Hereditary is going. AW
6. 20th Century Women (2016)
Mike Mills's 2016 drama is a warm hug of a film, bursting with such lived-in feeling that it wouldn't be too surprising if you burst into tears repeatedly while watching it. Annette Bening is the free-spirited yet overbearing, wise yet drifting single mother determined to raise her young son right at the tail end of the Seventies, and roping in friends and lovers to help her. AW
5. Under the Skin (2013)
Jonathan Glazer boggles the mind. The British director has made just four films – each of them a masterpiece and each entirely distinct from what's come before. Under the Skin is an arthouse horror starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien who assumes the appearance of, well, Scarlett Johansson in order to lure randy Scottish men into some kind of lair. It's a completely singular piece of work, endlessly inventive and both emotionally and philosophically profound. LC
4. American Honey (2016)
British filmmaker Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank; Red Road) turned her attention to US poverty with American Honey, a vivacious and poignant film about love on the road. Then-newcomer Sasha Lane is utterly transfixing as Star, a teenager who flees her home to join a band of travelling magazine hustlers. (Shia LaBeouf, as her rough-and-tumble love interest, gives an unexpectedly brilliant performance too.) There is life in every crevice of this film: a total triumph. LC
3. Moonlight (2016)
It's still remarkable that Moonlight, from a then-unknown director named Barry Jenkins and a nascent film studio with only so much awards campaign money to their name, won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2017. But it's deserving of its acclaim in every frame, this being a richly human triptych of tales in the coming of age of a gay Black man from childhood to adulthood. Sensationally acted and absolutely gorgeous to look at, it's deservedly something of a modern classic at this point. AW
2. I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw the TV Glow revolves around two teenage loners drawn together by an alluring fantasy series – a Buffy -like Nineties horror hit – and finding their own lives mirroring its strange, surrealist twists. Primarily, though, it's about growing up trans, and the trauma of ultimately living a life that doesn't fit right. This is dazzling, beguiling filmmaking, Schoenbrun conjuring a dream-like suburban fantasia full of purple neon, moon men and Caroline Polacheck wailing on the soundtrack. Glorious. AW
1. Uncut Gems (2019)
A film with tension so thick that you'd need a machete to cut through it, Josh and Benny Safdie's Uncut Gems is the story of Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), a New York diamond dealer consumed by his chaotic gambling addiction. It's brilliant and transformative work from Sandler, in service of one of the funniest, tensest, and altogether best films the 21st century has yet produced. LC