15. Mandy (2018)
I’m not just includingMandybecause the entire film is tinted red—a smoky, hypnotic, blood red at that. I’m including it because itfeelslike an A24 film due to director Panos Cosmatos’s approach to horror.
When a fantasy artist (played by Andrea Riseborough) is kidnapped by the Children of the New Dawn, Red Miller (played by Nicolas Cage) hallucinates his way to crushing their skulls and avenging his wife.
What could be more A24 than an artistic main character, creepy religious cults, and LSD?Mandyis basically the masculine midnight twin to the floral daylight of A24’sMidsommar!
Related:The Most Visually Striking Movies With Standout Color Palettes
14. Bait (2019)
A vintage, hand-cranked Bolex camera using 16mm film? For that alone,Baithas A24 written all over it… until you realize it was made by the British Film Institute (BFI), which makes a lot more sense.
It is, after all, very British and was filmed on-location in a Cornish fishing town. Small-town fishing is probably the furthest topic you’d expect experimental filmmakers to tackle! Yet, here we are.
Mark Jenkin finds the tension in humdrum life, exposing gentrification in a boxy aspect ratio that transcends time while also constructing an homage to the past.
A minimalist black-and-white drama that’s so authentic that you’ll be able to feel the sea air wafting off of it,Baitis akin to A24’sThe Lighthouseminus all the scary mermaids and famous cast members.
Related:The Best Modern Black-and-White Movies
13. Beach Rats (2017)
The eccentricities, daring grossness, and woke exploration of societal hierarchies are what makeTriangle of Sadnessanother A24 shoo-in. Spoiler alert! It’s actually not. And neither isBeach Rats.
BothTriangle of SadnessandBeach Ratsstar Harris Dickinson in the roles that finally made A24 turn and cast him inThe Iron Claw.
ForBeach Rats, director Eliza Hittman practices artistic realism in her wandering coming-of-age tale set on Coney Island, packed with grainy images, real-time scenes, fuzzy close-ups, and a distinct lack of music.
She finds the homoerotic in the hypermasculine withBeach Rats,as Hittman explained in so many words, which is oh-so-A24.
12. Sound of Metal (2019)
In the space of two years, Riz Ahmed starred in two A24-esque fictional biopics.Sound of MetalandMogul Mowgliboth feature passionate musicians who are stopped in the tracks of their budding successes by serious, debilitating physical ailments.
InSound of Metal, it’s hearing loss for avant-garde metal drummer Ruben Stone. InMogul Mowgli, it’s a degenerative autoimmune disease for British-Pakistani rapper Zed.
AlthoughMogul Mowgliis more artistically new wave with a thematic undercurrent of religion and dual identity,Sound of Metalis more famous. And since A24 is ultimately a mainstream favorite, I’m picking Darius Marder’s deaf drummer drama for this list.
Related:The Best Movies About Musicians
11. Nope (2022)
When combined, Jordan Peele and Universal Pictures end up looking a lot like A24 in the films they produce.
Jordan Peele’s own film production company—called Monkeypaw Productions—is responsible forGet Out,Us, andNope, suggesting that Peele would fit comfortably alongside Ari Aster and Robert Eggers in A24’s list of best horror directors.
AlthoughGet Outis the best of Peele’s horror films,Nopeis the one that comes across as the most A24-ish. Heavy on motifs, gorgeously shot in desert plains on 65mm Kodak film, and potentially requiring a Google search once the credits roll,Nopejust screams A24.
Related:The Best Horror Movie Directors, Ranked
10. Raw (2016)
A24 feeds off all things weird, bloody, neon-lit, and coming-of-age.Rawis all of those elements as it centers on a freshman protagonist who develops a taste for human flesh while at veterinary school.
Which is all the more ironic because Justine (played by Garance Marillier) begins the movie as a vegetarian!
If you get woozy at the sight of blood and gore, you should steer clear of Julia Ducournau’s primal French masterpiece, which feels a lot likeSuspiriahazed in rabbit kidneys.
But if you like this one and want yet another A24-esque film featuring teenage cannibalism, check out Luca Guadagnino’sBones and All, which combines body-eating with young love.
Related:The Best Movies About Cannibalism
9. Titane (2021)
French cinema seems to love freaky female horrors that scare away any notion of crowd-pleasing. A24 is much the same, which is why it’s so surprising thatTitanewasn’t produced by them (if you ignore the fact that A24 is an American company, anyway).
That being said, is it French cinema that loves female horrors or is it just Julia Ducournau, who gave us bothRawandTitane? The second female filmmaker to win a Palme d’Or, Ducournau directs Agathe Rousselle as a showgirl named Alexia who gets pregnant after having sex with a car.
An erotic body horror where a motor baby isn’t even the weirdest bit, Alexia is also a serial killer who pretends to be someone’s missing son. It’s hard to get weirder than this one, but in a good way!
Related:The Best Body Horror Movies
8. Honey Boy (2019)
“You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t pay you” is a heartbreaking line for a son to utter to his dad, but it’s exactly this kind of relationship that the famously hot-headed actor Shia LaBeouf had with his own father.
Shia LaBeouf wrote about his child-star upbringing forHoney Boy, then played a fictionalized version of his alcoholic dad in it.
Alma Har’el turned the semi-autobiographical script into an A24-like masterclass in dramatic atmosphere, combining artist with subject without any self-indulgence.
Related:The Best Movies About Father-Son Relationships
7. All of Us Strangers (2023)
Every year, film buffs spit out their angry lists of Oscar snubs that should’ve been nominated. This year,All of Us Strangerswas one of them, generating huge buzz with only four actors and a handful of locations: a house, an apartment building, a club, and the London underground.
Andrew Scott plays a troubled, nostalgic writer whose depression is lit by a new lover (played by Paul Mescal). The two of them became TikTok’s most recent bromance obsession, but like in A24’sAftersun, Paul Mescal is headed for an ambiguously tragic end in this one.
Related:The Best Bromance Movies
6. The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
It feels like some actors were born for A24 roles. Just look at Robert Pattinson (The Rover,Good Time,High Life,The Lighthouse), Lucas Hedges (Lady Bird,Mid90s,Waves), and Colin Farrell (The Lobster,The Killing of a Sacred Deer,After Yang).
Barry Keoghan also comes to mind as a frequent A24 actor (The Green Knight,The Killing of a Sacred Deer) and partaker in A24-like roles (Saltburn,Calm With Horses).
So what do you get when you combine Colin Farrell and Barry Keoghan? An utterly original black comedy calledThe Banshees of Inisherinthat sweeps us away with gorgeous backdrops, cryptic characters, and a bizarre plot that perfectly embodies the spirit of A24!
Related:The Best Movies About Depression, Hopelessness, and Despair
5. Her (2013)
There’s something aboutHerthat feels a bit like Sofia Coppola’sLost in Translation, the iconic film that leaves an A24-esque impression.
That’s because Spike Jonze madeHeras a direct response to his ex-wife Sofia Coppola’s post-divorce movie. The similarities are tangible, but the two films are wholly different side-by-side.
Scarlett Johansson stars in both films, playing the wandering tourist in Sofia Coppola’s lonely Tokyo and voicing the AI-driven virtual assistant girlfriend in Spike Jonze’s tender romance-drama.
The urban space inHeris bright, airy, and pastel compared toLost in Translation’s hazy city lights, and the fact thatHerwas made around the time of A24’s conception means it wins this spot on this list.
Related:The Best Movies About Loneliness and Feeling Lonely
4. Drive (2011)
You might think Ryan Gosling is a little too much of a Hollywood heartthrob for the abstract currents of A24. However, he’s played his part in a handful of indie (or indie-feeling) movies, includingHalf Nelson,Lars and the Real Girl, andBlue Valentine.
ButDriveis the most A24-like of the bunch, priding itself on few words, captivating drama, and sleek visuals.
Sure, Gosling still plays a good-looking, bad-boy getaway driver, but Nicolas Winding Refn delivers the story in a genre-defying tone that blends passive viciousness with tender substance. Plus,Drive’s use of its blood budget feels more like A24 than it does a blockbuster.
Related:The Best Ryan Gosling Movies
3. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Perhaps France ought to have their own branch of A24 from the way they keep cropping up on this list. The stillness ofPortrait of a Lady on Fire, its carefully framed cinematography, and its deliberate use of color and sparse dialogue all make it a surefire stand-in for A24.
Written and directed by Céline Sciamma, this period romance depicts the forbidden love between two 18th century women. There’s so much attention to detail in this film, and artist Hélène Delmaire even painted 16 hours a day on set, mimicking the scenes.
However, it’s not all style over substance inPortrait of a Lady on Fire. Rather, the stylereflectsthe film’s substance, in the same way that Delmaire’s paintings reflect the actors' blocking.
Related:The Best Movies About Art and Painting
2. The Favourite (2018)
Auteur filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos was put on the map by A24, with his role in the so-called Greek Weird Wave overlapping the film company’s knack for all things pretty and strange.
It’s no wonder that so many people mistakenly thought A24 was responsible forThe Favouritewhen it released to critical acclaim. With its black humor, homoerotic undertones, and dazzling period set design, surely this is an A24 film? Nope!
As it turns out, Film4 Productions, Element Pictures, and Searchlight Pictures all had a hand in the success ofThe Favouriteas well as Lanthimos’s next film, the surreal comedy-dramaPoor Things.
Related:The Best Movies About Royalty
1. Call Me By Your Name (2017)
A24 has a very modern attitude to filmmaking, which is unsurprising since they’ve only been around 12 years. This modern sensibility is why all the films on this list are recent, primarily between 2017 and 2019.
Founded by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, and John Hodges, A24 hasn’t just paved the way for all kinds of atypical films to flourish, but it’s also been a safe haven for filmmakers to explore gay love stories.
So, when you see an artsy film about a same-sex couple, it’s easy to presume that it’s a film by A24—as many did withCall Me By Your Name, the Oscar-winning slice-of-life romance, directed by Luca Guadagnino.
If I had to pick just one film that represents everything A24 without actually being an A24 film? It’d have to beCall Me By Your Name.
Related:The Best Slice-of-Life Movies
More A24-Like Honorable Mentions
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