Since it first emerged as a studio roughly a decade ago, A24 has become synonymous with a certain level of prestige and quality. And within that studio’s brand, part of the appeal has been its emphasis on making horror movies that feel genuinely interesting for one reason or another.
When you watch an A24 horror film, you know you’re going to be compelled, even if you don’t always like the final result. We’ve pulled together some of the best A24 horror movies the studio has to offer and listed them below.
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Hereditary (2018)
128m
Genre
Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Stars
Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Gabriel Byrne
Directed by
Ari Aster
Watch on Amazon
Making your horror movie all about trauma is a little bit overplayed at this point, but Hereditary is like a little ball of trauma thrown right at the audience. The film tells the story of a family in the wake of its matriarch’s death as they deal with the horrific legacy of what she left behind. Director Ari Aster knows exactly how to mine this movie for all the tension it contains, and Hereditary leans heavily on Toni Collette’s outstanding central performance in order to curdle your insides as tightly as they’ll go.
Talk to Me (2023)
95m
Genre
Horror
Stars
Sophie Wilde, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird
Directed by
Michael Philippou, Danny Philippou
Watch on Amazon
A movie that is great because so many of its sequences are, Talk to Me follows a group of teenagers who discover a mummified hand that allows them to commune with the dead. What initially seems like a fun party game quickly turns into something far more sinister, though, when they realize that they don’t have as much control of the possessions they’re experiencing as they might have believed. Anchored by one particularly virtuosic sequence near the middle, Talk to Me is a down-and-dirty story about possession, and it’s excellent precisely because it knows what it is.
X (2022)
106m
Genre
Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Stars
Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Brittany Snow
Directed by
Ti West
Watch on Amazon
A riff on ’70s slasher films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, X follows a group of young people who are making a X-rated movie in the middle of Texas under the eyes of hosts that seem to be entirely absent from their sprawling farm. After the elderly couple who live on the farm discover that their young guests are being naughty, though, they find themselves fighting for their own survival. Featuring some gnarly kills, sharp direction from Ti West, and a great central performance from Mia Goth, X was the start to a trilogy of fascinating movies.
Saint Maud (2020)
85m
Genre
Horror, Mystery, Drama
Stars
Morfydd Clark, Jennifer Ehle, Lily Frazer
Directed by
Rose Glass
Watch on Amazon
Morfydd Clark is now dazzling us on The Rings of Power, but before that, she was playing the titular character in Saint Maud. Maud is a reclusive young nurse who’s a devout Christian and finds herself caring for a dancer who is now in hospice. As Maud learns more about her patient, she becomes convinced that she has to do whatever it takes to save her soul before it’s too late. Saint Maud is riveting in large part thanks to Clark’s central performance, and to the tension that builds from the moment the movie starts to its wonderful, jaw-dropping conclusion.
Pearl (2022)
102m
Genre
Horror, Drama
Stars
Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright
Directed by
Ti West
Watch on Netflix
Mia Goth was great in X, but its sequel Pearl allowed her to show off her abilities to their fullest. This prequel to X follows the old couple from that film while they are still young and impressionable. Set against the backdrop of World War I, we see exactly how Pearl’s desires and her repression turned her into someone who eliminated any and all contradictions from her life. Pearl is less terrifying than X but more unsettling, and it’s great precisely because it’s much less of a straightforward genre exercise than its predecessor.
The Witch (2016)
92m
Genre
Drama, Mystery, Horror, History
Stars
Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie
Directed by
Robert Eggers
Watch on max
A period piece that makes it crystal clear why everyone was so afraid of witches, The Witch follows a family of New England puritans who are ex-communicated from their community because they are simply too religious. Building a new life for themselves near a patch of woods, the family quickly finds that they are beset by what appears to be a witch living somewhere nearby. As the family’s children are possessed, it becomes increasingly clear that the devil is at work on their land, and they must do whatever it takes to keep him away. It’s a brilliant, harrowing movie that features a star-making turn from Anya Taylor-Joy.
Green Room (2016)
95m
Genre
Horror, Crime, Thriller
Stars
Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Patrick Stewart
Directed by
Jeremy Saulnier
Watch on Amazon
Green Room is the kind of movie that some people can only stomach once, but it’s well worth watching no matter how strong your gut is. The film tells the story of a punk rock band who finds themselves at a Nazi bar in the middle of nowhere. When one of the band members witnesses an act of violence, the entire band find themselves in danger as the Nazis seek to eliminate all evidence of the crime. The radical violence of Green Room is unsettling, but part of the movie’s appeal is that it feels like real life in all of its terrifying specifics.
It Comes at Night (2017)
91m
Genre
Drama, Horror, Mystery
Stars
Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo
Directed by
Trey Edward Shults
Watch on max
Great horror movies are sometimes ideal in part because of everything they don’t show us, and It Comes at Night falls into that category. Set in a world that has ended for mysterious reasons, the movie follows two families that have to share a single house to protect themselves from the dangers just outside their door. Trey Edward-Shultz is a master of tension, and he manipulates the audience beautifully as he creates a unique horror movie that alienated some fans, but left others enthralled.
