Staff Inquiry: Favorite A24 Films

A24 may be less than a decade old, but it’s already become an indicator of excellence, ingenuity, and intrigue. Part of that is due to its savvy social media presence; the distribution and production company has built a fan base all its own, taking advantage of modern film culture to get people excited for topics as varied as period folktales and middle-aged ennui.

It’s been a fascinating thing to watch, and like many film fans, its methods have sparked lots of conversations among Film Inquiry’s writers. What’s undeniable is how many great movies they’ve put out, which means there’s more than enough for us to dedicate a staff inquiry to. So here they are, some of our favorite films from A24.

Tynan Yanaga – The Spectacular Now (2013)

I cannot claim to know A24 before they were cool. However, in 2013, when I became aware of them one could say they were still on the cusp of their extraordinary run. The Spectacular Now was the movie that made me take note. At face value, it’s a strange choice but there was something exceptional on display. It’s no secret coming-of-age stories are a guilty pleasure of mine, but this YA adaptation from Michael Weber and Scott Neustadter, of (500) Days of Summer fame, was unlike anything I had seen up to that point.

The characters of Sutter and Aimee, played by Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley – placed against the high school backdrop – felt akin to people I had actually known. Their story didn’t feel as beholden to typical tropes of the ‘80s and ‘90s nor the similarly gimmicky premises of year-end parties or nabbing the perfect girl. Instead, it unravelled in meaningful ways full of authentic human relationships fraught with relevant issues of adolescence.

In those days, I was convinced Woodley was going to be one of the biggest names around, and though I wasn’t wrong, it was actually Brie Larson (featured in a supporting role), who overtook her. Regardless, 6 years later, they’re all stars. In a fitting footnote, Roger Ebert penned one of his final reviews on The Spectacular Now, putting words to my very feelings:

“What an affecting film this is. It respects its characters and doesn’t use them for its own shabby purposes. How deeply we care about them…Teller has a touch of John Cusack in his Say Anything period. Woodley is beautiful in a real person sort if way, studying him with concern, and then that warm smile. We have gone through senior year with these two. We have known them. We have been them.”

Monique Vigneault – 20th Century Women (2016)

When I think of indie production studio A24, the film that always springs to mind is Mike Mills’ dazzling portrayal of bohemian sisterhood in 20th Century Women. While A24 continues to release and churn out brilliant and original films, 20th Century Women sticks with me because of Mills’ uniquely cinematic homage to his unconventional mother and the late seventies counterculture.

Starring Annette Bening as beatnik single mother Dorothea Fields, the film centres around her struggle to raise her fatherless son, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) in 1979 Santa Barbara. Dorothea enlists the help of two women, Abbie (Greta Gerwig), an art school dropout from New York, and Julie (Elle Fanning), Jamie’s crush. Together, the two women become unlikely mentors, helping a hesitant Dorothea raise Jamie.

Mills uses his memories of that era as a narrative device, splicing clips of Casablanca, Talking Heads songs, and stills of the period into the film. In a 2016 interview Mills said, “I’m still convinced that memories are incredibly untrustworthy things. They shift. They change.” Mills’ film results in a tapestry of the hippie generation, and with the help of D.P. Sean Porter’s dreamy cinematography, leaves moviegoers soaked in nostalgia. Above all, it’s a touching homage to the women who raised him.

Jake Tropila – Under the Skin (2014)

It’s hard to believe that in the span of six short years, A24 has emerged from independent art film distributor to awards season juggernaut. I, for one, fondly recall the halcyon days of the company’s early years, long before they became a Film Twitter punching bag. They released films like Spring Breakers, The Rover, and Slow West, all of which felt tailor-made for me and my sensibilities. But the absolute best of the bunch has got to be Jonathan Glazer’s undisputed masterpiece: 2014’s Under the Skin.

Yes, the film that depicts Scarlett Johansson as a frequently nude space alien who has fallen to Earth, David Bowie-style, to absorb the bodies of horny men in a seemingly endless void of black goo remains A24’s finest hour. And I won’t just argue it as their best film; I genuinely believe this is the greatest film of the last five years. Abstract, beguiling, stunningly gorgeous, and just downright terrifying, Under the Skin has continued to haunt me until this day.

A plot synopsis would do the film no favors, as it’s not a film that’s concerned with plot. No, it’s the form of Under the Skin that resonates with the most. This is only Glazer’s third feature, but he shows a supremely confident hand when crafting the picture’s most indelible set pieces (a trip to the beach and the frequent returns to Johansson’s Black Room are the stuff that nightmares are made of). There is tremendous beauty in his lensing, but the real showstopper is Mica Levi’s ethereal score, a perfectly hair-raising and unnerving atmosphere of dread that lends Under the Skin its distinctive fingerprint. At the time of this writing, the film is streaming on Netflix. Shut off your phone, turn out the lights, and crank up the volume. You won’t be sorry.

Kristy Strouse – Ex Machina (2015)

A24 has a variety of genre-bending, thought-provoking features, so it isn’t an easy pursuit to decide which is my favorite. Especially when you consider Oscar-nominated (and winning) films like Moonlight and Room, and horrors like The Witch and Hereditary that are wholly original and standout. I could go on naming all of the ones that have left a distinguishable impression, but I’ll leave that to the other writers. Still, one movie that always seems to find its way into my brain is Ex Machina.

Take out the fact that it is a sci-fi movie combining AI and the human response, we’ve also got Oscar Isaac, scruffed up and completely pompous, mentoring Domhnall Gleeson. They are both magnetic, and despite a limited setting, their scenes are all engaging.

Really though, Ex Machina is a wonderfully shot, expertly written, thrill-ride of a movie. Alex Garland really crafts something unique here. It’s a psychological experiment, weaving in the many reoccurring themes of identity, connection, and playing god, all while testing how it applies to a robot. A curious and dangerous one at that.

Also, Alicia Vikander is a revelation.

A24, you spoil us.

Linsey Satterthwaite – A Ghost Story (2017)

I am not entirely sure if favourite A24 film is the right way to describe how I feel about A Ghost Story. However, it is the film from their formidable output that as soon as I hear anyone mention it or if I catch a glimpse of the image of Casey Affleck’s cloaked ghost, immediately the hairs on my neck prickle and a wave of beautiful sadness washes over me. So this makes it pretty darn special in my book.

Thematically and visually, on the surface it looks like a simplistic tale of love lost and an actor draped in a child’s basic representation of what a ghost would look like. But this is the beauty of the film, how it manages to produce so much emotion from what is basically a sheet with two eye holes. As it traverses time and space, it poses big questions about mortality, of life, and whether it is worse to be the one who remains on earth without their love or to be the one that has left the world it knew but must remain wandering through the ages until they find a form of peace.

A Ghost Story is a film which broke my heart, its sense of malaise building from scene to scene, compounded by an achingly beautiful score and some arresting imagery. And just as I thought all hope was lost, it delivered a final shot that made my heart swell and literally took my breath away, haunting my cinematic dreams for eternity.

Alistair Ryder – Under the Silver Lake (2019)

When A24 were established, they were far more known to produce clunkers than hits – they may have brought Jonathan Glazer’s bewitching masterpiece Under the Skin to the US as one of their earliest efforts, but they did also subject audiences to Kevin Smith’s Tusk, to name the most critically reviled offender (which, to my eternal discredit, I will defend). Flash forward to 2019, and A24 are now critical darlings with a built-in fanbase, thanks to wonderful awards favourites like Moonlight and Lady Bird, and more challenging arthouse fare like First Reformed and High Life.

For a certain type of film fan, their logo at the start of a film is a signifier that the movie you’re about to see is of the highest possible quality – and, annoyingly, it seems that they’ve started believing their own hype and are choosing to hide any film they produce that isn’t heralded with instant acclaim.

David Robert Mitchell‘s Under the Silver Lake isn’t my favourite A24 film, but it’s the one that most desperately needs to be championed due to how poorly the studio have handled its release. Initially scheduled for a June 2018 release, a divisive reaction at Cannes saw the studio push it to December, before unceremoniously pushing it to April and opting for a low profile VOD dump instead, by which time it had already been available online for months due to its international release in the summer 2018, as originally planned. A24 want to be seen as creators and distributors of challenging independent fare – but only if those films are rapturously received from the offset.

I can’t deny that a company throwing Yorgos Lanthimos and Claire Denis films into middle American multiplexes is a net force for good, but their confusion about handling a movie that isn’t embraced with open arms has only become more pronounced over time. For a company that released a Kevin Smith horror movie based on a podcast gag as one of their first major efforts, it’s almost depressing the lengths they will now go to wash their hands of anything that doesn’t have a fresh rotten tomatoes score.

As for Under the Silver Lake? This is one of the boldest, imaginative American films of the past few years, an unexpectedly timely (and frequently hilarious) satirisation of men who define their lives around meaningless conspiracy theories that feels especially prescient in the QAnon era. If only A24 gave it the release it deserved.

Mark McPherson – Enemy (2014)

Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy is easily the director’s most surreal and uneasy picture, existing in a yellow-stained nightmare of Jake Gyllenhaal trying to fathom why he has a doppelganger. We meet Gyllenhaal first as the history professor Adam Bell, but see him again when Adam rents a movie and discovers that the actor Anthony Claire looks and sounds exactly like him. Both are terrified of each other and don’t know how to explain this strange similarity in their identities.

That’s a confounding enough mystery, especially when their lives mix with relationships and troubled personalities, but it’s made all the more bizarre by the presence of spiders both small enough to squash and tall enough to loom over cities. Villeneuve always keeps the film ambiguously alluring with its mounting tension and eerie staging that crawls into the mind and lingers long after, where the final creepy shot is sure to spur a debate on what the real deal is with doppelgangers and spiders.

The refusal from Villeneuve to fully define the reality of Adam and Anthony’s chaos makes the dissection of the picture all the more intriguing and exciting to comprehend.

Janet Lee – Green Room (2016)

With a sweet runtime of just 90 minutes, this thriller gets right to business in the grittiest and nastiest sense. It’s laced with wit and dark humor revolving around a punk band held hostage at a neo-Nazi skinhead bar in the woods outside of Portland. Unapologetic on its violence and gore, the film carries a quick-witted pace that definitely keeps you on your toes. It doesn’t mess around. Prepare for some machete, box cutter, gun, and dog-hunt action. Not to mention, lots of duct tape.

Green Room carries a stellar cast featuring Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots (a total badass in this), Alia Shawkat, and Patrick Stewart as the cold-hearted villain and alpha dog. Stewart is a cool cucumber. His remorseless and quiet brutality is chilling and makes him a superb antagonist to push the narrative and its characters to extremes. Yelchin leads his clan in the most real and admirable sense. He reflects the naivety yet boldness of youth and pretty much any common man thrown into such a crazy situation.

It’s one of those unfortunate instances of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. The band’s odds are thin, so they share their true desert island bands before waging war on their lives. Director and writer Jeremy Saulnier crafts an intimate, harsh, and creative story in an isolated place that only draws us in further until there’s no going back.

But it isn’t all drama and thriller; it’s ingrained with a smart script scattered with just the right amount of humor and intelligence, making it a refreshing film you can scream and laugh to without looking like a masochist.

Green Room is currently available on Netflix.

Maria Lattila – Hereditary (2018)

A24’s Hereditary arrived in cinemas with hype like no other. Reports from Sundance several months earlier called it the scariest film ever, and there was absolutely zero plot points available. I would read all the reviews I could find, thinking I could crack the film, guess what’s going to happen and somehow get ahead of it all.

And then that glorious Friday night arrived and I was sitting in that lush red chair, almost shaking from excitement. I’ll be honest. I was disappointed.

It was a strange film, completely traditional and unique at the same time. I didn’t quite get it and it most certainly wasn’t the scariest film I’d ever seen. I felt robbed of an experience. I was so desperate to see the best horror film ever that I let the hype get to me and I was disappointed.

Yet, the film lingered in my mind. Toni Collette’s brilliantly physical performance and immense dedication to the role, Ari Aster’s very particular vision and meticulous direction, the sound design… I realised I appreciated it more for its mysteries, its commitment to characters, and the ever-building, relentless sense of terror it bestowed upon me. While I might not have felt scared in the cinema, I felt empty inside and completely drained by the film for weeks on end.

Hereditary might not be particularly scary, but it’s downright terrifying. Somehow that’s worse, which is better in this case, if you know what I mean. I still can’t go to bed without checking all the corners in my ceiling for a shadowy figure. Hereditary left me with severe trust issues, and I thank it for that. I can still watch it and find something new to throw my anxiety levels through the roof.

Brent Goldman – The Florida Project (2017)

I love films that kick you right in the gut. Perhaps no A24 film better embodies this than Sean Baker’s The Florida Project. Following Moonee around her Orlando motel-turned-home for the summer is a deeply emotional and moving look at the reality of life just outside of Disney’s magic.

Top to bottom, it’s full of hyper-realistic performances that hit you right in the heart. To begin with, it’s one of Willem Dafoe’s strongest performances in a career full of them. His character, Bobby, has so much heart and wants so much to help Halley and Moonee wherever he can. He doesn’t want to be the bad guy, but sometimes he has to lay down the hammer. It’s a complex character that’s brought to life with a precision only Dafoe can bring.

Even more impressive than Willem’s performance was what Baker was able to get out of Bria Vinaite as Halley and mostly Brooklyn Prince as Moonee. These two non-professional actresses have such chemistry and deliver such immersive performances, you’d think they actually lived the lives of their characters. To get that type of realism from Prince, especially as a child, is an increadible feat.

A24 has a catalogue of gorgeous movies, but perhaps none is as vivid in color and cinematography as The Florida Project. It feels uniquely Florida throughout. The cheap feel and bright pink of the building feels like it’s masking the chipped away lives the characters live. Director of Photography Alexis Zabe’s work bringing their world to life is simply masterful.

But when we get to it at a deeper level, The Florida Project embodies what A24 does so well. It’s an all-too-real look at people we often overlook and don’t think about. The scene where the well-off couple on their honeymoon come to the motel to discover exactly what it is sums up the movie so well. It’s a look at class differences, family, and people just trying to make ends meet. It encapsulates what makes A24 special – they’re willing to tell stories others don’t see or value.

Patrick Crossen – Swiss Army Man (2016)

“If you don’t know Jurrasic Park, you don’t know shit.” In the summer of 2016, I popped over to my favorite local Pittsburgh theatre to see a movie (hi, Manor Theatre in Squirrel Hill!). And then Paul Dano started singing. And then I was hooked.

Swiss Army Man represents A24 doing what it does best; telling stories about people so that we can better understand ourselves. It’s a story that forces introspection on the viewer. It might be because the film is a quasi-musical, churning along with drum-driven, atmospheric acapella masterpieces composed by Andy Hull. The songs throw us into a whirlwind of thoughts about life and home. They’re stripped down to drums and vocals, inherently human expressions of music, because they can be used without the aid of electricity or physical instruments. The ground can be a drum if you stomp hard enough, and your voice can carry any tune that a trumpet can, and that’s what Swiss Army Man taps into.

As the film is largely about Dano’s Hank re-teaching Daniel Radcliffe’s Manny about humanity, you realize that the film is a tribute to all of the incredible things that humans are capable of (from Jurassic Park, to falling in love, and Cotton Eyed Joe). While it remains an introspective film about loneliness, Swiss Army Man serves a tribute to humans and how wonderful it is to be one.

From Radcliffe’s impressive physical performance as a dead/not dead corpse (how does he know exactly how a corpse would walk?) to Dano’s self-conscious loser-turned-survivor, the two performances carry the film all on their own and deserve to be remembered. As Manny rides off into the sunset out at sea, you don’t worry about whether or not any of it was real. You just know that for that hour and a half, you saw human connection. And Swiss Army Man thinks that’s the most beautiful thing in the world.

Zoe Crombie – Eighth Grade (2018)

Eighth Grade, in my opinion, is not the best A24 film. It doesn’t have the cultural significance of Moonlight, the quotability of Lady Bird, or the precision of Hereditary. But as it’s the closest a film has come to reflecting my own experiences as a teenage girl, I have to count it as my favourite.

Elsie Fisher as Kayla is perfection. A protagonist mainly characterised by the fact that she’s 14 years old and completely insecure in herself, Fisher conveys with very little dialogue the constant self-judgement and reflection that occurs at that age, and refreshingly, actually looks like a 14-year-old girl. Casting 20-somethings as teenagers has been an issue in the genre for years, generating even more self-image problems amongst the demographic they’re representing, and I’m glad to see Bo Burnham refusing to take this route.

Speaking of Burnham, the wisdom and beauty in his direction is astounding for a debut feature. With intimate cinematography and a detailed production design, he perfectly captures Kayla’s interiority as well as the casual cruelty and banality of the world around her. Not only this, but he was also responsible for likely my favourite shot of last year: the camera pulling out of a dark room where a swimsuited Kayla looks out, revealing the smiling teens splashing under the sun in a pool beneath her. This one image perfectly encapsulates the main theme of the film – the crushing feeling of wanting to fit in where you can’t belong.

Eighth Grade is a godsend for any teen who feels alone, and mandatory viewing for anyone who doesn’t understand the plight of being a young woman in the 2010s.

Michael Colbert – Gloria Bell (2019)

If Gloria’s on the run now, Gloria Bell certainly fits the bill.

Sebastián Lelio’s film Gloria Bell kicked off 2019 on an A24 high note. Julianne Moore and John Turturro deliver stellar performances, riddled with middle-aged awkwardness and stubbornness as they discover dating when they’re set in their ways.

Key to their relationship is their differing family structures, and one of the beauties of the film is its portrayal of Gloria’s mixed family. Gloria and her husband have been divorced for years. At her son’s birthday party, where her son’s wife is absent and finding herself on the road, where her daughter is pregnant and unmarried and will soon move to Sweden to follow the father, Gloria finds herself at ease with her family and with Arnold by her side–until Arnold finds discomfort in the situation and walks out. Yet, Gloria does not back down and suggest they’re incompatible because she’s insensitive in flaunting her family and not understanding his, structurally intact though emotionally fraught one. Instead, Gloria’s family is presented as something that can be normal and healthy.

Just when you think Gloria has found what she’s looking for, she finds something else that can bring her joy. When she uncomfortably slinks through upward facing dog at her daughter’s yoga class, she settles into laughing yoga another day and dances with new men at the singles club where she sways and twirls in her sequin dress under the neon pink and blue lights. Julianne Moore is at her best, and the film lights and costumes her world to offer an optimistic and empathetic portrayal of middle age, perhaps a fifty plus answer to Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade.

Alexia Amoriello – American Honey (2016)

Some of my all-time favorite films are from A24, but none have had quite as deep an impact on me as Andrea Arnold’s American Honey. It seems like a simple story about an adolescent girl who joins a group of misfits traveling the country selling magazines, but it’s so much more than that. Arnold’s nonjudgmental direction leaves it up to viewers to discover their own meaning in the film. To some it’s “just a long road trip movie”, but to others it’s something extraordinary.

American Honey feels so authentic and raw. For an English filmmaker, Arnold depicts life in America with more honesty than some American directors ever have. She captures the exuberance of youth as well as the desperation that comes with chasing after the American dream.

The cast has undeniable chemistry. Sasha Lane makes an impressive debut. Shia LaBeouf delivers a career-best performance. Riley Keough is magnificent as always. Plus, the supporting cast has such specific quirks that bring their characters to life.

American Honey has a killer soundtrack, even if you aren’t into rap, hip hop, or country music. It made me a fan of songs I used to never care for. Three years later and I still listen to the soundtrack constantly.

Robbie Ryan’s cinematography turns the mundane into a work of art. From a Kmart parking lot to a sleazy motel, every frame is bursting with color. The film conveys emotions with images more than dialogue. It remarkably portrays those quiet in-between moments of everyday life. Sometimes it’s helping animals and insects because you find it easier to relate to them than other people. Other times it’s singing along with a group of friends and realizing you don’t feel so alone anymore.

Those are our favorite movies from A24. What are yours?