A24 has managed something genuinely rare in world cinema. It has built a horror catalogue that refuses to follow genre rules in any conventional sense. Since the studio began operations in 2012, it has consistently backed filmmakers carrying a clear artistic vision rooted in slow dread, folk terror, and psychological disintegration. The result is a body of work that has redefined what the genre can achieve.
Not every entry in the catalogue lands with equal force, however. Much like a player experimenting with a jetx game who gradually learns which bets carry real tension and which fall entirely flat, watching through the studio’s catalogue reveals a clear spectrum of quality. Some films stay lodged in the mind for weeks together after viewing. Others fade before the credits finish rolling.
- The Masterclass Tier
Hereditary (2018)
Hereditary remains the high point of A24 horror and arguably one of the finest horror films of this century. Ari Aster builds dread through grief and family dysfunction before detonating into something genuinely nightmarish in the final act. Toni Collette delivers one of the most committed performances in recent memory, as she carries the film through its quieter passages with a raw intensity that makes the supernatural feel earned rather than merely imposed on the story.
The Witch (2015)
Set in 1630s New England, the story traps a Puritan family in a landscape that seems actively hostile, with paranoia spreading from within long before any supernatural force confirms their worst fears. The language, the costumes, and the bleak cinematography all work together to create an almost oppressive sense of historical authenticity that very few period films have ever achieved.
Midsommar (2019)
Aster returned here with a film that accomplishes something very few horror movies manage: almost the entire runtime unfolds in broad daylight. The Swedish folk rituals, the floral costuming, and the communal warmth of the Harga village create a persistent dissonance that never fully resolves itself. Florence Pugh gives a grief-soaked performance that lends the horror genuine emotional weight.
- Deeply Effective but One Step Below
The Lighthouse (2019)
Shot in black and white, in an almost square aspect ratio, with two actors and one location. This is a hallucinatory descent into madness, maritime mythology, and masculine ego in equal measure.
Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson are extraordinary together, and the film rewards repeat viewings with new interpretive layers surfacing each time. Eggers demonstrated here that formal constraint can function as its own distinct variety of horror.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Yorgos Lanthimos applies his signature deadpan style to a story of supernatural revenge, and the result is profoundly unsettling throughout. The deliberately flat dialogue amplifies rather than deflates the horror of what unfolds onscreen, and the imagery stays lodged in the brain long after the film has ended.
Talk to Me (2023)
The Philippou brothers turned a viral premise into one of the most viscerally effective horror films in some years. A severed embalmed hand that allows its user to channel the dead sounds almost comedic when summarised, but what the film actually understands is that the scariest element is not the entity on the other side of the ritual. It is the person who simply cannot stop reaching for the hand.
Saint Maud (2019)
A quiet, claustrophobic study of religious mania and loneliness set against the grey English coastline. The film never fully allows the audience to decide whether Maud is receiving genuine divine communication or simply unraveling under guilt and isolation. The ambiguity is very much the point, and the final image stands among the most striking in recent horror cinema.
- The Middle Ground
X and Pearl (2022)
X, set in 1979 Texas, is a slasher film that knows its genre history well and plays with it cleverly and affectionately. Pearl, the prequel, leans into melodrama and camp, with Mia Goth delivering an unhinged performance that earned genuine awards consideration. Together they form a satisfying double feature, though neither quite reaches the top tier of A24 horror.
It Comes at Night (2017)
Trey Edward Shults made a film that horror audiences felt genuinely deceived by, and the backlash was swift and vocal. Marketed as a monster film, it is actually a chamber drama about fear, isolation, and the collapse of trust between two families sheltering from an unnamed plague.
- The Lower Tier
Men (2022)
Alex Garland is a skilled filmmaker, and Men does contain individual sequences of real power. The central metaphor, in which a woman is pursued by various manifestations of the same man across a rural English village, is applied so bluntly that it eventually collapses under the weight of its own symbolism. The finale tips from provocative into something closer to self-parody.
Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
This is a sharp, funny satire of Gen Z social dynamics that works considerably better as dark comedy than as horror in any proper sense. The kills are largely incidental, the mystery resolves in a manner that deliberately undercuts tension, and while it is enjoyable and well-acted throughout, it is not particularly frightening by any reasonable measure.
MaXXXine (2024)
The third film in Ti West’s X trilogy suffers from noticeable diminishing returns. Set in 1980s Hollywood, it carries style in abundance but very little of the emotional grounding that made the first two films genuinely work. Mia Goth remains watchable throughout, and the period detail is impeccable, but the film feels like a conclusion written without any clear destination in mind.
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
Aster is an extraordinary filmmaker, and Beau Is Afraid is the most personal and ambitious thing he has made to date. It is also, at nearly three hours, genuinely exhausting to sit through.
The film functions as a surrealist nightmare about anxiety, maternal guilt, and the impossibility of escape, never once pretending to offer resolution or comfort to its audience. Admirable in conception and punishing in execution, it sits at the bottom of this list not because it fails as art but because it demands far more than most viewers can reasonably give.