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Founded in 2012, A24 is an American independent film studio which also specializes in TV production. Since bursting into the indie scene, they have slowly accumulated fame and popularity (not to mention high-profile Academy Awards victories), to the point that they have nowadays become one of the most important representatives of Hollywood independent cinema.
The studio is characterized for granting its filmmakers with artistic freedom, yet most of their movies share some hard-to-explain similarities—A vibe, if you will. As such, it’s always fun to discover films which may feel like they were produced by A24, but actually weren’t.
A Gruesome Climb Out of Hell — ‘Mandy’ (2018)
Mandy, starring Nicolas Cage in one of his best modern roles, is like a slow descent into hell and a bloody, grueling climb out of it. It’s about Red Miller (Cage), a broken man who chases after the cult that killed the love of his life. Be warned, the clip below contains graphic content, prevalent throughout Mandy.
A24 loves to produce visually stunning horror films full of color like Midsommar and Climax, as well as endowing these stories with a sense of mystery and a slow-burn rhythm. Mandy checks all those boxes and more, delivering a thoughtful and contemplative but also loud, gory, and over-the-top movie about doomed love.
Who Will Earn the Queen’s Favor? — ‘The Favourite’ (2018)
Known for his absurdist writing and bizarre style, Yorgos Lanthimos and A24 are pretty much a match made in heaven. The Favourite, one of his best-known films, follows the rivalry between a pair of cousins (Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz) as they compete to become the favorite of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman).
The film has a strangely pleasing visual aesthetic, an engrossing story, fascinating performances, and sharp humor that’s more than eccentric, qualities that you can see in many A24 productions. The fact that this isn’t one is as weird as the movie itself.
Beauty Is Vicious — ‘The Neon Demon’ (2016)
Nicolas Winding Refn‘s The Neon Demon is a riveting horror film about an aspiring model who, after moving to L.A., has her youth and vitality devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women.
Many A24 films seek to redefine the boundaries of cinema as an art form, and to bring traditional conceptions of beauty into question. As such, it may come as a surprise that this movie, which is a study and critique of beauty and aesthetics, was not produced by the famous independent studio.
Don’t Regret, Remember — ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ (2019)
Yet another famous Hollywood independent film studio, NEON has for years been producing countless movies that give off strong A24 vibes. But if one had to pick only a handful that did so most prominently, then Céline Sciamma‘s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, about a female painter who has to do the wedding portrait of a young woman, would definitely be up there.
The film is a gorgeous and contemplative LGBT romantic drama with cinematography as beautiful as its protagonist’s portraits, a deliberately slow pacing, and a character-focused narrative that often bends its own limits, reminiscent of A24’s Oscar-winning film Moonlight.
She Did *What* to That Car?! — ‘Titane’ (2021)
Titane is another NEON production, without a doubt one of its weirdest. It’s a stylish and surrealist drama about a former firefighter (Vincent Lindon) who’s reunited with his son (Agathe Rousselle) after he’d been missing for 10 years. Then again… Is he his son? Or is there something much stranger going on?
Titane is an experience that simply must be seen in order to be believed. It’s about two lonely, fractured souls who come together to ease each other’s pain; it’s about fatherhood, sexuality, and femininity, and it’s an absolutely mind-bending film that’s simply impossible to forget.
In this Oscar-nominated film, a drummer begins to lose his sense of hearing, and he has to come to terms with the silent future that lies ahead of him.
Sound of Metal is a film as empowering as it is heartbreaking, which can be said about many A24 movies as well. It definitely has that cozy indie feel, along with marvelous performances (led by Riz Ahmed), a complex story, and a pushing of cinema’s boundaries as an art form in the shape of one of the best sound designs in any film of the 2000s.
What Are The Limits of Love? — ‘Her’ (2013)
Spike Jonze‘s beautiful sci-fi romantic drama is the story of Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), a lonely man who begins to fall in love and start a relationship with a newly developed operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson.
A24 movies love to ponder on themes like human nature and the characteristics of love, so Her feels like a film that’s right up their alley. It can sometimes get a bit bizarre, which is perfectly fitting for the studio in question; but, at its core, it’s a bittersweet little movie about loneliness, comfort, and love.
A Summer by the Italian Waterside — ‘Call Me By Your Name’ (2017)
Yet another LGBT romantic drama that would feel right at home among A24’s lineup of movies, Call Me By Your Name chronicles the fleeting romance that blossoms between a teenager on the border of adulthood (Timothée Chalamet) and an older man (Armie Hammer) hired as his father’s research assistant.
The setting of northern Italy makes for a beautiful backdrop for this sweet but ultimately sad love story, where the characters move poetically around the story and help the themes slowly develop.
He Prepared Them for Everything Except the Real World — ‘Captain Fantastic’ (2016)
Captain Fantastic may sound like a superhero film, yet it’s anything but. It’s actually a film about a father raising his six children in isolation in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, and the troubles that arise when he has to assimilate them back into society after a tragic event.
Viggo Mortensen gorgeously plays the lead role, and the supporting cast is fantastic. The movie feels like one of A24’s quirkier, less overwhelming outings. It’s a super endearing film about fatherhood, masculinity, and learning to move past trauma.
Famed But Tormented — ‘At Eternity’s Gate’ (2018)
What, if not a NEON film, could have been worthy of being considered the most A24-like movie that wasn’t actually produced by the studio? Julian Schnabel‘s At Eternity’s Gate follows Vincent van Gogh (played by Willem Dafoe) as he spends the final years of his life in France, painting masterpieces of the world that surrounds him.
The movie is as hauntingly beautiful as one of Van Gogh’s paintings, an absolutely enrapturing and stylishly poetic exploration of the deepest corners of a man’s fragmented soul. It’s a love letter to Vincent, to art, and to cinema itself. Although it isn’t an A24 movie, it’s more than worthy of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the studio’s best films.
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