A24 has become known for producing deep, introspective indie films that feel different from Hollywood’s usual fare, and in turn, has developed its own set of fans that are hype to watch whatever they put out next. It’s pretty unique for a film production company to gain such a large and loyal fanbase, so what exactly is it that makes A24, A24?
This is a company that’s only been making movies for around a decade, and in that time it’s punched well above its weight. As well as acquiring a cult status in and of itself, several of its films — Ari Aster’s Hereditary, Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, and The Daniels’ Everything, Everywhere, All At Once — have gained that level of acclaim on their own. They’re not wedded to any one genre, still follow a reasonably traditional release model, and never really seem to miss. All this in a landscape where low to mid-budget movies are increasingly hard to come by.
So, what’s their secret? And what are they doing that other production companies could or should be doing to give us a healthier, more diverse, and more interesting mainstream cinematic landscape?
Here’s our take on A24, the common threads that run across all their films, and why it’s made them so successful.
CHAPTER ONE: THE FLAWED PROTAGONIST
So often A24 gives us complicated, messy, sometimes explicitly unlikable protagonists, and invites us to understand and empathize with them. While it’s not one of their better-known movies, their debut release did this with at the time one of culture’s most infamous actors — Charlie Sheen in Roman Coppola’s A Glimpse Inside The Mind Of Charles Swan III. While playing up to his public persona, the film mines that furrow deeper, exploring the character’s breakdown and his desire to get his life back on track. It illustrated how the company was completely in touch with the zeitgeist but also wanted to look at it from a slightly different angle.
Dream Scenario, a recent release starring Nicholas Cage, finds Paul, a biology professor, inexplicably popping up in the dreams of people all over the world. What follows is an exploration of the true toll of viral fame. In life, Paul is generally passive and dull, but his behavior in the dreams – and people’s reactions to it – begins to shine a spotlight on his deeper flaws as well. The film uses this surreal scenario as an opportunity to unpack the price of being in the limelight in our ultra-connected era.
This attitude towards flawed protagonists is also exemplified in its first two real breakthrough movies — Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers and Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring. Both films utilized the star power of people we were used to seeing in very different roles. Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens shed their Disney channel image for Spring Breakers, while Emma Watson was no longer the goody-two-shoes Hermione in The Bling Ring. But at the same time, they were still accessible, exciting pieces of event cinema, helmed by recognizable and successful names. The Economist explained that this was part of their mission statement from the jump, to “challenge preconceptions about high-quality storytelling,” and “champion auteurs with unique stories to tell and work that might appeal to young cinephiles.”
One of A24’s most critically acclaimed films so far is Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, and with Chiron, we again get this focus on a complex, relatable, flawed protagonist This works so well in the film because we see the character develop over years. The shy, unloved child in the first act; the gangly teenager in the second; and the tough-yet-vulnerable man in the third, who himself feels like a callback to Mahershala Ali’s character from the beginning of the film. Despite him doing things that we may be tempted to judge out of context — assaulting a classmate, becoming a drug dealer — the fact we get a full picture means we never do. And instead, we focus on the one constant in his life, the burgeoning romance between him and Kevin, and how they find each other again as adults.
This is so refreshing because it deliberately plays against the hero/villain archetype that is so present in mainstream cinema right now. Christine in Lady Bird, Ivan in Locke, Mikey in Red Rocket — these characters do bad things, make mistakes, and have to deal with them. But by focusing in on stories like this, everything feels grounded in a relatable reality. This focus on character is always their base. And then from there, they can move off into interesting directions.
CHAPTER TWO: THE HORROR REVIVAL
If there’s one genre that A24 has become associated with, it’s horror. But in particular, it’s a kind of horror that had previously been edged out of mainstream cinemas. A24’s horrors dispense with the tired tropes of slasher movies and jump scares, and instead mine our deepest traumas, and find the horror amongst them.
Talk to Me sees a group of teens experimenting with an Ouija-like game– where the sudden rush of spiritual possession is played as a new party drug. The story parallels the dangers of naively experimenting with harmful substances and how quickly they can consume you. Talk to Me doesn’t aim for cheap thrills or easy kills, it instead depicts the harrowing grip of addiction - both how it can develop to cover existing grief, but also how it creates a new pattern of destruction for the user and everyone around them, as Mia spirals out of control.
In Saint Maud, the horror all comes from nurse Katie’s experience of having tried to save a dying woman’s life and failing. Her proximity to death, and her being defeated by it, completely changes her. She goes from Katie to Maud, becomes a devout Christian, and speaks of having these spiritual experiences. But what’s so tense in watching it is we don’t know whether this is Maud going through some sort of psychological breakdown, or whether she has somehow blurred the boundary between this life and the next. In Bodies Bodies Bodies, the tropes of the horror genre are more recognizable. We have a group of young, beautiful people engaging in reckless behavior who then begin to fear that there is a killer in their midst that’s coming for them. But rather than solely relying on jump scares, the film zooms out and uses this conceit as a way to explore the gen-z condition and the anxieties of that generation — not least climate change, given the whole reason they’re at the party in the first place is to shelter, and perhaps disassociate, from an oncoming hurricane.
The filmmaker propping up this horror revival is undeniably Ari Aster, who with Hereditary and Midsommar has created two of the most iconic horrors of the modern day, both of which are underpinned by feelings of grief and loss. Much like Saint Maud, in Hereditary, there is this tension between life and death that becomes more and more unsettling as Annie begins to try and commune with her dead daughter. Rather than these moments being poignant or cathartic, instead they become frightening and uncomfortable, as the experience pushes Annie more and more into a state of madness. In Midsommar, it’s Dani’s grief having lost her entire family that is the most pronounced, and what pushes her into becoming indoctrinated into the Hårga commune. What’s particularly interesting in this film is how it deliberately challenges a lot of horror conventions. It takes place almost entirely in beautiful, blistering sunlight. The commune feels almost idyllic. But by creating this initial sense of calm and serenity, the horror elements feel all the more shocking and pronounced.
These horrors never undercut the genre, but instead attempt to understand what makes it work, and how it can be a frame for stories of loss, trauma, and psychological fear.
CHAPTER THREE: NEW VOICES
What’s most refreshing about A24 is how they’ve flooded cinema with a host of new directorial voices and new acting talent. Not only that, but they’ve given them implicit trust, allowed them to develop and tell their own stories, and taken on a role as creative collaborators, rather than dictators. Director Harmony Korine spoke about how rare this is in cinema, saying: “Hollywood is run by accountants at this point. And so anytime you speak with someone who’s not a pure accountant, is not a pencil pusher, it’s exciting. They had heart to them.”
Celine Song enamored audiences with her feature directorial debut Past Lives, a romantic drama about the ebb and flow in the relationship between childhood friends as distance, life, and personal choices pull them apart. New directors, particularly women, and especially women of color, are so seldom given the opportunity to tell their own stories, and so A24 providing this kind of space is vital.
Robert Eggers is one of A24’s biggest success stories. His first two features for the company, The Witch and The Lighthouse, both quickly became cult favorites, not only critically acclaimed but remixed through countless memes of Black Phillip, living deliciously, and Robert Pattinson and Willem Defoe duking it out on an isolated lighthouse. Both films feel quite consciously slow, methodical, allowing Eggers the space and time to get inside the minds of his characters and see what makes them tick. And while they are formally quite different, you still get this auteur-driven look at a world that is chaotic, where the folklore and myth still hold real power.
They have also shown a willingness to push beyond what is typically expected of an independent film studio, and the kinds of films those studios make. Directorial duo Daniels began their career with the esoteric, warm-hearted love story Swiss Army Man, which did feel like it bore the hallmarks of the kind of American indie cinema that typically does well at festivals like Sundance. But with their follow-up, Everything Everywhere All At Once, they had the space, time, and budget to make a summer science fiction blockbuster.
As well as new voices behind the camera — like Charlotte Welles, Bo Burnham, Jonah Hill, and Gillian Robespierre — the studio has given space for actors to break through and perhaps show sides of themselves they weren’t able to show before. Zendaya may have been a Disney child star, but her arrival as a mainstream actress of real weight came in Euphoria. Colin Farrell has been a box office pull for a long time, but A24 has allowed him to explore interesting, experimental work like The Lobster and After Yang. With someone like Michelle Yeoh, here’s an actress who has always been a superstar, but has maybe been underused in Hollywood for the majority of her career. Along with others like Robert Pattinson, Brie Larson, Timothee Chalamet, and filmmakers like The Safdie Brothers and Noah Baumbach, they have created this stable of talent who know that their stories will be in safe hands — and now, who know that they’ll get seen by a dedicated, enthusiastic audience at the same time.
CONCLUSION
The independent cinema landscape in the US has changed, and arguably, for the worse. Streaming’s cannibalization of the DVD market has meant less money is going around, and so studios are less willing to take bets on what are perceived to be risky projects. Not only have A24 shown themselves as willing to take those risks, they also seem to understand their audience so well that with each new release, the sense of risk dissipates. These are films that utilize nostalgic, retro aesthetics that are already popular amongst young people. That feeds the audience’s desire for creativity and curiosity. And also, that never forgets that movies can be about spectacle, as well as being about character.
Sources
“The rise and rise of A24, a champion of storytelling on screen.” The Economist, 1 Sep. 2022 https://www.economist.com/culture/2022/09/01/the-rise-and-rise-of-a24-a-champion-of-storytelling-on-screen
“A24, THE FUTURE OF FILM.” The Age of Ideas, 4 Jun. 2018 https://theageofideas.com/a24-future-film/