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Despite being known for critically-acclaimed horror films, here are some great A24 releases that have nothing to do with the genre. A24 seems to be releasing more and more movies every year, including several co-produced with other studios. In February 2026 alone, A24 released two movies, How to Make a Killing and Pillion.
How to Make a Killing is a black comedy thriller based on the classic Kind Hearts and Coronets, while Pillion is an erotic comedy LGBTQ+ drama. This is a good example of how A24 operates outside what people might expect. While A24 has incredible horror movies from directors like Robert Eggers and Ari Aster, it has acclaimed movies outside that genre.
Uncut Gems (2019)
Uncut Gems was an A24 release that showed how Adam Sandler was more than just a comedic actor making low-brow comedies. Directed by the Safdie brothers, Uncut Gems is a crime thriller in which Sandler plays a jeweler and gambling addict who has to retrieve a valuable gem he bought to pay off his debts.
Anyone who expected a movie with Sandler cracking jokes and using funny voices was delivered a shock when he starred in this highly intense and disturbing movie about a man who realizes that his life is spiraling out of control. It is a movie that causes intense anxiety for the viewer and works masterfully as a thriller.
There is also a lot to love here for mainstream audiences, as there are plenty of recognizable faces, including NBA stars like Kevin Garnett and musicians like The Weeknd, playing fictional versions of themselves. Uncut Gems has a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score, and Sandler won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor.
Room (2015)
Four years before she joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Captain Marvel, Brie Larson turned a lot of heads with her psychological drama Room, released by A24 in 2015. The movie is based on the 2010 novel by Emma Donoghue about a young woman who is abducted and held in captivity for seven years.
She ends up pregnant with her captor’s child and has a boy, who is five years old when the movie starts. When the woman and her child escape, neither is able to cope with being in the real world again. Critics praised the film, awarding it a 93% Rotten Tomatoes rating, calling it “harrowing” and “rewarding.”
Brie Larson also won an Oscar for her performance as the young mother, while Room also received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Lenny Abrahamson), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Emma Donoghue).
Past Lives (2023)
Released in 2023, Past Lives is an A24 romantic drama, directed by Celine Song in her feature film debut. The film stars Greta Lee and Teo Yoo as two childhood friends and their lives over a 24-year period as they grow apart and live different lives. It is based on Song’s own real-life experiences.
Na Young is a South Korean woman whose parents moved to Canada when she was a child, and she changed her name to Nora and ended up living in New York City. Hae Sung was her childhood friend who remained in South Korea, but had always wanted to reconnect with Na Young.
The movie is a great story about what could have been, and how it could all tie into people’s “past lives,” referring to the idea of reincarnation and the endless experiences a person could have. With a 95% RT score, it is another A24 movie that earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
The Brutalist (2024)
When it was released in 2024, The Brutalist was the frontrunner for most of the Oscar awards that year. Directed by Brady Corbet and starring Adrien Brody, the movie follows a traumatized Holocaust survivor who moves to the United States and struggles to get his life back together again.
The movie worked hard to look like a period piece, even using the VistaVision format that was developed in the 1950s, and the film showed the life and struggles of one architect in a country that was not as welcoming as it seemed when he made his move.
The Brutalist earned 10 Oscar nominations, winning three of them, including Best Actor for Brody. It also picked up nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Guy Pearce), Best Supporting Actress (Felicity Jones), and Best Original Screenplay, but didn’t take any of those awards home.
Marty Supreme (2025)
Another Josh Safdie movie, Marty Supreme, was a surprising A24 release in 2025 that told the story of a table tennis player named Marty Mauser who sets out to become a world champion. The film is loosely based on a real person (Marty Reisman), and Timothée Chalamet delivered an award-caliber performance in the lead role.
The comedy-drama sports movie was a huge success, ranking as A24’s highest-grossing film, and the critical response of a 94% Rotten Tomatoes ranking praised Chalamet’s performance, while also crediting the script’s approach to the lead character’s toxic ambition.
Marty Supreme also received nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Original Screenplay, although the competition was very strong for that year.
Minari (2020)
Minari is a 2020 American drama movie by A24 that is a semi-autobiographical story by director Lee Isaac Chung about a family of South Korean immigrants moving to rural Arkansas in the 1980s. This movie received a lot of praise for its screenplay and direction.
Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) stars as Jacob Yi, a father and husband who tries to build a new life in rural Arkansas, while his wife is unhappy being so far from urban areas, especially since their son has heart problems, and they aren’t close to a good hospital. The story follows their struggles to survive, while unable to always agree on their future.
Minari has an almost perfect 98% Rotten Tomatoes score, with praise for Steven Yeun and Yeri Han’s performances, and the honesty about a family fighting for survival in the ’80s. Minari earned six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Yeun, but only Youn Yuh-jung won for Best Supporting Actress.
Eighth Grade (2018)
Bo Burnham released his coming-of-age comedy-drama Eighth Grade in 2018 for A24. The movie follows Elsie Fisher as Kayla Day, an eighth-grade student who wants to find acceptance from her classmates while posting motivational vlogs online and obsessing over social media.
The movie is an exploration of anxiety and panic attacks, and how social media can harm the mental health of kids who find it is almost as important as real life when it comes to their social standing and status, especially in high school. By casting actual eighth graders, it took on a more serious meaning.
Critics gave the film an almost perfect 99% Rotten Tomatoes rating, with praise going towards Burnham’s story and direction and the masterful performance by the teenage Fisher. Fisher earned a Golden Globe Award nomination while Burnham won the WGA Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Lady Bird (2017)
Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird remains one of the best coming-of-age dramas that A24 ever produced. The movie stars Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf as a daughter and mother dealing with a disconnect, as the daughter, Lady Bird, has a different outlook on her future than her mother, who believes her daughter should settle based on their finances.
Metcalf and Ronan were spectacular as the mother and daughter, and their entire conflicted relationship always seemed real, and often uncomfortable to watch. However, this isn’t a movie about conflict, but about Lady Bird figuring out who she is supposed to be in her life.
With a 99% Rotten Tomatoes score, Lady Bird also received five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Original Screenplay.
Moonlight (2016)
Moonlight might be one of the most critically acclaimed drama films that A24 ever released. Directed by Barry Jenkins, the film stars Trevante Rhodes as a man who struggles with life as a gay Black man and the emotional abuse he encountered as he was growing up.
The movie has an interesting structure, as it explores the life of Chiron at three points in his life: as a child (Alex Hibbert), a teenager (Ashton Sanders), and an adult (Rhodes). With Andre Holland, Janelle Monáe, Naomie Harris, and Mahershala Ali, the cast carried this story to great heights.
Moonlight earned eight Oscar nominations, winning Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for Ali, while Harris and Jenkins also earned nominations. The film also won for Best Adapted Screenplay, while earning a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score.
Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
Arguably, the best A24 movie arrived in 2022 with Everything Everywhere All at Once. Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the film tells the story of an Asian laundromat owner named Evelyn, who feels her life could have been different and possibly better if she had made different decisions in her past.
What happened next was a fantasy absurdist comedy with martial arts touches, as Evelyn begins to travel through the multiverse and see her life in situations where she made different decisions. This was a movie about learning that a person’s life is not always as bad as that person might think.
Everything Everywhere All at Once came one Oscar win away from sweeping the awards for A24, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Original Screenplay. While it didn’t win the Best Actor award, it did win Best Supporting Actor for Ke Huy Quan in his comeback, and Best Supporting Actress for Jamie Lee Curtis.
