27 Best Releases From A24 Studio
The Sympathizer
SimilarA Fortunate Life, A Little Princess,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Anna Karenina, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Blackeyes, Dexter, Game of Thrones, Gossip Girl, Jack the Ripper, Jewels, M*A*S*H, Moeder, waarom leven wij?, Monarch of the Glen, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,
Planet of the Apes Pope John Paul II, Scully,
Sherlock Holmes Son of the Morning Star, The Lost World, The Phantom of the Opera, The Shining, The Sun Also Rises, The Wimbledon Poisoner, Troubles, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Viso d'angelo, Witchcraft, Wycliffe,
"All wars are fought twice. The first on the battlefield. The second time in memory." This line, emblazed in Vietnamese and English in the opening moments of The Sympathizer, is taken right from Vietnamese-American author Viet Thanh Nguyen's bestselling novel of the same name. Fittingly, it also serves as the thesis statement for Max's adaptation of the sprawling work, a fleet-of-foot miniseries that explores the malleability of identity and perception through the lens of the Vietnam War, and the dynamic lenses through which our lives and conflicts can be viewed.
That duality is encapsulated in the titular character, a French-Vietnamese biracial protagonist known only as The Captain (Hoa Xuande). From his childhood in Vietnam, he was always ostracized for being neither white nor Asian enough; his only solace came from his two friends, Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan) and Man (Duy Nguyen), who instead frame his heritage as being "twice of everything." Cut to Vietnam in the '70s, in the days leading up to the Fall of Saigon: He works for the Vietnamese Secret Police, interrogating Viet Cong prisoners at the behest of his arrogant martinet of a boss, The General (Toan Le). But he's also a communist mole, feeding information back to Man, who's now his North Vietnamese Army handler, and his daily life is a struggle to reconcile all of these varying identities.
That struggle is further compounded after the Fall of Saigon (an escape attempt rendered in the first episode as an exciting, terrifying barrage of booming explosions and a foot race to a fleeing cargo plane). The Captain and Bon make it to America, though not without some heartbreaking losses for the latter; now, the two are alone, the Captain still required to report on the General's activities while laying low for both his CIA handlers and the LA cultural figures who treat him as an object of curiosity. Continue Reading →
Love Lies Bleeding
SimilarAliens (1986), Basic Instinct (1992),
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Caché (2005), Catwoman (2004), Con Air (1997), Desert Hearts (1985), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Die Hard (1988), Fargo (1996), Monster (2003), Oldboy (2003), Paris Can Wait (2016), Strange Days (1995), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), The Usual Suspects (1995), True Romance (1993), Vertigo (1958),
StudioA24, Film4 Productions,
The word for Rose Glass (Saint Maud) and Weronika Tofilska's Love Lies Bleeding is "precise." From the individual and combined performances of leads Kristen Stewart and Katy O'Brian (whose turn as a cunning Imperial agent was a bright spot in the often dreary third season of The Mandalorian) to DP Ben Fordesman's chameleonic camera work and hair department lead Megan Daum's wide-ranging design work, everyone on the project knew exactly what they wanted to do and how to get it done. The result is a bracing, clear-eyed noir thriller, and a fraught, swoon-worthy romance. It's my favorite movie of 2024 so far.
It's the late 1980s. The reserved and insightful Lou (Stewart) manages a grimy bodybuilding gym in a sunbleached western suburb. She does not talk to her father, the cruel, cunning crime lord Lou Sr. (Ed Harris). She loves her sister, fraying housewife Beth (Jena Malone), and hates that she will not leave her loathsome slimeball husband JJ (Dave Franco). The closest person Lou has to a romantic partner is the aggressively cheerful Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov), and their on-off something or other boils down to, in Bart Simpson's words, "geographical convenience, really." Enter Jackie (O'Brian), a drifting bodybuilder aiming for a Las Vegas contest where victory can leap passion into profession. The sparks are immediate.
Jackie (Katy O'Brian) strives for bodybuilding stardom. She's doing the work, but the events of Love Lies Bleeding bend the barrier between her reality and her dream. A24.
Jackie's drive lights a fire in Lou, and Lou's methodical care grounds Jackie. Simultaneously, Lou's desire to help Jackie achieve her dream and Jackie's desire to make Lou happy lead them to make bad calls—the sort of bad calls that lead to worse calls that lead to blood. And neither JJ's venality nor Lou Sr.'s mercilessness should be discounted. Continue Reading →
Hazbin Hotel
SimilarAmerican Horror Story, Angel, Brimstone, Family Guy, Fawlty Towers, The Shining, Troubles,
StudioA24,
Messy writing keeps this solid cast from shepherding Hotel to strong Yelp scores.
Hazbin Hotel is not for me. That is not a bad thing. If every piece of media appealed to everyone, the homogeneity would be stifling. I can see the appeal of a big, bombastic, gleefully violent, heart-on-its-sleeve musical cartoon for grown-ups (heck, I've enjoyed my fair share of them)—I just don't click with the show's ice-pop made-of-blood aesthetic, and I'm not a huge show-tune guy. Acknowledging the disconnect between the show's vibe and my personal tastes, as a critic, I have two primary takeaways from Hazbin Hotel's first four episodes:
In terms of animation and voicework, Hazbin Hotel is solid—and Keith David's turn as the burnt-out bartending demon Husk is a standout among a game cast.
In terms of writing, Hazbin Hotel is a mess, awkwardly careening between silly and dramatic without precision—most noticeably when it delves into the horrific life of one of its lead players.
Hazbin Hotel's aesthetic is built on contrasts—primarily between series heroine Charlie Morningstar (Erika Henningsen)'s deliberate good cheer, bright smiles, and crayon drawings and the continual viciousness of Hell and most of its denizens. Visually, the cast (both the show's core ensemble and the wider community of Hell) is expressive and distinct. Hell's assorted players and agents are united across factions by the frequent use of red and black either alone or in concert in costume design. Each faction, in turn, has its own visual signifiers—the staff and residents of the Hotel tend towards a hybrid of casual and professional wear, while a powerful gangster clique goes all in on decadence. Heaven's murderous, brotastic angels, meanwhile, opt for a more uniform style. Continue Reading →
The Iron Claw
SimilarA Beautiful Mind (2001), A History of Violence (2005), Almost Famous (2000), Annie Hall (1977), Apollo 13 (1995),
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Billy Elliot (2000),
Boys Don't Cry (1999) Caché (2005), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Erin Brockovich (2000), Forrest Gump (1994), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Gandhi (1982), Ghost (1990), I Stand Alone (1998), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Manhattan (1979), Match Point (2005), Monster (2003),
Primal Fear (1996) Raging Bull (1980), Schindler's List (1993), Sissi (1955), Solaris (1972), Talk to Her (2002), The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019), The Big Blue (1988), The Devil's Rejects (2005), The Elephant Man (1980), The Fisher King (1991), The Irishman (2019), The Last Emperor (1987), The Party (1980), The Pianist (2002), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Straight Story (1999), The Tin Drum (1979), Titanic (1997), Volver (2006),
Watch afterBullet Train (2022), Elemental (2023), Poor Things (2023), Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023),
StudioA24, BBC Film,
Sean Durkin’s biopic about the Von Erich wrestling dynasty features stellar performances in a script that can’t quite find its footing.
In 2008, Mickey Rourke made a surprise and stunning comeback in Aronofsky’s The Wrestler. His once pretty-boy face distorted from years of drugs and plastic surgery suddenly felt tailor-made for the role of Randy “The Ram” Robinson — a wrestler on the outs, clinging to the only thing he knows while the rest of his life crumbles around him. 2023's The Iron Claw offers us a similar story, right down to the comeback for its lead.
Zac Efron may be fortunate enough not to have a tawdry past to overcome like Rourke, but he’s never really found his footing since leaving his teen heartthrob days behind. That said, thanks to complications from a broken jawbone, his face is radically different from the one we knew in High School Musical, even sparking gossip of plastic surgery gone wrong (another insult often lobbed at Rourke, though in his case it’s certainly true). But just like Rourke, his new jawline perfectly suits him in The Iron Claw, which may finally prove to be his breakthrough role as an adult, dramatic actor. Continue Reading →
The Zone of Interest
SimilarAli: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), Almost Famous (2000), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Apocalypse Now (1979), Apollo 13 (1995), Belle de Jour (1967), Ben-Hur (1959), Blade Runner (1982), Blood and Chocolate (2007),
Boys Don't Cry (1999) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Contact (1997), Contempt (1963), Cruel Intentions (1999), Dances with Wolves (1990), Desert Hearts (1985), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), East of Eden (1955), Enough (2002), Finding Forrester (2000), Gandhi (1982), I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016), I've Always Liked You (2016),
Jackie Brown (1997) Just Cause (1995), La Haine (1995), Metropolis (1927), Oldboy (2003), Raging Bull (1980), Random Harvest (1942),
Rebecca (1940) Shall We Dance? (2004), The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), The Elephant Man (1980), The Good German (2006), The Last Emperor (1987),
The Name of the Rose (1986) The Outsiders (1983), The Pianist (2002), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Straight Story (1999), The Tin Drum (1979), To Die For (1995), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Wonder Boys (2000),
Watch afterAmerican Fiction (2023), Anatomy of a Fall (2023), Napoleon (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) Poor Things (2023),
StudioA24, Film4 Productions,
Jonathan Glazer's first feature in 10 years is a near-unclassifiable work of patience and intentional distance from its historical horrors.
What am I to say here? What can I say?
I feel as if I’m to say nothing at all. My mind has gone and I feel sick, and while that’s due to the film in question, another degree of it comes from a deeper truth. I feel wrong in my reaction to it; it can’t help but feel inadequate. The Zone of Interest has leveled me like few things ever have, but that’s not the point. That’s not its point. Continue Reading →
Dicks: The Musical
SimilarAlex Strangelove (2018),
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Billy Elliot (2000), Chicago (2002), Dirty Dancing (1987), Enchanted (2007), Mary Poppins (1964), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Shall We Dance? (2004), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971),
Studio20th Century Fox, A24,
The audaciously titled Dicks: The Musical comes with an equally eye-catching tagline, boasting the honor of being “A24’s first musical.” That’s bound to intrigue cinephiles everywhere. After all, not every movie studio is trendy enough to regularly sell out of logo festooned merchandise. Or even make hipster merch in the first place. Continue Reading →
Dream Scenario
SimilarA Clockwork Orange (1971), Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), Brazil (1985), Dawn of the Dead (2004), Forrest Gump (1994), Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), M*A*S*H (1970), Mars Attacks! (1996), Shaun of the Dead (2004), The Party (1980), The Party 2 (1982), The Science of Sleep (2006),
Watch afterAnatomy of a Fall (2023), Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), Leave the World Behind (2023), Napoleon (2023), Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023), Saltburn (2023), The Killer (2023),
StarringNicholas Braun,
StudioA24,
At this point, you can roughly divide the output of Nicolas Cage into one of two categories. First, there are films so tailored to his reigning wild man of cinema persona that it seems unimaginable they could exist if he passed. In the other camp are the quieter efforts like The Weather Man, Joe, and Pig that remind of what a powerful actor he still can be. His latest project, writer-director Kristoffer Borgli’s Dream Scenario, combines both approaches into a single offering. The result is a strange and wildly audacious work anchored by a surprisingly deft and low-key turn from Cage that stands in marked contrast to the weirdness surrounding him. Continue Reading →
The Deepest Breath
How long can you hold your breath? A minute? Maybe? Kids time these sorts of things when swimming, but it's not something most of us think about in our waking lives. But I know that when I swim and misjudge the time it takes to surface, panic sets in almost instinctively. The body wants to live. It takes a particular personality to ignore the body's demands in apparent life-or-death circumstances. Stephen Keenan and Alessia Zecchini are two such people. Zecchini's first words in The Deepest Breath, Laura McCann's documentary about Keenan and Zecchini's goal to become legendary deep sea free divers, are about how she's never associated diving with death. I'll grant a writer is more likely to associate everything with death. But I cannot understand plunging into the darkest depths of the earth while holding your breath for minutes at a time and passing out before you can return without thinking of your own demise. Some of us, I suppose, see a Way where the rest see a void. Continue Reading →
Survival of the Thickest
SimilarAgatha Christie's Poirot Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, Fallen, Fate/Apocrypha, Fearless,
Hilda Furacão In the Land of Leadale,
Little Women M*A*S*H, Monarch of the Glen, Mr. Mercedes, No Escape,
Pride and Prejudice Sherlock Holmes Tales from the Neverending Story, The Buccaneers, The Lost World, The Moon Embracing the Sun, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, Word of Honor, Wycliffe,
StudioA24,
In 1995, way back last century, I went shopping for a dress to wear to my cousin’s wedding. Accompanied by my mother, it soon became apparent to us both that I, both a big and tall girl, wouldn’t be able to buy a dress in the Juniors section. My options eventually whittled down to one adult black velvet dress that, while the saleswoman assured us was totally chic for weddings, nevertheless showcased to the world that I could not fit into a fun or stylish dress for someone my age and that’s rough. It’s very rough. Continue Reading →
Past Lives
SimilarA Real Young Girl (1976), Copying Beethoven (2006), The Holiday (2006),
Watch afterBlue Beetle (2023), Elemental (2023), Meg 2: The Trench (2023), Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) The Flash (2023), tick tick... BOOM! (2021),
StudioA24,
It doesn’t take much for someone who once meant a whole lot to you to creep into your thoughts every now and then. It’s not an everyday obsessive thing, where they’re a shadow lingering over you. It’s softer, more subtle: a snippet of a song, or something that reminds you of a private joke once shared. Even if the fire has long burned out, an ember or two will glow for an instant. Then it’s gone, and the life you’ve lived without them goes on. Continue Reading →
Beau Is Afraid
SimilarBrazil (1985), M*A*S*H (1970), Mars Attacks! (1996), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Shaun of the Dead (2004), The Big Blue (1988),
Watch afterKillers of the Flower Moon (2023),
StudioA24,
If there’s anything Ari Aster wants you to understand after watching his newest film, it’s that he’s funny. With just three feature films under his belt, Beau Is Afraid marks both a massive departure from his previous films and a solidifying of his style. It’s a movie about terror, without a ton of interest in being terrifying. More specifically, it’s a movie about the absurdity of fear and the ridiculousness of human nature. And yeah, it’s definitely about moms, too. Continue Reading →
BEEF
It takes a little while to find Beef’s groove. This critic assures you that this is not the classic of the streaming age, “give it a few episodes” warning. By the end of the first episode, you will know if the series is for you. However, everything about the show feels overwhelming in the first eight to ten minutes. Continue Reading →
Sharper
SimilarDie Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Léon: The Professional (1994), Taxi Driver (1976),
Watch afterBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022),
StarringSebastian Stan,
StudioA24,
We love movies about con artists, because they’re always glamorous, with attractive, elegantly dressed people slickly seducing their marks. It’s far sexier and intriguing than the sad reality of con artistry, which mostly seems to involve catfishing lonely people on dating sites, or swindling them out of cash on behalf of a made-up charity. No one likes to think about how easy it is to be fooled by someone who’s simply a good liar, it makes more sense that these things happen as part of an elaborate scheme created by a network of seasoned professionals alternately working together and stabbing each other in the back. Apple TV+’s Sharper scratches that particular itch, and looks good doing it, but ultimately feels a bit hollow, and has twists that are far more transparent than they should be. Continue Reading →
White Noise
What makes a novel “unfilmable”? Often, it’s because it’s simply too large in scope and scale, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, which depicts the lives of seven generations of the same family. Or, as with Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, it’s too dense and labyrinthian. The more successful attempts, such as Denis Villeneuve’s Dune and Netflix’s adaptation of The Sandman, have been filmed in multiple parts, while failures like 2017’s The Dark Tower condense the story down to its most basic components, checking off the most salient points (“there was a tower, it was dark”) and nothing more. Continue Reading →
After Yang
Ambulance
Michael Bay, whose 1990s actioners are—for good and ill—iconic parts of the decade’s cinema, and whose 2000s and 2010s work is reliably fascinating (from the terrific Pain & Gain to the baleful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) delivers a bombastic chase movie that doubles as a damn good character study. Loving but criminal brothers (Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) take an ambulance hostage to escape a heist gone sideways. Along for the ride are a masterful EMT (Eiza González) resigned to personal apathy, and a critically injured cop (Jackson White). Amidst the carefully shaped chaos of burnt rubber and bullets, Bay makes space for Gyllenhaal (frenzied and in denial about how badly everything’s gone) Abdul-Mateen II (trying to keep cool even as that becomes impossible) and González (who must break out of her self-built walls if she is to survive) to bounce off each other in a pile of compelling ways. [JH] Continue Reading →
Causeway
We’re all living in the looming shadows of our past. The actions or mistakes we undertake today shape our tomorrow. It’s as true for the poorest pauper as it is for the mightiest king, and Causeway protagonist Lynsey (Jennifer Lawrence) is no exception. Formerly deployed to the Middle East as a soldier, she’s come home to New Orleans after suffering a brain injury. The ensuing movie’s emphasis on coping with the long-term effects of trauma is quietly established through Causeway beginning not with a grisly accident overseas, but rather with a shell-shocked Lynsey waiting for a taxi in America. Continue Reading →
Pearl
Watch afterBarbarian (2022),
StudioA24,
It's safe to say that no one necessarily asked for a sequel to Ti West's X, especially six mere months after its release. Not because it was bad, mind you; it was actually quite good, a nifty throwback to Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a hefty soupcon of Debbie Does Dallas tossed in the mix. But its tale of a ragtag amateur-porn crew besieged by a murderous old country crone envious of their youthful beauty and raging libidos hardly cried out for a followup. Yet here we are with Pearl, a prequel that dabbles in decidedly different genre homages but might just be the superior slasher of the two. Continue Reading →
Everything Everywhere All at Once
SimilarBatman Begins (2005), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Zatoichi (2003),
Watch afterThe Whale (2022),
StarringKe Huy Quan,
StudioA24,
Everything Everywhere All at Once is glorious. Continue Reading →
X
As the discourse rages over how tame the mainstream movie scene can be—with its sexless heroes and bloodless violence—it can be tempting to elevate any film that hearkens back to "the good old days" of sex and slashers just for the sake of its own supposed transgressiveness. But luckily, Ti West's X largely earns that title, a playful and idiosyncratic ode to both ends of the '70s sleaze cinema spectrum (hardcore porn and Wes Craven-esque slashers) alike. Not only that, it's blissfully literate towards its influences, with a nod to larger points about the aesthetics and politics of desire, the fetishization of youth, and so much more. Continue Reading →
The Sky Is Everywhere
YA literature often gets a bad rap for being frivolous and superficial, caught up in meaningless fluff like who to go to the big prom with, or what kind of makeover you need in order to get the boy you like to pay attention to you. In reality, much of YA lit has a surprisingly dark streak, and is more obsessed with death and dying than Stephen King. Take a look at what novels are burning up the teen reader charts, and they’re more likely than not to feature a protagonist facing, if not their own death, then the death of a parent, a friend, or a significant other. They may still end up stuck having to choose between two people to go to the prom with, but not until after they’re able to work through their grief and learn to move on. Continue Reading →
When You Finish Saving the World
SimilarForrest Gump (1994),
StudioA24,
With When You Finish Saving the World, Jesse Eisenberg directs Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard to strong turns as a mother-son duo united by self-obsession.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.)
Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut When You Finish Saving the World reminds me of Alex Ross Perry and Noah Baumbach’s early work. Its dialogue is witty and often cringe-inducing. Its characters are deeply flawed, unlikable people out to hurt each other. Given that Eisenberg worked with Baumbach on The Squid and the Whale, the similarities make sense. Continue Reading →