From the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All At Once to Harmony Korine’s bizarre Spring Breakers and beyond, check out the honor roll of best-performing A24 movies of all time.
It’s without a doubt that A24 has cultivated quite a cinephile fandom behind its indie approach to film and artistic proclivities in execution. Originally tapped into distribution, the studio’s radius has sprawled since its inception. Its latest momentum is sailing on a vaunted cinematography that teeters between humanity and eerie intimacy, the momentum of its Oscar darlings, and a steadfast young audience.
A24’s first in-house produced film, Moonlight (2016), delivered an unflinching depiction of masculinity, queerness and fragility. With Mahershala Ali and Trevante Rhodes’ leading, the film snagged the statuette at the 2016 Oscars for Best Picture. In Zola (2021), Janicza Bravo transformed AZiah “Zola” King’s culturally viral 148-tweet thread into an absurdist road trip movie.
The latest spawn of the studio’s dazzling cinema? Everything Everywhere All At Once’s stroboscopic adventure of reconnecting with our dimensional identities.
If you’re looking to join the fandom or simply want to learn more about this studio’s increasingly impressive scope, check out our rundown of the highest-grossing A24 films to date below.
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Highest-grossing A24 Films of All Time
Box office figures refer to worldwide gross as noted by IMDB’s Box Office Mojo.
Everything Everywhere All At Once ($140.2 Million)
A24’s newest gem Everything Everywhere All At Once reveling in its seven Academy Awards sweep, including Best Picture, a historic Best Actress (Michelle Yeoh), Best Supporting Actress (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Best Supporting Actor (Ke Huy Quan). The absurdist multiverse made history as the best per-theatre average of any film since the opening weekend of Spider-Man: No Way Home. With a reported budget of 25 million, EEAAO most recently surpassed even Sony’s Morbius with $75 million in box office sales.
Hereditary ($82.85 Million)
This psychological thriller, under the auteur of writer-director Ari Aster, follows the sinister inheritance of the Graham Family. Ahead of EEAO’s fanfare, the box office success of Hereditary was once A24’s highest grossing film with over $82 million. The film was the studio’s first production which sold its own international rights and created international rollout plans with indie distributors.
Lady Bird ($78.98 Million)
Greta Gerwig’s solo-directorial debut reveals the tense and tender relationship between adolescent cynicism and strong-willed motherhood. The loosely autobiographical coming-of-age tale examines the collision of values at its peak. “We wanted it to look like a memory, but we didn’t want it ever to look self-conscious,” Gerwig explains to IndieWire of the movie’s acclaimed state of reverie. “It was about finding this balance.”
Moonlight ($65.17 Million)
In Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, sexuality, identity and masculinity are delicately at the fore.The film’s protagonist voyages through different stages of his life as his perception of familial drug abuse, manhood and his own sexuality reaches a point of clarity. “A lot of actors wish they were having a visceral response to the scripts that they’re reading. And the first time I read it, I think everyone involved will tell you they got really choked up and just really connected to this story and these characters,” Mahershala Ali told Good Morning America.
The contemporary masterpiece — often known for the Academy Award’s 2017 LaLa Land fiasco — made history as Ali won Best Supporting Actor as the first Muslim to win an acting Oscar.
The Whale ($54.31 Million)
Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale follows Charlie (Brendan Fraser), an obese reclusive schoolteacher desperate to reconnect with his teenage daughter. Fraser’s return to the screen after a reprieve from the industry earned him an Oscar for Best Actor.
“He’s a man living alone, having regrets for choices he’s made and choices that life has made for him, and in his profound sadness, which he wears on his body as a manifestation of the trauma that he has endured, which he’s been trying to cure with consumption,” Fraser said to EW. “It’s important to remember that he’s a human being, a person who deserves dignity and respect.”
Uncut Gems ($50.02 Million)
It’s a sky-high feat for Adam Sandler, with decades-worth of impressive roles, to outdo himself. And yet, his performance in Uncut Gems as a frantic New York jeweler-slash-gambling addict, he does just that. The comeback for the actor, which is one of the two major release films to use 500 or more uses of the f-bomb, features a studded cast that includes Kevin Garnett, Lakeith Stanfield, and Julia Fox.
“We knew that we needed a character who you loved, who had this patriarchal quality, who was lovable and could be grounded in absurd scenarios. And from the very beginning, we knew it was Adam Sandler,” co-director Josh Safdie, who helmed the film alongside brother Benny Safdie, told Vox.
Midsommar ($48.06 Million)
Evading the typical horror film craftsmanship, Midsommar is yet another proving ground of Ari Aster’s ability to evoke grotesque surrealism. The story follows Dani (Florence Pugh) amongst American graduate students vacaying at a remote summer festival trapped in pagan community — a cautionary tale for the age of the isolated fête.
“I think the fun of the film is that it is a contribution to the “folk horror” subgenre. So it goes exactly where you’re expecting, but the surprise is in how it feels to get there,” Aster told Vox.
The Witch ($40.4 Million)
The period horror film, set in a 1630s New England plantation, follows William (Ralph Ineson) and his family as they brace their own psychological damnation. Launching Anya Taylor Joy’s capabilities across the silver screen, Robert Eggers’ thematically employs the sinister nasceny of groupthink through the coexistence of both God and the devil.
Ex Machina ($37.39 Million)
With an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, Alex Garland’s directorial debut futurism meets humanity through sci-fi. Ava (who is part-woman part-machine) is presented like a Turing test — a determinant of a machine’s ability to think like a human being.
“The trick of the film, the way that the film intends to work is to present something which is unambiguously a machine and then gradually remove your sense of Ava being a machine, even while you continue to see her being that way,” Garland tells NPR.
Room ($35.4 Million)
Starring Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay, the film centers a mother and son in a room under captivity. As they escape and navigate a new reality, it’s a wrestle with the seismic ebbs and flow of adjustment. “There is beauty in living in a small space, as a child. Some aspects of it are so beautiful, and it’s so nice to not see the darkness. But then, in other ways, there’s a whole range of experience that’s being missed because of it,” Larson said to Collider on balancing her delicate emotional display.
Spring Breakers ($32.17 Million)
Harmony Korine’s beach movie is largely credited with crafting the ultimate A24 aesthetic. Starring Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, and Rachel Korine as the titular characters, the film turns the flippant vibe of spring break vacays into a trippy story.
Highest-grossing A24 Films: The Best of the Rest
- The Disaster Artist (2017): $28.71 million
- The Farewell (2019): $25.46 million
- Amy (2015): $23.78 million
- The Green Knight (2021): $20.02 million
- It Comes at Night (2017): $19.72 million
