Intro.

 

Confessions of an A24 girlie

I've been a lover of A24 films for a long time. I do remember my first A24 film (The Bling Ring), but I'm not really sure when my conscious love for the "brand" began. My guess is that it was sometime between the first time I saw The Witch and It Comes at Night, and the pact was sealed with Hereditary (one of my favorite movies of all time). Now, I'm one of those fans who is part of the AAA24 members club (proudly having the "founding members" badge on my app), wears A24 merch (my favorite piece is a back sweatshirt with the text "a twenty four" embroidered in white), and has a few A24 collectibles. If a movie has the A24 logo, I watch it, almost as if it is a certain guarantee of quality (we can debate that, especially in what I call the most recent era of A24 movies, encompassing the last 2 years). 

I've been thinking a lot lately about what A24 means to me, why I'm so attached to it (and I've become more convinced it's more like a brand than just a production and distribution company), and how other people see the idea of A24 and its movies. I've heard a lot about A24 as a studio that represents this sense of weird, unique movies (mainly horror), taking chances to explore themes and questions that the industry isn't exploring right now, which feels refreshing and satisfying. And I agree. But it has not been that way all the time, and in my head, there have been distinct eras of A24. That's why I came up with this crazy project of watching every single A24 movie there is. Not only because I would love to say that I have seen them all (which won't mean I'm a bigger or best fan, only a more obsessive or crazier one), but also because I want to get deeper in these questions that I've been asking myself (and since I'm a PhD student and a critical cultural studies scholar, I cannot not see everything as research questions and something that I can analyze).

It is an ambitious project, so I have to set some rules for it to work. First of all, there are no deadlines, and the project will keep going for as long as it takes me (or until I get bored). Second, I will include in this project every movie produced and/or distributed by A24 (listed on their Letterboxd account) that has been released since the company's origins (A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III) through December 2025 (with Marty Supreme, which, at least until the day I'm writing this intro, is the last movie A24 will release this year). Even if I've seen a movie before, I'll rewatch it, especially because I want to re-experience it and see how it fits into the aim of this larger project. I'll aim to do it chronologically, though I might break that when the last couple of A24 releases of the year come out. If something outside these boundaries is released while I'm working on the project (everything starting in 2026), it will not be part of it, but may appear as an appendix or a footnote. Third, I'll keep track of my process by posting something here, even if it's just a single line from my Letterbox review. I know myself, and if there are no "field work" notes, I'll forget about it. Even if it is for my own eyes only.

So, that's the plan. There are 193 movies to watch, so I'll be here for a while. I just hope I don't end up hating everything in the process. 

                                                                      my own A24 "altar"