A24 has emerged as one of the first manufacturing companies in recent years. And while the films it produces cover all genres — horror, documentary, comedy and beyond — the funhouse has become synonymous with a certain aesthetic.
The company has attracted independent filmmakers such as Sofia Coppola, Ari Aster, Yorgos Lanthimos and Barry Jenkins, who have helped define the company’s creative ethos so that it is often easy to recognize the film as an A24 production. And its films aren’t just underground hits, either. Many of them, like Minari, The Zone of Interest and Everything Everywhere All at once, also won Oscars.
While HBO Max is the best place to stream many of A24’s movies, you can find some of its best movies on several. free streaming services like The Canopy, TubiPluto TV and The Plex. This May, watch acclaimed films such as The Farewell, which won Awkwafina a Golden Globe for her best performance, the horror comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies, and the Oscar-nominated Past Lives, and many more, newly arrived on these services.
Here are some of our favorite A24 hits that you can watch now without spending a dime.
2022’s Bodies Bodies Bodies is a dark comedy with a deep bench of talent, including Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha’la, Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott and Pete Davidson. Happening mostly overnight, a group of friends gather in one of their homes to take shelter during an impending storm. They decide to play a Mafia-style house game where one of the guests pretends to kill another, while the others have to find out who the killer is. But when one of them ends up getting a throat hit, everyone panics and the bodies, bodies, bodies start to pile up for real.
Comedian Awkwafina won a Golden Globe for her role in the 2019 comedy The Farewell. She played a Chinese American woman, Billi, whose family learns that her grandmother, Nai Nai, is dying of cancer. They decide not to get Nai Nai’s diagnosis, instead choosing to throw a big wedding for Billi’s cousin without inviting Billi, fearing that he will tell his grandmother that she is dying. But Billi crashes the wedding so he can spend more time with Nai Nai, knowing their time together is limited.
Celine Song’s debut novel, Past Lives, stars Greta Lee and Teo Yoo as childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung, who meet as young children in Seoul, South Korea. The film explores their relationship over the course of twenty years as they drift apart after Nora moves to the US, then reconnect as adults. When the two reunite, Nora, now married, feels close to Hae Sung, and together they wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t moved away when she was younger.
Sofia Coppola directed the 2023 biopic Priscilla, which tells the story of young, teenage Priscilla Presley when she meets her future husband, Elvis Presley. Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi star as a couple in this Golden Globe-nominated film.
Ari Aster directed this dark surrealist comedy about a man named Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) on a journey to his mother’s house for her funeral, believing her to be dead. The trip is a fever dream of unexpected detours, and when he gets there, he discovers that his mother (played by Patti LuPone) wasn’t really dead. In fact, he has been spying on her during her strange journey. Parker Posey, Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan and Zoe Lister-Jones also appear.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus may be best known for her comedic chops, but in Tuesday’s 2023 fantasy drama, she’s taking a big trip. She stars as a mother, Zora, desperate to keep her terminally ill daughter, Tuesday (Lola Pettigrew), alive. After meeting Death, who visits their family in the form of a giant macaw, Zora tries to stop the bird from taking her daughter from this life. As she tries to destroy it, unexpected consequences arise until Zora realizes that you cannot stop Death.
Set in western Massachusetts in the 1990s, Janet Planet is a coming-of-age story about a teenage girl, Lacy (Zoe Ziegler), growing up with her single mother, Janet (Julianne Nicholson). The critically acclaimed film is now available on Kanopy, Pluto, Plex and Tubi.
