A24 has emerged as one of the most original production companies in recent years, and while the films it produces span every genre — from horror to documentary to comedy and beyond — the entertainment house has become synonymous with a certain aesthetic.
The company has attracted singular filmmakers like Sofia Coppola, Ari Aster, Yorgos Lanthimos and Barry Jenkins, who have helped define the company’s creative ethos to the point that it’s often easy to recognize a film as being an A24 production. And its films are not just underground hits, either. Many of them, like Room, Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All at Once, have also won Oscars.
While HBO Max is the premier destination to stream the most A24 films, you can find some of its best movies across several free streaming services like Kanopy, Tubi and Plex. The Oscar-winning documentary Amy (about the life and death of singer Amy Winehouse), the critically acclaimed Aftersun starring Paul Mescal, and the wildly entertaining dark comedy Zola, from director Janicza Bravo, are a few that you can watch for free.
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Here are some of our favorite A24 hits that you can now watch without spending a dime.
The 2022 drama Aftersun stars Paul Mescal as Calum, the young father of an 11-year-old named Sophie (Frankie Corio). The two take a holiday to a Turkish beach resort together, and the film is a moving, lovely character study of their relationship and a reflection on their fleeting, shared moments together. We later see an adult Sophie watching the camcorder footage she shot, reconnecting with the memories of her past. The critically acclaimed film is available on several platforms this month, including Tubi, Plex and Kanopy.
Ethan Hawke stars as Toller, the pastor of a small church who is dealing with an existential crisis leading him down a destructive path. The film was written and directed by Paul Schrader, who also wrote classics like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, and you can catch the movie now on Kanopy.
Set in the late 1970s, Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women stars Lucas Jade Zumann as Jamie, a boy living with his single mother (Annette Bening), along with Abbie (Greta Gerwig), a free-spirited young woman overcoming cancer, and William (Billy Crudup), a carpenter, who are renting rooms in their home. A coming-of-age story inspired by Mills’ own life, the film was nominated for an Oscar for Best original Screenplay.
There’s really nothing that Julia Louis-Dreyfus can’t do. In You Hurt My Feelings, the actor, who, in my opinion, is one of the best comedic performers of our time, puts on a more dramatic hat in this marriage story about a writer whose husband doesn’t like her latest book.
Louis-Dreyfus plays Beth, a memoirist who ventures into writing her first novel. As she starts to doubt her own talents, she overhears her husband, Don (Tobias Menzies), disparaging the book. Unable to confront Don, Beth’s ego is bruised and her confidence in their relationship is shaken. The film has plenty of laughs while perceptively acknowledging how minor grievances can escalate into the breakdown of an entire relationship.
Yes, it’s a movie based on a series of tweets, but in the hands of director Janicza Bravo, Zola is so much more than that. In 2015, a woman named A’Ziah “Zola” King went viral for a story she wrote over the course of 148 tweets about a road trip she took to Florida with a new friend who was not what she seemed. Taylour Paige plays the title character in the film, and Riley Keough plays Stefani, a stripper who invites Zola to travel to Tampa so they can make money dancing. But what ensues is a wild tale of sex and violence that eventually devolves into murder.
Tom Hardy is the only actor who appears onscreen in the captivating psychological drama Locke, which is essentially just one man driving down the highway all alone for 85 minutes. Hardy plays Ivan Locke, a man who decides to travel to London to be with the woman he impregnated (who is not his wife) while she gives birth. Over the course of the car ride, Locke engages in a series of phone calls, each one more stressful than the next, and his life slowly unravels over speakerphone. (The film has been universally acclaimed, with nearly every reviewer admitting that it’s far more gripping than you’d imagine.) Keep an ear out for Olivia Colman, Tom Holland, Ruth Wilson and loads of other actors who appear as disembodied voices.
Amy Winehouse died in 2011 from alcohol poisoning at the age of 27. If you were only familiar with Winehouse from her near-constant presence in the tabloids, the 2015 documentary Amy, directed by Asif Kapadia, will make you realize just how talented she was. Amy is a devastating look at a young woman with otherworldly talents who struggled under the weight of fame. The film features interviews with her closest friends, as well as colleagues like Mark Ronson, Mos Def and Tony Bennett, and never-before-seen footage before and during her rise to fame.
