Say the name A24 to somebody and their first thought will be “horror cinema.” This indie label has quickly grown to become associated with lucrative titles like Hereditary, Midsommar, and The VVitch. So intertwined is A24 with this genre that “A24 horror” has become shorthand for a deeply specific style of scary cinema. It’s hard to imagine such a phrase emerging over Columbia horror or Lionsgate action films. However, just because this association is rampant in pop culture doesn’t mean A24 is only known for horror fare like Heretic.
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In fact, A24 has distributed and financed a wide array of films over its existence. A24 encompasses everything from Barely Lethal to All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, among many others. To appreciate how diverse A24’s library of movies really is, just look at the studio’s four biggest movies ever at the domestic box office. The features comprising that crop of motion pictures may surprise you.
Unsurprising, though, is the title that reigns supreme above all other A24 projects domestically. March 2022 classic Everything Everywhere All at Once exceeded all expectations scoring a $78-million domestic haul. The second Best Picture Oscar winner ever released by A24, Everything Everywhere All at Once was also the first title from the label to surpass $60 million domestically. Needless to say, this Daniels directorial effort was a deeply formative title for A24. Its success redefined the box office highs this indie distributor could reach. To date, no other A24 movie has come close to matching its enormous domestic sum.
The closest any A24 title has gotten to matching Everything Everywhere All at Once at the domestic box office is Civil War’s $68-million total. On the surface, this pervasively grim and topical look at a dystopic America might not seem like something moviegoers shell out cash for. However, A24 launched Civil War with a relentless marketing campaign emphasizing action spectacle. There was also a sense that this was the kind of provocative motion picture you absolutely needed to see to keep abreast of “the discourse.” Those factors combined to make Civil War a hit for A24 and the studio’s first title to top a domestic box office weekend frame. With this project, A24 had gone from producing counterprogramming to tentpoles to actually crafting genuine tentpole blockbusters.
A24’s third-biggest movie is also its only other feature to crack $50 million domestically. That honor belongs to Uncut Gems, a December 2019 Adam Sandler motion picture. The Oscars tragically ignored Uncut Gems but general audiences most certainly did not. This feature flourished as dingy counterprogramming to lighter, family-friendly films released in 2019’s final weeks. In the end, it grossed $51 million in North America. That didn’t just temporarily make it A24’s biggest movie ever in this territory. Uncut Gems exceeded the domestic grosses of costlier Sandler comedies from earlier in the decade like That’s My Boy and Blended. Sometimes, a quality arthouse feature can leave its mainstream brethren in the dust.
Finally, the fourth-biggest A24 movie ever domestically is Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird. Years before she turned Barbie into a pop-culture phenomenon, Gerwig wrung tears out of moviegoers all over the world with this poignant coming-of-age story. The sheer combined powers of an outstanding Saoirse Ronan performance and Gerwig’s emotionally rich filmmaking proved a recipe for box office success. Lady Bird secured a whopping $48.8 million domestically over a leggy domestic run. That haul’s extra impressive given that Lady Bird dropped in November 2017, a little over five years after A24 was founded. With its domestic box office gross, Lady Bird became the first A24 title ever to exceed $30 million domestically. It would not be the last time Gerwig shattered all financial expectations.
Right beneath Lady Bird is the highest-grossing A24 horror movie ever, Talk to Me. That Australian feature rode outstanding word of mouth to a $48.2 million domestic total. In sixth place we find another horror title, Hereditary. Interestingly, though, the rest of A24’s top ten biggest movies domestically aren’t just horror movies. On the contrary, projects like The Iron Claw and Moonlight are in the studio’s top ten. Romantic drama We Live in Time looks poised to also crack that top ten very soon in its North American run. Those aren’t exactly films many general audiences instantly associate with A24.
Meanwhile, internet favorite horror titles like The VVitch and Pearl reside beyond A24’s top ten biggest domestic grossers. That doesn’t dilute their box office achievements nor the immense fanbases they’ve cultivated. However, their respective rankings on A24’s box office charts does speak to this indie label’s nuanced distribution ambitions. A24 releases well over 12-13 movies annually. With that deep well of fresh releases, not everything A24 puts out is bound to be horror fare. On the contrary, horror titles are often vastly outnumbered in a typical A24 annual slate that includes projects like The Zone of Interest or Janet Planet.
It’s also worth observing that the two biggest A24 movies ever domestically were released in the last three years. Once We Live in Time cracks the studio’s top ten, half of the ten biggest A24 movies ever domestically will have been released since January 2023. That statistic reflects that A24 is growing larger and larger as a studio, with goals stretching far beyond local arthouse theaters. Just look at how A24 will likely crack $200 million annually for the first time this year or the studio investing so much money in forthcoming titles like Marty Supreme.
The biggest A24 movies domestically don’t just reflect this indie label being much more than horror films. They also portend grand ambitions to further expand the definition of “an A24 movie,” particularly in scope.
