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Theatrical poster for Materialists (2025).

Materialists Is a Film About Pricing, Not Dating

Celine Song's second feature was sold as a romantic triangle. It is really an argument about what happens to people once you agree to put a number on them.

Lena Ashworth·21 Sep·5 min

A middle-aged man in a tweed jacket alone on a bright suburban American lawn at midday.

Film

Dream Scenario: Borgli's Cage Vehicle as Media Critique

Kristoffer Borgli's A24 feature used Nicolas Cage as the vehicle for a media satire that landed in late 2023 and has aged, through 2024 and into 2025, into a specifically sharper object than the reviews initially registered.

Priya Nair·8 Apr·6 min

A man and woman standing in the kitchen of a bright English cottage.

Film

We Live in Time: Crowley's Non-Linear Gamble

John Crowley's third collaboration with A24 runs the ten-year relationship in a non-linear shuffle, and the shuffle is what makes the film survive its cancer-drama premise. Just barely, but it does.

Jules Okonkwo·18 Mar·6 min

A brightly-lit gym at night, a muscular woman reflected in a wall of mirrors.

Film

Love Lies Bleeding: Rose Glass Goes Pulp

Rose Glass's second feature dragged the lesbian bodybuilder noir into A24 territory and got reviewed as a tonal mess. The case I want to make is that the tonal mess is the movie, and the movie earns it.

Marcus Vell·26 Feb·6 min

A small New England college-town house at dusk with one window lit warmly against grey sky

Film

Sorry, Baby: Eva Victor's Debut

Eva Victor's Sundance-premiering debut is the early breakout of the 2025 indie year, and a specifically careful film about a specifically difficult subject.

Priya Nair·20 Jan·4 min

A hallway in a damaged Iraqi home, a rifle leaning against a doorframe, dust held in a shaft of light.

Film

Warfare: Mendoza and Garland's Real-Time Iraq

Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland's second collaboration rebuilds a 2006 Ramadi engagement from the memories of the men who survived it, and the film's claim on attention is its specific refusal to shape.

Lena Ashworth·19 Nov·7 min

A whimsically decorated New York apartment interior with bold graphic patterns

Film

Problemista: Julio Torres's Visa Fable

Julio Torres's 2024 debut feature is a specifically strange American indie about a Salvadoran immigrant, a specifically difficult art-world widow, and a specifically failing visa petition. It is also, quietly, great.

Jules Okonkwo·14 Nov·4 min

A bold black-and-red typographic treatment on cream paper

Essays

The Death of Mid-Budget Horror

There was a specific mid-budget horror economy that functioned across the 2010s. It does not function anymore. An essay on what was lost.

Marcus Vell·28 Oct·6 min

An abandoned American highway with distant columns of smoke on the horizon

Film

Civil War: Alex Garland's Failure of Nerve

Alex Garland made a film about an American civil war and deliberately stripped out the politics. A year and a half later, the emptiness in the middle of Civil War is not a choice to respect. It is the thing that breaks the film.

Marcus Vell·2 Oct·5 min

A New York apartment hallway at night with light spilling from one open door

Film

A Different Man: Aaron Schimberg's Face-Swap Comedy

Aaron Schimberg's 2024 comedy about an actor who gets a medical procedure and regrets it is the year's strangest mid-budget indie, and the one whose specific comic machinery I keep returning to.

Marcus Vell·25 Sep·4 min

A Los Angeles motel sign glowing at dusk against a palm tree silhouette

Film

MaXXXine and the Trilogy Problem

Ti West closed his X/Pearl/MaXXXine trilogy in July 2024 with a film that tries to be several kinds of movie at once. A year later, only some of them worked.

Marcus Vell·8 Aug·5 min

A glass corner office at dusk, the silhouette of a figure at the window against the Manhattan grid.

Film

Babygirl and the Return of the Corporate Erotic

Halina Reijn's erotic drama returned a genre the American studios had given up on, and gave Nicole Kidman the kind of role the mid-budget adult film had stopped being able to produce.

Lena Ashworth·30 Jul·7 min

A New England farmhouse porch at sunset with two chairs set out, one empty

Film

Janet Planet: Annie Baker Goes to Film

Annie Baker's film debut is the rare coming-of-age film that refuses every coming-of-age convention. Just a specific eleven-year-old and her specific mother, one summer in western Massachusetts, 1991.

Jules Okonkwo·21 Jul·4 min

A darkened suburban bedroom with a TV glow illuminating the ceiling

Film

I Saw the TV Glow: The Trans Allegory Hollywood Couldn't Place

Jane Schoenbrun's sophomore feature played small in theatres, spoke loudly to the audience it was made for, and kept speaking afterwards. A year later, it is still teaching viewers how to be seen.

Marcus Vell·22 Jun·5 min

A stylised number 24 rendered in bold serif against a cream ground

Industry

A24 Raises at a $3.5 Billion Valuation

A24 has closed a funding round at a $3.5 billion valuation, roughly two and a half times its previous round. The number is the story. What the number implies is the longer story.

Casey Winters·15 Aug·5 min