A24's 5 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

In 2012, indie entertainment company A24 began its Hollywood journey ... and it's safe to say that the organization originally founded by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, and John Hodges has done pretty well. In the decade and a half since A24 first launched, the studio has won Best Picture at the Academy Awards more than once (most recently as of this writing, for the 2022 spectacle "Everything Everywhere All at Once") and racked up nearly 100 nominations, also scoring awards for performers like Brie Larson, Mahershala Ali, Yuh-jung Youn, Brendan Fraser, and Michelle Yeoh, just to name a few. It's also produced some pretty big hits, including 2025's "Marty Supreme" and the massive 2026 box office smash "Backrooms."

So which A24 movies are the "best" ones? Naturally, that's quite subjective. I could, without question, assemble my own personal list of A24 greats that would drastically vary from a top 10 created by whoever's reading this right now. So let's just look at Rotten Tomatoes ratings instead. Which A24 movies earned such overwhelming acclaim from critics across the board that they rise to the very top of the pack? Let's find out. Here are A24's five highest-rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes, ranked.

The 2017 movie "Moonlight" caused a stir at the Oscars by pulling a huge upset over the expected winner, "La La Land." The stir was largely because presenter Warren Beatty was holding the wrong card — his said Best Actress winner Emma Stone's name with "La La Land" underneath, leading to the venerated actor declaring the wrong winner before the situation could be rectified — and on some levels, I think this is unfortunate. Yes, the "La La Land" versus "Moonlight" fiasco looms large in Academy history, and it was shocking and thrilling to see it play out. This whole thing, though, overshadows something important: "Moonlight" is a really great movie. So good, in fact, that it won the Academy Award for Best Picture!

Directed and co-written by Barry Jenkins, "Moonlight" tells the story of a young Black boy named Chiron Harris, portrayed by Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes as a child, teenager, and adult, respectively. Chiron struggles to survive under difficult circumstances and come to terms with his sexual identity. With a stunningly raw Naomie Harris as Chiron's largely absent mother Paula, Mahershala Ali as Chiron's father figure Juan, and singer and actress Janelle Monáe as Juan's girlfriend Teresa, "Moonlight" is home to a small but incredible cast — and that's to say nothing of Jaden Piner, Jharrel Jerome, and André Holland playing Chiron's friend and love interest Kevin throughout the years. "Moonlight" is a difficult, beautiful, harrowing, and rewarding journey through decades, and according to Rotten Tomatoes, it's the fifth best movie ever made by A24.

Bo Burnham got his start making irreverent, silly YouTube and Vine videos and before transitioning to stand-up comedy. Then, in 2018, he absolutely blew audiences and critics away by stepping behind the camera to direct the comedy-drama "Eighth Grade." With all due respect to Burnham, an artist I admire quite a lot (his 2020 special "Inside" got me through the COVID-19 quarantine), watching "Eighth Grade" is an immensely painful experience. That, I suppose, is the point.

Burnham's film, which does not feature him as an actor, centers on Kayla Day (Elsie Fisher), who's about to graduate from eighth grade and make the leap to high school. The biggest issue Kayla faces, on a personal level, is that she doesn't quite know who she is but masks her self-doubt and self-esteem issues by making peppy, overwrought online videos to try and cover up her own misgivings. Burnham cast age-appropriate actors, including Fisher, which really sells this story. Only an actual pre-teen can truly summon the confusion and angst one feels during that massively transformative period. He also enlisted adult actors like Josh Hamilton for key roles, like Kayla's loving single dad Mark, to round out the story. "Eighth Grade" is, again, painful for anyone who's ever been unpopular in school, felt like the weirdo in the room, or grappled with self-doubt. That's what makes "Eighth Grade" so great, and that's why it earned the fourth place spot on the RT list.

Remember that hypothetical personal A24 ranking I mentioned earlier? I don't actually have the entire thing compiled, but I know one thing beyond any shadow of a doubt: "Lady Bird" is number one on my list. Greta Gerwig's first solo film as a director and screenwriter, one which is largely based on and inspired by her own upbringing in Sacramento, California, introduces us to Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), a high school senior who insists on being called "Lady Bird" to the chagrin of her loving but stubborn mother Marion (an outstanding Laurie Metcalf). We watch as Lady Bird forsakes her best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein), gets a boyfriend through their theater troupe named Danny (Lucas Hedges), falls in with a popular crowd, and embarks on a strange and unsatisfying tryst with anti-establishment bad boy Kyle Scheible (Timothée Chalamet).

Along the way, though, we watch the ambitious, stubborn Lady Bird, who's hellbent on getting out of Sacramento and going to college in New York, grow up, and the whole thing is soundtracked to perfect 2000s needle drops from Alanis Morissette, Justin Timberlake, and Dave Matthews. (Gerwig, charmingly, wrote the artists individual letters explaining how the songs would be used; they accepted.)

Like "Eighth Grade," "Lady Bird" can be weirdly harrowing (as a high school theater kid myself, I cringe over the scenes that center on a musical performance), but with an astounding Ronan at the center, this incredibly personal story becomes universal and beautiful. Gerwig's "Little Women" remains my favorite of hers to date, but "Lady Bird" is incredibly special, and it's not at all surprising that it's the third ranked on the list.

Writer-director Rungano Nyoni's 2024 movie "On Becoming a Guinea Fowl" flew under the radar when it was released by A24 in the United States in the spring of 2025, and that's a shame, because this movie deserves to be seen by everyone, not just the most dedicated of cinephiles. The story begins when our protagonist, Shula (Susan Chardy), heads home from a night out only to discover her uncle's dead body in the road. As she experiences strange visions of herself as a child, she calls her family and is asked to wait with the body, intercepting her intoxicated cousin Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela) along the way. Shortly thereafter, Shula's family gathers for the funeral of said uncle, Fred (Roy Chisha), only for family secrets to threaten his memory as revelations from Nsansa and others come to light.

"On Becoming a Guinea Fowl" is not for the faint of heart; this movie's subject matter goes into some extremely dark places that we won't spoil here. Still, this surreal, strange, and wonderful family drama is one of A24's very best efforts ... but it still falls below one other title on this list.

The movie that tops the Rotten Tomatoes list of A24's most highly ranked films is also, as of this writing, one of its most recent, which is what makes its place in the ranking even more astounding. "Pillion," a 2025 movie by writer and director Harry Lighton, stars Harry Melling (the "Harry Potter" movies, "The Queen's Gambit," and "The Old Guard") and Alexander Skarsgård as Colin and Ray, two British men who form a quite unorthodox arrangement. Colin, who lives at home with his parents, is grappling with his sexual identity and self-esteem when he meets Skarsgård's Ray at a local pub. Ray, who's part of a biker gang in the small town, gives Colin his number, and the two begin a BDSM relationship with Ray as the dominant and Colin as his willing and enthusiastic submissive.

My esteemed colleague BJ Colangelo conducted a phenomenal interview with Lighton and Melling that is an absolute must-read, especially as the trio delves into personal experiences to speak to the power of the movie itself, but I would also advise you bookmark that and read it after you watch "Pillion." Thanks to Lighton's careful, thoughtful direction and genuinely gorgeous performances from both Melling and Skarsgård, "Pillion" is well worth your time, and it is also, currently, the highest-rated A24 movie on Rotten Tomatoes.