All 4 Ari Aster Feature Films, Ranked (original) (raw)

The artwork / poster for Ari Aster's Eddington (2025)

Image via A24

Published Aug 27, 2025, 6:30 PM EDT

Jeremy has more than 2500 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
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Before he ever directed a feature film, Ari Aster gained some notoriety for The Strange Thing About the Johnsons, which came out in 2011 and definitely went to… places. Not nice places, but Ari Aster went to them, and it was a sign of things to come for sure. He made his feature directorial debut seven years later, and has continued working at that scale since, initially with a pair of horror movies, then with a horror/comedy/epic film, and then eventually moving away from horror entirely with his fourth film… kind of. He’s probably found the most success both critically and commercially with horror, but it’s admirable that Aster doesn’t want to just be known for horror, even though he’s so far been pretty damn good at helming that kind of movie. It’s harder to know what to make of some of his less horror-focused works, for sure, but that also makes them a bit more interesting to talk/think about.

Though his films can be divisive, there’s a little by way of consensus when it comes to which film is his best, and (usually) regarding what film is his second-best. You might not like what he’s going for with his best, but even if Aster’s not for you, then you'll still probably find his largely agreed-upon best more tolerable than his generally agreed-upon lesser films. That’s a long-winded way of saying that people don’t agree about whether Aster’s a great filmmaker or not, but more agreeable is the way those films to date tend to get ranked. You might be surprised to find the ranking below very positive overall, but you probably won’t be too surprised by the order the films themselves are in (and some of that has to do with there not being too many feature films to date, sure).

4 'Beau Is Afraid' (2023)

Joaquin Phoenix, Nathan Lane, and Amy Ryan holding hands at the table in Beau is Afraid.

Image via A24

Ari Aster’s riskiest film to date, Beau Is Afraid isn't just a lot, but is probably too much. Yet the too muchness of it all is also arguably the point, since it’s three hours of a panic attack splattered upon the big screen. To say that Beau feels fear would be a big understatement, since this movie’s three hours long and it’s basically just the titular character having a bad time for most of that runtime. More specifically, he learns his mother has died early on in the film, so much of it follows him making a chaotic journey cross-country to attend her funeral. And he’s not very good at dealing with the outside world, with the world not being very good at dealing with him, or his luck is terrible, or many of the horrible things he encounters are exaggerated by his panic-stricken mind. Maybe it’s a little of all of the above.

It is technically a comedy, but also a very challenging one, owing to how in-your-face it is constantly, and the fact that it stays in-your-face for a very long duration. If you feel it emotionally, then Beau Is Afraid might well be enthralling and challenging in a good way, as something that reflects and/or exaggerates certain experiences you might've had. But if you don’t quite find the same things anxiety-inducing that Aster likely does, you could be left feeling a bit confused by everything this one throws at you, or, at the very least, questioning why it decides to spend so much time throwing those things at you. Still, as a go-for-broke kind of movie, and one that does feel personal and passionate, Beau Is Afraid has merit, even if it might be the Ari Aster film that technically misses the mark more often than his others. It’s being dubbed lesser compared to his other movies here, but if it sounds intriguing – and you don’t mind the length – then Beau Is Afraid is worth exploring at least once.

3 'Eddington' (2025)

As of 2025, the whole COVID era is still quite recent, and it’s not territory that many filmmakers have been willing to approach just yet. Maybe it feels too soon for some, and maybe it feels too difficult for others, no matter how much time has passed. But Ari Aster, keen to keep challenging people post-Beau Is Afraid, dove into it fully with Eddington. It wasn’t Pedro Pascal’s first rodeo in such a movie, either, considering he was also in the genuinely terrible (and justifiably forgotten) The Bubble (2022). Also, Joaquin Phoenix is in this after also being the central character in Beau Is Afraid, and gets another challenging lead role to play, starring here as the sheriff of a small town who decides he wants to run against the mayor (Pascal), all the while everyone is on edge because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdowns.

Tension builds, but to say how it eventually explodes would be giving away too much. Eddington is long (though a bit more restrained than Beau Is Afraid), so it certainly has the space to charge off in a fair few unexpected directions throughout. It’s kind of a satirical modern-day Western, and then it’s also some other things as it reaches its second half and beyond, but it never really dives into horror territory. You could sort of say the same about Beau Is Afraid, but that one did get more surreal, and felt like a nightmare at times. Eddington is brutal, unsettling, and difficult in some ways, but it’s not ever scary in the traditional sense, so it can be appreciated as something a bit new for Ari Aster. He nails a lot of it, even if Eddington drags a little in parts and lacks a certain something to make it feel like an instant modern classic. But it’s interesting and often entertaining, so long as you're okay with the comedy here being provocative and willing to make observations (sometimes scathing, and sometimes more mildly critical) about various groups of people and ideas. Ari Aster really went for it, and you can understand why Eddington hasn’t been embraced by all, but some of the risks taken here do pay off.

2 'Midsommar' (2019)

Jack Reynor and Florence Pugh as Christian and Dani, watching horrified during the ättestupa ceremony in Midsommar

Image via A24

Midsommar is easily one of the best folk horror movies of the 21st century so far, and it was surprising that it came out so soon after Ari Aster’s first movie, and felt close to being on the same level quality-wise. Broadly speaking, it’s about a trip to Sweden that a group of young Americans go on, with two of them being in a relationship that’s on the rocks, and one half of that couple being a woman who’s grappling with an especially horrific recent family tragedy. There’s disquiet and uncertainty right away, because of those things, but everything gets much worse on the trip itself, when what was supposed to be a unique festival held at the height of summer ends up being much more cult-like than anticipated.

The sunniness of Midsommar contrasts amazingly well with how emotionally intense and unapologetically gruesome the film gets.

The brightness of Midsommar is visually appropriate, considering it’s set in a place, and at a time, where/when the sun pretty much never sets, and the sunniness contrasts amazingly well with how emotionally intense and unapologetically gruesome the film gets. It’s another challenging Ari Aster film, but the word “challenging” applies to everything he’s done, be it feature-length or short films. There is a director’s cut of Midsommar that’s interesting, albeit a little flawed, so it’s the sort of thing where sticking to the already quite long theatrical cut is probably preferable, and then the longer version can be watched if you both liked the original version and feel brave enough to revisit it. Even if you do like Midsommar quite a lot, once might be enough, though, given how brutal and uncompromising so much of it is in so many ways.

1 'Hereditary' (2018)

Two women have a conversation in a parking lot in Hereditary.

Image via A24

An essential and endlessly upsetting movie about grief that also ranks among the scariest movies in recent memory, Hereditary was the first feature film Ari Aster directed, and the one that instantly made him famous and notorious simultaneously. Later films of his might well have been more graphic and out there, but Hereditary still hits extremely hard, and it’s probably his most emotionally affecting movie to date. And that’s saying a lot, considering all the upsetting things that happen in the aforementioned films here, but Hereditary goes really far in exploring grief, mental illness, trauma, and family conflict. Like Eddington, its plot is hard to predict, so it’s better to keep a description of the narrative brief, or maybe even non-existent.

If you don’t mind having a bad time, and respect a film that’ll pummel you in the gut a bunch of times and leave you feeling shattered, then Hereditary is as easy to recommend as it is hard to watch. It’s the kind of thing that caused enough of a stir to now feel over-hyped, or even disappointing, in the eyes of some, but backlash tends to happen when something becomes a surprise critical hit, especially if the thing in question belongs to the horror genre. In any event, it’s the best horror film of its year quite comfortably, and it’s also among the most notable horror movies in recent memory. Most of its secrets are probably well-known and/or spoiled by now, but if you’ve not seen Hereditary and still don’t know much about it, it’s probably worth the nightmares and trauma to experience.

Hereditary

Release Date

June 8, 2018

Runtime

2h 7m

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