From plot to vibes: The A24 effect on how we now watch films

Backrooms is only the entry point, the larger story sits with what A24 has come to represent.

The A24 signal

Over time, the studio has built a reputation for backing films that do not immediately explain themselves. The stories often feel dispersed in plot but dense in the atmosphere it creates, where you do not necessarily walk out with ‘answers’, but with a mood that refuses to settle. This mood now seems to have travelled far beyond the films themselves.

A major chunk of the audience now talks about cinema in fragments, rather than long reviews – a frame, a colour palette, or a line that feels like it belongs to a certain kind of film. Younger audiences now describe what they like by talking about feeling, which is now turned into a genre. “This feels like an A24 film,” or “This is classic A24” is now shorthand for a particular sensibility, one that looks more at tone and ambiguity, over plot and clarity.

What is interesting is not just that a film like Backrooms is being made, but the fact that the audience already seems ready for it. A film that emerges from internet-born imagery, and is directed by someone who grew up in that ecosystem, is now shaped by a studio that has built its identity on the unconventional.

From films to feeling

This is perhaps what the “A24 film” has come to represent today – not just as a type of cinema, but a way of recognising cinema. Midsommar knew what it was doing when it gave us Florence Pugh walking through grief, emotional trauma, and a sea of flowers. Through a bright, slow-burn pace, the film worked around a surreal ‘daylight horror’ concept, aiming to cause an alternative form of psychological discomfort, rather than regular scares.

Audiences are presented with a set of visual and emotional cues that they accurately identify, and it is almost like they learn to build this into their own instinct. With the newly released The Drama, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, the anticipation is built less around plot and more around expectation. The tone of the film was recognised by the audience way before it released – the trailer did not give everything away. Beneath the rather bright, seemingly hopeful surface was something slightly off, something that went much deeper, further from what the eyes can see.

The question is then not just about what A24 is making, but about what audiences are looking for. If a studio can come to signify how a film will feel even before you watch it, what does it say about how we engage with cinema today?

Are we responding to stories as they unfold, or the idea of them that we already internalised?