10 Books That Would Be Perfect A24 Movies (2024)

Blockbuster obsession and corporate acquisitions have shrunk the distribution market considerably over the last decade or so. While the '90s mid-budget film scene was dominated by distributors with unique identities and partnerships, modern distribution has become far less artistically credible or creatively driven. Enter A24, the perfect salve to the ever-growing chasm between profitable films and good films. The company's selective slate and eye for unique and boundary-pushing work have earned them a glowing reputation among film lovers the world over.

While the studio didn't actually start producing films until the mid-2010s, the consistency of their releases leads many viewers to incorrectly assume that A24 develops and produces all the films they distribute. Although it distributes far more films than it actually produces, the strength of its persona means that its projects all feel distinctly of a piece. Now essentially a genre unto itself, it's very clear which kinds of stories A24 is interested in telling. These books would be perfect adaptations to add to A24's lineup, sharing similar themes, messages, and sensibilities.

10 'Near the Bone' (2021)

Written by Christina Henry

Mattie and her overbearing husband, William, live in a secluded cabin atop a mountain. During winter, the snow is heavy, and life is difficult. Mattie fills her day with the tasks essential to their quiet life: mending clothes, collecting firewood, and staying on her husband's good side. However, when Mattie finds a mutilated fox in the woods near their home, her curiosity is aroused. The mangled animal doesn't look like the typical prey item of a regular predator. Mattie begins to think they aren't as alone on the mountaintop as she once thought.

With overtones of paranoia and isolation, Near the Bone is reminiscent of the underrated A24 horror film It Comes at Night. The book's narrow range of characters and limited settings provide a lonely yet cinematic environment that would be well suited to a big-screen adaptation. The story itself is also rich with layered mysteries and gradually reveals shocking details about Mattie's past, her marriage to William, and the secrets of the woods they live within.

It Comes at Night

R

Thriller

Horror

Where to Watch

• stream
• rent
• buy

*Availability in US

Release Date

June 9, 2017

Director

Trey Edward Shults

Cast

Kelvin Harrison Jr. , Joel Edgerton , Christopher Abbott , Carmen Ejogo , Riley Keough

Runtime

97minutes

Writers

Trey Edward Shults

9 'Patricia Wants To Cuddle' (2022)

Written by Samantha Allen

Reality show The Catch has been pairing fame-hungry women with vapid bachelors for season after season. With the budget getting tighter, the top four contestants on the show's newest season will be filming the final episodes on a small, craggy island in the Pacific Northwest. The remaining contestants include a Christian beauty queen, an auto-show model, a fashion blogger, and a white-collar professional. While the group is prepared for long filming days, invasive questions from producers and forced dates with the show's titular "catch," they aren't prepared for the strangeness of the island or the danger presented by its inhabitants.

Written from shifting points of view, Patricia Wants to Cuddle skewers social-media obsession and reality television with its satirical and absurd storytelling. The novel's themes surrounding relationships and keeping up appearances evoke the Yorgos Lanthimos film The Lobster, a film that utilizes a stilted voice and bombastic science-fiction concepts to get to the heart of society's obsession with traditional relationships.

The Lobster

R

Drama

Romance

Sci-Fi

Release Date

October 15, 2015

Director

Yorgos Lanthimos

Cast

Colin Farrell , Olivia Colman , Rachel Weisz , Jessica Barden

Runtime

119 minutes

Writers

Efthymis Filippou , Yorgos Lanthimos

8 'The Grownup' (2015)

Written by Gillian Flynn

A sex worker reinvents herself as a fake psychic for hire and preys on the vulnerable by offering palm readings for a price. Her small-time scam begins to expand when she crosses paths with a troubled and wealthy woman named Susan, who believes her large Victorian house is haunted. Believing Susan to be an easy and vulnerable mark, the short story's unnamed protagonist visits her home to provide psychic counsel. However, after arriving and experiencing the home and its inhabitants for herself, the idea of a potential haunting seems less far-fetched.

Author Gillian Flynn has had her fair share of wildly successful film adaptations, and for good reason. Gone Girl and Dark Places each scored big-budget on-screen adaptations (the latter of which was released by A24), while Sharp Objects was brought to life in the incomparable HBO series of the same name. Despite the brevity of Flynn's short story The Grownup, there is more than enough intrigue and mystery in the work to fill out a dark and cynical R-rated film adaptation.

Gone Girl

R

Drama

Mystery

Thriller

Where to Watch

• stream
• rent
• buy

Not available

*Availability in US

Release Date

October 3, 2014

Director

David Fincher

Cast

Ben Affleck , Rosamund Pike , Neil Patrick Harris , Tyler Perry , Carrie Coon , Kim Dickens

Runtime

149 minutes

Writers

Gillian Flynn

7 'I Who Have Never Known Men' (1995)

Written by Jacqueline Harpman

A young girl has lived her life as one of 40 women kept in captivity. Living in a cage underground and guarded by armed men who never speak, she has no grasp of why she's imprisoned or who she truly is. As the only child of the group, she is also the only one who has no memory or knowledge of her life before the cage or the world outside it. One day, an alarm sounds, and the guards flee. The women escape, but the world is as barren and mysterious as the one they came from.

Bleak, introspective and dystopian, I Who Have Never Known Men is a painful portrait of isolation through a science-fiction lens. On its face, the novel by Jacqueline Harpman sounds similar to films like Room or The Rover. However, the well-worn plot points related to captivity and dystopia are rendered entirely unique and singular as a result of Harpman's prose and perspective.

6 'Tender is the Flesh' (2017)

Written by Agustina Bazterrica

Marcos works at his local abattoir. After a virus contaminated all animal meat, the government made the choice to permit the consumption of people. Marcos sticks to the basics of his job: taking in product and processing it in line with the abattoir's requirements. However, when Marcos is given a high-quality live specimen to process, his view of his work is challenged.

Society's ultimate taboo is frequently explored in media and cinema. Tender is the Flesh, by Argentine author Agustina Bazterrica, takes the cannibalism taboo and draws it out to its most extreme version. In the process, Bazterrica uses the gory and confronting plot points as a vehicle for themes of misogyny and the commodification of life and humanity. While Tender is the Flesh is hardly a widely appealing crowd-pleaser, the high-concept science fiction premise and heady themes are right at home in A24's catalog, which includes the likes of Ex Machina and Under the Skin.

5 'The Guest List' (2020)

Written by Lucy Foley

On an exclusive and isolated island off the coast of Ireland, preparations are underway for an A-list wedding. The groom is a handsome and charming TV star who leads a wildlife exploration series à la Bear Grylls. The bride is a highly strung but ultra-successful magazine publisher. The guests, made up of family, friends, and lesser-known plus ones, are traveling to the island by boat and will stay for the weekend. Although everything has been planned to perfection, many of the guests attend the wedding with baggage and secrets, and before the celebration is over, someone ends up dead.

Told from a rotating series of character POVs, The Guest List is a perfect locked-room thriller. Taut, pacey, and surprising, the dark mystery from British author Lucy Foley delivers on every promise and ties up every loose end in a surprising and twisty fashion. Mystery and isolation are a common combination in A24's library, and films like Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, The Lighthouse and Midsommar all toy with similar concepts in unique ways. The commonality of locked-room mysteries in media means audiences are spoiled for choice, and likely have higher-than-average standards for works in the genre. When it comes to modern interpretations of the trope, few come close to The Guest List.

The Lighthouse

R

Horror

Fantasy

Drama

Where to Watch

• stream
• rent
• buy

Not available

*Availability in US

Release Date

October 18, 2019

Director

Robert Eggers

Cast

Robert Pattinson , Willem Dafoe , Valeriia Karaman

Runtime

110 minutes

Writers

Robert Eggers , Max Eggers

4 'The Vegetarian' (2007)

Written by Han Kang

Yeong-hye lives an average, albeit uptight, life. Despite the comfort of her existence with her husband, her thoughts and dreams become dominated by intrusive thoughts of violence and gore. In an effort to divorce herself from this troubling interference, she makes the choice to become a vegetarian, which has massive implications for her life and those around her. Her husband and family become obsessed with taking back the small amount of control she tried to steal away for herself.

Vegetarianism becomes the stand-in for autonomy, control, and free will in The Vegetarian, written by Nobel Prize-winning author Han Kang. A24's catalog is filled with films that explore struggles of identity and power, ranging from the feel-good coming-of-age film Lady Bird to the less feel-good Alex Garland film Men. While The Vegetarian was adapted into a Korean feature film in 2009, there's still much more to be mined from this complicated classic.

3 'Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke' (2021)

Written by Eric LaRocca

When Zoe sees an ad for an antique apple peeler on an online chat forum, she knows she has to have the item. It's the early 2000s, and chat rooms are a popular refuge for the isolated and lonely. The poster of the ad, Agnes, responds to Zoe, and the pair begin to chat regularly. Their friendship quickly deepens into something more romantic and then something much darker. A dominant/submissive dynamic develops, and the pair spirals into a toxic and dangerous back and forth.

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke would be a perfect fit for a "screen-life" style adaptation. The niche genre is defined by being set entirely within the screen of a computer. Notable examples of the genre include Searching and the Unfriended films. Much like films of the genre, this novel from Eric LaRocca is told entirely through email and chat room correspondence between the book's only two characters. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is controversial, strange and deeply unsettling, and the book's dark portrayal of a toxic lesbian relationship makes Love Lies Bleeding feel like a fairy tale.

2 'The Troop' (2014)

Written by Nick Cutter

It's time for scoutmaster Tim Riggs to take his troop of Boy Scouts on their yearly camping trip to a small island off the coast of Canada. The trip is an opportunity for the small-town boys to test their skills and expand their knowledge of wilderness craft. However, this year, the scoutmaster and his troop aren't alone on the tiny island. A disheveled stranger arrives at the island by way of a small boat and approaches the group. Unsure of what to do, Tim offers to help the man who is very, very sick.

Nick Cutter's The Troop is borderline unadaptable. Packed with life-changing gore and repulsive psychological horrors, any film adaptation of the work would definitely have to pull some punches to secure a release, especially considering the novel's protagonists are all children. Although a feature adaptation would have to leave large swaths of the novel on the proverbial cutting room floor, the story is still a thematically rich portrayal of the helplessness of youth and the accurate group dynamics of troubled teenage boys.

1 'The Cipher' (1991)

Written by Kathe Koja

Failed poet and video-store employee Nicholas doesn't have much going on in his life and doesn't get much attention from Nakota, his long-time friend who he also has feelings for. All of this changes when Nicholas finds a pitch-black hole in the storage room of his apartment building. Obsessed with the hole and its possibilities, Nakota starts coming to Nicholas' apartment every day. He relishes her company but can't relate to the darkness of her curiosity as he watches her put inspects and mice into the hole to see what happens. Gradually, Nicholas begins to feel a connection to the hole, and it begins to dominate his thoughts.

Grungy, dirty and existential, The Cipher is as unpleasant as it is poignant. The evocative and unconventional prose renders a setting and story that feels cold, vicious, and singular. Kathe Koja's portrayal of isolation is tempered with stabs at the art world and explorations of the transactional nature of relationships. While few films or novels come close to being comparable to The Cipher, the otherworldly elements and profound loneliness of the novel will feel familiar to lovers of films like The Lighthouse. With very few characters and a high-concept plot device, The Cipher would function perfectly as a dark and lonely sci-fi drama about obsession.

NEXT: 10 A24 Movies That Are Perfect From Start to Finish