A24 has one of the cleanest reputations in Hollywood, with its record of near-perfect releases frankly remarkable. Most recently, A24 delivered one of its most viral films of the past year in Backrooms, an unsettling, David Lynch-esque horror movie based on a viral 2019 creepypasta. So impressive that it derailed the theatrical run of The Mandalorian and Grogu, the Renate Reinsve and Chiwetel Ejiofor-led film has already made history, with 20-year-old Kane Parsons now the youngest director to hold the #1 spot at the North American box office.
Backrooms might be the most popular A24 release of 2026 yet, but it is far from the only one worthy of praise. Other A24 movies to debut in theaters in the first half of the year include the micro-budget horror Undertone, the Glen Powell-led How to Make a Killing, Harry Lighton’s R-rated romance Pillion, and Zendaya and Robert Pattinson‘s The Drama. All these movies come in advance of A24’s most ambitious project yet, as they join the many others adapting video games with Elden Ring, which is currently scheduled to be released in theaters in March 2028.
Beyond all that, one of the most underrated A24 projects of 2026 is currently proving popular on streaming, following its debut on HBO Max on May 29. The film in question is The Moment, a mockumentary that sees the hugely popular Charli XCX satirize fame and fortune through a digital lens. Although the film made just shy of $5 million at the global box office, it actually became the third-biggest limited opening of the last five years in theaters, behind Marty Supreme and Wes Anderson‘s Asteroid City. Four months since its theatrical debut, The Moment is an instant streaming hit, becoming one of the ten most-streamed movies on HBO Max in the U.S.
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
Parasite
Everything Everywhere
Oppenheimer
Birdman
No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
What Did Critics Say About ‘The Moment’?
Mockumentaries are famously difficult to earn universal critical praise from. With that in mind, an average score of 67% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes is a strong reception for The Moment, even if Screen Rant called it an “unmitigated disaster.” Ross Bonaime’s review for Collider was much more positive, awarding a 7/10 score and saying, “The Moment is a delightful spotlight for Charli XCX as an actor, and the concept itself finds some playful ways to expand on the lore of her massively successful album.”
The Moment is streaming now on HBO Max. Stay tuned to Collider for more streaming stories.
