Ari Aster movies you should watch before diving into his western comedy Eddington

Before galloping into the offbeat chaos of Eddington, Ari Aster’s upcoming western comedy with a warped pulse, it’s only right to revisit the nightmare-fueled gems that made him cinema’s reigning king of beautiful emotional breakdowns. Aster doesn’t just tell stories, he peels them open like wounds, exposing the raw nerves of grief, guilt, and intergenerational baggage. His films hallucinate their way into your bones and are guaranteed to leave you breathless and thinking about them for a long, long time.

And while Eddington might be trading cults for cowboys, the psychological unease is bound to ride along. So saddle up, here are the must-watch Ari Aster films that will help you decode whatever unholy chaos awaits in his latest creation.

The Strange Thing About the Johnsons

Ari Aster’s The Strange Thing About the Johnsons from 2011 is disturbing in a way no horror film can be. Made as his thesis at AFI, this 29-minute short film rips the mask off a picture-perfect family and dares you to keep watching. It centers on Sidney Johnson, a beloved suburban poet, who’s being abused, not by a stranger or spouse, but by his own son, Isaiah. The power dynamic is flipped, grotesquely so, as Isaiah’s dominance festers behind closed doors and Sidney’s silence screams louder than any outcry.

The short leaked online after its Slamdance screening and instantly exploded across the internet. Some hailed it as a fearless masterpiece; others couldn’t finish it. But love it or loathe it, it stamped Ari Aster's brand into our collective psyche: stories that tackle trauma with unflinching boldness and a disturbing eye for emotional rot. As of now the film has gained popularity among cinephiles who have dissected the film while many have called it the most disturbing film they have ever watched.

Available to watch on: YouTube

Hereditary

Ari Aster's debut film has been hailed by many as the horror film of the decade and it's not because it's filled with ghosts and jump scares and corpses. This isn’t just a ghost story. It’s a grief story. And that makes it so much worse.

The film is about a dysfunctional family consisting of Annie, her two children Peter and Charlie, her husband Steve and her mother Ellen. The Graham family is already on edge when the film begins, their grief layered and generational. And then the death of Annie’s mother Ellen only tightens the noose. And when young Charlie dies in one of the most shocking, breath-stopping scenes in modern horror, the film shifts into a nightmare you can’t wake from. Not because of ghosts or ghouls, but because of what happens when mourning calcifies into madness.

Toni Collette’s performance as Annie is nothing short of operatic. She doesn’t act out grief, she detonates it. Her pain is physical, feral, and volcanic. Every scream, every twitch of her face, is a masterclass in horror as emotional honesty. But what makes Hereditary so suffocating is how real it feels. How Ari Aster refuses to give the audience catharsis. No release. Just dread that tightens and tightens.

Hereditary isn’t just horror, it’s heartbreak wearing a demon’s face. And once you’ve seen it, you feel like you’ve inherited something too. Something you’ll never quite shake. But it’s more than horror, it’s grief in slow motion, trauma given form. Ari Aster doesn’t just scare; he devastates. Hereditary introduced the world to his unrelenting vision: horror not as genre, but as emotional truth. Once you’ve seen it, you carry it with you, like a family curse.

Available to watch on: Prime Video

Also Read: Is Hereditary based on a true story? Details explored

Midsommar

Midsommar has been widely honored as one of Florence Pugh's best performances and if you watch the film, you'll realize why. No darkness to shield you, no shadows to hide the rot. Ari Aster turned heartbreak into a fairytale, then laced the petals with poison. It’s a pastel horror. It’s a grief wearing silk gloves. It’s a breakup disemboweled and left to ferment under a never-setting sun.

At center is Dani, played by Pugh with a face like a wound trying to scab over. Her family is gone. Her mind is smoke. Her boyfriend, Christian, is barely present, the damp rag of a man shrinking under the weight of responsibility he never asked for. When he invites her to Sweden with his anthropology bros, it’s not an act of kindness, it’s an emotional sedative. And the reluctant trip changes her in ways she could never have imagined. Thanks to the Hårga community.

What follows isn’t a vacation, it’s a descent. The Hårga commune is serene on the surface, but its rituals are soaked in ancestral blood and choreographed control. And Dani? She doesn’t just witness the madness. She becomes its centerpiece.

Dani’s grief is suffocating. Her anxiety is palpable. Her final smile? Terrifyingly earned. Because while Ari Aster begins Midsommar with loss, it ends with rebirth, a grotesque, euphoric, deeply twisted rebirth where codependency dies and a new kind of power takes root. Midsommar is grief in flowered robes, rage under a floral crown. And by the time the credits roll, you’re not entirely sure whether Dani escaped a nightmare, or bloomed into one.

Available to watch on: Prime Video

Beau Is Afraid

Beau Is Afraid marked a tonal shift for Ari Aster—leaning more into comedy, but retaining the same level of dread as his previous cinematic endeavors. Aster built a labyrinth out of neurosis, memory, and mother-shaped fear, then tossed Beau inside like a sacrificial lamb with social anxiety.

Played to perfection by Joaquin Phoenix, the film revolves around a man named Beau and the long, tragic, weird odyssey he embarks on to reach his mother's funeral. The way to his mother's estate is dreadful and full of ghosts, both living and dead and he is constantly dealing with his inner demons and paranoia. What is shown as a nightmare for him ends up becoming true towards the end of the film and the film drives the narrative to turn around at the last minute.

This is grief, guilt, and childhood trauma all combined. It’s absurd. Hilarious. Crushing. A nightmare in four acts. Every scene pulses with dread so surreal you start to question your own grip on reality. Beau Is Afraid isn’t about facing your fears. It’s about being devoured by them with a smile. Although the film's complex storyline didn't exactly sit too well with the audience, it still remains one of Ari Aster's best and most complex projects.