Ari Aster

Ari Aster was born to Jewish parents in Princeton, New Jersey on July 15, 1986. The family moved to New York City when Ari was about a week old. His mother was a poet and his father was a jazz musician. He has a younger brother. He saw Dick Tracy (1990) when he was four years old, later recalling that he jumped from his seat and ran "six New York City blocks" while his mother chased him after seeing the scene in which Warren Beatty's titular protagonist fired a machine gun in front of a wall of fire. He spent some of his childhood in England, where his father opened a jazz nightclub in Chester. He described himself as a "fat kid with a stutter" who felt alienated and was kicked out of Santa Fe Preparatory School. He was obsessed with films, ''Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', and Hastings Video Store. Originally aspiring to become an author, Aster became interested in filmmaking through screenwriting, and wrote six feature-length screenplays during high school even though he would not begin actually making films until college. As a child, he became obsessed with horror films and frequently rented them from local video stores: "I just exhausted the horror section of every video store I could find. I didn't know how to assemble people who would cooperate on something like that [so] I found myself just writing screenplays." He graduated in 2008 and debuted as the writer and director of the short film Tale of Two Tims, which he submitted to the American Film Institute (AFI). This led to him being accepted into the 2010 class of the AFI Conservatory's graduate program, where he earned an MFA with a focus in directing. ==Career==

After graduating from the AFI Conservatory, Aster wrote and directed several more short films between 2011 and 2018, often teaming with his AFI Conservatory friends Alejandro de Leon and Pawel Pogorzelski. The most notable project was the short psychological horror film The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011), which follows the members of a suburban family in which the father finds himself trapped in an incestuous relationship with his abusive son. The film was Aster's thesis film while studying at the AFI Conservatory, and was later screened at film festivals; it premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in Utah on January 22 before leaking online in November, where it went viral. Film website Short of the Week wrote that the comments on the film's YouTube page had "everything from effusive acclaim to disgusted vitriol [...] in terms of the internet, that means it's a hit". Aster worked on the film with fellow AFI students. He first conceived the story while discussing taboos with his friends, including the film's star Brandon Greenhouse, before starting his first year at AFI. and was theatrically released in the United States on June 8. It was acclaimed by critics, with Toni Collette's performance receiving particular praise, and was a commercial success; it grossed over $80 million on a $10 million budget, becoming A24's highest-grossing film worldwide. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone named it the scariest film of 2018. Aster next wrote and directed the folk horror film Midsommar (2019), which was also produced by A24. It follows a group of American university students who travel to Sweden for a festival that occurs once every 90 years and find themselves in the clutches of a cult claiming to practise paganism. Midsommar was theatrically released in the United States on July 3. The film received positive reviews from critics, with many praising Aster's direction and Florence Pugh's performance. Aster's original 171-minute cut of the film, which A24 asked him to trim down for a wide theatrical release, had its world premiere at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City as part of its Scary Movies XII lineup on August 20. For his work on the film, Aster received a nomination for Best Screenplay at the 29th Gotham Independent Film Awards. In June 2019, Aster and Danish producer Lars Knudsen announced that they had launched a new production company called Square Peg. In June 2020, Aster said his next film would be a "nightmare comedy" that lasts for four hours. In February 2021, A24 announced that Aster would write and direct Beau Is Afraid (2023) as its third partnership with him. The film follows an anxiety-fueled and paranoid middle-aged man who must venture out on a surreal odyssey to visit his mother's home. It was originally titled Disappointment Blvd. It was released in theaters on April 21. It ultimately lost the studio over $35 million. Speaking about the film's critical and commercial shortcomings, Aster said in 2025: "I was pretty sad that it was so maligned […] it was a bummer. It lost money. Critically, I wouldn’t say it was reviled, there’s just no consensus whatsoever... There are things that I would do differently if I did it now... I think I ejected a number of people from the theater with that [last hour]." In 2021, Aster signed a first-look TV deal with A24. In August 2022, it was announced that Aster would reteam with A24 to produce Kristoffer Borgli's third feature film Dream Scenario, with Nicolas Cage attached to star. The film would be produced by Square Peg, which also expanded its slate to include films by Kantemir Balagov, Guy Maddin, Don Hertzfeldt, and Sebastián Silva, as well as television adaptations of J. G. Ballard's The Drowned World, Nick Drnaso's Acting Class, and Junji Ito's Uzumaki. Aster wrote and directed the neo-Western political satire film Eddington (2025), which was co-produced by A24 and Square Peg. Set in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and George Floyd protests, the film examines the political and social turmoil in the fictional town of Eddington, New Mexico caused by the contested mayoral election fought between the county sheriff and the town's mayor. The film debuted on May 16, 2025, in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was released in theaters on July 18. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its ambition but found its satirical elements lacking. ==Upcoming and unfinished projects==

• Untitled "portrait short" scripts (2018) • Untitled "Sirkian melodrama" (2019) • Untitled big-budget sci-fi satire adaptation (2019) • Untitled musical film (2019) • Eddington sequel (2025) • Untitled horror film (2025) == Themes and style ==

Aster's work is frequently noted for its exploration of grief, family trauma, psychological deterioration, and societal taboos. His early films such as The Strange Thing About the Johnsons and Hereditary delve into the dysfunction and repressed tensions within families, often blending horror with psychological drama. His distinct visual style often juxtaposes daylight and horror, especially notable in Midsommar, where unsettling events unfold in bright, pastoral settings. Aster has cited a deep interest in "emotional horror"—films that unsettle not through jump scares but through existential dread and the collapse of personal identity. Recurring motifs include cult behavior, ritualism, and the collapse of individual agency in the face of communal or inherited forces. His work is also known for long takes, meticulous mise-en-scène, and a blend of slow-burn pacing with sudden, graphic violence. ==Filmography==

Short film Feature film Executive producer Producer ==Reception==