Start with Hereditary, which is the most controlled and the most conventionally structured: a family drama that becomes something else in its final act. Then Midsommar for the daylight version, and only then Beau Is Afraid, which is three hours and divides audiences more sharply than anything else here.
Aster makes films about families that do not work, staged as horror. The supernatural material in Hereditary and Midsommar is real within the films and also entirely legible as metaphor, which is why both play as domestic tragedy to some viewers and as genre to others. He is very precise about grief and very willing to be tasteless about it.
The later work has moved away from horror without getting easier. Beau Is Afraid is a three-hour anxiety comedy about a man trying to visit his mother, and Eddington is a contemporary satire. The constant is a protagonist being processed by forces they cannot argue with.
Where to start
Hereditary. It is the tightest thing he has made, the family drama holds for an hour before the genre asserts itself, and Toni Collette gives the loudest performance in modern horror. Midsommar second. Leave Beau Is Afraid until you know whether you like him, because it is three hours and unrelenting.
Top picks
Filmography
- Hereditary (2018)
- Midsommar (2019)
- Beau Is Afraid (2023)
- Eddington (2025)
Sources and further reading
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FAQs about Ari Aster
Which is more disturbing, Hereditary or Midsommar?
Hereditary for dread and Midsommar for individual images. Hereditary builds sustained domestic tension and lands two sequences most viewers cannot shake; Midsommar is brighter, longer and more explicit, with its worst material happening in full daylight surrounded by smiling people.
Should I watch the director's cut of Midsommar?
On a second viewing, or first if you have the appetite for a hundred and seventy minutes. The extra half hour deepens the relationship the film is actually about, which makes the ending land harder, but it also slows an already slow film considerably. The theatrical cut is the better introduction.
Is Beau Is Afraid horror?
Not really. It is an anxiety comedy with horror imagery, three hours long, and structured as a series of escalating worst cases rather than as a genre film. People arriving expecting Hereditary tend to be the ones who dislike it most, which is worth knowing before committing an evening.