Ari Aster
Ari Aster is an American filmmaker. His films are noted for their unsettling combination of dark humor, horror, and graphic violence. After garnering some recognition for writing and directing the short horror film The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011) as part of his studies at the AFI Conservatory, he became widely known for writing and directing the horror films Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019), establishing himself in the genre of elevated horror. Aster co-founded the production company Square Peg with Danish producer Lars Knudsen in 2019. He pivoted away from horror by writing, directing, and producing the surrealist comedy-drama film Beau Is Afraid (2023) and the satirical neo-Western thriller film Eddington (2025), both of which received generally positive critical reception but failed to perform at the box office.
Photo: Gabriel Hutchinson, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
