Just over a decade ago, A24 was a tiny independent studio releasing strange, stylish films that didn’t quite fit anywhere else. Today, those three letters carry their own gravitational pull. An A24 project doesn’t need a logline to attract attention; the brand itself is the hook. And woven through that decade of hits — comedies, dramas, horror films, and whatever Everything Everywhere All At Once qualifies as — one theme keeps resurfacing: religion.
That pattern continues today with the studio’s newest release, Eternity, a romantic comedy directed by David Freyne. On paper, it sounds lighthearted: an afterlife where souls have one week to choose their eternal destination. But beneath the jokes and charm is a surprisingly direct confrontation with faith, longing and the permanent, final choices that shape a person’s soul.
The story follows Joan (Elizabeth Olsen), who arrives in the afterlife only to discover she must decide where to spend eternity — and with whom. Her longtime partner (Miles Teller) expects them to continue their life together. But her first love (Callum Turner), who died young, has been waiting for her for decades. The setup plays like a supernatural rom-com, but the stakes are unmistakably theological. How do you choose a forever? What does loyalty look like when time no longer exists? What does love mean in a world where consequences are eternal?
Freyne leans into the emotions rather than the theology. The afterlife isn’t based in any sort of Biblical battleground; it’s a place where people can choose whatever their paradise looks like, whether it’s a beach destination, a mountain resort, a quiet neighborhood, or a place with no men in sight. It’s funny in places, tender in others, and unexpectedly real about the stakes of making a permanent choice.
This isn’t new territory for A24. The studio has never shied away from stories shaped by spiritual tension. First Reformed remains its most severe example, a Paul Schrader drama that digs into guilt, despair and the fear of divine silence. Ethan Hawke plays Ernst Toller, a pastor collapsing under the weight of ecological dread and personal failure. Schrader has said the film was influenced by the Book of Job, and it shows. Toller’s central question — “Will God forgive us?” — could have been lifted straight from Scripture.
Religion appears differently in other A24 films. Lady Bird, Minari and Waves all treat faith as an everyday reality, shaping families and households without taking over the story. Greta Gerwig once said Lady Bird was inspired by reading about the lives of saints — “divinely inspired, but also annoying teenagers” — which is exactly the tone the film captures. A24 has long recognized something most studios overlook: for many people, religion isn’t a plot device. It’s part of the background noise of growing up in America.
Then there are the films where belief curdles. Ari Aster’s Midsommar, Hereditary and the paranoid odyssey Under the Silver Lake all use cults or fringe groups to explore the extremes of devotion. These movies treat faith not as a source of comfort but as a system that can warp under pressure. A24 doesn’t mock belief, but it doesn’t romanticize it either. It examines what happens when people reach for certainty in the wrong places.
Other films hunt for transcendence through absurdity. Everything Everywhere All At Once is a prime example — a maximalist multiverse comedy that somehow arrives at something close to a theological conclusion. The Daniels have admitted the film started as “a foolish prayer to a cold, indifferent universe,” but its final message lands closer to classic moral teaching: compassion matters, presence matters, love matters. The film goes everywhere, but ends up somewhere surprisingly sacred.
A24’s horror catalog also grapples with spirituality. Heretic, the recent thriller about two missionaries trapped in the home of a charming, unstable recluse, treats belief with unusual seriousness. Directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have said they wanted to depict “the genuine search for faith” without cheapening it—a rare ambition in modern horror.
Put together, these films reveal a studio unusually drawn to questions that sit at the core of religious life — guilt, hope, transcendence, longing, devotion and the ache for meaning. Eternity continues that trend, even while operating in a lighter genre. For all its charm and humor, the movie’s central dilemma forces viewers to consider what it means to choose an eternal future. Not in an abstract theological way, but in a human one.
A24 isn’t making faith-based films, and Eternity isn’t trying to evangelize. But the studio keeps finding its way back to the spiritual because those questions won’t go away. People are still wrestling with belief, even if they don’t talk about it in church language. A24 simply builds worlds where those tensions can breathe.
In Eternity, the afterlife becomes a stage for something deeply human: the hope that our choices matter and the desire to be known beyond the limits of time. It’s a romantic comedy, but it’s also something more. It’s a reminder that even in a studio famous for the strange and the unsettling, the most powerful stories are often the ones asking what lasts forever.
