Ari Aster in the catalog
The family is difficult. The welcoming strangers may be worse.
The catalog contains two films directed by Ari Aster. Both now have developed manuscripts: Hereditary retains its existing first pass, and Midsommar has a newly developed draft. Verdicts and advisories remain proposals; numerical Corny DNA scores remain unassigned.
The two films
| Film | Review focus | Proposed verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Hereditary (2018) | Family blame, miniature spaces and the price of an explicit supernatural explanation | Watch with caveats |
| Midsommar (2019) | Grief, the attraction of communal care and the control embedded in a welcome | Watch with caveats |
What the connection reveals
Both films make a character's need for recognition part of the horror. Hereditary gives a household too much pain and too little shared language. Midsommar introduces a community apparently willing to supply the recognition its protagonist has been missing. The drafts examine what those arrangements do to agency, rather than treating the extremes of the imagery as sufficient reasons to recommend either film.
Toni Collette and Florence Pugh provide different emotional centres: Annie's attempts to reach her family can become accusations, while Dani tries to make her needs less inconvenient before finding people eager to accommodate them. Formal control matters because there are performances with which it can interact.
The shared proposed classification does not make their caveats interchangeable. Each review explains its own argument, limitations and audience fit. These links identify connected catalog entries; they do not imply owner-approved recommendations.
Before you choose
- Hereditary: a child's death, devastating family bereavement, graphic injury, suicide references and possession-related self-injury. An already-dead bird is mutilated.
- Midsommar: a family murder-suicide, depicted ritual suicides, severe gore, sexual content and coercion, explicit nudity, psychedelic drugs and distressing hallucinations. Animal remains and the treatment of disability also warrant attention.
Specific outcomes and revealing contexts are behind closed disclosures on the individual pages. The reviews distinguish depicted acts, implications and discussed history.
Versions and scope
Midsommar uses the approximately 147-minute theatrical cut, as listed by A24 and timed at 146m54s by the BBFC. A24 separately identifies the 171-minute director's cut. The new draft does not silently use that cut's extra scenes as evidence about the theatrical version.
Hereditary retains its approximately 127-minute theatrical baseline. Both entries preserve their existing Seen-export provenance. Seen status does not establish a recommendation or a fresh viewing for this pass.
This page covers the two Aster-directed films currently in the catalog. It is not a complete filmography and does not add films he only produced.