Ari Aster is an American filmmaker and screenwriter, best known for writing and directing Hereditary, which was his feature directorial debut.
Early Life[]
Aster was born in New York City. His father was a musician and his mother was a poet and he has a younger brother. His family is Jewish. He recalled going to see his first movie when he was four years old, Dick Tracy. The film featured a scene where a character fired a tommy gun while a wall of fire was behind him. Aster reportedly jumped from his seat and "ran six New York city blocks" where his mother had to chase him.
Aster’s family briefly lived in England before moving to New Mexico, where he spent his teen years.
He became obsessed with horror films growing up. He graduated from the AFI Conservatory and met many of his future collaborators there.
Career[]
Aster's debut film was the controversial short The Strange Thing About the Johnsons in 2011. Between 2011 and 2018, Aster wrote and directed five more short films, often teaming with his AFI Conservatory friends Alejandro de Leon and Pawel Pogorzelski to produce and shoot. Aster made his feature length directorial debut with the horror film Hereditary, which was released by A24 in 2018, and is in production for his next film with A24, Midsommar. Hereditary has garnered high praise from critics. The film holds weighted average score of 87 out of 100, based on 49 critics from Metacritic.