Ari Aster

Ari Aster redefined what a mainstream horror film could look like with Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019), building tension out of grief and cult ritual rather than jump scares and helping crystallize the genre now called elevated horror. He then deliberately abandoned the genre that made him famous, writing and directing the surreal Beau Is Afraid and the satirical Western Eddington — both acclaimed by critics, neither a commercial success, a trade he seems to have made on purpose.