Backrooms Is Officially A24’s Highest-Grossing Movie Ever

Backrooms just set an A24 record.

Directed by Kane Parsons and loosely based on a 2019 4chan post, the horror film stars Renate Reinsve as a therapist who must venture into an eerie dimension beyond reality to save her patient played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. Backrooms got off to a strong start at the box office last weekend, grossing $118 million worldwide.

Per Variety, the horror film has now grossed $212.6 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing movie in A24 history. This record-breaking figure follows a significant 70% drop in its second weekend, where the movie still grossed an impressive $25.9 million. The global total includes a stellar $135 million domestic.

Backrooms steals the title from Marty Supreme (2025), A24’s previous highest-grossing movie. That film, which stars Timothée Chalamet, grossed $191 million after hitting theaters last December.

Marty Supreme, however, was made on an estimated budget of $70, the most expensive film A24 has ever produced. Backrooms, by contrast, was made on an estimated budget of just under $10 million, making its newfound record even more impressive. Not only that, but Parsons, who is only 20 years old, has never previously directed a feature film.

At a $10 million budget, Backrooms could be looking at a break-even point of roughly $25 million, using the traditional Hollywood rule of thumb. The horror film is set to be a major monkey-maker for A24, which has continued to grow in stature over the past decade. Behind Backrooms and Marty Supreme, Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) takes third place with $142 million worldwide.

In addition to finding box office success, Parsons’ film has also been well received critically. On Rotten Tomatoes, the A24 movie has a strong 89% critics’ score, with the audience-driven Popcornmeter also respectable at 74%.

ScreenRant‘s own Backrooms review from Graeme Guttman awards the film a score of seven out of 10. Guttman praises the film’s underlying tension and dread, even if some of the character work falls flat. He writes:

There are plenty of nods to Parsons’ videos, including the presence of Async, but the film really strives to examine the psychology of its characters in a way that it isn’t fully equipped to do. Even when it falters, though, Backrooms is still an effective horror film, dealing in quiet terror over abject horror.

More to come…