In the A24 horror auteur's Eddington, Joaquin Phoenix is a small-town sheriff struggling to keep the peace in a locked-down town.

If you look up and revisit the list of names mentioned in the first paragraph, I think it’s fair to say that he is regularly successful in looking for filmmakers with unique vision. There are a lot of auteurs who have successfully made movies that are instantly identifiable via their special signatures and flairs.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. — Past a petrified mastodon skull and display cases of glittering gypsum and halite, Ari Aster is gesturing to a room where, conjuring a bit of movie magic, he made Joaquin Phoenix fall through a roof, onto the bones of Geronimo.

Aster shot the film, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal, in New Mexico but is coming to Texas in the fall for a new project aimed at lifting up emerging filmmakers.

Heredity” and “Midsommar” director Ari Aster takes on contemporary America in “Eddington,” in theaters Friday.