Welcome to a fall movie season that promises to be a little scant on the stars-saying-ridiculous-things side, and surprisingly abundant on the films-you-gotta-see-ASAP side. There was every reason to think that, when the Screen Actors Guild joined their brethren in the Writers Guild of America in a strike this past July, everything would be resolved by the time the first fall film fests rolled out their red carpets. Instead, Hollywood has been brought to something close to a standstill in terms of production and promotion, and a number of films — notably Challengers, Luca Guadagnino’s tennis drama starring Zendaya, and Dune: Part Two — have been punted to 2024. If an awards season falls in a forest and doesn’t have A-list actors talking about their craft at gala premieres, did it even really happen?
The answer is: Yes, of course. Judging by the 42 movies we’ve singled out, all of which will hit theaters, streamers, or both between Labor Day weekend and Christmas, we’ve still got a lot to look forward to seeing in the next four months. Prestigious portraits of important men and women? Yup, and some of them are already stirring up social media arguments. Literary adaptations of bestselling novels? Of course, and everyone will finally get to see why people were calling Killers of the Flower Moon a masterpiece at Cannes. How about some detours in to cinematic universes? You’ll have your choice of Marvel, the DCEU (RIP), the Poirotverse and… a Hunger Games prequel?! Horror reboots, social-issue melodramas, big-name filmmakers making big splashes, streamers making a lotta noise (Netflix has a particularly deep bench this year) and beloved boutique studios like A24 and Neon offering alternatives to the usual fall-movie fare? All present and accounted for. Oh, and apparently Taylor Swift has a concert film coming out. Maybe you’ve heard.
Dates below are subject to change, naturally, and we’ve tried to note when certain movies are getting both a theatrical premiere and a respective streaming premiere when applicable. But the good news is there are slew of enticing titles to keep moviegoers giddy with anticipation from now until the end of the year. Start marking those calendars now.
‘The Equalizer 3’ (September 1)
Denzel Washington’s vigilante hero is back for a third time, ready to kick more bad-guy asses and take more bad-guy names. (We’re kidding. He doesn’t care about their names.) This time, our man Robert McCall finds himself in Southern Italy, defending a quaint coastal town from some serious Mafia goons. Meanwhile, a C.I.A. analyst (Dakota Fanning) is trying to figure out if this quiet American tourist is somehow involved with a bunch of dead bodies at a winery that doubled as a way station for funding terrorists. There are genuinely worse ways to kick off a fall movie season than watching Washington shoot, stab and eloquently insult a bunch of international sh*theels, to be honest.
‘Cassandro’ (September 15)
Documentarian Roger Ross Williams (The Apollo) makes his narrative feature debut with this based-on-a-true-story tale of a Mexican wrestler named Saúl (Gael García Bernal) who’s stuck in a bit of a professional rut. Then he creates a campy character named Cassandro, “the Liberace of lucha libre,” and guess whose fortunes change almost overnight? And also whose life becomes 100 times more complicated when success in the ring throws a monkey wrench into relationships with his mother and his secret male lover? We’re not kidding when we say that Bernal may give the best performance of his career here.
‘El Conde’ (September 15)
On December 10th, 2006, Augusto Pinochet died at the age of 91, leaving behind a long legacy of terror and repression. Filmmaker Pablo Larrain (Jackie, Spencer) offers an intriguing alternate scenario: What if the Chilean dictator was actually a centuries-old vampire who’s been wreaking bloodsucking havoc since the French Revolution, and is still subsisting on Type O on an estate in the rural countryside? We feel like this is the gothic horror flick-cum-political satire that Larrain was born to make.
‘Dumb Money’ (September 15)
Once upon a time, an amateur investor decided to get a whole lot regular folks to purchase a sh*t load of stock in GameStop, the videogame retail company. Professional analysts thought the idea was bonkers. You know what happened next. Director Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) recounts the stranger-than-fiction story as a slobs-vs.-snobs dramedy, as the little guys stick it to the fatcat Wall Street brokers and billionaires. Dig this cast: Paul Dano (as the online folk hero Keith Gill), Seth Rogen, Pete Davidson, Shailene Woodley, Nick Offerman, America Ferrera, Sebastian Stan, Vincent D’Onofrio, Anthony Ramos, Dane DeHaan, and more.
‘A Haunting in Venice’ (September 15)
Never mind that ill-fated Death on the Nile remake from last year — the folks behind the recent Hercule Poirot movies are still determined to turn the adventures of Agatha Christie’s most famous sleuth into a franchise. So brace yourself for the next chapter of the Poirotverse! Kenneth Branagh and his outrageous mustache return for another star-studded whodunit (based on Christie’s novel Hallowe’en Party), this time in the city of romance and canals. There’s been a murder, naturally, during a seance, which forces the Belgian detective to postpone his retirement and find the culprit. The guests blame angry ghosts. Our skeptical hero thinks otherwise, until he begins to experience some first-hand paranormal activity. The cast includes Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh (we never get tired of saying that phrase), Tina Fey, Jamie Dornan, Yellowstone‘s Kelly Reilly, and Call My Agent‘s Camille Cottin.
‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’ (September 20)
The first of four Roald Dahl stories that Wes Anderson is adapting for Netflix (the others, should you be curious, are The Swan, Ratcatcher and Poison), this 37-minute film revolves around an eccentric millionaire (Benedict Cumberbatch) who discovers a book that teaches people who to see without using their eyes. Naturally, he decides to study this technique to make himself even richer. The running time may be short, but the story is even denser than the feature-length Fantastic Mr. Fox and the cast is still filled with stars: Dev Patel, Sir Ben Kinglsey, Rupert Friend, Ralph Fiennes (playing Dahl) and Richard Ayoade. It hits select theaters on September 20th, and drops on Netflix on September 27th.
‘It Lives Inside’ (September 22)
A young Indian-American woman named Samidha (Never Have I Ever‘s Megan Suri) finds herself caught between her parents’ desire for old-world traditions and her desire to be seen as just another high school kid in the U.S. of A. It’s your typical first-generation immigration blues. Oh, sorry, we forgot to mention: There’s also a demonic spirit that a friend of hers keeps in a jar, which is driving this person insane, and then the evil force sets its supernatural sights on Samidha, and soon this entity begins terrorizing her. It was the big-buzz horror hit out of SXSW 2023, and given how seriously those festival patrons take their genre films, horror fanatics may wanna mark their calendars.
‘The Creator’ (September 29)
In the future — possibly the very near future, given our current ChatGPT paranoia — AI-driven machines have risen up and declared war on humanity. Quicker than you can say “come with me if you want to live,” a soldier (John David Washington) is dispatched to find a “super weapon” that the opposition is preparing to use in a final assault on hom*o sapiens. He locates the object, which turns out to be… a little girl. Gareth Edwards (Rogue One) directs.
‘The Exorcist: Believer’ (October 6)
Two young women (Olivia O’Neill and Lidya Jewett) go missing. Three days later, they’re found wandering out of the woods and seem… a little different. In fact, their respective parents began to suspect something supernatural is involved. Demonic possession isn’t exactly the forte of the local authorities or the hospital staff that are treating these peculiar patients, but luckily they know someone who’s had direct experience with this kind of thing: Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), mother of Regan “The Devil Made Her Do It” MacNeil. The power of Christ apparently compelled David Gordon Green to not only take on this direct sequel to William Friedkin‘s 1973 classic but also make it the first of a proposed trilogy à la his Halloween movies. Leslie Odom Jr., Ann Dowd and Jennifer Nettles are around to witness some pea-spitting target practice as well.
‘Foe’ (October 6)
The year is 2065, and Earth is in an eco-disaster free fall. A farmer named Junior (Paul Mescal) is given an offer he can’t refuse: a two-year tenure on a space station in the name of saving our species. He’s not keen on leaving his wife, Henrietta (Saoirse Ronan), for that long. But don’t worry, Junior, the government agency behind this civil-service order will install a robot duplicate of her husband in his stead. Surprisingly, he’s not super-psyched about the idea. Author Iain Reid — who wrote the source material for Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things — co-wrote this adaptation of his book with director Garth Davis (Lion).
‘Anatomy of a Fall’ (October 13)
Filmmaker Justine Triet drops us into a mystery involving a German writer (Toni Erdmann‘s Sandrine Hüller), a remote house in the French Alps, and a corpse. The dead man is her husband (Samuel Theis). The main suspect is the author herself. Whether her spouse fell or was pushed from the top floor of their dwelling becomes a matter for the courts to decide, at which point you begin to find out more and more about the couple’s highly mercurial history. A colleague described this as “Marriage Story but as a thriller,” which tracks — especially once an audio recording of an argument turns into a scathing, screaming, take-no-prisoners set piece. It took home the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes, and the win was well-deserved. Bonus points for the most passive-aggressive use of 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P” ever.
‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour’ (October 13)
It was the tour that broke Ticketmaster, an epic three-hour show that spanned 10 albums and 17 years of music from the force of nature we call T-Swift. And now the era-defining “Eras” extravaganza will be coming to a theater, hopefully very near you. Taylor Swift’s career-covering world tour may have finished its North American dates, but thankfully, the whole thing has been captured for posterity and is now getting the full concert-movie treatment. It’s not out for another six weeks, and it’s already smashing ticket-sale records. Weren’t able to catch the now-definitive live versions of “The 1,” or the first performance of “Dear John” in 11 years? You’re in luck, Swifties.
‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ (October 20)
Arguably the single most anticipated movie of the season, Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of David Grann’s nonfiction bestseller digs deep into a murder epidemic in the oil-rich Osage Nation circa the early 1920s. It has some serious true-crime-lit pedigree, to say the least, but the Oscar-winning director takes a hard left by narrowing the focus on the love story between Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his wife Mollie (the extraordinary Lily Gladstone). She’s watched her mother and sisters perish via both a mysterious “wasting illness” and outright murder; the fear is that her husband and his big-shot uncle (Robert De Niro) are after her family’s wealth… and she’s next. The extra emphasis on the clash between jazz-age modernity and traditional Osage culture, as well as the threat of 20th century white supremacy, makes this a partial corrective to decades of movie mythology. It’s the closest thing Scorsese has ever made to a Western.
‘Nyad’ (October 20)
Oscar-winning Free Solo documentarians Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi direct their first joint dramatic film, which retells the story of how retired 60-year-old professional swimmer Diana Nyad (Annette Bening) became the first person to swim from America to Cuba — minus a shark cage, mind you — in the history of the sport. Jodie Foster plays her best friend/coach Bonnie Stoll, who help guides her through some tough days. There’s also archival footage of the real Nyad discussing her relentless drive and need to prove herself one last time, because you can take the docmakers out of the nonfiction realm, but you can’t take the nonfiction out of these docmakers. It hits theaters on October 20 and drops on Netflix on November 3rd.
‘Pain Hustlers’ (October 20)
Desperate times call for desperate measures, which is why Liza Drake (Emily Blunt) — single mom, recently unemployed, dealing with her daughter’s medical condition — accepts an offer that’s too good to refuse. There’s this pharmaceutical start-up in Florida, see, and the company’s rep (Chris Evans) thinks she’d be the perfect person to help them sell meds to the masses. Liza accepts, only to discover that she’s also uniwittingly signed on to become part of a huge criminal conspiracy as well. Oops! Andy Garcia, Catherine O’Hara, Brian D’arcy James and Jay Duplass costar. David Yates, a.k.a. the gent who did the bulk of the Harry Potter movies, is in the director’s chair. It plays select theater on October 20th, and drops on Netflix on October 27th.
‘The Pigeon Tunnel’ (October 20)
His name was David Cornwell, but we knew him — if anyone besides his closest of close friends and loved ones could really say they knew him — by his nom de plume, John le Carré. Legendary documentarian Errol Morris dives deep into the life and times of this towering figure of 20th century espionage literature, anchored by an extended (and extremely candid, by le Carré standards) interview with the man himself done shortly before his passing in December 2020. If you ever wanted to learn about why someone deep in the intelligence field felt compelled to write so openly about it, or about the influence of le Carré’s con-man of a father on his writing, this doc’s for you.
‘Fingernails’ (October 27)
How do you know if your true love is your ideal match? A better question: What if you and your partner could take a test that determined whether your mate is definitively your soul mate? That’s the premise of Greek filmmaker Christos Nikou’s oddball romance, which finds a couple played by Jessie Buckley and hot-dude-of-the-moment Jeremy Allen White are secure in the knowledge that, according to science, they are perfect for each other. Then she gets a job at a research facility that conducts these tests, and begins to form a tight friendship with her coworker (Riz Ahmed), and then… let’s say things get complicated. In theaters on October 27th, begins streaming on Apple+ on November 3rd.
‘The Holdovers’ (October 27)
Stuck together at a prestigious prep school during a long winter break, a cantankerous professor (Paul Giamatti, at his most Paul Giamatti-ish), a talented and troublemaking student (Dominic Sessa) and the school’s head cook (the great Da’Vine Joy Randolph) try to make the best of their situation. There’s laughter, tears, a road trip, maybe a little bonding as well — and because it’s also the new Alexander Payne movie, with the director reuniting with his Sideways star, you can expect a smart, superior and slightly snarky (but emotionally sincere) take on this type of material.
‘Priscilla’ (October 27)
Sure, we know all about Elvis Presley’s life and death, his loves and grudges, his rise and fall — but what was the eye-of-the-storm experience like for the King of Rock & Roll’s wife? Sofia Coppola’s take on Priscilla Presley’s memoir Elvis and Me revisits the icon’s world from the teenage Mrs. Presley’s intimate perspective, as young Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny) meets the man with the swinging pelvis (played by Jacob Elordi) and quickly forms a bond with him despite a rather, er, pronounced age gap. The pairing of the Lost in Translation filmmaker with this subject feels, to be honest, nothing short of sublime.
‘American Fiction’ (November 3)
Considering Cord Jefferson’s resume as a TV writer — Station Eleven, The Good Place, Master of None and a stand-out episode of Watchmen, which he nabbed an Emmy for — expectations are high for his directorial debut, about a college professor and writer named Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) who finds his erudite, complex novels have fallen out of fashion. Contemptuous of what passes for great literature these days, he pens a parody of the Black experience under a pseudonym… and suddenly, everyone wants to know who the mystery author behind the massive new bestseller is. Hot damn, we were due for a great book-culture social satire! The cast also includes Sterling K. Brown, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, Leslie Uggams, Living Single‘s Erika Alexander, Keith David and John Oritz.
‘Rustin’ (November 3)
A key figure in the Civil Rights Movement, Bayard Rustin helped organize the March on Washington and the Freedom Rides, was an advisor to Martin Luther King Jr., and helped make nonviolent resistance a key part of modern American activism. He was also a well-known gay man whose sexuality made him a target for the U.S. government, cause friction within the movement and eventually led him to join the post-Stonewall fight for gay rights. It was only a matter of time before Rustin became the subject of a biopic — so thank god theater legend and filmmaker George C. Wolfe (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) and actor Coleman Domingo (who also played Ralph Abernathy in Selma) are the ones bringing his story to the screen. Neither of them seem interested in sanding down Rustin’s rough edges, nor washing away the ways in which those both inside and outside of the struggle did him dirty. It hits theaters on November 3rd, and drops on Netflix November 17th.
‘Sly’ (November 3)
It would have been an incredible showbiz story if Sylvester Stallone had done nothing but bet everything he had on the story of a Philadelphia boxer trying to get a shot at the title and then turned into a real-life triumph-of-the-underdog tale. But then the actor with the heavy Hell’s Kitchen accent took that momentum and turned himself into one of the biggest movie stars in the whole world and, well, you know all the rest. The guy’s a living action-movie legend. Thom Zimny, who’s worked extensively with Bruce Springsteen on several documentaries, lets Stallone tell the story of his life in his own words, from his early days as a struggling actor to his present days as a TV star and family man. You may insert your best “Yo, Adrian!” impersonation here.
‘Dream Scenario’ (November 10)
Really, who among us has not had Nicolas Cage show up in our dreams from time to time? The screen icon plays an everyman who mysteriously starts making guest appearances in millions of folks’ R.E.M. cycles. It’s all good, until those dreams start turning into some truly disturbing nightmares. Then it’s not so good. Hereditary‘s Ari Aster is on board as a producer for this A24 joint, so you can expect this to get weird and unsettling. Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli (Sick of Myself) directs.
‘The Killer’ (November 10)
OK, here’s a comic book adaptation we can 100% get behind. Based on the French comics series by Alexis “Matz” Nolent and Luc Jacamon, this neo-noir about a professional assassin who, per the logline, is “armed to the teeth and slowly losing his mind,” re-teams David Fincher and Seven screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker. Michael Fassbender is the hit man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Tilda Swinton is a mystery woman who may or may not be more involved with what’s happening than he realizes. We are the moviegoers who are praying Netflix gives this a proper theatrical release so we can see Fincher do what he does best on the biggest screen possible.
‘The Marvels’ (November 10)
Both a sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel and a continuation of the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel, this MCU adventure from director Nia DaCosta (Candyman) pairs up Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers, Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan and Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau (who you may remember from WandaVision). The trio try to figure out why Danvers and Khan keep switching places at very unexpected, not to mention extremely inconvenient moments. Plus there’s a whole interstellar war going on between two alien races, and a bunch of intersecting plot strands from other films/TV shows, yadda yadda yadda.
‘The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ (November 17)
Remember when multiplexes were clogged were adaptations of young-adult books involving dystopic futures, teenage saviors and the most photogenic casts imaginable? The producers behind The Hunger Games movies sure do, which is why we’re getting this pre-Katniss prequel about an earlier contestant known as Lucy Gray Baird (West Side Story‘s Rachel Zegler) fighting for her life so her district will prosper. Tom Blyth is her mentor Coriolanus Snow, who may not be quite the ally she thinks he is. Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Euphoria‘s Hunter Schafer and Jason Schwartzman pay tribute (get it?) to the concept of extending this cinematic universe at least one, if not three more times.
‘May December’ (November 17)
Did someone bet Todd Haynes that he couldn’t make a superior Lifetime Channel movie? If so, the Carol filmmaker has now handsomely won that wager. He reunites with Julianne Moore for this story of a thirtysomething woman who once had an affair with a 13-year-old boy. She then went to prison — while pregnant with the youngster’s baby — and the story inspired national outrage. Cut to decades later, with the now happily married couple living in the suburbs with their family. A famous actor (Natalie Portman, in a career-best performance) wants to shadow the woman for a biopic on the tabloid-friendly scandal. This is high melodrama, delivered with tongue firmly planted in cheek. (It hits select theaters on November 17th, and drops on Netflix on December 1st.)
‘Next Goal Wins’ (November 17)
In between writing and directing Thor movies, co-producing the greatest show currently airing on television, costarring in a pirate love story and just being a dapper gent overall, Taika Waititi somehow found time to also make this sports-underdog tale of a Dutch soccer coach (Michael Fassbender) who’s hired to whip the American Samoa squad into shape. Let’s just say that the veteran footballer initially has his work cut out for him, given the nature of this ragtag bunch. If you happen to have seen the 2014 documentary of the same name, then you know what happens next. If you haven’t, you’re in for a pleasant, Waititi-esque surprise.
‘Maestro’ (November 22)
Writer-director-actor Bradley Cooper follows up his epic take on A Star Is Born with this portrait of Leonard Bernstein, the composer and conductor who became a towering figure of 20th century classical music. Carrie Mulligan plays his wife, the Chilean actor Felicia Montealegre. Jeremy Strong, Maya Hawke, Matt Bomer and Sarah Silverman round out the cast. This has awards-season prestige project written all over it. Not to mention it’s already generating controversy! The theatrical run starts November 22nd; it drops on Netflix on December 20th.
‘Napoleon’ (November 22)
The story of Napoleon Bonaparte — short guy with a complex, campaigned to conquer most of Europe, long story — has brought out the best in some filmmakers (see: Abel Gance) and stymied others (see: Stanley Kubrick, who tried to make a Napoleon film with Jack Nicholson for years). Now Ridley Scott joins the ranks of those who’ve tackled the life and times of the French military strategist who sought to rule the world and popularize bicorn hats, in that order. In what we can only call a genius casting move, Joaquin Phoenix plays the man who would be king; Vanessa Kirby is his soulmate, Empress Josephine.
‘Saltburn’ (November 24)
Emerald Fennell follows up her controversial, candy-colored revenge thriller Promising Young Woman with something equally provocative: a class-warfare satire in which a working-class Oxford student (Barry Keough) befriends an upper-crust peer (Jacob Elordi) and spends the summer in his new friend’s posh country estate. Quicker than can say “Tom Ripley,” this ambitious young striver seduces and manipulates the entire household in an attempt to climb the aristocracy ladder. We’re not joking when we say that this could very well be the moment in which Keough, long a clutch supporting actor (remember how good he was in The Banshees of Inershin?) officially becomes a bona fide, antihero-courting leading man.
‘The Bikeriders’ (December 1)
Word on the street is that writer-director Jeff Nichols’s tale of a Chicago motorcycle gang in the late 1960s is something like “the Godfather of biker movies,” which is a.) huge if true, and b.) you have our complete and undivided attention. Inspired by photographer Danny Lyons’ book on a real-life club — the shutterbug himself is a character, played by West Side Story‘s Mike Faist — this drama centers on both the gang’s capo (Tom Hardy, how we’ve missed you!) as he struggles and schemes to keep their enemies at bay, and the relationship between a younger biker (Austin Butler) and his old lady (Jodie Comer). Nichols’ longtime muse Michael Shannon, along with Norman Reedus, Boyd Holbrook, Damon Herriman, Emory Cohen and Toby Walllace suit up to hit the road as well.
‘Leave the World Behind’ (December 8)
Few things will ruin a family vacation quicker than a mysterious coast-wide blackout, like the kind that has just enveloped the East Coast at the very moment that a couple (Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke) and their kids have rented a Long Island house for a week away. Meanwhile, the house’s owners (Mahershala Ali and Industry‘s Myha’la Herrold) have returned to seek refuge until things go back to “normal,” a concept which begins to seem less and less possible as days go on. It’s based on Rumaan Alam’s bestselling novel, so to sum up: you’ve got star power fueling an adaptation of a popular book, directed by a guy, a.k.a. Mr. Robot‘s Sam Esmail, who knows how to handle a paranoid, apocalyptic thriller. Ok, we’re sold.
‘Poor Things’ (December 8)
A Victorian-era woman (Emma Stone) goes to extreme measures, i.e. death, to escape an abusive relationship. Then a doctor brings her back to life by [checks notes] replacing her brain with her unborn baby’s brain. A sentimental education is sexism and social hypocrisy follows. Director Yorgos Lanthimos reunites with both his Favourite star and that film’s screenwriter, Tony McNamara, for what appears to be a satirical, and staunchly feminist spin on the Frankenstein myth. The cast also features Mark Ruffalo, Jerrod Carmichael, Ramy Youssef, Margaret Qualley, Hanna Schygulla and Willem Dafoe. This sounds warped, weird and right up the Greek filmmaker’s alley in the best possible way.
‘The Zone of Interest’ (December 8)
From the moment it premiered at Cannes, Jonathan Glazer‘s take on Martin Amis’s 2014 novel distinguished itself a singular portrait of hell from the periphery. An S.S. officer (Christian Friedel) and his family live in the housing area surrounding Auschwitz; they throw pool parties and take afternoon tea with friends, while chimneys belch black smoke in the distance. Glazer strips away the imagery we now associate with Holocaust dramas and puts his high-formalism style to perfect use, presenting an absolutely chilling look at how normalization works — at some point, you simply stop hearing the barking dogs, gunshots and human suffering happening right outside your own backyard. This is what the banality around the banality of evil looks like.
‘Wonka’ (December 15)
We all know how Willy Wonka — world-class chocolatier, man-of-industry eccentric, inventor of the Everlasting Gobstopper and a personal friend of the Oompa Loompas — ends his reign as king of the candy universe. But how did he get to the top of the sweet-treat heap? Timothée Chalamet dons the signature top hat in this tale of Wonka’s early days. It’s also a musical as well as an origin story, and the fact that the Paddington movies’ director Paul King is calling the shots makes us positively giddy to see this. Expect one mondo cinematic sugar rush.
‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’ (December 20)
The final entry of the late, admittedly not-so-great DCEU gives Arthur Curry, a.k.a. Aquaman, one last chance to save Atlantis or die tryin’. Given the release date musical chairs, the strike-related delays of other big fall movies and what’s become some astounding behind-the-scenes drama even by Warners/DC standards, it’s a miracle that this sequel is getting a chance to come up for air at all. But the kids want closure, as well as once last chance to see Jason Momoa don a bodysuit and take on the archvillain Mantis, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Then it’s “Rest in peace, cinematic universe.”
‘The Iron Claw’ (December 22)
Ah yes, “the iron claw” — a devastating closer that pinned more than one unlucky grappler’s head to the mat. It was signature move of the famous Von Erich wrestling clan; and given the way that Zac Efron has beefed up to play the extreme-sports legend Kevin Von Erich in Sean Durkin’s drama about the family, he looks like he can handle himself in the ring. The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White and Triangle of Sadness star Harris Dickinson play his brothers, Kerry and David Von Erich. Maura Tierney, Lily James, Holt McCallany and host of other burly dudes are ready to take you back to the wild, wild wrestling West of the early ’80s.
‘All of Us Strangers’ (December 22)
The latest from Andrew Haigh — whose 2015 heartbreaker 45 Years remains one of the most devastating movies we’ve seen in the past decade — focuses on a romantic relationship between an author (Fleabag‘s hot priest Andrew Scott) and his neighbor (Paul Mescal). There’s also something going on in the writer’s hometown, which strikes him as both compelling and a little odd: His parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy), who died in a car accident when he was a child, are still alive, still living in the old family house and still as young as he remembers them. What’s that saying about you being done with the past, but the past not being done with you? We suggest you bring several boxes of tissues for this one.
‘Rebel Moon’ (December 22)
Zack Snyder goes big — really big — with what promises to be a massive, two-part sci-fi epic involving a peaceful population under attack, an evil empire, a small band of heroes that are the galaxy’s only hope for order over tyranny and chaos, and alien creatures that run the gamut from cuddly to creepy. You know the drill. If this all sounds familiar, it’s supposed to, and judging from the teaser, the Justice League writer-director is remixing a host of genre conventions in the hopes of giving Netflix it’s own space-opera franchise. Look, if we’re not going to get Dune: Part Two this year, we have to kill time with something, right? The cast includes Sofia Boutella, Anthony Hopkins, Charlie Hunnam, Game of Thrones‘ Michael Huisman, Doona Bae and Djmon Hounsou, among others. Part One, subtitled “A Child of Fire,” drops on December 22nd; Part Two, “The Scargiver,” hits the streaming service next April.
‘The Color Purple’ (December 25)
The Broadway musical, based on Steven Spielberg’s movie adaptation of Alice Walker’s book, now gets its own big-screen take — complete with the award-winning Fantasia Barrino reprising her stage turn as Celie. Empire‘s Taraji P. Henson plays the jazz singer Shug Avery, who helps liberate Celie; Coleman Domingo continues his very busy year as Mister, the man who takes the young Celie as his wife; H.E.R., Halle Bailey, Danielle Brooks, Ciara, King Richard‘s Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Corey Hawkins, Jon Batiste, David Alan Grier, Louis Gossett Jr. and Deon Cole round out one hell of a heavy-hitter cast. Blitz Bazawule (Black Is King) is in the director’s seat — and now’s as good a time as any to recommend you catch up with this Ghanian filmmaker’s wonderful 2018 feature debut The Burial of Kojo if you haven’t seen it yet.
‘Ferrari’ (December 25)
So is Adam Driver now our go-to guy when it comes to portraying Italian leaders of industry? Having already given us a mercurial Maurizio Gucci in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, this tall drink of water now takes on Enzo Ferrari, the race driver and need-for-speed enthusiast behind the sports car di tutti sports cars. Michael Mann’s first film in eight years focuses on three months of Enzo’s life, when his company is in financial turmoil and his team has to win the Mille Miglia race in order for the checks to clear. Penélope Cruz is already garnering mondo Oscar buzz for her work as Laura Ferrari, Enzo’s wife; Shailene Woodley, Patrick Dempsey, Jack O’Connell and Sarah Gadon are in the metaphorical passenger seat as well. Merry Christmas, auteurist film fanatics!
