Movies we’re most excited about this fall (Part 2)
As we head into fall’s smart season, things are noticeably quieter: a sad circumstance of the actors strike. But there’s a kind of unspoken grandeur to the slate of movies in store, even if the stars and writers can’t promote it. Summation works from heavy hitters like Martin Scorsese and Hayao Miyazaki jockey with titles from well-heeled upstarts like Sofia Coppola and Yorgos Lanthimos.
It will be a season to remember, with twice the Michael Fassbender our doctors recommend. Don’t expect another “Barbenheimer,” just plenty of the films that sustain us through the leaner months. Last week, our film writers offered their personal picks for flicks coming in September and October. Here are their favorite November and December entries.
‘THE MARVELS’ (NOV. 10)
Though the MCU’s grosses have been fine, fan enthusiasm has lagged.
This may be due to the relentless onslaught of 10 films and 10 series since 2021, many of them rigidly formulaic and clearly substandard. “The Marvels” could excuse a lot of those interminable origin stories as it teams two newer heroes (TV’s Ms. Marvel and Monica Rambeau) with Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers. Director and co-writer Nia DaCosta (“Candyman”) presents as a comic nerd, which can only help. The full trailer looks fun while downplaying the broad comedy of the earlier teaser. Perhaps the Marvel brain trust has recognized audience exhaustion with the comedy-first approach that has lately characterized the megafranchise in lieu of earned emotion. “The Marvels” could give fans the payoff they’ve earned for sitting through some uninspired stuff. Or it could further demonstrate that the MCU’s greatest enemy isn’t Thanos or Kang, but studio overreach. — Michael Ordoña
‘NEXT GOAL WINS’ (NOV. 17)
Director Taika Waititi has been talking enthusiastically about this project since at least 2019, when he told the L.A. Times, “Sometimes the fear is, ‘It shouldn’t veer too much from the documentary — it’s a true story.’ If you want the real events, watch the documentary. I’m not in the business of telling the truth. There’s that great saying, ‘Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.’” Fleshing out his facts-based, sports comedy-drama, Michael Fassbender plays a Dutch American soccer coach tasked with elevating a barely competitive American Samoan team to World Cup status. The cast includes Elisabeth Moss, Will Arnett, Kaitlyn Dever, Kaimana and Rhys Darby. — Michael Ordoña
‘THANKSGIVING’ (NOV. 17)
Have a look at the trailer, if you dare. It’s for one of those fake movies from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s superfun 2007 double feature “Grindhouse,” and, to remember from crowd reactions, there are many who wished it wasn’t just a lark (“This year, there will be no leftovers”). Looks like they got their wish: Director Eli Roth returns to his grungy two-minute masterpiece, expanding it into a proper feature. Mega-followed TikToker Addison Rae looks to transition into a scream queen, while the cast includes Patrick Dempsey and Gina Gershon, last seen giving Aubrey Plaza a hard time in “Emily the Criminal.” But the real star here is Oscar-winning makeup designer Adrien Morot, who somehow managed to do both “The Whale” and “M3GAN” last year and no doubt has something gross in store. — Joshua Rothkopf
‘MAESTRO’ (NOV. 22; ON NETFLIX DEC. 20)
Composer, conductor, pianist, influential figure in the life of Lydia Tár: Leonard Bernstein was a monumental figure of 20thcentury music. (Forget about the nose for a second.) As with most geniuses, he was complicated, and “Maestro,” Bradley Cooper’s long-in-the-works biopic, hones in on that knottiness in its focus on Bernstein’s marriage to Chileanborn actress Felicia Montealegre. Cooper directed and co-wrote the film with Josh Singer (“Spotlight”), and, of course, stars as Bernstein, with Carey Mulligan playing Montealegre. With his 2018 remake of “A Star Is Born,” Cooper displayed a willingness to luxuriate in sweeping, weeping emotions, an enthusiasm that should translate well as he delves into the life of the flamboyant Bernstein. Decades after his death, Bernstein remains a revered figure, beloved for “West Side Story,” “Candide,” his symphonies and his guidance of the New York Philharmonic. With “Maestro’s” impressive pedigree — Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese are among its producers — he may now have the movie his life deserves. — Glenn Whipp
‘NAPOLEON’ (NOV. 22)
“The Last Duel” wasn’t the hit it deserved to be (and came in for some undeserved mockery at the 2022 Oscars), but it confirmed that Ridley Scott, a director nearly as erratic as he is prolific, still has few Hollywood peers in the realm of lavish, grand-scaled historical filmmaking. Here’s hoping his forthcoming “Gladiator 2” offers further proof; until that sequel arrives, though, we have this muscularlooking epic action-drama to look forward to, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon Bonaparte during his early rise to power, with Vanessa Kirby as his first wife, Empress Joséphine. All good signs, as is the fact that the script was written by David Scarpa, who previously collaborated with Scott on the underappreciated “All the Money in the World.” — Justin Chang
‘WISH’ (NOV. 22)
Long before Disney got into the business of superhero multiverses and rebellions in a galaxy far, far away, it was a studio built on animation that helped propel the form into what it is today. Directed by Chris Buck (the “Frozen” movies) and Fawn Veerasunthorn (“Raya and the Last Dragon”), “Wish” is an animated musical anchoring Disney’s yearlong 100th anniversary celebration. From a wooden puppet who dreams of being a flesh-and-blood boy to a mermaid who longs to explore the human world, many of Disney’s most beloved films have centered characters driven by their desire to make their wishes a reality. I think one of the reasons Disney has such a strong hold on us culturally is because these beautifully rendered stories push us (often from a very young age) to be unafraid to dream. If “Wish” can evoke that magical feeling, it’s a guaranteed future classic. — Tracy Brown
‘THE TASTE OF THINGS’ (DECEMBER TBD)
Up until recently, this movie was titled “The Pot-au-Feu,” taking its name from a beloved French dish, a meal that has been called the “mythical center” of the nation’s cuisine. At its heart, it’s a slow-cooked stew made with whatever meat and vegetables you might have on hand. A democratic dish, if you will. Does it seem like I’m spending a lot of time talking about food and not film? Well, Tran Anh Hung’s exquisite romance opens with an intricate 30-minute set piece in which we watch a renowned chef (Benoît Magimel) and his cook (Juliette Binoche) prepare an elaborate meal at their French countryside chateau. It’s the late 19th century. He’s known as the “Napoleon of culinary arts,” but he understands that he’d be nothing without his muse. “The Taste of Things” is a film about love, devotion, the appreciation of life’s beauty and, yes, the savoring of food. It’s gorgeous and unforgettable. — Glenn Whipp
‘EILEEN’ (DEC. 1)
Mousy 24-year-old Eileen (“Last Night in Soho’s” Thomasin McKenzie) is aimless, deeply unhappy and working at a juvenile detention facility in 1960s New England when glamorous Rebecca (Anne Hathaway) breezes into town in “Lady Macbeth” director William Oldroyd’s latest, adapted by Ottessa Moshfegh and Luke Goebel from Moshfegh’s 2015 novel. Crackling with black humor and delicious menace, the period psychological thriller arrives in theaters after a Sundance debut that rightfully earned Hathaway raves for her seductive turn as the enigmatic older woman whose interest awakens a transformation in the impressionable and quickly obsessive Eileen. But it’s the electricity that sizzles as she and McKenzie dance around their increasingly off-kilter entanglement — and a scene-stealing appearance by the chameleonic Marin Ireland — that makes “Eileen” one of the year’s most sly and mesmerizing watches, “Carol” by way of Hitchcock, an affair to remember and recoil from in equal morbid measure. — Jen Yamato
‘POOR THINGS’ (DEC. 8)
When Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos first garnered attention with the allegorical absurdities of “Dogtooth,” few would have predicted he would soon be making prestige pictures with international stars that somehow still felt fully idiosyncratic, adventurous and emotionally resonant in ways that are often hard to explain or understand. Following the successes of “The Lobster” and “The Favourite,” Lanthimos has returned with an adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel. The film looks to be Lanthimos’ biggest, wildest story yet, a sci-fi fantasy riff on “Frankenstein” starring Emma Stone (also a producer on the film) as a woman brought back to life, with a cast that also includes Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott. The movie was originally scheduled for a September opening, but the Searchlight Pictures release has been pushed back to early December, presumably in hopes that the impressive cast may be able to promote the movie by then. — Mark Olsen
‘THE ZONE OF INTEREST’ (DEC. 8)
File this one under “films I’m most excited to see … again.” Jonathan Glazer’s brilliantly oblique, technically immaculate study of human evil, set in and around the Auschwitz-adjacent home of a Nazi commandant (Christian Friedel) and his wife (Sandra Hüller), first screened earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was so well received that some deemed its second-place Grand Prix win a consolation prize. I’m curious to see how the movie — freely adapted and reimagined from a 2014 novel by the late Martin Amis — plays outside a festival setting, how audiences respond to a Holocaust drama assured enough to keep its horrors just out of view, though not out of earshot. I also hope it spurs more than one moviegoer to seek out Glazer’s undersung “Birth” (2004) and “Under the Skin” (2013), two achievements as eerily hypnotic in their own way as this. — Justin Chang
‘WONKA’ (DEC. 15)
Though the original Roald Dahl book has its young protagonist, Charlie, in its title, it’s the proprietor of the business who steals the show on-screen. The 1971 movie “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” remains such a delicious adaptation largely because of the beguiling Gene Wilder, who flipped between embodying wondrous creativity and reclusive angst at the drop of his iconic top hat. That said, if there’s anyone I’d trust to make another movie with this beloved character — especially after that unnecessarily dark take with Johnny Depp — it’s Paul King, the writer and director of the delightful “Paddington” films. This origin story (also a full-fledged musical) stars Timothée Chalamet as the eccentric inventormagician-chocolatier and features original songs by Neil Hannon of the band the Divine Comedy. The cast also includes Olivia Colman, Sally Hawkins, Keegan-Michael Key and Hugh Grant as an OompaLoompa. — Ashley Lee