MOST ANTICIPATED
SEP.
Moonage Daydream (9/16) The first film to be officially sanctioned by David Bowie’s estate, this dreamlike documentary was compiled from more than 5 million rarely seen “assets”—concert footage, interviews, photographs, artworks, recordings— with Oscar-nominated writer-director-editorproducer Brett Morgen (Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck) given unfiltered access to the Thin White Duke’s personal archives. The result is a revelation even to Bowie completists.
Confess, Fletch (9/16) They’ve been trying to make another Fletch movie for years. Decades, even. Along the way, names such as Jason Lee and Jason Sudeikis have been tipped to star as Gregory Mcdonald’s comically hard-boiled investigative reporter, whom Chevy Chase notably played in the 1980s. But dear God, how perfect is Jon Hamm for this role? He’s an actor who becomes funnier the more serious he gets—a guy who seems like he was designed in a lab to star in a dry comedy.
Don’t Worry Darling (9/23) Olivia Wilde’s follow-up to her acclaimed directorial debut, Booksmart, is a psychological thriller that appears to have a touch of sci-fi to it with Florence Pugh and Harry Styles playing a married couple who are part of something called “the Victory Project.” What that is doesn’t seem clear to Pugh’s character, who leads a throwback housewife’s existence in a 1960s-esque setting where something sinister is going on beneath the seemingly picture-perfect surface. The film’s biggest point of interest may be metatextual—the production became an object of internet obsession for reportedly being where the real-life romance between Styles and Wilde began.
Catherine Called Birdy (9/23) Lena Dunham’s “longtime passion project,” an adaptation of Karen Cushman’s 1994 YA novel. She has described the book, which is set in 1290 in England, thusly: Catherine “gets her period and her father basically says, ‘Well, it’s time for you to get married,’ and she’s like, ‘Uh, no.’ ” Game of Thrones’ petite spitfire Bella Ramsey has the titular role.
Blonde (9/28) Controversy has followed writerdirector Andrew Dominik’s NC-17-rated Netflix adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s bio-fic novel about Marilyn Monroe (played here by Ana de Armas) for nearly a year—not exactly discouraged by the filmmaker’s promise that “there’s something in it to offend everyone.” The film’s log line describes a dive into “the love issues” and “exploitation” Monroe faced in her life. If Blonde’s leaked script pages are to be believed, viewers can also expect menstrual blood, graphic rape, oral sex, and a talking fetus.
OCT.
Amsterdam (10/7) David O. Russell’s notorious volatility doesn’t make him the easiest fit for an industry trying, however unevenly, to reckon with its own workplace conditions. Still, the Silver Linings Playbook director is back with his first film in seven years, a comedic mystery set in the 1930s. Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington play a doctor, a nurse, and a lawyer who are accused of murder.
Triangle of Sadness (10/7) Ruben Östlund’s film premiered at Cannes to an eight-minute standing ovation, audible audience gagging, and, eventually, the Palme d’Or. The Swedish auteur, famous for his satires of male discomfort, trains his lens on the lives of the rich and the beautiful: Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), a pair of inf luencers-slashmodels who land a free spot on a tropical cruise full of Russian oligarchs, trophy wives, and wealthy Europeans with blood on their hands. When the cruise quite literally goes sideways, the social structure is upended and survival skills become the only capital.
Tár (10/7) Actor and filmmaker Todd Field received acclaim for his 2001 debut, In the Bedroom, and 2006 follow-up, Little Children. Then he didn’t make anything for a decade and a half, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. All eyes are on this new film, which is about a renowned conductor and composer named Lydia Tár, played by Cate Blanchett.
Halloween Ends (10/14) “Evil dies tonight!” What this movie presupposes is … what if it doesn’t? Yes, the last one sucked, but the one before that
was solid. Let’s hope this ends the series on a strong note. (Not that they’re actually going to end it, of course.)
Decision to Leave (10/14) Park Chan-wook’s first feature since 2016’s The Handmaiden is a Hitchcockian romantic thriller about a Busan police detective (Park Hae-il) who, while investigating a murder, becomes obsessed with the dead man’s wife (Tang Wei), a mysterious woman who’s also a suspect. Whether he’s making gothic dramas or brutal revenge sagas, Park’s stories are always exquisite constructions.
The Banshees of Inisherin (10/21) The last time Martin McDonagh, Colin Farrell, and Brendan Gleeson worked together, they made In Bruges, a career high point for all concerned. Back then, McDonagh was a playwright making a leap to movies and Farrell was something of a failed movie star. Since then, Farrell has emerged as one of our most interesting leading men and McDonagh has gained notice for the Oscaranointed (and highly divisive) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Armageddon Time (10/28) James Gray’s latest daddy-issues drama takes his own childhood as inspiration. Banks Repeta plays Gray’s avatar, Paul Graff, an angsty, artsy sixthgrader in a workingclass Jewish family in 1980s Queens grappling with Reagan, the Cold War, and his family’s complicated relationships with race and class. Orbiting Paul are his PTA-president mother, Esther (Anne Hathaway); his loving grandfather Aaron (Anthony Hopkins); his furious father, Irving (Jeremy Strong); and his friend Johnny (Jaylin Webb), one of the only Black kids at Paul’s school and in his life.
NOV.
The Fabelmans (11/11) There comes a point in every auteur’s career when their thoughts turn toward making a Roma, and that time has come for Steven Spielberg. The Fabelmans is a semiautobiographical coming-of-age drama set in Arizona, where Spielberg grew up, and is centered on a kid named Sammy (Gabriel LaBelle) as he learns about a family secret and the power of cinema.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (11/11) Since titular panther Chadwick Boseman’s death from colon cancer in 2020, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has remained steadfast in the decision not to recast his role as T’Challa in this sequel. So things pick up after the character’s passing, with supporting players from the first film—including Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and Shuri (Letitia Wright)—fighting to protect their insular nation from “intervening world powers.”
Bones and All (11/23) Having dabbled in horror with Suspiria, Luca Guadagnino returns to the genre— and to his Call Me by Your Name lead Timothée Chalamet. The Camille DeAngelis novel it’s based on is about teenage cannibals, so expect some gruesomeness alongside the longing as Chalamet and Taylor Russell play a drifter and an outcast traveling across the country looking for self-acceptance while struggling with some gory impulses.
DEC.
Avatar: The Way of Water (12/16) This long-gestating sequel to director James Cameron’s 2009 sci-fi epic carries an enormous price tag—$250 million—as well as sky-high cultural and financial expectations as the follow-up to the Most Successful Movie of All Time. Viewers will be plunged back into the Edenic paradise of Pandora to follow the Sully family: Jake (Sam Worthington), having given up his human body to inhabit the physique of a supersize blue alien, his mystical warrior wife, Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and their adoptive teenage daughter, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), as they face as-yet unspecified “tragedies.”
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (12/23) In the first of two intended sequels to 2019’s smash-hit, Oscar-nominated Knives Out, Daniel Craig returns as the tweed-clad “Gentleman Sleuth” Benoit Blanc at the scene of the crime for another high-IQ whodunit. With Greece serving as the backdrop this time, and a sprawling ensemble cast that includes Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr., Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, and Janelle Monáe, expect more Agatha Christie–like intrigue.