Another year, another movie slate to delve into. 2024 marks the return of celebrated auteurs (Bong Joon Ho! Yorgos Lanthimos!) and smash-hit franchises (Dune! Joker!). Plus, Paul Mescal sword-fights, Austin Butler motorbikes and Zendaya gets caught in a love triangle. Behold, our most anticipated films of the year, spanning genres, styles and languages.
Dune: Part Two
For many, watching Dune: Part Two’s release date shunt further and further into the future was one of the most painful delays of the actors’ strike. Now, though, the union has a deal they’re happy with (rejoice!) and the film is almost here. The first chapter in Denis Villeneuve’s sandworm-filled adaptation of Frank Herbert’s beloved sci-fi novel – starring Timothée Chalamet as Paul, the heir of the House of Atreides, wrestling with his responsibilities – won six Oscars and widespread commercial success. This new film picks up where the previous one left off, and will trace Paul’s ascension. Joining the Dune franchise are Austin Butler, Léa Seydoux and Florence Pugh, and those who were hoping to see more of Zendaya in Part One will be satisfied by her larger role in Part Two.
In cinemas 1 March.
Poor Things
If you prefer period dramas anachronistic, vulgar and profane, you’re in for quite the treat. Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite, 2018) gives the classic Frankenstein tale a rollicking twist with this raucous, Victorian-era voyage of sexual discovery, in which Bella Baxter – a fully grown woman whose brain has been swapped with a baby’s – learns about pleasure, politics and philosophy. Lanthimos’ frequent collaborator Emma Stone gives her gutsiest performance yet as Bella, evolving from jerky, toddler-like movement and goo-goo-ga-ga speech into refined, self-actualised womanhood. Expect Poor Things to be a major player this awards season.
In cinemas 12 January.
The Iron Claw
Zac Efron, Harris Dickinson and Jeremy Allen White are ill-fated brothers in Sean Durkin’s critically acclaimed wrestling weepie The Iron Claw. They play the real-life Von Erichs, siblings pushed into the ring by their domineering, hasbeen father (Mindhunter’s Holt McCallany), who never managed to bring home the NWA Heavyweight Championship belt himself, and so tasks his offspring with achieving his thwarted dream. This searing, Eighties-set sports drama delves into the family’s tragedy, and the toxic masculinity that crushes these aspiring young men. Bring tissues.
In cinemas 9 February.
Mickey 17
It’s the new Bong Joon Ho. His first film since making history and smashing records with Parasite (2019). Anticipation, as you can imagine, is extremely high. Currently, very little information has been released about Mickey 17. We can glean from the fact it’s based on a 2022 novel about clones that it will be sci-fi of some description. There’s an extensive A-list cast attached – Robert Pattinson, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, Steven Yeun… – and a teaser in which Pattinson is depicted looking sombre in a glowing, MRI-esque tube. Since the actor has mostly paired up with auteurs to deliver out there performances – if you haven’t heard his vocal work in The Boy and the Heron dub, stop what you’re doing and listen to it – we’re hoping this is as weird as his last sci-fi expedition with Claire Denis (remember the fuck box from 2019’s High Life?!).
In cinemas 29 March.
Sleep
Writer-director Jason Yu’s twisty, horror-tinged directorial debut made quite the splash at its Cannes premiere, and now UK audiences are invited on its wild ride. A young, pregnant woman (Train to Busan’s Jung Yu-mi) becomes increasingly distressed when the behaviour of her sleepwalking husband (Parasite’s Lee Sun-kyun) goes from concerning to erratic to full-on dangerous. Fearing that he will harm himself – she witnesses him hanging off the balcony while still slumbering at one point – or someone else, she resolves to put a stop to his disturbing wandering once and for all in this darkly comic thriller.
In cinemas 12 July.
Challengers
‘Aren’t you everybody’s type?’ Mike Faist purrs seductively into Zendaya’s ear, drawing her involuntary, beaming smile. This is Luca Guadagnino’s follow-up to his largely underappreciated cannibal romance Bones and All (2022). It’s a love-triangle movie that, from the trailer, promises plentiful steamy polyamory – I mean, the teaser is soundtracked to Rihanna’s ‘S&M’ for crying out loud. The film concerns tennis star Tashi (Zendaya), who becomes entangled in a liaison with fellow players Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (West Side Story’s Faist), which inevitably sparks rivalry on- and off-court. Challengers was due to open last year’s Venice Film Festival, but was pushed because of the actors’ strike (and thank goodness it was because I, for one, never want to be deprived of Zendaya’s show-stopping red-carpet looks).
In cinemas 26 April.
La Chimera
From clay courts to… archaeological caves?? Josh O’Connor’s second 2024 offering is Alice Rohrwacher’s fantastical Tuscan drama La Chimera, in which he stars as Arthur, a scruffy, Italian-speaking (!) Englishman mourning the loss of his great love Beniamina. Hoping to spiritually reunite with her, he delves into the past by pillaging priceless, long buried antiquities and selling them on the black market along with a ragtag crew of gangsters. In Rohrwacher’s beguiling film, folklore, magic and grief intermingle – to marvellous effect.
In cinemas 10 May.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
The prequel to 2015’s Academy Award-winning Mad Max: Fury Road recasts Charlize Theron’s shaven-headed Road Warrior (a decision that stirred up some controversy about Parts for Women Over 40 and that she herself described as ‘a little heartbreaking’), and has Anya Taylor-Joy picking up the action heroine’s mantle. George Miller’s latest apocalyptic thriller, where the dusty orange terrain is scarred with rubber tyre tracks, finds a young Furiosa taken from her family and doing everything in her power to return home. The trailer hints at rabble-rousing chase sequences and Chris Hemsworth’s sizable brawn.
In cinemas 24 May.
Twisters
Going from the intimate Sundance drama Minari (2020) to the reboot of a Nineties disaster movie is quite the pivot, but that’s exactly what director Lee Isaac Chung is doing this summer with Twisters. The new film will star Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones, and apparently no members of the original cast are expected to return. Other than that, we don’t know all that much about Twisters. Its July release certainly suggests blockbuster action thrills. Fingers crossed it’s a whirlwind adventure.
In cinemas 19 July.
American Fiction
The winner of the Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award often aligns with Best Picture. That American Fiction nabbed the prize could be indicative of its strong standing in the Oscar race – which is pretty amusing, because the film explicitly criticises the pseudo-prestigious movies that the Academy loves to recognise. Jeffrey Wright is Monk, an esoteric, if pompous, professor whose career isn’t going so well. People just will not buy his highly researched, highly considered books, but they’re falling over themselves to praise Issa Rae’s Sintara, a novelist whose popular work trafficks in Black stereotypes. In a moment of rage, Monk writes a similar book – a ‘true’ portrait of ghetto life full of AAVE and cliché – and is launched into overnight success. American Fiction is a scathing, always amusing satire of the publishing industry, whose racism is barely obscured by its ‘wokeness’.
In cinemas 2 February.
Joker: Folie à Deux
Joker, Todd Phillips’ divisive, Golden Lion-winning comic-book movie from 2019, is getting a sequel. That’s not surprising, seeing as the original grossed over $1 billion. What is surprising is the direction this new film seems to be taking. By all reports, the latest chapter in the story of Joaquin Phoenix’s clown prince of crime is a musical (?!), starring mother monster Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. At the time of writing, minimal promotional material has been released – just a handful of on-set photos and a casting-announcement video set to ‘Cheek to Cheek’ – making Joker: Folie à Deux quite the question mark. We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess. The only thing that’s guaranteed is Gaga giving a series of increasingly deranged interviews on the press tour.
In cinemas 4 October.
The Teachers’ Lounge
Ilker Çatak’s classroom-set thriller, which has been shortlisted for the Best International Feature Oscar, is a claustrophobic nail-biter. Primary-school teacher Clara (Leonie Benesch) suspects secretary Friederike (Eva Löbau) of stealing from the staff room, and reports the alleged theft to the headmistress. The problem is Clara’s evidence is circumstantial at best, and Friederike’s son Oskar (Leonard Stettnisch) is forced to bear the brunt of this accusation by his taunting classmates. What follows is a cortisol-spiking deep-dive into believability, truth, and the repercussions of acting first and thinking second.
In cinemas 22 March.
Paddington in Peru
Everyone’s favourite marmalade-loving fuzzy bear is back. This third instalment in the Paddington franchise will not be directed by Paul King (he’s passing the torch to Dougal Wilson) and will no longer star Sally Hawkins as Mrs Brown (Emily Mortimer’s taking over), however the film is still shaping up to be another heartwarming adventure that should be replete with hilarious hijinx. The kind-hearted, community-building bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw) will return home to Peru with the Browns, his London family, to visit his Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) at a retirement home run by Olivia Colman. Perhaps Colman’s character will be as evil as her Wonka boarding-house mistress? Time will tell.
In cinemas 8 November.
Kidnapped
In 1858, a six-year-old Jewish boy was kidnapped and converted into Catholicism. This is the shocking true story that undergirds Marco Bellocchio’s antisemitism melodrama, a heart-pounding tale of politics, child abuse and the supreme power of the Church. It was baby Edgardo’s Christian nursemaid who smuggled the dying child away for an emergency baptism, in order to prevent his young soul from remaining in limbo should he pass. This leads to an Inquisition, in which Pope Pius IX (Paolo Pierobon) and other ecclesiastical figures suggest that Edgardo’s Jewish parents would forsake their son now that he no longer shared their religion. Kidnapped is a gripping, frightening look at faith-based tensions.
In cinemas 12 April.
Gladiator II
Our indie soft boi Paul Mescal is hitting the big time. For his first foray into mega-budget studio filmmaking, the rising star teams up with the ever prolific Ridley Scott for a sequel to his 2000 Best Picture winner Gladiator. Mescal’s been bulking up for the sword-and-sandals epic, in which he’ll play Lucius, the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the love of Russell Crowe’s departed Maximus. This journey into Ancient Rome marks a new chapter for Mescal just as he was at risk of being typecast as the sensitive romantic in a series of heart-wrenching dramas (Normal People, Aftersun, All of Us Strangers, Foe, I could go on…). With any luck, he too will get to bellow ‘Are you not entertained?’.
In cinemas 22 November.
Drive-Away Dolls
It appears that the Coen brothers have officially disbanded (for now, at least). We know what a solo Joel film looks like – we got one in 2021 with The Tragedy of Macbeth – and we’ll soon find out about Ethan’s artistic sensibilities with the release of Drive-Away Dolls. The premise is very enticing: two lesbians (Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan) head out on a road trip to Tallahassee and somehow cross paths with a pack of bumbling criminals. Early footage suggests a zippy, fun tone, and the cast list also includes Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo and Beanie Feldstein. Start your engines.
In cinemas 15 March.
Robot Dreams
A sweetly sad animation that will put a smile on your face and a tear in your eye, Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams is a wordless story of lost friendship in 1980s Manhattan. Dog is lonely, spending nights by himself eating single-serving microwave dinners, until he sees an advert on late-night TV for a build-your-own robot friend. He buys one and, once assembled, Dog and Robot are immediately inseparable, roller-skating through Central Park with ice-cream cones to the feel-good beats of Earth, Wind & Fire’s ‘September’. A twist of fate draws them apart, and Dog tries his hardest to rescue his friend. Robot Dreams, which counts Guillermo del Toro among its fans (he called the film ‘masterful!’), is a bittersweet, beautifully rendered exploration of severed connection.
In cinemas 22 March.
Samsara
Lois Patiño’s spiritual odyssey promises a boundary-pushing cinema experience unlike any other. In Laos, a Buddhist teenager is easing an elderly woman’s transition from the land of the living to the afterlife. He gently whispers words from the sacred Tibetan Book of The Dead into her ear as she passes, then, when he reaches the final passage, he closes his eyes and meditates alongside her, as she embarks on a transformative journey into what lies beyond. Samsara is a dazzling, emotional reflection on life and death.
In cinemas 26 January.
The Bikeriders
There’s been an awful lot of behind-the-scenes drama plaguing this one – it was postponed indefinitely, it was shopped to a new studio… – but Jeff Nichols’ Chicago-set motorbike-gang movie will finally see the light of day in June. Austin Butler swaps Elvis’ diamanté-stitched jumpsuits for patchwork-covered leathers to portray the fearless, tough-as-nails Benny – part of a band of biker brothers that includes Tom Hardy and Michael Shannon – who is being groomed to take over the group. In addition to excavating rivalries and jealousies, the film also traces a romance between Butler and Jodie Comer (once again proving with her Midwestern cadence that she can do any accent) that jolts to life with an all-timer of a coup de foudre scene.
In cinemas 21 June.
Origin
Ava DuVernay (13th, 2016; Selma, 2014) boldly reimagines cinematic form in this inventive adaptation of Pulitzer-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 bestseller Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, which explores how rigid hierarchies shape all of our lives. Origin, which premiered at Venice, stars Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as the decorated writer, who confronts all manner of historical traumas by guiding us through them, from Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany to the subordination of India’s Dalits. Isabel’s personal life is interspersed throughout this wide-ranging narrative, particularly her marriage to Brett (Jon Bernthal). Origin is an ambitious, intellectually rigorous picture that grapples with the darkest moments in human history.
In cinemas 9 February.
The Fall Guy
Can’t get Kenough of Ryan Gosling? No, neither can we. He goes from the sandy beach of Barbie Land to the sandy desert of a film set in The Fall Guy, an action-comedy from David Leitch (Bullet Train, 2022). Leitch, who used to be Brad Pitt’s stuntman, seems to be drawing on his past for this movie, since Gosling plays a stunt guy named Colt. He’s been hired to work on a big-budget movie – the only snag is that he had a fling with the director Jody (Emily Blunt), which makes things a little charged and awkward. (Flirty banter, here we come!) The stakes are raised even higher when their star (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) goes missing, and Colt ventures out on a rescue mission to save him, the film and maybe, just maybe, regain Jody’s heart. With its focus on humour, romance and charisma, The Fall Guy looks like it’s playing to many of Gosling’s myriad strengths. Sign us up.
In cinemas 2 May.
My Old Ass
To celebrate her 18th birthday, Elliott (Maisy Stella) throws a magic-mushroom party in the woods with her friends. When tripping, she is confronted by her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza, drily funny as ever) and, after some initial alarm, the younger Elliott starts quizzing her about their shared future. Once the drugs are out of her system, the two Elliotts somehow retain their connection, and Plaza’s version tries to guide her teenage equivalent through the perils of growing up. It’s a charming coming-of-age comedy – limned with YA nostalgia and a touching central romance – that wittily explores identity, family and learning to prioritise the important things in life.
In cinemas 27 September.
Wicked
The hit stage musical is coming to the screen. Well, the first part anyway (you’ll have to wait until 2025 for the rest). Jon M Chu, who presented his theatrical bonafides with his underrated 2021 adaptation of In the Heights, takes viewers back to Oz for this hotly anticipated prequel. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo – who have been not-so-subtly promoting the movie in character-appropriate red-carpet wear months prior to release – play Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West respectively. They’re two absolute powerhouse singers, so the numbers are sure to blow the roof off the cinema. It’s time to try defying gravity.
In cinemas 22 November.
