The future is uncertain — with movies, as with all things. As we turn our gazes toward the films we’re most anticipating in 2020, we’re forced to confront some major question marks. So sorry to the likes of Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Project and Untitled Jonathan Glazer Project — not to mention Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Shulan River, title and all — which may or may not be done by the end of the year. And sorry to the many movies with names and release dates that we couldn’t fit into this 68-item-long preview. And sorry to Untitled Apocalyptic Presidential Election, the real-life franchise denouement that will probably consume most of our brain cells this year. In the end, it’s impossible to say what 2020’s poised to bring to the world, but we can say for sure it’s going to offer plenty to watch, and talk about.
January
Underwater (January 10)
Kristen Stewart and Vincent Cassel trying to survive undersea monsters in the Mariana Trench? Yes, it has been sitting on the shelf for the last two years — but somehow, that makes us more excited?
Bad Boys for Life (January 17)
The stylish and nutty first Bad Boys put a young commercial director named Michael Bay on the map and gave Will Smith and Martin Lawrence their first big hit, while the unhinged, ridiculously indulgent second entry, made after they had all become household names, gave us one of the craziest car chases ever put on film. The third one is being directed by the Belgian duo of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, and seems thoroughly unnecessary — but we’ll be happy if it captures even some of the lunacy of the previous films.
Weathering With You (January 17)
This emotionally expansive follow-up to Makoto Shinkai’s monster anime hit, Your Name, is another all-the-feels teen romance with a touch of the supernatural to it — in this case, the power to create a brief window of sunshine in a Tokyo experiencing nonstop rain.
Beanpole (January 29)
Russian director Kantemir Balagov’s shattering tale of the friendship between two young women, both veterans, in the days immediately after the end of World War II, was one of the toasts of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. It’s angling for a Best International Film Oscar, but even if it doesn’t win (or get nominated), this is a must-see.
The Assistant (January 31)
The specter of Harvey Weinstein hovers over the new film from Kitty Green (Casting JonBenet), which stars Julia Garner as an assistant working for and coming to understand the practices of an abusive entertainment mogul who, as in Leslye Headland’s play Assistance, remains offscreen.
The Rhythm Section (January 31)
Should we be alarmed that this Blake Lively–starring thriller, about a woman looking into the plane crash that killed her family and almost killed her, was supposed to be released in early 2019, and has now bounced its way into a dreaded January 2020 release date? Nevertheless, the presence of director Reed Morano (a former cinematographer who helmed I Think We’re Alone Now and won an Emmy for The Handmaid’s Tale) gives us cause for hope.
February
The Last Thing He Wanted (February TBD)
Dee Rees directs Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, and Willem Dafoe in a Netflix adaptation of a Joan Didion novel about a journalist entangled in an arms-running scheme in Central America in the 1980s. Those are just way too many Things We Like all rolled into one movie. This is either going to be major or it is going to be a disaster.
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (February 7)
Margot Robbie’s demented former-psychiatrist-turned-supervillain-turned-vigilante Harley Quinn was one of the few elements of Suicide Squad that even its many haters could embrace. Now, they’ve given the character her own movie, and backed her up with a supporting cast that includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rosie Perez, and Ewan McGregor.
Downhill (February 14)
Does the world need an English-language remake of Ruben Östlund’s acidly funny dark comedy Force Majeure? No, but it’s hard to complain too much about it when said remake involves Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell.
The Photograph (February 14)
The most slept-on director of low-key dramedies is Stella Meghie, who made her debut in 2016 with Jean of the Joneses, and after a dip into the studio world for YA adaptation Everything, Everything, made the charming Sasheer Zamata–led farce The Weekend. Now she’s set to level up with a romantic comedy starring Issa Rae (who’ll also be seen alongside Kumail Nanjiani in Michael Showalter’s The Lovebirds in April) and Lakeith Stanfield that’s slated for a Valentine’s Day release, and we’re here for it.
The Whistlers (February 28)
Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu’s delightful crime comedy-drama starts off as a bizarro tale about a policeman who has to learn a special “whistling†language in order to help free a gangster from prison, but then twists and turns itself into a moving meditation on love, loyalty, and self-improvement.
The Invisible Man (February 28)
The Dark Universe may have died on the vine (RIP, Mummy Tom Cruise), but its high-profile failure has freed up the properties it would have included for edgier work. Like, say, this horror film from Saw’s Leigh Whannell, which stars Elisabeth Moss and reshapes the H.G. Wells story into one about an abusive relationship.
March
John Lewis: Good Trouble (Spring TBD)
We were already excited about Dawn Porter’s documentary focusing on the life and career of legendary civil rights activist and congressman John Lewis, which could prove to be this year’s RBG. (It’s also being distributed by Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films, the companies responsible for that hit.) But with the recent announcement about Lewis’s health, this one is sure to be an even more moving experience than we anticipated.
The Climb (March TBD)
In Michael Angelo Covino’s disarming indie, two best friends experience betrayal, forgiveness, romance, and humiliation over the course of a decade, and it’s all presented in tightly directed, beautifully performed chapters that shift between bromance, cringe comedy, and sincere heartbreak. Already a smash on the festival circuit, this has serious breakout potential.
The Lost Girls (March TBD)
Documentary legend Liz Garbus (What Happened, Miss Simone?; The Farm: Angola, USA) directs this narrative feature about the hunt for the Long Island Serial Killer, starring Amy Ryan, Thomasin McKenzie, and Gabriel Byrne. The cast is great, the director’s great, and the true-life story — based on former New York magazine writer Robert Kolker’s book about the case, which he also reported on for the magazine — is unspeakably disturbing.
Spenser Confidential (March TBD)
Director Peter Berg’s collaborations with Mark Wahlberg have been somewhat uneven: Deepwater Horizon was great, Patriots Day was not, while Lone Survivor was just … well, let’s not start that old debate up again. But the director-star duo are kind of ideal for a revival of author Robert B. Parker’s iconic tough-guy detective Spenser, whom an entire generation probably remembers from the 1980s TV series starring Robert Urich. (This film will reportedly be based on one of the later novels, by crime writer Ace Atkins.) It’s a Netflix release, and if it succeeds, we can imagine a whole series of Spenser films on the streamer, which wouldn’t be a bad use of Wahlberg’s or Berg’s talents.
First Cow (March 6)
New work from Kelly Reichardt is always going to be cause for celebration. This one, set in rural Oregon in the 1820s, unfolds the story of the tender friendship that grows between two men (John Magaro and Orion Lee) who set up a scheme to sell cakes made from milk stolen from the area’s first and only dairy cow.
The Way Back (March 6)
Gavin O’Connor’s sports drama about an alcoholic former basketball player turned coach revolves around what promises to be a deeply, maybe even uncomfortably personal role for Ben Affleck, an actor who’s had his own struggles with addiction. While O’Connor and Affleck worked together on 2016’s The Accountant, it’s the director’s work on MMA drama Warrior, the ne plus ultra of male sports weepies this decade, that makes this new film worth keeping an eye out for.
Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always (March 13)
Eliza Hittman’s first two films, It Felt Like Love and Beach Rats, were dreamy Brooklyn-based coming-of-age dramas awash in complicated young desire. Her third, Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, sounds like an exploration of what happens when unintended outcomes of that desire come up against increasingly restrictive state policies — forcing its teenage main character to travel with her cousin from rural Pennsylvania, where they both live, to New York City in search of abortion. Hittman’s got an eye for directing young actors, so expect Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder (both in their first feature roles) to be breakout names.
A Quiet Place Part II (March 20)
Nobody was more surprised than we were when John Krasinski’s ingeniously contrived dystopian 2018 thriller turned out to be a bona fide smash. Can lightning strike again? Krasinski’s character didn’t make it out of the first one, but Emily Blunt is back, as are the sublime young actors Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe. Plus: Cillian Murphy and Djimon Hounsou, two of our most gifted physical performers, here given a great excuse to appear in a movie with (we’re assuming/hoping) relatively little dialogue.
Saint Maud (March 27)
Never underestimate the potential of an A24 horror release. Rose Glass’s directorial debut has already garnered acclaim at festivals, and the premise — a hospice nurse tries to save her former dancer patient’s soul — promises both supernatural chills and metaphysical unease.
Mulan (March 27)
There have been plenty of reasons to feel cynical about Disney’s cycle of live-action remakes of its animated classics, including Mulan, with its open calculations regarding the mainland Chinese market. That said, the trailer for the film, directed by Niki Caro and starring Liu Yifei, kind of … ruled? The prospect of an action movie Mulan that co-stars Jet Li and Donnie Yen — not to mention Gong Li as a shapeshifting witch — feels infinitely more promising than seeing another rote live-action reenactment of a familiar film.
April
No Time to Die (April 8)
James Bond’s Daniel Craig era has had its terrific highs (Casino Royale) and debilitating lows (Quantum of Solace), and this one — which we’ve been told, yet again, is probably Craig’s last outing as 007 — could go either way. But we’re gonna go ahead and be excited for it, since the director on this is Cary Fukunaga, whose last theatrical feature was Beasts of No Nation, which came out approximately 83 years ago.
Antlers (April 17)
Scott Cooper directed Hostiles, Black Mass, Crazy Heart, and Out of the Furnace — all of which sound like they should be horror movies, even though none of them are. Now, he finally drops the prestige pictures and tackles a straight genre chiller, with Guillermo del Toro in the producer’s seat. This one features small-town teacher Keri Russell and her sheriff brother Jesse Plemons trying to … never mind, we’ve bought our tickets already.
Promising Young Woman (April 17)
Actor, writer, and director Emerald Fennell was everywhere in 2019, playing Camilla Shand on season three of The Crown and taking over for Phoebe Waller-Bridge, with mixed results, as the showrunner and writer of Killing Eve season two. 2020 sees her making her filmmaking debut with this incendiary thriller starring Carey Mulligan as a woman with dark secrets who appears to make a habit out of trolling for men looking to take advantage of the hopelessly drunk and vulnerable. It’s set to make its premiere at Sundance, where its premise and pedigree are sure to guarantee it a lot of attention.
Antebellum (April 24)
The feature debut from music video- and PSA-directing duo Bush|Renz, Antebellum shares a producer with Jordan Peele’s Get Out, and also appears to share an interest in using horror to explore black trauma. Hard to say more, given the details of the plot have been kept secret — but the intriguing teaser flickers between the present day and the plantation-era South, offering a look at Janelle Monáe in her first big-screen leading role.
May
Eurovision (May TBD)
The idea of Will Ferrell spoofing the Eurovision Song Contest — with Rachel McAdams, Demi Lovato, and Pierce Brosnan along for the Netflix ride — feels like an idea that’s about ten years too late, but back in 2010, this would have probably been our most anticipated movie of the year.
Black Widow (May 1)
A Black Widow solo movie has been so long in coming that it arrives after the character was killed off in Avengers: Endgame. That’s unlikely to get in the way of the Marvel machine, which has jumped back in time to tell a story about the former KGB assassin, played by Scarlett Johansson. We guess it will be interesting to see what happens when the character is finally given the spotlight, but what’s actually intriguing about this movie are the presences of Australian director Cate Shortland (of Somersault, Lore, and Berlin Syndrome) and everyone’s new fave, Florence Pugh, as fellow Red Room trainee Yelena Belova.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (May 22)
There has not been a bad SpongeBob Squarepants movie yet, and we see no reason why that trend should end anytime soon.
June
Into the Deep (Summer TBD)
In 2017, the world was shocked by news that the “eccentric†Danish inventor Peter Madsen had murdered journalist Kim Wall in gruesome fashion aboard his homemade submarine. It turns out that director Emma Sullivan had begun making a documentary about Madsen one year earlier. And now, here it is, headed for Netflix. This promises to be quite a journey.
Dick Johnson Is Dead (Summer TBD)
Kirsten Johnson, the cinematographer and documentarian whose idiosyncratic memoir, Cameraperson, was one of the greatest films of the past decade, has made a movie about preparing for her 86-year-old father’s imminent death “by staging fantasies of death and beyond,†featuring her father.
Wonder Woman 1984 (June 5)
Patti Jenkins’s 2017 smash Wonder Woman was the first sign that the DC cinematic universe might be righting its ship. Now, we’re all wondering if she and star Gal Gadot can deliver a winning follow-up to that surprisingly moving, WWI-set origin tale. Bringing Diana into the 1980s is either a wonderfully inspired choice, or a recipe for endless kitsch. Or maybe both.
Candyman (June 12)
Nia da Costa, who demonstrated in her promising debut Little Woods a facility with compelling bleakness, has been given the directorial reins for this Jordan Peele–produced reboot/sequel to the 1992 Clive Barker–Bernard Rose classic. That’s a promising match. Also, we’re hoping they bring back the original’s magnificently moody Philip Glass score in some way, shape, or form.
Soul (June 19)
As Pixar’s leaned into lucrative, less exciting sequels, its output has become decidedly mixed. That said, the company has two original stories on the slate this year — the urban fantasy saga Onward in March, and the more abstract Soul in June. The latter sounds like it’s decidedly in Inside Out territory with its depiction of a jazz-loving music teacher (voiced by Jamie Foxx) who ends up in an afterlife seminar for souls preparing to be reborn into new lives. It sounds weird as all hell, which is to say, maybe great?
Top Gun: Maverick (June 25)
No, nobody needed a Top Gun sequel. Yes, Tom Cruise should be finding new, interesting roles instead of trying to franchise his old hits. But director Joseph Kosinski, replacing the late Tony Scott, is the perfect guy for this: He’s a poet of empty landscapes and sleek machines in motion set to stirring music. And Christopher McQuarrie, who has been a great collaborator of Cruise’s in recent years, is among the credited screenwriters. This could turn out to be amazing. Or not!
In the Heights (June 25)
A movie version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s beloved, Tony-winning musical has been in the works for over a decade, bouncing from Universal to the Weinstein Company before ending up at Warner Bros. It ended up under the direction of Jon M. Chu, who, unlike [coughs, hairball] certain other filmmakers who’ve recently overseen Broadway adaptations, actually knows how to shoot a musical number. Here’s hoping it was worth the wait.
July
Untitled Purge Sequel (July 10)
The Purge films have given us one masterpiece, one very good genre flick, and a couple of fascinating if uneven entries — which, frankly, is a better batting average than Star Wars these days. Could the fifth Purge recapture the demented magic of the second Purge, or at least the shlocky charms of the first? Even if it doesn’t, no Purge movie has been uninteresting so far.
Tenet (July 17)
Christopher Nolan’s latest already has a delectably oblique and intriguing teaser, as well as a few minutes of footage screening before The Rise of Skywalker’s IMAX showings. Needless to say, we still have no idea what it’s about. But it looks to be a globe-hopping thriller in the vein of Inception. So that’s good, right?
August
Bill & Ted Face the Music (August 21)
It appears 2020 will have no shortage of hits from the past getting belated sequels. But this one — in which Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter will reprise their roles as the lovably dim stoner duo, who were basically kids the last time we saw them — at least promises to have some self-awareness.
Let Him Go (August 21)
Kevin Costner and Diane Lane try to save their grandson from the clutches of another family. If this means that the dadsploitation genre is finally turning into the momanddadsploitation genre, great.
September
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Fall TBD)
Besides being one of our most inventive (and enigmatic) screenwriters, Charlie Kaufman is also batting, like, a thousand when it comes to directing: His first feature behind the camera was the epochal Synecdoche, New York and the second was the marvelously melancholy animated film Anomalisa (which he co-directed with Duke Johnson). Also, this stars Jesse Plemons, and the idea of Charlie Kaufman and Jesse Plemons working together is just too beautiful to resist.
Mank
David Fincher directs this movie (from a script written by his own father, Jack) about Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles’s legendary co-writer on Citizen Kane. (Gary Oldman plays the title role.) Given the subject matter, we fully expect Fincher to go full-tilt on the stylistic pyrotechnics in this one. Also, given the Academy’s fondness for movies about filmmaking, this could have a compelling post-season.
Last Night in Soho (September 25)
A psychological horror film from Edgar Wright that’s inspired by Don’t Look Now and Repulsion? Say no more.
The Many Saints of Newark (September 25)
After bringing The Sopranos to one of the great fuck-you endings of all time, David Chase winds the clock back on the New Jersey clan to tell the story of Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola), Johnny Boy Soprano (Jon Bernthal), and Livia (Vera Farmiga), with James Gandolfini’s teenage son, Michael, playing the young Tony. Prequels rarely tend to be worth the while, but Chase might be less prone to fan service than any other writer in the industry, and if he feels he has another story to tell, and has regular collaborator Alan Taylor onboard to direct, we can accept that.
October
Death on the Nile (October 9)
Kenneth Branagh’s previous Hercule Poirot mystery, Murder on the Orient Express, didn’t exactly set the universe on fire, but this one’s got a promisingly unpredictable cast — including Gal Gadot, Russell Brand, and Letitia Wright — and it’s one of author Agatha Christie’s most twisted thrillers. (The 1978 Peter Ustinov version is well worth seeking out, by the way.)
November
Eternals (November 6)
Chloe Zhao, director of The Rider (a.k.a. the best film of 2018), has been given a Marvel movie. And while indie up-and-comers (and even some indie also-rans) being handed mega-tentpole properties is nothing new anymore, the idea of Zhao’s evocative, generous, improvisatory style being put into the service of a hyper-previsualized comic-book franchise is … exciting? Intriguing? Terrifying? All of these things? Either way, we’ll be watching. —BE
Stillwater (November 6)
Director Tom McCarthy pulled off the rare achievement of bookending some 2015 best of/worst of lists courtesy of his Best Picture–winning Spotlight and his disastrous Adam Sandler fantasy The Cobbler. Chances are he won’t replicate the feat in 2020, but he does have another double-feature on the schedule. Kiddie film Timmy Failure will premiere at Sundance before heading to Disney+. Stillwater, on the other hand, is here in prime award-season territory — the story of an Oklahoma oil-rig worker (Matt Damon) who travels to France to try to exonerate his daughter, who’s been imprisoned there for a crime she claims she didn’t commit.
Deep Water (November 13)
Adrian Lyne, cinema’s foremost chronicler of sexy infidelity and its inevitably horrifying consequences, has been off the radar since 2002’s Unfaithful, but his interests don’t seem to have shifted in the intervening years. His new film, based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, stars Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas as a married couple whose fraught open relationship seems to lead to the deaths of those who get involved with them, and is poised to bring eroticism and stern moralizing back to the multiplex.
Happiest Season (November 20)
Clea Duvall made her directorial debut with the Big Chill–esque The Intervention in 2016. For her second act as a filmmaker, she’s managed to put together the legendary pairing of Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis for a romantic comedy about a woman who’s poised to propose to her girlfriend at her family’s holiday party, only to realize her girlfriend isn’t out to her conservative parents.
December
Coming 2 America (December 18)
Eddie Murphy is back! Is Eddie Murphy back? This long-delayed sequel to his 1988 comedy hit, reuniting him with his Dolemite Is My Name director Craig Brewer, could be the real test.
Dune (December 18)
Years after David Lynch’s version crashed and burned in theaters and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s version passed into legend without a single frame being shot, the decidedly less idiosyncratic though still quite talented Denis Villeneuve takes on Frank Herbert’s legendary sci-fi novel — presumably with the same kinds of groundbreaking special effects and visual splendor that he brought to his Blade Runner sequel. The real question will be whether he can create an emotionally compelling film from a story that has already been strip-mined by practically every other sci-fi film of the past few decades (a phenomenon known as the John Carter Effect). We’re pulling for him.
West Side Story (December 18)
Steven Spielberg’s filmography has enough great musical scenes (think Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, or 1941) that many of us have been wondering what an actual Spielberg musical might look like. Well, we’re about to find out.
News of the World (December 25)
Paul Greengrass directs Tom Hanks in an adaptation of Paulette Jiles’s novel about an officer in post–Civil War Texas transporting a young girl who had been a Kiowa captive to her surviving family. Alternate title: There Will Be Hot Takes.
Sometime in 2020
After Yang
Video essayist Kogonada’s directorial debut Columbus was a gorgeously intimate movie about two strangers (John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson) who connect over a love of architecture while they’re both stranded, in different ways, in Columbus, Indiana. He’s delving into science fiction for his new film, based on a short story by Alexander Weinstein about a couple (Colin Farrell and Jodie Turner-Smith) struggling to deal with the deterioration of the robot (Justin Min) they purchased to both care for their adopted daughter (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) and teach her about her Chinese heritage.
Annette
Adam Driver is a stand-up comedian, Marion Cotillard is the opera star he marries, it’s a musical featuring original songs from Sparks, and it’s Leos Carax’s full English-language debut and his first film since 2012’s Holy Motors. Can you see our eyes sparkling with dazzled wonder from here?
Bergman Island
Mia Hansen-Løve is one of the great directors working today, though her last feature, the still-undistributed-in-the-U.S. Maya, was a more minor effort. Her next one sounds like anything but — Bergman Island stars Mia Wasikowska and Anders Danielsen Lie as filmmakers and romantic partners who travel to remote Fårö island, where Ingmar Bergman lived, to write their respective next screenplays. The film’s been described as semi-autobiographical, which is unsurprising — Hansen-Løve had her own relationship with a fellow filmmaker, Olivier Assayas.
C’mon C’mon
So maybe we weren’t over the moon about Joker, but we remain generally in awe of Joaquin Phoenix, and are pretty psyched about his collaboration with writer-director Mike Mills (of 20th Century Women and Beginners). There aren’t many details known about the film, but it reportedly co-stars Gaby Hoffmann.
Da 5 Bloods
Spike Lee follows up his Oscar-winning hit BlacKkKlansman with this tale of four African-American vets returning to Vietnam looking both for a fallen comrade and for hidden treasure. Any new film by Spike Lee is a film worth watching, but we’re particularly intrigued by the idea of him going in a Treasure of the Sierra Madre–style direction this time around for Netflix.
The French Dispatch
Look, it’s Wes Anderson. It’s “a love letter to journalists.†It’s set in a fictional French city. It stars Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Timothée Chalamet, Benicio del Toro, Jeffrey Wright, Léa Seydoux, and approximately a thousand other actors we love. Of course it’s on this list.
Kajillionaire
It’s been nine years — far too long — since Miranda July’s last film, the supremely melancholic The Future. Her new one is, wonder of wonders, a heist flick slated for Sundance, one that stars Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins, and Debra Winger as a family of grifters whose lives are shaken up when they recruit an outsider (Gina Rodriguez) into their latest scheme.
Memoria
If the prospect of Apichatpong Weerasethakul teaming up with Tilda Swinton doesn’t make your heart explode with joy, we don’t know what will. The Thai auteur’s latest is reportedly about an orchid farmer who’s increasingly disturbed by mysterious sounds while traveling to Bogotá to visit her sister.
Minari
Steven Yeun’s post–Walking Dead career has been one epic choice after another — playing an animal rights activist in Okja and a princely sociopath in Burning, a labor organizer in Sorry to Bother You and a doting bird boyfriend in Tuca & Bertie. For his next trick, Yeun will executive produce as well as star in the highly personal-sounding latest from Lee Isaac Chung (Munyurangabo), playing a Korean patriarch who moves his family to Arkansas in the 1980s to start a farm.
Nomadland
Between making her tremendous second film The Rider and her Marvel debut Eternals, Chloé Zhao shot a drama with Frances McDormand that combines her fascinating with the America West with bigger names and a bigger budget. Based on Jessica Bruder’s 2017 book, Nomadland is about older Americans traveling the country in search of work in the wake of the Great Recession — a topic that sounds incredibly timely and like one that will give McDormand a lot to work with.
The Old Guard
The great Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love and Basketball, Beyond the Lights), whom we will gladly follow to the ends of the Earth, is back, this time with an adaptation of Greg Rucka’s comic book about a group of immortal mercenaries. Oh, and Charlize Theron, Kiki Layne, and Chiwetel Ejiofor star.
On the Rocks
We’ve accidentally wandered onto the sets of Sofia Coppola’s latest, which was shooting around New York all summer, often enough for it to feel practically cozy. Certainly the subject matter for this dramedy sounds up the filmmaker’s alley — Rashida Jones plays a young mother, and Bill Murray the playboy father she reconnects with, and surely some bittersweet moments of fragile connection will ensue. The film is the first in a partnership between A24 and Apple TV+ — behold your hipster multibrand streaming future.
The Souvenir: Part II
Given how great The Souvenir was, there is no way we are not lining up for part two of Joanna Hogg’s ongoing semi-autobiographical opus.
The White Tiger
Aravind Adiga won the 2008 Booker Prize and caused an uproar in his native country of India with his debut novel The White Tiger, a blackly comic story about a young man who rises from poverty in his village to become a successful entrepreneur through a combination of murder, bribery, and rapacious ambition. It’s thrilling to think about Ramin Bahrani, who’s devoted his filmmaking career to characters trying to avoid getting crushed by global capitalism will do with this material — his adaptation is set to star Priyanka Chopra, Adarsh Gourav, and Rajkummar Rao.
Zola
That outrageous viral Twitter thread from 2015 has become a major motion picture, and one that’s not dependent, as was originally the plan, on James Franco to thread the needle on a story that involves, among other things, sex work and trafficking. Instead, Lemon director Janicza Bravo is at the helm, having written the script with Slave Play’s Jeremy O. Harris. If it wasn’t self-evident, the result, which stars Taylour Paige and Riley Keough, is an A24 joint that will be out later in the year after a Sundance premiere.