60 films to look for­ward to in 2018 – part 1

With 2017 prov­ing to be such a spec­tac­u­lar year for movies – con­cep­tu­al hor­ror break­ing back into the main­stream, a boun­ty of stel­lar ani­ma­tion and a long over­due mat­u­ra­tion of the hum­ble com­ic book movie – 2018 has a lot to live up to. Although there’s def­i­nite­ly more to look for­ward to than we can rea­son­ably include here, we’ve put togeth­er a handy list of 60 films we think are worth get­ting excit­ed about. Once you’ve perused the full list, check out part two.

Eta 30 March

Wes Anderson’s lat­est tracks the jour­ney of Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin) to the epony­mous isle, a waste­land where dogs have been con­fined to pre­vent the spread of a canine flu, in order to find his kid­napped dog Spots (Liev Schreiber). The dogs of the island – led by Bryan Cranston’s Chief – assist him in track­ing down his cap­tured canine in a film that boasts the same tac­tile style as Anderson’s pre­vi­ous ani­mat­ed fea­ture Fan­tas­tic Mr Fox, and the twee charm that per­me­ates all his work is seem­ing­ly front and cen­tre throughout.

Eta 23 February

As cere­bral and eso­teric as you would expect from Alex Gar­land, his fol­low up to 2014’s Ex Machi­na plays its cards char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly close to its chest dur­ing its enig­mat­ic trail­er. Natal­ie Port­man stars along­side Jen­nifer Jason Leigh and Tes­sa Thomp­son as the biol­o­gist sent on an expe­di­tion that turns sev­en-shades of strange after they encounter anthro­po­mor­phic tree-fig­ures and an undu­lat­ing wall of liq­uid colour.

Eta 23 March

Five years after the dis­ap­pear­ance of father Chris Pine, Meg Mur­ray and her young broth­er are sent by three eso­teric extrater­res­tri­al beings, along with their class­mate Calvin (Levi Miller), on a quest to save their absent par­ent. He’s locat­ed on a bizarre plan­et that serves as home to all of the universe’s evil ener­gy. Storm Reid heads up pro­ceed­ings as the tena­cious Meg with sup­port from Mindy Kaling, Reese With­er­spoon and Oprah Win­frey as the oth­er­world­ly Mrs Who, Mrs What­sit and Mrs Which. After Sel­ma, any­thing bear­ing Ava DuVernay’s name is a must-watch.

Eta 9 February

A team of astro­nauts are engaged in sci­en­tif­ic research aboard a space sta­tion when they make a dis­cov­ery that leads to both their fight for sur­vival and the cataly­sa­tion of grand reper­cus­sions for Earth. It’s a famil­iar premise, but as the third instal­ment of the Clover­field fran­chise that has only seen improve­ments since its 2008 incep­tion, it’s one that is more than like­ly to throw a few joy­ous curve balls our way.

Eta TBA

Set on the British colo­nial island of Tas­ma­nia in 1825, Jen­nifer Kent’s fol­low-up to The Babadook is a peri­od dra­ma about a young woman’s search for the sol­dier who mur­dered her fam­i­ly. Accom­pa­nied by an abo­rig­i­nal man, rel­a­tive new­com­er Ais­ling Franciosi’s Clare must con­tend with the unex­pect­ed threats of the inte­ri­or as well as com­ing to terms with what Kent calls the point­less­ness of revenge. No UK release date has been set, but with shoot­ing all wrapped up don’t be sur­prised to see this some­time in 2018.

Eta 23 March

Con­strained by the hier­ar­chi­cal lim­i­ta­tions of her time, Mary Mag­da­lene aban­dons her fam­i­ly in search of some­thing bet­ter. In the process, she stum­bles across a social upris­ing led by the com­pelling Jesus of Nazareth. Their lives con­verge on a jour­ney that sets them on the path to Jerusalem. Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix realise the bib­li­cal two­some, with Chi­we­tel Ejio­for and Tahar Rahim star­ring along­side as mem­bers of Christ’s evan­gel­i­cal entourage.

Eta 17 August

Bri­an Henson’s return to pio­neer­ing pup­peteer­ing pic­tures after 1996’s The Mup­pet Christ­mas Car­ol, The Hap­py­time Mur­ders has revealed rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle about its tale of mar­i­onete mur­der, in which the cast of an ​’80s chil­dren show begin to wind up dead. Eliz­a­beth Banks, Maya Rudolph and Joel McHale star, and giv­en the depar­ture from quaint Mup­petry we’re more than hap­py to be strung along a lit­tle while longer wait­ing for more word.

Eta TBA

There’s some­thing odd­ly prophet­ic to the plot of Orson Welles’ The Oth­er Side of the Wind regard­ing the fate of its sim­i­lar­ly monikered bear­er. Return­ing to Hol­ly­wood after years of exile in Europe, John Huston’s JJ. Jake Han­naford sets out to craft his mag­num opus. Final­ly com­ing to screens after wrap­ping in 1976, Welles’ long delayed and last pic­ture is guar­an­teed to tit­il­late the palates of cinephiles every­where. All that remains to be seen is whether it was worth the wait.

Eta TBA

Jon­ah Hill’s direc­to­r­i­al debut fol­lows Ste­vie (Sun­ny Suljic), a young boy grow­ing up in ​’90s Los Ange­les amidst a group of skate­board­ers, who must con­tend with his depen­dant moth­er and the abuse suf­fered at the hands of his elder broth­er. Time will tell if Hill has the direct­ing chops or not, but a reli­able cast fea­tur­ing Kather­ine Water­ston and Lucas Hedges and the promise of a broad­er social com­men­tary under­ly­ing Hill’s comedic pre­dis­po­si­tions bode well.

Eta TBA

Based on Maria Semple’s nov­el, Richard Linklater’s lat­est traces daugh­ter Bee’s search for her miss­ing moth­er and the rev­e­la­tions of her past life that occur dur­ing the search. A strong cast includ­ing Cate Blanchett, Lau­rence Fish­burne, Kris­ten Wiig and Bil­ly Crudup aid Lin­klater in his tack­ling of the novel’s uncon­ven­tion­al piece­meal struc­ture with a slew of capa­ble hands hope­ful­ly account­ing for the nar­ra­tive diver­gences like­ly being tak­en. Lin­klater is a tal­ent­ed enough film­mak­er to make a whol­ly dif­fer­ent beast that still man­ages to pay cre­dence to its writ­ten beginnings.

Eta 16 February

Hav­ing already enam­oured itself with crit­ics and US cin­ema­go­ers, Gre­ta Gerwig’s solo debut fea­ture is set to arrive on UK shores in Feb­ru­ary. Saoirse Ronan puts in a beau­ti­ful­ly hon­est per­for­mance as Lady Bird, a young girl grow­ing up in ear­ly 2000’s Cal­i­for­nia. After her father is laid off, her moth­er must work to keep the fam­i­ly afloat whilst her daugh­ter looks to forge her own path away from her fam­i­ly and lack­lus­tre con­tem­po­raries by apply­ing for col­leges in New York. The film cur­tails con­cerns of com­ing-of-age clichés and stands as a tes­ta­ment to Gerwig’s film­mak­ing talent.

Eta 2 November

Damien Chazelle directs this retelling of the 1969 mis­sion that led to man set­ting foot on the moon. Ryan Gosling stars as Neil Arm­strong, with Corey Stoll and Lukas Haas mak­ing up the remain­der of the Apol­lo crew and Claire Foy adding sup­port as Armstrong’s wife Janet in a film that promis­es to show us the real peo­ple behind this defin­ing moment in human history.

Eta TBA

Fol­low­ing his his­toric Oscar win for Moon­light, writer/​director Bar­ry Jenk­ins is poised to return with an adap­ta­tion of James Baldwin’s fifth nov­el. It tells the sto­ry of a Harlem woman to fights to clear her fiancé’s name after he’s wrong­ly accused of rape. So far Pedro Pas­cal, Dave Fran­co and Ed Skrein are signed up, with Kiki Layne star­ring as Tish and Stephan James as the false­ly impris­oned Fon­ny. Film­ing is due to wrap ear­ly 2018, so we could be look­ing at a Cannes bow.

21 Novem­ber

After becom­ing the vic­tim of a vis­cer­al attack, Mark Hogan­camp (Steve Carell) begins con­struc­tion on a minia­ture repli­ca of a World War Two-era town to serve as his ther­a­peu­tic out­let. The strong sup­port­ing cast of Eiza González, Diane Kruger and Gwen­do­line Christie fill out the remain­der of this Robert Zemeck­is direct­ed drama.

Eta TBA

Boots Riley directs this cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant tale of a black tele­mar­keter who manip­u­lates his voice to sound white and bol­ster his rates of suc­cess. Fea­tur­ing per­for­mances from vet­er­ans David Cross and Ter­ry Crews to the com­pa­ra­bly fresh-faced Tes­sa Thomp­son and Steven Yeun, and sound­tracked by Riley’s own hip-hop vet­er­ans The Coup, this one has us excited.

Eta 16 February

Andrew Haigh’s lat­est sees the teenage Charley (Char­lie Plum­mer) spend­ing his sum­mer work­ing for a horse train­er, lead­ing to a friend­ship blos­som­ing between he and wan­ing race­horse Pete. If the horse los­es anoth­er race he’s to be sold to the slaugh­ter­house, so Charley sets him loose and the pair tra­verse the harsh land­scape in search of Wyoming and the teen’s lost aunt. Plum­mer is joined by dis­il­lu­sioned jock­ey Chloë Sevi­gny and griz­zled train­er Steve Busce­mi in this tale of eques­tri­an escape.

Eta TBA

Fol­low­ing a fam­i­ly in Tel Aviv after the dis­cov­ery that their son has been killed man­ning a mil­i­tary out­post, Samuel Maoz’s Fox­trot flit­ters between the tur­bu­lent lives of the griev­ing par­ents and that of the son they lost in the days before his death. No UK release as of yet, but hav­ing won the Sil­ver Lion at the Venice Film Fes­ti­val and look­ing a sure-fire for the upcom­ing Oscars, safe mon­ey is on this get­ting a lim­it­ed release some time in 2018.

Eta 23 March

Guiller­mo del Toro is on board. He’s pro­duc­ing. The trail­er looks… fine. John Boye­ga is reli­able. So that’s good. Rinko Kikuchi is back as Mako Mori. Char­lie Day is here. So is Burn Gor­man. They were good last time, right? Right. Watch­ing whol­ly un-self-seri­ous robot ver­sus mon­ster bout­ing is great. Ignore the fact that DeKnight’s last cred­it is for cre­ative con­sul­tan­cy on Trav­el Boobs.

Eta 23 February

I, Tonya cen­tres on the tur­bu­lent fig­ure-skat­ing career of Tonya Hard­ing, from her trou­bled begin­nings strug­gling against a dom­i­neer­ing moth­er, to her lat­er issues with scan­dal after her hus­band involves him­self in her work. Mar­got Rob­bie appar­ent­ly gives a career-best per­for­mance, and whis­pers of a Good­fel­las-esque feel float around the film. Whilst undoubt­ed­ly hyper­bo­las, any com­par­i­son to one of Scorsese’s finest is noth­ing to be sniffed at. Plus the jug­ga­lo from It’s Always Sun­ny plays her body­guard. So there’s always that.

Eta 12 October

Jeff Bridges and Chris Hemsworth play a cou­ple of seem­ing­ly sus­pi­cious men who arrive at the dilap­i­dat­ed El Royale Hotel on the shores of Lake Tahoe. Drew God­dard of Cab­in in the Woods fame writes and directs. Okay, so we don’t have a lot more to go on oth­er than the Octo­ber release, but God­dard has long since proven his skill in pen­ning an engag­ing sto­ry. Keep this one on the back­burn­er until then decide to tease us out with a trailer.

Eta 4 May

Fol­low­ing the death of her estranged Rab­bi father, Rachel McAdams’ Esti is com­pelled to return home to New York, where she devel­ops feel­ings for a child­hood friend. In the process she stirs up con­tro­ver­sy amongst the Ortho­dox Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty who object to her desires. One of two films by Sebastián Lelio drop­ping in 2018 (the oth­er being A Fan­tas­tic Woman on 2 March), it looks like being a great year for the Chilean writer/​director.

Eta 28 September

Mix­ing Arthuri­an leg­end with his deft treat­ment of com­ing-of-age sto­ry telling, Joe Cornish’s The Kid Who Would be King sees the famed sword Excal­ibur fall into the hands of school­boy Lance (Tom Tay­lor). In order to cur­tail the end­ing of the world, he must put it to use against Rebec­ca Ferguson’s Mor­gana, all the while receiv­ing tute­lage from Mer­lin. Mer­lin is played by Patrick Stew­art. We’re in.

Eta TBA

After being ​‘out­ed’ to his con­ser­v­a­tive par­ents, 19-year-old Gar­rard (Lucas Hedges) is sent to a gay-con­ver­sion cen­tre to mit­i­gate the threat of social ostraci­sa­tion – both for him and his fam­i­ly – in Joel Edgerton’s inter­pre­ta­tion of Gar­rad Conley’s mem­oir. Gar­rard must endure the belit­tling effects of con­ver­sion ther­a­py, as well as a con­tentious rela­tion­ship with Edgerton’s camp coun­sel­lor. Edger­ton demon­strat­ed his direct­ing chops with The Gift; here’s hop­ing for more of the same.

Eta TBA

Chris Pine shows us his war face as Robert the Bruce, the tit­u­lar Out­law King who repelled the expan­sion­ist Eng­lish forces of Edward I. Stephen Dil­lane is an obvi­ous choice for the con­quer­ing King, hav­ing cut his teeth with the steely charm of Stan­nis Baratheon, with James Cos­mo, Aaron-Tay­lor John­son and Flo­rence Pugh flesh­ing out the sup­port­ing cast. Com­ing out some­time next year for Net­flix, David Mackenzie’s his­tor­i­cal epic has enough act­ing-heft behind it to pre­vent this descend­ing into schlocky sword-and-san­dal fare if he exe­cutes is with enough panache.

Eta 6 April

Writ­ten by and star­ring John­ny Knoxville, Tim Kirkby’s Action Point fol­lows an entre­pre­neur­ial dare­dev­il that decides to open a theme park with his friends. With Brigette Lundy-Paine and Dan Bakkedahl, and Jack­ass alum­ni Chris Pon­tius on board, you know just what to expect from this Dick­house com­e­dy. And that’s no bad thing.

Eta 6 July

The sto­ry of the sto­ry that inspired Franken­stein. Elle Fan­ning and Dou­glas Booth play the two star-crossed lovers, whose assig­na­tions inspired Shel­ley to start work on her sem­i­nal nov­el. In Wad­j­da, Haifaa Al-Man­sour gave us an affect­ing dra­ma that nev­er fell over­board into the gooey waters of sac­cha­rin­i­ty. With Shel­ley her­self such a watch­able fig­ure, and the strong sup­port­ing cast of Maisie Williams, Bel Pow­ley and Stephen Dil­lane, it doesn’t look like this is going to be a prob­lem for Al-Mansour.

Eta 13 July

Pick­ing up from their con­fronta­tion with The Under­min­er, Pixar’s most demand­ed fol­low up rein­tro­duces us to the Parr fam­i­ly as they con­tend with a new men­ace to the sanc­ti­ty of their fam­i­ly and the bur­dens of day-to-day child­care. Hol­ly Hunter, Craig T Nel­son and Samuel L Jack­son all reprise their roles as the charis­mat­ic leads of Brad Bird’s super­hero sequel, while fan-favourite Edna Mode makes a wel­come return to the Pixar pantheon.

Eta 19 October

His first for­ay into hor­ror, David Gor­don Green’s… reboot? Con­clu­sion? The upcom­ing what­ever­it­maybe to John Carpenter’s sem­i­nal slash­er fea­tures a return from scream-queen stal­wart Jamie Lee Cur­tis and a turn from series new­com­er Judy Greer as daugh­ter to Cur­tis’ Lau­rie Strode in their quest to final­ly van­quish Michael Myers. The Hal­loween sequels have been a mixed bag at best, but we’re cau­tious­ly opti­mistic about this one.

Eta 22 June

Want­i­ng to pull off a dar­ing rob­bery of the New York Met Gala, Lou (Cate Blanchett) assem­bles a crew of sim­i­lar­ly mind­ed crooks includ­ing Anne Hath­away, San­dra Bul­lock and Hele­na Bon­ham Carter to aid with the heist. Series vet­er­an Matt Damon makes an appear­ance, hint­ing that oth­ers from the series may make their unex­pect­ed returns. With the wealth of tal­ent on show, and the sim­ple allure of a well-exe­cut­ed heist-movie, this reimag­in­ing looks poised for sum­mer success.

Eta TBA

Alexan­der Skars­gård plays the mute Leo, a man on the search for his miss­ing girl­friend in a neon-tinged future Berlin. Low on clues, two Amer­i­can sur­geons – Paul Rudd and Justin Ther­oux – pro­vide the only indi­ca­tions as to where to begin his jour­ney. Dun­can Jones has described Mute as his spir­i­tu­al sequel to Moon, so you’ll under­stand why we’re more than a lit­tle bit excited.

Now read part two of our bumper 2018 preview.