100 films to look for­ward to in 2021 – part 2

In Part 1 of our pre­view of upcom­ing films we checked in with new works from Mia Hansen-Løve, Zhang Yimou and Rid­ley Scott. With­out fur­ther ado, here’s the sec­ond half of our bumper 2021 pre­view. Let us know what you’re look­ing for­ward to watch­ing next year by tweet­ing us @LWLies.

Julia Ducournau’s Raw was one of the most excit­ing debuts of the last decade, so we can’t wait to see what she does next. Her sopho­more fea­ture was sched­uled to shoot last spring, but has prob­a­bly been delayed. Still, there’s hope it might be ready in time for Cannes 2021. The script – also writ­ten by Ducour­nau – sees an injured young man picked up at an air­port, where it’s revealed he’s been miss­ing for ten years. At the same time, a string of mur­ders are tak­ing place across the same region. What’s the con­nec­tion? We can’t wait to find out. Han­nah Woodhead

Mike Mills’ last project was a col­lab­o­ra­tion with indie rock band The Nation­al, in which they pro­duced an audio-visu­al album togeth­er. His new film sees him team up with post-Jok­er Joaquin Phoenix, who stars as an artist left to take care of his pre­co­cious young nephew dur­ing a cross-coun­try road trip, while the boy’s father strug­gles with bipo­lar dis­or­der. The film wrapped pro­duc­tion in Feb­ru­ary 2020, so there’s every chance we’ll get to see it at some point in 2021. HW

Break­out actress Der­agh Camp­bell earned raves for her per­for­mance as a woman on the verge of an anx­ious break­down in this out­stand­ing Cana­di­an export. Though her moth­er, friends, and hookups all seem vis­i­bly con­cerned about her, she rev­els in her own dys­func­tion, at times cre­at­ing awk­ward­ness for the sheer thrill of sow­ing dis­com­fort. She seems only to be at peace when among the chil­dren she looks after in her work as a day­care man­ag­er, anoth­er piece of a com­pli­cat­ed psy­cho­log­i­cal puz­zle laid out by direc­tor Kazik Rad­wan­s­ki. He makes a splashy arrival here, his claus­tro­pho­bic close-up shots as vis­cer­al and affect­ing as any­thing you’d find in an action film. Charles Bramesco

He won the Venice Gold­en Lion in 2013 for his film Sacro GRA, then he won the Berlin Gold­en Bear in 2016 for his film Fire at Sea. Now Ital­ian doc­u­men­tar­i­an Gian­fran­co Rosi is tak­ing his cam­era to var­i­ous Mid­dle East­ern bor­der zones and embed­ding him­self there for such time as to be able to elic­it some­thing a lit­tle clos­er to objec­tive truth from his sub­jects. Rosi’s pre­vi­ous films have demon­strat­ed his knack for dis­cov­er­ing charis­mat­ic char­ac­ters who are free from the scru­ples of self-con­scious­ness, and they are also exam­ples of polit­i­cal films that are entire­ly free of didac­ti­cism and point-scor­ing. He tries to give a voice to under­rep­re­sent­ed peo­ple, and the only ques­tion that remains is, will Noc­turne win the Palme d’Or? David Jenk­ins

The ques­tion with the Fil­ipino auteur Lav Diaz is, will his next film be a short one (four hours), a medi­um one (eight hours) or a long one (12 hours). We’ll have to wait and see with When the Waves Are Gone, his intrigu­ing lat­est and fol­low-up to 2019’s spec­u­la­tive sci-fi effort, The Halt. The plot looks amaz­ing: 30 years ago, two best friends rob a bank. One goes to prison, the oth­er returns to their home island with the mon­ey and becomes its tyrant ruler. For over 30 years, he keeps his friend locked up in prison with his influ­ence. One day, dur­ing the mon­soon storm sea­son, the pris­on­er is set free after ful­fill­ing his duties as a prison hit man. It sounds like Diaz’s ver­sion of The Count of Monte Cristo, and we’re here for it, how­ev­er long it ends up being. DJ

Paul Schrader’s lat­est was forced to sus­pend pro­duc­tion after one of the crew mem­bers test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 back in March, but Schrad­er – renowned for his impres­sive pro­duc­tiv­i­ty – was back on set as soon as pos­si­ble, and the film wrapped at the begin­ning of July in Mis­sis­sip­pi. Oscar Isaac stars as the appro­pri­ate­ly-named Tell, a ser­vice­man turned wan­der­ing gam­bler, who’s approached by a young upstart (Tye Sheri­dan) with a plan to take down a mutu­al ene­my (William Dafoe). We’re par­tic­u­lar­ly keen to see Tiffany Haddish’s role in all this – and might not have to wait long. Dis­tri­b­u­tion rights were snapped up quick­ly by Focus, and film­ing wrapped in Octo­ber, so we’re hope­ful this will make an appear­ance in 2021. HW

Audi­ences devoured Avery’s gore-tas­tic zom­bie World War Two film Over­lord, and he’s promised his next fea­ture will be just as dark. A young boy dis­cov­ers a super­hero, miss­ing pre­sumed dead for 20 years since he dis­ap­peared dur­ing a famous bat­tle, is actu­al­ly alive. Sylvester Stal­lone is cast as the errant avenger, while new­com­er (and box­ing prodi­gy) Javon ​‘Wan­na’ Wal­ton plays the kid try­ing to track him down. Mar­tin Starr and Dascha Polan­co round out the eclec­tic cast. HW

ETA: June 2021

Anoth­er vic­tim of shift­ing release dates due to the pan­dem­ic, it’s our duty to remind you all that Emer­ald Fennell’s blis­ter­ing black com­e­dy is still yet to come. Star­ring Carey Mul­li­gan as a woman who takes revenge fol­low­ing an inci­dent involv­ing her best friend, it’s a con­fronting, accom­plished debut. We loved it so much we made a whole mag­a­zine about it, and near­ly a year lat­er, we’re thrilled it will final­ly get a cin­e­ma release here in the UK. HW

ETA: Feb­ru­ary 2021

Nadav Lapid received heaps of praise for his debut The Kinder­garten Teacher and fol­low-up Syn­onyms, so all eyes are on him to make it a hat trick. Orig­i­nal­ly enti­tled Le Genou A’hed, the film cen­tres on an Israeli film­mak­er shoot­ing in the desert, fight­ing against oppres­sive forces in his home coun­try while also deal­ing with the death of his moth­er. HW

Tom McCarthy has one of the strangest fil­mo­gra­phies in Hol­ly­wood. After three small but well-received indie movies he made the wide­ly-derid­ed mag­ic shoe Adam San­dler vehi­cle The Cob­bler, then went on to win two Oscars for his jour­nal­ism dra­ma Spot­light. Ear­li­er this year his children’s movie Tim­my Fail­ure pre­miered at Sun­dance, but his next project seems a lot more seri­ous: it’s about a father (Matt Damon) work­ing to exon­er­ate his estranged daugh­ter (Abi­gail Bres­lin) for a mur­der she didn’t com­mit. Shine on McCarthy, you crazy dia­mond. HW

The direc­to­r­i­al debut from Chase Palmer (who co-wrote It with Cary Fuku­na­ga) stars John Boye­ga as a suc­cess­ful young pub­lic defend­er who los­es his first case, and watch­es his life begin to unrav­el. It’s based on the book of the same name by Ser­gio De La Pava, and Boye­ga is joined by Bill Skars­gård, Ed Skrein, Olivia Cooke and Tim Blake Nel­son in the cast. We’re intrigued to see what Boye­ga does after serv­ing time in the Dis­ney machine with Star Wars, and this looks like a sol­id step after his incred­i­ble per­for­mance in Steve McQueen’s Red, White and Blue. HW

An odd bird, this Tam­my Faye: she rose to promi­nence as the wife and cohost to tel­e­van­ge­list Jim Bakker, made waves in the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty by stand­ing with the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty and AIDS patients in direst times, and divorced Bakker after he was impris­oned for fraud and con­spir­a­cy. A doc­u­men­tary cov­er­ing her wild life sto­ry gets a drama­ti­sa­tion from The Big Sick direc­tor Michael Showal­ter, with Jes­si­ca Chas­tain play­ing against type as glammed-up Tam­my Faye and Andrew Garfield push­ing snake oil as Jim Bakker. The lion’s share of Showalter’s career has been in com­e­dy, mak­ing him an ide­al fit for a bizarre true sto­ry with black humour built right in. CB

When I saw Minari at Sun­dance last year, I cried so much I had to hide my head in my hands when Lee Isaac Chung and the cast took the floor after the film for a Q&A. Based on Chung’s own child­hood grow­ing up on a farm in rur­al Arkansas, it’s a ten­der por­trait of famil­ial ten­sions, star­ring Steven Yeun as a would-be farmer chas­ing the Amer­i­can dream and out­stand­ing (super cute!) new­com­er Alan Kim as his son David. You’ll be rush­ing to call your own grand­ma after watch­ing Youn Yuh-Jung’s per­for­mance as the elder­ly Soon-ja, who comes to stay with her daughter-in-law’s fam­i­ly and attempts to bond with her scep­ti­cal young grand­son. HW

ETA: April 2021

It’ll take more than some puny heart attack to put Sion Sono down. The Japan­ese lunatic-god comes roar­ing back from his car­diac episode with his first film in the Eng­lish lan­guage, which will pair him with a com­pa­ra­bly volatile tal­ent in star Nico­las Cage. As the crim­i­nal named Hero — that should give you a good idea of the lev­el of dement­ed wit we’re work­ing with here — he must ven­ture into a night­mare dimen­sion so that he may retrieve the governor’s daugh­ter and maybe dis­pel the malev­o­lent curse haunt­ing this realm while he’s at it. Sofia Boutel­la and Imo­gen Poots join him in this any­thing-goes hail of bul­let fire straf­ing the depths of dark fan­ta­sy, already set for a buzzy pre­mière at this year’s Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val. CB

Pro­duc­tion was paused on Ruben Östlund’s fol­low-up to The Square, but it’s now wrapped fol­low­ing covid-safe film­ing in his native Swe­den. Woody Har­rel­son plays the cap­tain of a lux­u­ry yacht, while Har­ris Dick­in­son and Charl­bi Dean play a super­mod­el cou­ple who are his pas­sen­gers. Now, it’s dif­fi­cult to know what exact­ly the film is about, as con­flict­ing reports sug­gest a class war due to food poi­son­ing, or a ship­wreck which pits the yacht’s rich and poor pas­sen­gers against each oth­er, but Östlund did con­firm they blew the yacht up at the end of the shoot. All aboard! HW

It’s no secret we’re big fans of Wes here at LWLies, and we look for­ward to any­thing he does. But a Wes Ander­son film about print jour­nal­ism? It’s got our name writ­ten all over it. With a clas­sic ensem­ble cast com­prised of Ander­son reg­u­lars Bill Mur­ray, Owen Wil­son, Beni­cio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Til­da Swin­ton and Jason Schwartz­man, plus new­com­ers Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met, Elis­a­beth Moss and Christoph Waltz (just a frac­tion of the huge, star-stud­ded cast) The French Dis­patch focus­es on an out­post of an Amer­i­can news­pa­per in a fic­tion­al French city. The jour­nal­ists and sub­jects of their sto­ries will both be explored, as Ander­son pays homage to the New York­er. Ander­son is report­ed­ly prep­ping his next project for a 2021 shoot, but we’re still eager­ly await­ing this one. HW

George Mack­ay had a wild­ly suc­cess­ful ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ thanks to 1917 and The True His­to­ry of The Kel­ly Gang – his next fea­ture sees him tak­ing on a rather unusu­al role, care of Nathalie Biancheri’s upcom­ing Irish film. He plays Jacob, a young man who is con­vinced he is a wolf trapped in a human body (a real life con­di­tion called species dys­pho­ria), while Lily Rose Depp plays a char­ac­ter called Wild­cat, who pre­sum­ably suf­fers from a sim­i­lar con­di­tion. They live in a spe­cial­ist home where they are sub­ject to cru­el treat­ment from ​‘The Zookeep­er’, designed to cure their con­di­tions. Pad­dy Con­si­dine also stars – our mon­ey is on him play­ing the sadis­tic doc­tor. HW

David Lowery’s new film star­ring Dev Patel as Sir Gawain, Knight of the Round Table, was sup­posed to have a glitzy pre­mière at South By South­west in March 2020, but the fes­ti­val was called off in light of COVID-19. A24 have set a July 2021 release date now, but we’re not sure when the UK will fol­low suit. No need to despair though – they’re sell­ing a table­top role­play­ing game based on the film to keep fans busy, and you can always watch the trail­er again to get your fix of Arthuri­an intrigue. HW

From the most cap­ti­vat­ing Twit­ter thread in the platform’s his­to­ry and direc­tor Jan­icza Bra­vo comes a vivid, sor­did tale of ​“how me and this bitch here fell out”. ​“Me” being Zola her­self (Tay­lour Paige), a waitress/​stripper who makes the acquain­tance of ​“this bitch here,” fel­low dancer and trick­ster-demon wild card Ste­fani (Riley Keough, at her Rili­est). Their road trip from Detroit to Tam­pa turns into a mor­dant­ly fun­ny spi­ral of blunts, guns, and pimps as the girls bond over the shared spir­i­tu­al dis­ci­pline they term ​‘hoeism,’ just one expres­sion of the inim­itable autho­r­i­al voice set­ting this apart from most high-pro­file lit­er­ary adap­ta­tions. Keep an eye out for a sup­port­ing turn from Succession’s Nicholas ​“Cousin Greg” Braun. CB

In 2018 Amer­i­can author Patrick DeWitt’s ​‘The Sis­ters Broth­ers’ was turned into a won­der­ful west­ern by Jacques Audi­ard and now his acclaimed 2018 nov­el about Frances Price and her adult son Mal­colm, who move from New York City to Paris with their cat, is next up on the big screen care of Azazel Jacobs. Michelle Pffeifer and Lucas Hedges star as the duo, while Tra­cy Letts pro­vides the voice of Small Frank, their feline com­pan­ion, who just so hap­pens to be the rein­car­na­tion of Frances’ dead hus­band. HW

Vin­cent Paron­naud is best known for the two fea­tures he made with Mar­jane Satrapi, Perse­po­lis and Chick­en with Plums. He’s direct­ed a few shorts and anoth­er fea­ture under a pseu­do­nym, but hor­ror-thriller Cos­mogony is his first ​“offi­cial” solo effort. It fol­lows a woman who meets a seem­ing­ly charm­ing man in a bar, only to realise he’s a psy­chopath with an equal­ly twist­ed accom­plice. She flees into the woods, which are her only hope to evade her would-be killers. HW

For a long time it looked like we were nev­er going to see anoth­er film ver­sion of Dune, after the rights were pur­chased in 2008 and the project nev­er mate­ri­alised. Denis Vil­leneuve entered talks back in 2016, and some time lat­er, his two-part epic is final­ly on the hori­zon – after being delayed from a Christ­mas 2020 release due to (you guessed it!) covid. Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met plays young Paul Atrei­des, while Oscar Isaac and Rebec­ca Fer­gu­son are his par­ents, Duke Leto and Lady Jes­si­ca Atrei­des, and Zen­daya, Jason Momoa and Char­lotte Ram­pling co-star. Tak­ing on Frank Herbert’s behe­moth sci-fi nov­el is no easy task, so how will Vil­lenueve stack up to David Lynch’s 1984 film and Ale­jan­dro Jodorowsky’s unre­alised vision? HW

ETA: Octo­ber 2021

When Ari Fol­man was approached by the estate of Anne Frank about the prospect of adapt­ing her diary into an ani­mat­ed film, he was ini­tial­ly unsure. But after speak­ing to his moth­er, and learn­ing his par­ents arrived at Auschwitz on the same day as the Frank fam­i­ly, he felt inspired to take the project on. This film, aimed at a younger audi­ence than Folman’s past work, will tell the sto­ry of Anne from the per­spec­tive of her imag­i­nary friend Kit­ty, to whom her diary was addressed. The 2D char­ac­ters are paired with stop-motion back­drops cre­at­ed by mas­ter pup­peteer Andy Gent (best known for his work with Wes Ander­son). It sounds bril­liant – but be sure to take your tis­sues. HW

If any upcom­ing film mer­its the Ste­fon-voiced ​‘this movie has every­thing’ treat­ment, it must sure­ly be this one, sold to Net­flix for a song by a stalled Para­mount. Amy Adams as an ago­ra­pho­bic psy­chol­o­gist! A Sap­ph­ic one-night stand with her Park Slope neigh­bour, Julianne Moore! A mur­der across the street, wit­nessed Rear Win­dow-style! A pos­si­ble gaslight­ing, as Jen­nifer Jason Leigh shows up intro­duc­ing her­self as Moore’s thought-dead char­ac­ter! And is that a high­brow cin­e­mat­ic pedi­gree? No, it’s just a group of tal­ent­ed A‑list actors pool­ing their skills to bring delec­tably pulpy life to a shame­less, twisty air­port pot­boil­er! New York’s hottest club is ​“Tra­cy Letts as the sin­is­ter ther­a­pist with pos­si­ble ulte­ri­or motives.” CB

It has been a long old wait for Paul Verhoeven’s forth­com­ing nun­sploita­tion epic Benedet­ta, but if pro­duc­er Saïd Ben Saïd is to be believed, it’s too good to not enjoy a prop­er run in cin­e­mas and a glitzy fes­ti­val pre­mière. The film stars Vir­ginie Efi­ra, so mem­o­rable in her sup­port­ing role in Verhoeven’s pre­vi­ous, Elle, as a novice nun in a 17^th cen­tu­ry Ital­ian con­vent who insti­gates a rela­tion­ship with anoth­er woman. DJ

You didn’t think Steven Soder­bergh would let some­thing as pesky as a pan­dem­ic slow him down, did you? While his Con­ta­gion cast were pre­sent­ing PSAs, Sody was prep­ping his next fea­ture, and it’s back to the heist genre for the Oceans and Logan Lucky direc­tor, though this time, it’s a peri­od thriller. The year? 1955. The city? Detroit. A group of small-time crooks are hired to steal a doc­u­ment in what looks like an easy job, but things go bad­ly wrong, leav­ing them try­ing to put togeth­er the puz­zle pieces of who hired them, and why. Intrigu­ing enough – but the cast real­ly sells this whole­sale: Don Chea­dle, Beni­cio del Toro, David Har­bour, Amy Seimetz, Jon Hamm, Ray Liot­ta, Kier­an Culkin, Bren­dan Fras­er, Bill Duke and Julia Fox – plus a cameo from Matt Damon. We’ll take tick­ets for open­ing night, please. HW

Olivia Wilde has been scal­ing back her act­ing gigs and plac­ing a greater focus on her bur­geon­ing career as direc­tor, begun in aus­pi­cious fash­ion back in 2019 with the crowd-pleas­ing Books­mart. Here’s hop­ing she can stave off the sopho­more slump with a ​’50s-set psy­cho-thriller star­ring Flo­rence Pugh as a dis­con­tent­ed house­wife who dis­cov­ers that her hus­band (musi­cian Har­ry Styles) is hid­ing an unspeak­able secret. Is he gay? Is he a mur­der­er? Per­haps a gay mur­der­er? All will be revealed by a stacked cast includ­ing Chris Pine, Kiki Layne, Gem­ma Chan, Nick Kroll, and Kate Berlant. (Wilde her­self will also appear on the oth­er side of the cam­era, in a sup­port­ing role.) CB

A Tex­an woman by the name of Peg­gy Jo Tal­las made a pret­ty pen­ny dur­ing the ​‘90s by rob­bing banks in the guise of a man, a per­sona dubbed ​“Cow­boy Bob” by local law enforce­ment. Her unlike­ly life sto­ry, already sold as ​“Bon­nie and Clyde, minus the Clyde” in the trade papers, will come to the sil­ver screen with Baby Dri­ver ingénue Lily James now behind the wheel of her own get­away car. Phillip Noyce, most rel­e­vant­ly iden­ti­fied here as the direc­tor of Angeli­na Jolie action vehi­cle Salt, will direct this odd-but-true sto­ry hid­ing a few more twists up its sleeve. Do your­self a favour and refrain from Googling before watch­ing. CB

The sec­ond Edgar Wright film on our list is a doc­u­men­tary, pre­mier­ing at Sun­dance 2021 and focussing on the icon­ic pop-rock duo of Ron and Rus­sell Mael. Respon­si­ble for clas­sic high-pitched pop banger ​‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us’, the broth­ers have been work­ing togeth­er for some 50 years, and are still going strong. Com­bin­ing archive footage and con­tem­po­rary record­ing, Wright’s doc will get to the heart of these art pop leg­ends – and maybe even give a lit­tle insight into their work on Leos Carax’s forth­com­ing musi­cal Annette. HW

Pos­sessed as ever by his flair for the meta, Nico­las Cage por­trays him­self in a heady action-com­e­dy play­ing on his alter egos. A cash-strapped Cage accepts a mil­lion-dol­lar offer to appear at the birth­day par­ty of a Mex­i­can super­fan (Pedro Pas­cal), where an unex­pect­ed assault from mys­te­ri­ous ene­mies forces the actor to dust off his reper­toire of char­ac­ters to save the day. How this knot­ty con­ceit might work is anyone’s guess, but the real point is that Cage will be dressed like this, so how bad can the movie be, real­ly? When he gets a role that real­ly chal­lenges him, there’s no one more exhil­a­rat­ing to watch than this thes­pi­an demigod, and this sounds like the sort of role that’ll bring out his best. CB

One of the best plot twists of 2019 was that Chris Rock had been work­ing on a new addi­tion to the Saw fran­chise. Appar­ent­ly a long-time fan keen to push his career in a new direc­tion, he took his ideas to Lion­s­gate and the orig­i­nal fran­chise cre­ators (James Wan and Leigh Whan­nell), and they liked what they saw (sor­ry). Spi­ral takes place in the Saw uni­verse, but it’s nei­ther a pre­quel or sequel. A teas­er trail­er intro­duced us to the cast (Chris Rock, Samuel L Jack­son and Max Minghel­la are head­lin­ing) but with a release delayed until next spring, we’ll have to wait a lit­tle while longer for the return of Jig­saw. HW

ETA: May 2021

John Michael McDon­agh has direct­ed two excel­lent films (Cal­vary and The Guard) and one okay one (War On Every­one) so we’re eager to see where his next project falls. Based on Lawrence Osborne’s nov­el of the same name, The For­giv­en tells the sto­ry of ​“dra­ma and debauch­ery among wealthy west­ern­ers in Moroc­co” and McDonagh’s ver­sion stars Ralph Fiennes, Jes­si­ca Chas­tain, Saïd Tagh­maoui, Christo­pher Abbott, Matt Smith and Caleb Landry Jones, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked with McDon­agh in War On Every­one. HW

A fam­i­ly man (Maher­sha­la Ali) hasn’t long left before his body suc­cumbs to can­cer, and so he faces the choice of whether to replace him­self with a car­bon-copy clone for the sake of his fam­i­ly. It’s not the lat­est episode of Black Mir­ror, it’s the debut fea­ture from Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed short film­mak­er Ben­jamin Cleary, already locked down for a release by Apple. Ali’s joined by Naomie Har­ris, Awk­wa­fi­na, and Glenn Close in a cere­bral sci-fi thought exper­i­ment, inter­ro­gat­ing themes of iden­ti­ty, con­scious­ness, and the ever-present ques­tion of what it means to be human. In a nor­mal world, this would prob­a­bly slay audi­ences at Sun­dance, but it could still find an audi­ence going direct­ly to the online mass­es. CB

Pedro Almod­ó­var has been excep­tion­al­ly busy in 2020. He shot a short film with Til­da Swin­ton, and wrote a new script for his long-time muse Pene­lope Cruz – which he’s hop­ing to shoot in ear­ly 2021 for an end-of-year release, per an announce­ment from his broth­er. The title, which loose­ly trans­lates Par­al­lel or Twin Moth­ers, refers to two women who give birth on the same day – the film will fol­low them through the first two years of their children’s lives. It sounds like it’ll make a great accom­pa­ni­ment to his last film, Pain and Glo­ry, and his 1999 dram­e­dy All About My Moth­er. Still to come: his first Eng­lish lan­guage film, based on Lucia Berlin’s A Man­u­al for Clean­ing Women. HW

Much has tran­spired in the decade-plus since the Wachows­ki sis­ters com­plet­ed what was thought to be their tril­o­gy of Carte­sian cyber­punk epics, soon to be built upon with anoth­er instal­ment. But the build­ing blocks remain the same: Keanu Reeves returns as Neo, with Car­rie-Anne Moss as Trin­i­ty and Jada Pin­kett Smith and Niobe, along­side fran­chise new­com­ers Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Priyan­ka Chopra Jonas, Jes­si­ca Hen­wick, and Neil Patrick Har­ris. Details of the plot have been kept under lock and key, though the leaked set pho­tos of motor­cy­cle chas­es through San Fran­cisc­so look promis­ing. Who among us can say we won’t show up to see Keanu doing the bul­let-time thing again, or bet­ter yet, its upgrad­ed 2020 equiv­a­lent. CB

ETA: Decem­ber 2021

While we were all eat­ing Chi­nese take­out and watch­ing Frasi­er reruns, Ben Wheat­ley com­plet­ed pho­tog­ra­phy on a quar­an­tine-era thriller shot in the thick of the COVID-19 cri­sis. In a sim­i­lar­ly virus-strick­en world, a sci­en­tist and park scout go on a per­ilous mis­sion into a for­est for a cure, and descend into mad­ness as the nature around them comes to malev­o­lent life. The cast col­lects Joel Fry, Ello­ra Torchia, Hay­ley Squires, and Reece Shear­smith for what promis­es to be a return to form for the Wheat­ley of The Kill List after the high-gloss let­down of his Rebec­ca remake. The fusion of hor­ror and nar­ra­tive abstrac­tion has worked for him before, so who’s to say it won’t again? CB

Though he seems like the cal­i­bre of star too great to be con­tained on our stream­ing lap­tops, Net­flix is get­ting in the Dwayne John­son busi­ness. The online giant was the only stu­dio will­ing to front a $125 mil­lion-plus bud­get for this action spec­ta­cle putting the for­mer Rock on patrol with Inter­pol as the great­est thief-hunter on the plan­et. He’s hot on the trail of an inter­na­tion­al­ly-renowned pur­loin­er of art (Gal Gadot, rak­ing in a report­ed $20 mil­lion for her appear­ance) in league with an expert con man (Ryan Reynolds), set­ting the scene for a glo­be­trot­ting show­down fill­ing the James Bond-shaped hole in our col­lec­tive heart. Direc­tor Raw­son Mar­shall Thurber has already led John­son to block­buster pay­days in Cen­tral Intel­li­gence and Sky­scraper; this could com­plete the tri­fec­ta. CB

While Claire Denis’ already-announced Nicaraguan Rev­o­lu­tion pic­ture with Robert Pat­tin­son and Mar­garet Qual­ley gets back-burnered due to COVID restric­tions, she’s keep­ing busy with a small­er-scaled project in the mean­time. Denis will reunite with her past stars Juli­ette Binoche and Vin­cent Lin­don for a dra­ma set in the world of French radio, to be shot in the his­toric halls of the Mai­son de la Radio in Paris. The title refers to a dai­ly cul­ture radio pro­gram launched in 1968, sure­ly remem­bered with fond­ness by Denis, though it remains unknown whether the film will be set in that peri­od. What we can be sure of, this being a Claire Denis film, is a sharp eye turned toward human behav­iour, enact­ed with grace and hon­esty by La Binoche. CB

It’s been five years since Park Chan-wook’s last fea­ture, The Hand­maid­en, and though he’s been busy in TV with a Flo­rence Pugh-led minis­eries, faith­ful fans still feel over­due. He’ll give the peo­ple what they want in 2021, when he com­pletes pro­duc­tion on a mur­der mys­tery with noirish under­tones and an erot­ic charge. A detec­tive heads to the coun­try for a mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion, only to fall for the dead guy’s wid­ow, who’s high up on his list of sus­pects. (Basic Instinct, any­one?) The Hand­maid­en was a feast of taste­ful per­ver­sion and dark intrigue, both of which should be in plen­ti­ful sup­ply with this new tale of torn alle­giances and sin­is­ter schem­ing. CB

So what if he’s 90 years old and a pan­dem­ic of spe­cif­ic threat to the elder­ly con­tin­ues to rage around the globe? If you think that’s going to stop Clint East­wood from ven­tur­ing into the Mex­i­can desert to get anoth­er movie on the books, you are most sore­ly mis­tak­en. The unstop­pable nona­ge­nar­i­an will direct and star in this ​‘70s-set West­ern as a for­mer cow­boy tasked with retriev­ing his employer’s son from the kid’s alco­holic moth­er south of the bor­der, and then bring­ing the young­ster back to Texas. As is the way with oaters like this, the griz­zled old­er fel­low and his pint-sized charge will find a com­mon human­i­ty and most like­ly learn some­thing about What It Means to Be a Man from one anoth­er. For East­wood loy­al­ists, it’ll be anoth­er essen­tial chap­ter in his career’s nev­er-end­ing sto­ry. CB

Paul Thomas Ander­son likes to keep a tight lid on his movies. We know that the new one cen­tres on a high school­er attain­ing fame as a child actor in 1970s Los Ange­les, that the char­ac­ter will be played by the late Phillip Sey­mour Hoffman’s son Coop­er, and that he’ll be joined in the cast by Ben­ny Safdie and Alana Haim, at the very least. We know that Bradley Coop­er is in the mix as well, and that he’s rock­ing a tru­ly heinous feath­ered hair­do, which may or may not be in ref­er­ence to movie pro­duc­er Jon Peters. Beyond that is anyone’s guess, though the pre­co­cious kid lead recalls Mag­no­lia and the ​’70s SoCal set­ting is pure Boo­gie Nights. A kickin’ sound­track is all but assured. CB

Chloé Zhao has been pret­ty busy since The Rid­er wowed audi­ences back in 2017. She’s direct­ed a big-bud­get super­hero flick for Mar­vel (The Eter­nals, now due out 2021) and has a film in devel­op­ment with Ama­zon, but we’re most inter­est­ed in Nomad­land, based on a non-fic­tion book by Jes­si­ca Brud­er. Star­ring Frances McDor­mand and David Strathairn, the film focus­es on the phe­nom­e­non of old­er Amer­i­cans who trav­el the US in search of employ­ment – many affect­ed by the reces­sion of 2007 – 2009. The film was a smash hit at Venice, Toron­to and New York Film Fes­ti­vals, and McDor­mand could be on track for her third Acad­e­my Award. HW

ETA: Feb­ru­ary 2021

The Sopra­nos is some­thing like the Cit­i­zen Kane of TV, a medi­um-defin­ing work gen­er­al­ly agreed upon as a good place to start any great­est-of-all-time con­ver­sa­tion. This film acts as a pre­quel to the gang­ster series by David Chase, who returns to pen the screen­play with his reg­u­lar writ­ing part­ner Lawrence Kon­ner. A strap­ping young Tony Sopra­no (por­trayed by Michael Gan­dolfi­ni, son of the late James) gets caught up in the shift­ing cur­rents of Amer­i­can coun­ter­cul­ture, as Newark becomes a bat­tle­ground between the Ital­ian-Amer­i­can and Black com­mu­ni­ties dur­ing the ​’60s and ​’70s. Alessan­dro Nivola, Jon Bern­thal, Corey Stoll, Leslie Odom Jr, John Mag­a­ro, Vera Farmi­ga and Bil­ly Mag­nussen fill out the drama­tis per­son­ae respon­si­ble for giv­ing Tony all those paralysing neu­roses he’d spend his adult life work­ing out. CB

ETA: March 2021

Folks have been won­der­ing for some time how Sean Bak­er would fol­low up his 2017 break­out hit The Flori­da Project; for a hot minute it looked like he was mak­ing a doc­u­men­tary about Only­Fans with Bel­la Thorne, before Bak­er him­self shut the rumours down. In a Novem­ber inter­view with Vari­ety he con­firmed he was actu­al­ly shoot­ing his third fea­ture film in Texas. Details are pret­ty thin on the ground – all we know so far is that it’s a dark com­e­dy, and stars Simon Rex, whose oth­er cred­its include, uh, Scary Movie 5 and Jack and Jill. No word on if he’s shoot­ing on an iPhone this time. HW

Sam Levin­son, the Gen‑Z ambas­sador behind Assas­si­na­tion Nation and TV’s Eupho­ria, killed some time dur­ing the quar­an­tine by shoot­ing this romance star­ring Zen­daya and John David Wash­ing­ton. He’s a film­mak­er on the night of his new movie’s world pre­mière; she’s his girl­friend. The film plays out over one long night, as they get home from the open­ing and plumb the fault lines of their rela­tion­ship while await­ing crit­i­cal and com­mer­cial feed­back from the pub­lic. Shot on 35mm mono­chrome for an added warmth, it will be in keep­ing with Levinson’s default tone of intense inti­ma­cy, as char­ac­ters shake out the con­tents of their hearts through tears of sad­ness and rage. Despite no one hav­ing seen a frame, it’s already being talked about as an Oscar com­peti­tor, though that may say more about awards prog­nos­ti­ca­tion than the film itself. CB

ETA: Feb­ru­ary 2021

Jacques Audi­ard was caught shoot­ing out­side Paris back in the fall, in the thick of pro­duc­tion on his upcom­ing adap­ta­tion of a short sto­ry col­lec­tion from car­toon­ist Adri­an Tomine. Work­ing from a script drawn up by Celine Sci­amma and Léa Mysius, the non-anthol­o­gy project will take a more nov­el (and nov­el­is­tic) tack in trans­lat­ing the text to the screen, focus­ing on a sin­gle sto­ry that will report­ed­ly deal with ado­les­cence and fea­ture female pro­tag­o­nists. That’s all we’ve got at present, and with a direc­tor as chameleon­ic in terms of tones and gen­res as Audi­ard, it’s a guess­ing game to sur­mise any­thing else. A peren­ni­al friend of the fes­ti­val at Cannes, a Croisette debut next year seems immi­nent. CB

A vet­er­an of World War One and stal­wart of British schoolchildren’s Eng­lish lessons, Siegfried Sas­soon is regard­ed as one of the most famous war poets, doc­u­ment­ing his expe­ri­ences of fight­ing on the west­ern front through verse. He receives the biopic treat­ment cour­tesy of anoth­er British artist – Ter­ence Davies, who has good form for the genre, with his Emi­ly Dick­in­son biopic A Qui­et Pas­sion receiv­ing deserved praise. Jack Low­den and Peter Capal­di will por­tray Sas­soon at dif­fer­ent points in his life, while the strong sup­port­ing cast includes Geral­dine James, Gem­ma Jones, Anton Less­er and Jere­my Irvine. HW

Hav­ing stud­ied under enough of the great Euro­pean auteurs, Brady Cor­bet fig­ured he’d rather be one him­self, an ambi­tion that man­i­fests more clear­ly in his next film than ever before. He gath­ers an inter­na­tion­al cast (Mark Rylance! Mar­i­on Cotil­lard! Isaach de Bankolé! Vanes­sa Kir­by! Sebas­t­ian Stan! Joel Edger­ton!) for the epoch-span­ning chron­i­cle of a Hun­gar­i­an archi­tect who flees the war with his fam­i­ly and comes to the Unit­ed States to rebuild his life and the nation along with it. The per­son­al and the glob­al inter­twine in a grand­ly ambi­tious nar­ra­tive that sets one love affair against a back­drop of soci­etal over­haul, a fit­ting fol­low-up to the ​“21^st cen­tu­ry por­trait” that Corbet’s last film Vox Lux billed itself as. CB

This new one from Ital­ian film­mak­er Nan­ni Moret­ti appears to con­tin­ue his shift from the whim­si­cal, light­ly humor­ous doo­dles of the ​’90s (Aprile, Dear Diary) to more social­ly-aware and seri­ous dra­ma, as seen in pre­vi­ous fea­ture Mia Madre. Our Way is based on an Israeli nov­el called Three Floors Up by author Eshkol Nevo and it is the first time Moret­ti has made a film based on some­one else’s work. The sto­ry takes in the com­ings and goings of var­i­ous fam­i­lies liv­ing across three floors in a Roman apart­ment block. DJ

After tin­ker­ing with the tech­nique on 2001’s A Scan­ner Dark­ly and 2006’s Wak­ing Life, Richard Lin­klater employs the live-action/an­i­ma­tion hybridi­s­a­tion known as ​“roto­scop­ing” once again, this time for a more play­ful pur­pose. This odd exper­i­ment whisks us back to the sum­mer of ​’69, when kids across Amer­i­ca were cap­ti­vat­ed by NASA’s lit­er­al­ly ground­break­ing moon land­ing. Linklater’s film visu­alis­es juve­nile fan­tasies of this momen­tous event, lift­ing sci­en­tif­ic imag­i­na­tion into a more vivid­ly dream­like realm with the help of Glen Pow­ell, Jack Black, and Zachary Levi. Know­ing Linklater’s pen­chant for con­spir­a­cy the­o­riz­ing, we can safe­ly pre­sume that the whole ​“the moon land­ing was shot on a sound­stage in Queens” hoax will get its moment in court here. CB