60 films to look for­ward to in 2020 – part 2

Now that you’ve read the first part of a 2020 pre­view, here are 30 more upcom­ing releas­es we think are worth get­ting excit­ing about over the next 12 months.

Released 6 March

The next film from one of America’s great­est film­mak­ers sees 19^th cen­tu­ry fur-trap­pers embark on a voy­age from Ore­gon to Chi­na and back. Kel­ly Reichardt’s heart­break­ing Cer­tain Women was one of the stand­out films of 2017, and her return to the West for the first time since 2010’s Meek’s Cut­off is cause for celebration.

Released TBA

After his remark­able direc­to­r­i­al effort in Spot­light, Tom McCarthy’s dra­ma Still­wa­ter revolves around a father who trav­els from Okla­homa to France to help his daugh­ter (Abi­gail Bres­lin) who has been accused of mur­der. Who’s ready to see Matt Damon take on the break­ing-bad father-type role? We sure are.

Released TBA

Pablo Lar­raín, direc­tor of the uncon­ven­tion­al biopic Jack­ie, returns with a com­plete­ly fresh and exi­gent abstract vision of the mod­ern fam­i­ly. Ema tells the sto­ry of a cou­ple deal­ing with the con­se­quences of an adop­tion gone wrong as their rela­tion­ship falls apart. This sul­try, enig­mat­ic and mys­te­ri­ous noir may be the Chilean’s most hope­ful film to date.

Released 13 March

Released 58 years after the orig­i­nal King Kong vs Godzil­la, direc­tor Adam Wingard’s adap­ta­tion reversed the order of the names. The height dif­fer­ence between the two mon­sters is some­thing the pro­duc­tion crew claim to be aware of; in Kong: Skull Island it was explic­it­ly stat­ed that the great ape is still grow­ing. Wingard also stat­ed that in con­trast with the orig­i­nal ambigu­ous end­ing, this adap­ta­tion will have a clear winner.

Released TBA

Knives Out and No Time to Die star Ana de Armas is on a roll. She plays Nor­ma Jeane in direc­tor Andrew Dominik’s biog­ra­phy of trag­ic screen icon Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe. Although the script con­tains lit­tle dia­logue, Dominik has described the film as an avalanche of images and events. We think Mar­i­lyn would approve.

Released 10 April

Suf­fragette direc­tor Sarah Gavron deliv­ers a pow­er­ful por­trait of resilience in her upcom­ing dra­ma. Rocks is a heart-rend­ing com­ing-of-age dra­ma about the risks of los­ing inno­cent youth to the harsh adult lifestyle, but it remains a nat­ur­al and ulti­mate­ly opti­mistic por­tray­al of teenage relationships.

Released 25 September

Game of Thrones and Sopra­nos direc­tor Alan Tay­lor returns with a crime dra­ma about the for­ma­tive years of New Jer­sey gang­ster Tony Sopra­no. The film is called The Many Saints of Newark because it revolves around Dick­ie Molti­san­ti, Christo­pher Moltisanti’s father. In Eng­lish Molti San­ti trans­lates to many saints.

Released TBA

There’s orig­i­nal, there’s uncon­ven­tion­al, and then there’s Char­lie Kauf­man. The think­ing person’s drama­tist has cast Jessie Buck­ley as a woman who while fig­ur­ing out how best to end her rela­tion­ship begins to rethink her life. If like us you were deeply affect­ed by Anom­al­isa and Eter­nal Sun­shine of the Spot­less Mind, you won’t want to miss this one. To sweet­en the deal, Jesse Ple­mons co-stars.

Released TBA

Steven Soder­bergh makes films very quick­ly and we remain des­per­ate to see them. Although the plot is not revealed yet, draw­ing from this gen­tle­man genius’s pre­vi­ous work, we can expect it to revolve around the flow of cap­i­tal. One thing we do know about this project is that film­ing took place on board the ocean lin­er Queen Mary 2 on a transat­lantic jour­ney between New York and Southampton.

Released TBA

From Joan­na Hogg comes the intrigu­ing sequel to The Sou­venir, her beau­ti­ful­ly-craft­ed and inti­mate study of a com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship between a stu­dent and a lov­ing but dam­aged man. As Robert Pat­tin­son dropped out due to con­flict­ing sched­ules, Hogg has re-writ­ten his char­ac­ter and split it into two dis­tinct parts, now played by Har­ris Dick­in­son and Char­lie Heaton.

Released TBA

The bom­bas­tic direc­tor of Star­ship Troop­ers and Robo­Cop had audi­ences on the edge of their seats in 2016 with Isabelle Hup­pert vehi­cle Elle. Paul Verhoeven’s next project is set in 17^th cen­tu­ry Italy and fol­lows a nun com­ing to terms with her repressed sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion despite the restric­tions of reli­gion and soci­ety. Adapt­ed from the Judith C Brown nov­el of the same name, Char­lotte Ram­pling stars in the lead, with 120 Beats per Minute’s Jeanne Lapoirie on DoP detail.

Released TBA

Doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er Liz Gar­bus helms her debut nar­ra­tive fea­ture based on Robert Kolker’s true crime nov­el. Lost Girls presents the first detailed look at the shad­ow world of escorts in the inter­net age, where mak­ing a liv­ing is eas­i­er than ever and the dan­gers remain all too real. Amy Ryan, Thomasin McKen­zie and Gabriel Byrne star.

Released TBA

Imag­ine Sher­lock Holmes with mus­cles and an icon­ic female detec­tive and you’ve got your­self the new film adap­ta­tion of the leg­endary Eno­la Holmes. Hen­ry Cav­ill will star along­side Hol­ly­wood sweet­heart Mil­lie Bob­by Brown. Killing Eve’s Har­ry Brad­beer directs with His Dark Mate­ri­als writer Jack Thorne on script duties. The world can’t wait for an icon­ic female detective.

Released TBA

Wes Anderson’s com­e­dy-dra­ma revolves around a love let­ter to jour­nal­ists in a fic­tion­al 20^th cen­tu­ry French city that brings to life a col­lec­tion of sto­ries pub­lished in ​‘The French Dis­patch’ mag­a­zine. Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met, Léa Sey­doux, Jason Schwartz­man, Saoirse Ronan, Elis­a­beth Moss, Kate Winslet, Til­da Swin­ton, Bill Mur­ray, Willem Dafoe and Beni­cio Del Toro all star.

Released TBA

Bill Skars­gard and Tom Hol­land star in Cher­ry, a dra­ma direct­ed by the Rus­so broth­ers based on Nico Walker’s best­selling nov­el with the same name. An army medic suf­fer­ing from post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der devel­ops a drug addic­tion that puts him in debt, push­ing him to become a ser­i­al bank robber.

Released 17 April

The Sun­dance-bound debut fea­ture from Killing Eve co-writer Emer­ald Fen­nell promis­es to be an off-kil­ter rape-revenge thriller with a black­ly com­ic fem­i­nist edge. Carey Mul­li­gan stars as a woman deter­mined to take back con­trol fol­low­ing a trau­mat­ic event from her past. The trail­er has us very intrigued.

Released TBA

It will be hard to top Hitchcock’s 1940 Rebec­ca, but with Ben Wheat­ley behind the wheel, we’re con­fi­dent that this adap­ta­tion will be fresh and unique. Star­ring Lily James as Mrs De Win­ter and Armie Ham­mer as Mr De Win­ter, this dra­ma will take us on a jour­ney of jeal­ousy and revenge.

Released 1 May

Mar­vel brings back Black Wid­ow to remind us just how badass she is (not that we’ve for­got­ten). An immense­ly over­due ori­gin sto­ry of the first female avenger Natasha Romanoff fol­low­ing her quest to put an end to her haunt­ing past. Her sis­ter Yele­na (who is equal­ly badass), played by Flo­rence Pugh, joins her on this action packed adven­ture that will give MCU fanat­ics chills.

Released 18 December

A meet­ing with Ryan Coogler inspired Eddie Mur­phy to devel­op his own sto­ry­line for a sequel to the 1988 orig­i­nal. Star­ring along­side Wes­ley Snipes and James Earl Jones, this film fol­lows Prince Akeem’s return to Amer­i­ca in search of his long-lost son.

Released 25 December

Paul Green­grass and Tom Han­ks are reunit­ed for the first time since 2013’s Cap­tain Phillips in News of the World, a his­tor­i­cal dra­ma based on the best-sell­ing nov­el by Paulette Jiles. A Tex­an trav­el­ing across the wild West deliv­er­ing the news of the world to local civil­ians agrees to help res­cue a young girl who was kidnapped.

Released 24 January

Arman­do Ian­nuc­ci is the Jonathan Swift of mod­ern polit­i­cal satire, with The Thick of It and The Death of Stal­in exem­pli­fy­ing this. Dick­en­sian Britain is par­tic­u­lar­ly ripe for ridicule as far as Vic­to­ri­an-era domes­tic pol­i­cy is con­cerned, but all signs point to this being a char­ac­ter study. Dev Patel occu­pies the title role, sup­port­ed by Til­da Swin­ton, Hugh Lau­rie and Ben Whishaw.

Released TBA

Fol­low­ing her com­pelling 2018 dra­ma The Kinder­garten Teacher, direc­tor Sara Colan­ge­lo directs this biopic based on the mem­oir of Ken Fein­berg, a DC lawyer put in charge of the ⁹⁄₁₁ Fund who fights bureau­cra­cy, cyn­i­cism and pol­i­tics and sub­se­quent­ly dis­cov­ers what life is worth. Described as Erin Brock­ovich meets Spot­light, this stars Michael Keaton, Stan­ley Tuc­ci and Amy Ryan.

Released TBA

Sicario writer Tay­lor Sheridan’s lat­est direc­to­r­i­al effort stars Jon Bern­thal, Angeli­na Jolie and Nicholas Hoult. Those Who Wish Me Dead is a west­ern thriller revolv­ing around an expert sur­vival­ist tasked with pro­tect­ing a teenage mur­der wit­ness who is being pur­sued by twin assassins.

Released 27 March

Adult Swim’s ani­mat­ed sci-fi com­e­dy Rick and Morty heav­i­ly alludes to the orig­i­nal ani­mat­ed film by pro­mot­ing a Mulan-inspired Szechuan sauce. The idea went viral and it is now rumoured that McDonald’s will bring the sauce back for the live-action ver­sion of Mulan.

Released 20 April

The first James Bond movie to be released in the 007^th decade for the fran­chise will mark the end of the Daniel Craig era. The work­ing title for the 25^th film in the saga was Shat­ter­hand, which appears to sig­nal the return of Bond’s neme­sis Ernst Stavro Blofeld. We’re most­ly excit­ed to see whether direc­tor Cary Joji Fuku­na­ga and co-writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge can bring the icon­ic secret agent into a new era.

Released 17 April

Being torn between pro­fes­sion­al and pri­vate life is a recur­ring theme in direc­tor Alice Wincour’s work and Prox­i­ma aims to expand the con­cepts of Augus­tine and Dis­or­der. Eva Green, Matt Dil­lon and Zélie Boulant star in this inter­galac­tic escapade that explores the inti­mate rela­tion­ship between a moth­er and daughter.

Released TBA

After his absorb­ing debut fea­ture Colum­bus, direc­tor Kog­o­na­da returns with a sci-fi dra­ma based on Alexan­der Weinstein’s short sto­ry Say­ing Good­bye to Yang. Set in a world where robot­ic chil­dren are bought as live-in babysit­ters, a father and daugh­ter try to save the life of their met­al fam­i­ly mem­ber Yang.

Released 15 May

Direc­tor Joe Wright’s dra­ma based on AJ Fin’s best­selling nov­el revolves around an ago­ra­pho­bic woman (Amy Adams) who wit­ness­es an extreme act of vio­lence while spy­ing on her neigh­bours (Gary Old­man and Julianne Moore). The film was pushed from a 2019 release to 2020, as an ini­tial test screen­ing appar­ent­ly left peo­ple confused.

Released 10 July

This sequel to the 1984 and 1989 Ghost­busters from Jason Reit­man (son of Ivan, who direct­ed the orig­i­nal films) is shroud­ed in secre­cy. Devel­oped under the code name ​‘Rust City’, the film has no revealed plot and stars Finn Wolfhard and Paul Rudd. The teas­er sug­gests that this adap­ta­tion will take the sto­ry back to its roots.

Released 19 June

The ani­ma­tion stu­dio that most recent­ly brought us Inside Out and Coco goes deep into the mind of a jazz musi­cian who los­es his body along with his pas­sion for music. With the help of an infant soul, he must find his way back. Pete Doc­ter and Kemp Pow­ers’ adven­ture fea­tures the vocal tal­ents of Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey and John Ratzenberger.