100 films to look for­ward to in 2022 – part 2

Here’s the sec­ond half of our 2022 pre­view, fea­tur­ing some of the films we can’t wait to see in the year ahead. You can find Part 1 here, and let us know what movies you’re most look­ing for­ward to by tweet­ing us @LWLies.

For their sec­ond project togeth­er fol­low­ing the sur­pris­ing­ly mov­ing fart­ing corpse movie Swiss Army Man, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Schein­ert (aka Daniels) have recruit­ed the always won­der­ful Michelle Yeoh for an adven­ture through the mul­ti­verse. Yeoh plays Eve­lyn Wang, a bureau­crat who dis­cov­ers she alone can save the world, and dis­cov­ers mul­ti­ple ver­sions of her­self along the way. Add to the team Ke Huy Quan, James Hong, Jen­ny Slate and a vil­lain in the form of Jamie Lee Cur­tis, and we can’t wait to see what Daniels have cooked up. Han­nah Strong

Hope­ful­ly Alex Gar­land will con­tin­ue his tra­di­tion of releas­ing a film once every four years and we’ll get to see his new hor­ror dra­ma this year. Jessie Buck­ley stars as a woman who goes on a hol­i­day in the Eng­lish coun­try­side fol­low­ing the death of her hus­band; Rory Kin­n­ear and Paa­pa Essiedu have been cast in undis­closed roles. The film wrapped in sum­mer, and giv­en Garland’s past work (Ex Machi­na and Anni­hi­la­tion) we’re expect­ing some­thing suit­ably unnerv­ing. HS

Bounc­ing back after the flop that was Cher­ry, Antho­ny and Joe Rus­so have anoth­er action­er up their sleeves, this time star­ring Mar­vel alum­ni Chris Evans. Ryan Gosling makes a long-await­ed return to screens as a betrayed CIA oper­a­tive who goes on the lam; Evans is the for­mer col­league sent to hunt him down. Even if it’s not good per se, some­times it’s enough to just watch some hand­some men brood on a big screen for a few hours, okay? HS

ETA: Sum­mer 2022

Har­ry Styles will have a busy 2022; as well as Don’t Wor­ry Dar­ling, he’s also star­ring in this adap­ta­tion of Bethan Roberts’ nov­el of the same name, about Tom Burgess, a gay police­man who mar­ries a woman while enter­ing into an affair with Patrick, a local muse­um cura­tor, in the 1950s. Fel­low bright young thing Emma Cor­rin plays his wife, while David Daw­son is the object of his affec­tions. Linus Roache, Gina McK­ee and Rupert Everett play old­er ver­sions of the char­ac­ters, imply­ing there will be some jump­ing between past and present. Let’s hope that Styles kid can act at least half as well as he sings. HS

The sur­prise win­ner of the Gold­en Lion at a stacked Venice Film Fes­ti­val last year, Audrey Diwan’s dra­ma is based on the 2000 nov­el of the same name by Annie Ernaux. The film stars Ana­maria Var­tolomei and Luà­na Bajra­mi. Var­tolomei plays Anne, a young uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent in France, 1963, who falls preg­nant and decides to seek an abor­tion, despite it being ille­gal. This is only Diwan’s sec­ond film as direc­tor, mak­ing her Venice top prize all the more impres­sive. HS

ETA: 1 April, 2022

Hmm. When we called for a lead­ing role for Bren­dan Fras­er, this wasn’t quite what we had in mind. Adapt­ed by Samuel D Hunter from his play of the same name, this Dar­ren Aronof­sky flick cen­tres on a mor­bid­ly obese man try­ing to recon­nect with his daugh­ter after he aban­doned his fam­i­ly for anoth­er man. This sounds like it has the poten­tial to be in an extreme­ly poor taste, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en Dar­ren Aronofsky’s…less than cau­tious approach to sen­si­tive top­ics. But if it’s han­dled cor­rect­ly, this could be a wel­come return to our screens for Bren­dan, fol­low­ing a sol­id sup­port­ing turn in Steven Soderbergh’s No Sud­den Move last year. HS

Anna Rose Holmer was indie cinema’s rook­ie of the year back in 2015, when lyri­cal puber­ty alle­go­ry The Fits announced her arrival in spec­tac­u­lar fash­ion. Since then, we’ve got­ten a music video and one TV direct­ing gig, but no new fea­ture. That’ll soon change with this sus­pense­ful moral­i­ty play set in a ​“wind-swept Irish fish­ing vil­lage,” in which the lie of a moth­er (Emi­ly Wat­son) shakes the com­mu­ni­ty to its core. Paul Mescal and The Nightin­gale stand­out Ais­ling Fran­ciosi also star, with Holmer’s for­mer edi­tor and co-writer Saela Davis now join­ing her as co-direc­tor. Charles Bramesco

Giv­en how long it took for Ad Astra to emerge, maybe we’re just dream­ing about see­ing a new James Gray film any­time soon, but here’s hop­ing. Based on his own child­hood grow­ing up in Queens dur­ing the 1980s, Armaged­don Time sees Succession’s Jere­my Strong stand in for Gray’s father, and per a recent inter­view in the New York­er, he’s been tak­ing it very seri­ous­ly. Anne Hath­away and Antho­ny Hop­kins round out the cast. HS

Rick Alver­son makes shrewd, unspar­ing films about the exis­ten­tial crises of the Unit­ed States, but for his next project, he’s head­ed to South Amer­i­ca. In Brazil, he’ll join forces with Argen­tine mas­ter Lisan­dro Alon­so for a sto­ry set abroad, yet nonethe­less in his wheel­house. ​“It will be a film about an Amer­i­can cul­tur­al irrel­e­vance that Amer­i­cans are inca­pable of see­ing, lost in their roman­tic hall of mir­rors, set in Ama­zo­nia,” Alver­son has said. You can take the inci­sive nation­al cri­tiques out of the US… CB

Some form of con­tro­ver­sy was inevitable for Nin­ja Thyberg’s star-is-born dra­ma set in Los Ange­les’ porno demi­monde, packed as it is with graph­ic sex­u­al con­tent. The expect­ed dust­up came ear­li­er this year, when dis­trib­u­tor A24 sold the film rights to Neon after Thy­berg object­ed to their plan to cook up a toned-down R‑rated cut for the­atri­cal release. The uncen­sored and unabridged ver­sion will come to the­atres this year, intro­duc­ing game audi­ences to the deter­mined Swedish immi­grant Bel­la Cher­ry (Sofia Kap­pel) as she tries to fuck her way to the top of an unfor­giv­ing indus­try. CB

Musi­cal the­atre fans have long demand­ed a film adap­ta­tion for one of the most pop­u­lar Broad­way smash­es of the mil­len­ni­al gen­er­a­tion, and as if by a good witch, their wish will soon be grant­ed. The toe-tap­ping revi­sion­ist pre­quel to The Wiz­ard of Oz imag­ines the ear­ly years of the green-skinned Elpha­ba (Cyn­thia Eri­vo) and the bub­bly Glin­da (Ari­ana Grande) as young women at school, friends and rivals before their rela­tion­ship is torn asun­der by Dorothy. In the Heights direc­tor Jon M Chu will bring his show­biz bom­bast to the next hope­ful song-and-dance block­buster. CB

A fam­i­ly in the near future say good­bye to their beloved robot com­pan­ion in Kogonada’s mov­ing sci-fi dra­ma, which pre­miered in the Un Cer­tain Regard sec­tion of Cannes last year and will screen at Sun­dance in Jan­u­ary. Fea­tur­ing orig­i­nal music by Mit­s­ki and an out­stand­ing turn from Justin Min, it’s an ethe­re­al sto­ry of fam­i­ly dynam­ics and the search for belong­ing, set in a lush, trop­i­cal vision of our world. HS

On a seclud­ed island, an ultra-exclu­sive restau­rant serves up course after course of lav­ish, indul­gent del­i­ca­cies – some of which may prove too exot­ic for a pair of young food­ies (Anya Tay­lor-Joy and Nico­las Hoult) on a gus­ta­to­ry pil­grim­age. Ralph Fiennes, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, John Leguizamo, and Judith Light fill out the cast on this mys­te­ri­ous project with a pre­sum­ably satir­i­cal bent, judg­ing by Suc­ces­sion helmer Mark Mylod in the director’s chair and Adam McK­ay on board as pro­duc­er. Bring forks, nap­kins, and a big appetite. CB

David and Nathan Zell­ner make a wel­come return to our screens with a sci-fi com­e­dy about a group of aliens who trav­el to earth with the inten­tion of con­quer­ing the plan­et. Of course, when they arrive, things don’t go quite to plan, and they find their mis­sion in jeop­ardy when they start to expe­ri­ence human emo­tions. As if that wasn’t intrigu­ing enough, there’s a great cast lined up: Andrea Rise­bor­ough, Jon Hamm, Nicholas Hoult, Char­lotte Gains­bourg, Macken­zie Davis, Sofia Boutel­la and Steven Yeun. HS

Adapt­ed from Jesse Eisenberg’s well-received 2020 audio project of the same dra­ma, this dra­ma sees Finn Wolfhard play a teenage music sen­sa­tion whose online fame mys­ti­fies his moth­er (played by Julianne Moore) who runs a shel­ter for sur­vivors of domes­tic abuse. Set for a Sun­dance pre­mière, we’re intrigued to see how Eisen­berg is able to take his sto­ry from one medi­um to anoth­er. HS

The toast of Cannes’ Direc­tors’ Fort­night and win­ner of Best Film at the Lon­don Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val, Panah Pahini’s debut film depicts a fam­i­ly mak­ing a mys­te­ri­ous road trip. Dad has a bro­ken leg, their pet dog is sick, and the younger son can’t sit still. Through­out the course of the film we learn more about the cir­cum­stances that have led the fam­i­ly here. A fierce­ly orig­i­nal and con­fi­dent first fea­ture with a sharp polit­i­cal theme, this is one you shouldn’t miss. HS

ETA: 17 June, 2022

It’s been a long, lone­ly five years since Park Chan-wook made a fea­ture film, though his lim­it­ed spy series Lit­tle Drum­mer Girl is def­i­nite­ly worth a look. We don’t know much about his next thriller, apart from that is cen­tres on a detec­tive who falls for the mys­te­ri­ous wid­ow at the cen­tre of a mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion. Tang Wei and Park Hae-il star, and don’t be sur­prised if this one makes it to a Cannes or Venice pre­mière. HS

In his sec­ond film for Net­flix, David Finch­er returns to the thriller ter­ri­to­ry he hasn’t touched since Gone Girl and reunites with Se7en screen­writer Andrew Kevin Walk­er. Michael Fass­ben­der plays a con­tract killer under­go­ing a psy­cho­log­i­cal cri­sis in this adap­ta­tion of Alex­is Nolent’s graph­ic nov­el series; sounds like it’s right up Fincher’s alley. Net­flix Film chief Scott Stu­ber recent­ly teased the film in an inter­view with Vari­ety, so it’s entire­ly pos­si­ble we’ll be get­ting it soon­er rather than lat­er. HS

After chron­i­cling crime in pock­ets of priv­i­lege with the well-reviewed Thor­ough­breds and Bad Edu­ca­tion, direc­tor Cory Finley’s tak­ing a hard left turn into sci-fi satire. This adap­ta­tion of the Nation­al Book Award win­ner takes place in a future where an alien occu­pa­tion has lev­elled the human job mar­ket, leav­ing a cou­ple with no choice but to broad­cast their love life to the extra-ter­res­tri­al over­lords. This becomes an issue when they come to loathe each oth­er, but can’t afford to call it quits. Tiffany Had­dish has already signed on for this bizarro-uni­verse take on real­i­ty tele­vi­sion cul­ture. CB

James (Alexan­der Skars­gård) and Em (Cleopa­tra Cole­man) decide they deserve a get­away, so the cou­ple sets a course for the island par­adise of La Tolqa. It’s all sun, sand, and surf – until ​“a fatal acci­dent expos­es the resort’s per­verse sub­cul­ture of hedo­nis­tic tourism, reck­less vio­lence, and sur­re­al hor­rors.” Pic­ture TV’s recent The White Lotus fil­tered through the dark hal­lu­ci­na­tions of direc­tor Bran­don Cro­nen­berg, with just a pinch of JG Ballard’s High-Rise sprin­kled in for added deca­dence. Pack a few changes of clothes, in the event yours get spat­tered with blood. CB

If you’re 24-year-old writer-direc­tor Coop­er Raiff, and you’ve got some career momen­tum from the pos­i­tive reviews of your low-bud­get debut Fresh­man Year, what do you do next? You make anoth­er movie, and cast your­self oppo­site Dako­ta John­son. He’s a par­ty-starter-for-hire work­ing bar mitz­vahs, she’s a young mom with an autis­tic daugh­ter; they strike up a bond of friend­ship that might be some­thing more in what’s sure to be anoth­er talky, sen­si­tive cou­pling of two lone­ly souls with pathos and com­e­dy in equal mea­sure. CB

The long-run­ning ani­mat­ed TV series gets super-sized for the big screen as the Belch­er fam­i­ly – hard-work­ing pater­fa­mil­ias Bob, song-prone matri­arch Lin­da, libidi­nous eldest daugh­ter Tina, flat­u­lent mid­dle child Gene, and devi­ous youngest daugh­ter Louise – goes where only the Simp­sons have gone before. There’s no telling what man­ner of hijinks they’ll get up to, but the fate of their beloved burg­er joint being at stake is prob­a­bly a safe bet. That, and a copi­ous num­ber of culi­nary puns. (Try the Mul­ti­plex-Mex Burg­er!) CB

Aside from the vague detail that it’s going to be a peri­od piece about a doc­tor and lawyer in cahoots, no one real­ly knows what David O Russell’s first film since his Oscar-laden mid-2010s hot streak is going to be about. But that’s not much of an issue when your cast looks like this: Chris­t­ian Bale, Mar­got Rob­bie, John David Wash­ing­ton, Rami Malek, Robert De Niro, Mike Myers, Michael Shan­non, Chris Rock, Anya Tay­lor-Joy, Alessan­dro Nivola, Zoe Sal­dana, Tim­o­thy Olyphant, Andrea Rise­bor­ough, Matthias Schoe­naerts, and a pop­u­lar musi­cian named [checks notes] Tay­lor Swift. Major-release sta­tus is all but pre-assured. CB

It was only a mat­ter of time before the Har­vey Wein­stein scan­dal was adapt­ed into a film. In She Said, Rebec­ca Lenkiewicz pulls from jour­nal­ists Jodi Kan­tor and Megan Twohey’s book of the same name, cov­er­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion which shook the film world. Zoe Kazan and Carey Mul­li­gan will play Kan­tor and Twohey respec­tive­ly, while direc­tor Maria Schrad­er is rid­ing high after the suc­cess of her Net­flix series Unortho­dox. There’s a lot of poten­tial for this to go wrong (remem­ber Jay Roache’s Bomb­shell?) but if suc­cess­ful, this could end up an awards con­tender. Hol­ly­wood loves an inves­tiga­tive report­ing flick, after all. HS

Sure, James Cameron has been work­ing on his much-mur­mured-about sequel to the high­est-gross­ing movie of all time for over a decade. But any­one who doubts that his next fea­ture – if it ever comes out, that is – will be any­thing less than a brain-melt­ing break­through of tech­ni­cal might is bet­ting against the house. The next chap­ter of the saga on far­away plan­et Pan­do­ra will fur­ther explore the Na’vi cul­ture, with focus report­ed­ly placed on a tribe of water-dwellers played by such fran­chise new­com­ers as Kate Wins­ley, Michelle Yeoh, and Vin Diesel. CB

The tire­less Steven Soder­bergh can’t let a year go by with­out some form of new work, and it looks like he’ll cov­er 2022 with this cor­po­rate psy­cho-thriller. In the thick of the pan­dem­ic lock­down, an ago­ra­phobe in the tech sec­tor (Zoë Kravitz) notices evi­dence of a vio­lent crime embed­ded in a data stream. Her efforts to whistle­blow put her at odds with the employ­ers who’d rather she shut her trap, leav­ing her with no choice but to face down the ter­ror of leav­ing her home to spread the truth. On mul­ti­ple fronts, it’ll be a time­ly doc­u­ment of its moment. CB

Paul Verhoeven’s long-await­ed nun­sploita­tion­er hits UK cin­e­mas this spring, after caus­ing a stir all around the world since its Cannes pre­mière last sum­mer. Vir­ginie Efi­ra stars as the tit­u­lar sis­ter whose unortho­dox behav­iour shakes up life at her Tus­can monastery in the 17^th cen­tu­ry. It’s heaps of fun, but maybe not one to watch with your nan, unless she’s par­tic­u­lar­ly open-mind­ed. HS

ETA: March 2022

“Our moon is not what we think it is.” So declares the trail­er for the lat­est CGI extrav­a­gan­za from Roland Emmerich, in which the great big sphere of cheese orbit­ing Earth gets knocked from its rota­tion and into a col­li­sion course with the plan­et we call home. Only NASA tech­ni­cian Halle Berry and astro­naut Patrick Wil­son can save the day before we all get blown to smithereens, in an action epic that might just have what it takes to plough through its own dumb­ness and cir­cle back into genius. CB

Fans of Gre­ta Gerwig’s recent piv­ot into big-tick­et fea­ture direct­ing may believe that there are bet­ter uses of her finite time on this Earth than a live-action movie vehi­cle for the famed doll and her smooth-pelvised boyfriend Ken. But hey, maybe this is the start of IP-based stu­dio projects get­ting real­ly good, with dis­tinc­tive artists allowed to flour­ish in their unique style? Either way, see­ing Mar­got Rob­bie and Ryan Gosling as the first cou­ple of the toy world will be enough to draw crowds, Ger­wig loy­al­ists or no. CB

Lulu Wang would like to make one thing crys­tal clear: her new film rework­ing Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Cannes-approved dra­ma for the Eng­lish lan­guage is not a remake, as she emphat­i­cal­ly stat­ed on Twit­ter. She’s going to do her own thing with the premise of two fam­i­lies (one well-off, one finan­cial­ly strug­gling) dis­cov­er­ing that their six-year-old sons were switched at birth, and decid­ing whether it would be right to give the less-for­tu­nate boy the bet­ter life he should’ve been born into. What­ev­er cre­ative licence she exer­cis­es, it’s sure to be every bit as poignant as the orig­i­nal. CB

Brady Cor­bet and his part­ner Mona Fastvold team-up again for their third col­lab­o­ra­tion, which also sees the direc­tor reunite with his Vox Lux star Raf­fey Cas­sidy as well as a tasty cast includ­ing Joel Edger­ton, Mar­i­on Cotil­lard, Mark Rylance, Sebas­t­ian Stan and Vanes­sa Kir­by. Edger­ton takes on the lead role of vision­ary archi­tect Lás­zló Toth, who flees Europe with his wife to wit­ness the birth of mod­ern Amer­i­ca. Giv­en how divi­sive his last film was, we’re expect­ing a sim­i­lar­ly polar­is­ing result from Brady this time around. HS

San­dra Bul­lock is a reclu­sive roman­tic nov­el­ist who gets caught up in a kid­nap­ping with her cov­el mod­el (Chan­ning Tatum) in this adven­ture com­e­dy, co-star­ring Brad Pitt and Daniel Rad­cliffe. Direct­ing broth­er duo Aaron and Adam Née are some­thing of an unknown quan­ti­ty, with only two fea­tures to their name, but the trail­er looks like a whole lot of fun. HS

Whit­ney Hous­ton is a musi­cal icon, and with such an incred­i­ble lega­cy comes the wor­ry that a biopic would nev­er do her jus­tice. How­ev­er, with Kasi Lem­mons in the dri­ving seat, Whitney’s sto­ry should be in safe hands. Nao­mi Ack­ie is slat­ed to play Hous­ton, while Ash­ton Sanders will play her estranged hus­band Bob­by Brown and Stan­ley Tuc­ci por­tray­ing leg­endary pro­duc­er Clive Davis, who is cred­it­ed with bring­ing Houston’s tal­ent to the fore­front. HS

Stop-motion ani­ma­tion stu­dio Lai­ka is com­ing home. Their lat­est fan­ta­sy takes place right in the upstart company’s back yard of Port­land, Ore­gon, where a secret for­est con­tains won­ders and mys­ter­ies galore. Kubo and the Two Strings direc­tor Travis Knight returns for this dark-tint­ed adven­ture in which a pair of sev­enth-grade pals must ven­ture into said woods to save a baby kid­napped by a mur­der of crows, adapt­ed from a nov­el by The Decem­berists front­man and area local Col­in Meloy. The film will pay homage to the lit­tle-depict­ed city, incor­po­rat­ing ele­ments of region­al cul­ture with painstak­ing­ly recon­struct­ed scenery to match. CB

In 1974, the Gib­bons fam­i­ly moved to Wales, mak­ing daugh­ters June and Jen­nifer the first Black chil­dren in town. Their sta­tus as out­siders com­pelled them to seek refuge in one anoth­er, devel­op­ing a unique lan­guage based on their Bajan-Cre­ole her­itage and ulti­mate­ly grow­ing so iso­lat­ed from the com­mu­ni­ty around them that they were insti­tu­tion­alised in a night­mar­ish men­tal facil­i­ty. Poland’s Agniesz­ka Smoczyńs­ka makes her Eng­lish-lan­guage debut with a take on this bizarre true sto­ry, with Leti­tia Wright and Tama­ra Lawrance in the lead­ing roles. CB

Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met and his Call Me by Your Name direc­tor Luca Guadagni­no are togeth­er again, and for anoth­er heady ado­les­cent romance – albeit with a sig­nif­i­cant­ly greater quo­tient of can­ni­bal­ism this time around. Tay­lor Rus­sell por­trays a young girl who can’t stop eat­ing peo­ple, which has a way of inter­fer­ing with her crush on Chalamet’s char­ac­ter, though true love has over­come more than that in the past. Guadagni­no has tapped his Sus­piria co-writer David Kaj­ganich to pro­vide some more of his brand of vis­cer­al yet arch hor­ror, fit­ting his style into the YA-lit genre from which this film has been adapt­ed. CB

Last seen flex­ing his act­ing chops as a tac­i­turn father in Julia Ducournau’s Titane, French provo­ca­teur Bertrand Bonel­lo returns with a sto­ry about a near future in which all emo­tions have been sup­pressed and peo­ple are coerced into accept­ing a mechan­i­cal treat­ment which puri­fies the DNA. Léa Sey­doux and Gas­pard Ulliel are pen­cilled in to star, and with the film announced at the start of 2021, expect to see it at Cannes or, fail­ing that, the Autumn fes­ti­val sea­son. David Jenk­ins

The laud­ed Turk­ish auteur has been on a recent tip of mak­ing films with a marked lit­er­ary bent which all clock in at over three hours (Win­ter Sleep, The Wild Pear Tree). Even though the log­line for this new one, set again in the Ana­to­lia region, is sim­ple enough – a depressed school teacher finds solace in the teach­ings of a col­league – there’s still every chance this could be a five hour spec­tac­u­lar. Watch this space. DJ

Josephine Decker’s fol­low-up to LWLies cov­er film Shirley is an adap­ta­tion of Jandy Nelson’s debut YA nov­el from 2010 which counts Grace Kauf­man, Jason Segel and Cher­ry Jones among its cast. As a mak­er of exper­i­men­tal, often caus­tic char­ac­ter stud­ies, this looks to be a major change of pace for Deck­er, with a sto­ry about a young woman cop­ing with the trau­ma of the sud­den death of her sis­ter. Film­ing con­clud­ed in Novem­ber of 2020, so this one should be due any time now. DJ

There’s some­thing about met­al musi­cian turned left­field hor­ror auteur Rob Zom­bie that cer­tain rar­i­fied genre crit­ics adore. So it’s prob­a­bly best to ask those guys and gals how they feel about him tak­ing on this quaint ​’60s IP that feeds the icons of clas­sic hor­ror through the soap opera meat grinder. All we can say is that, when it comes to cast­ing choic­es for ultra-goofy Her­man Mun­ster, we hope that Zom­bie has tak­en a peep at Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Piz­za [taps nose, winks]. DJ

Alex Gib­ney is known as a one-man cot­tage indus­try for slick inves­tiga­tive doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ing. Well not any more, as with the help of Vig­go Mortensen and Caleb Landry-Jones, he’s blaz­ing a trail into the world of dra­mat­ic fic­tion with Two Wolves, the sto­ry of a Viet­nam vet­er­an who made attempts to pre­vent the infa­mous My Lai mas­sacre, only to be rep­ri­mand­ed and cast out by his seniors while the per­pe­tra­tors were ini­tial­ly lionised and then par­doned. All sounds very heavy, but for a guy who’s gone into the books at Enron and behind the cur­tain at the Church of Sci­en­tol­ogy, this should be a cake-walk. DJ

As the mak­er of The Land Before Time and The Secret of Nimh, Don Bluth’s rep as a god of fam­i­ly fea­ture ani­ma­tion is already sealed. So it’s love­ly to hear that, at the ripe old age of 84, he’s been hand­ed a wedge of cash by Net­flix to make a fea­ture film ver­sion of his icon­ic LaserDisc game Dragon’s Lair, star­ring Ryan Reynolds in the lead. The twist is that, in a big change for Bluth, this will be live action rather than ani­mat­ed, so keen to see how it turns out. DJ

Nat­u­ral­ly we’re excit­ed for the forth­com­ing film by one of the great­est work­ing film­mak­ers in the world. Kel­ly Reichardt fol­lows up her low-slung exis­ten­tial west­ern First Cow with a more con­tem­po­rary tale which reteams her with the star Wendy and Lucy, Cer­tain Women and Meek’s Cut­off, Michelle Williams. The film, which is co-writ­ten by part­ner in screen­writ­ing crime Jonathan Ray­mond, tells of an artist whose life and career is on the cusp of a major change. DJ

Set for a Sun­dance pre­mière, Riley Stearns’ third fea­ture sports an appeal­ing cast in Karen Gillan, Aaron Paul and Jesse Eisen­berg, and an intrigu­ing sci-fi plot involv­ing a future where ter­mi­nal­ly ill peo­ple have the option to clone them­selves. After one such woman makes a mirac­u­lous recov­ery, she has to fight her clone to the death. All very High­lander. We’re in. HS

With his pre­vi­ous film, the Paris-set The Truth, there was a sense that beloved Japan­ese film­mak­er Hirokazu Kore-eda was grav­i­tat­ing towards cof­fee table respectabil­i­ty. For his next one, he’s popped across to South Korea for this dra­ma about ​“baby box­es”, which are places where par­ents can anony­mous­ly drop babies they’re unable to care for. Sounds heart wrench­ing already, and as a fun lit­tle extra, Kore­an leg­end Song Kang-ho is one of the stars. Result. DJ

There was a time when the Dar­d­enne broth­ers were the toast of the art­house town, scor­ing a dou­ble Palme d’Or win and just seem­ing unable to slip-up from a cre­ative per­spec­tive. Then… they slipped up with the lack­lus­tre The Unknown Girl and Young Ahmed. Tori and Loki­ta will like­ly turn up in the Cannes com­pe­ti­tion come May, and we can cross every­thing that it’ll be a major return to world beat­ing form for les frères. DJ

An adap­ta­tion of Aki­ra Kurosawa’s Ikiru, with a script writ­ten by Kazuo Ishig­uro? Count us scep­ti­cal but intrigued. For his first film set out­side of South Africa, Oliv­er Her­manus has assem­bled a British cast includ­ing Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood and Tom Burke for this sto­ry, set in Lon­don, 1952. Nighy plays the cen­tral char­ac­ter, a bureau­crat who heads for the coast after receiv­ing a ter­mi­nal diag­no­sis, search­ing for life’s mean­ing in his final days. Liv­ing will pre­mière at Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val in Jan­u­ary, so we’ll find out then how suc­cess­ful this remake has been. HS

Win­ner of the Jury Prize in Cannes’ Un Cer­tain Regard side­bar, Sebas­t­ian Meise’s ten­der dra­ma sees Franz Rogows­ki deliv­er anoth­er stand­out per­for­mance. He plays Hans Hoff­mann, a man arrest­ed for being gay in post­war Ger­many, who devel­ops a close rela­tion­ship with his cell­mate, played by Georg Friedrich. We see Hans across the years as he flits in and out of prison, refus­ing to com­pro­mise his iden­ti­ty in the face of unjust laws. The Great Free­dom is a mov­ing and vital piece of queer cin­e­ma, and a must for any Rogows­ki fan. HS

ETA: 4 March, 2022

Nicole Holofcener has late­ly been putting in some hard shift work for oth­er film­mak­ers, as a much-in-demand screen­play pol­ish­er. She’s not back in the hot seat with Beth & Don, star­ring Julia Louis-Drey­fus as a nov­el­ist who one day hears her dot­ing hus­band admit that he’s not actu­al­ly a mas­sive fan of her work. Ace tastemak­er US dis­trib­u­tors A24 have pre-bought the film, so def­i­nite­ly one that’s worth get­ting excit­ed about. DJ

Even though it has yet to be filmed, we kin­da know what Mas­ter Gar­den­er is going to be like, as its direc­tor has an irre­press­ible yen for depict­ing a cer­tain time of man enveloped in a cer­tain type of spir­i­tu­al lone­li­ness. This one is a hor­ti­cul­tur­al­ist who is in love with two women: one old enough to be his moth­er; anoth­er young enough to be his daugh­ter. Deci­sions, deci­sions. We loved First Reformed. We loved The Card Counter. We’re going to be front-row cen­tre at the first fes­ti­val screen­ing for this one, pray­ing for anoth­er Schrad­er break-out suc­cess. DJ