100 upcom­ing films we can’t wait to see – part 1

The words ​“delayed”, ​“post­poned”, and ​“resched­uled” have become sec­ond nature over the past four months, as films dis­ap­peared from the release sched­ule and fes­ti­vals weighed up whether to go dig­i­tal or can­cel their 2020 edi­tion entire­ly. We’re not going to sug­ar coat it: things have been real­ly fuck­ing rough. To cheer our­selves up, we decid­ed to take a look at things to come, so that the sec­ond it’s safe to do so we can all get com­fy at our venue of choice and do what audi­ence do best.

Of course, release dates are pre­car­i­ous at best right now, so things may change – but do tweet us @lwlies with what you’re most look­ing for­ward to. Once you’ve read Part 1, don’t for­get to check out Part 2.

We’re still a bit gut­ted that Mia Hansen-Løve’s excel­lent 2018 film Maya failed to acquire dis­tri­b­u­tion in the UK, but we have fin­gers and toes crossed that her new one, Bergman’s Island, filmed on Fårö, will once more bring her ele­gant, emo­tion­al dra­mas back to the cin­e­mas where they belong. This one is said to be a semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal two-han­der about a film­mak­ing cou­ple (Tim Roth and Vicky Krieps) who head to the sym­bol­ic island to write their next scripts. Anders Danielsen Lie and Mia Wasikows­ka are also in the mix. David Jenk­ins

It’s been five long years since Kaufman’s excep­tion­al stop-motion dra­ma Anom­al­isa, but he’s been pret­ty busy in the inter­im – his nov­el ​‘Antkind’ is now on shelves and his lat­est film project heads to Net­flix pret­ty soon. Adapt­ed from Iain Reid’s nov­el of the same name, I’m Think­ing of End­ing Things stars Jesse Ple­mons as a man dri­ving to intro­duce his girl­friend (Jessie Buck­ley) to his par­ents (pos­si­bly Toni Col­lette and David Thewlis, who also star). Along the way they take a detour – and that’s when things start to get weird. We can’t wait to see what Kauf­man does with this creepy lit­tle sto­ry, which he’s direct­ed, writ­ten, and co-pro­duced. Han­nah Woodhead

ETA: 4 Sep­tem­ber, Netflix

Promi­nent video essay­ist Kog­o­na­da made waves with his charm­ing 2017 debut Colum­bus about a Kore­an-Amer­i­can who returns to the US after his father is sud­den­ly tak­en ill. His sec­ond fea­ture is based on a short sto­ry by Alexan­der Wein­stein, and envi­sions a future where robot­ic chil­dren are pur­chased as live-in babysit­ters. Yang (Justin Min) is one such android – and when he becomes unre­spon­sive, his human fam­i­ly attempt to save his life. Col­in Far­rell, Jodie Turn­er-Smith and Haley Lu Richard­son also star. HW

In the lat­est fea­ture from Denmark’s Thomas Vin­ter­berg, his first with Mads Mikkelsen since they land­ed him Cannes’ Best Actor prize for The Hunt in 2012, a group of high school edu­ca­tors embark upon an odd exper­i­ment. They learn that the human brain actu­al­ly has a slight blood-alco­hol defi­cien­cy, and that the­o­ret­i­cal­ly, main­tain­ing a slight buzz at all times could unlock untold poten­tial in the mind. So begins a ben­der for the his­to­ry books, as some par­tic­i­pants attain a height­ened con­scious­ness while oth­ers slip-n-slide into alco­holism as usu­al. A dry com­e­dy about men doused in booze, it’s prob­a­bly best seen stone sober. Charles Bramesco

ETA: 27 Novem­ber, StudioCanal

It has been ten years since Ital­ian direc­tor Michelan­ge­lo Fram­marti­no stunned the Cannes Direc­tors’ Fort­night strand with his goat-based docu-fic­tion hybrid, Le Quat­tro Volte (“You sim­ply must see the goat film!” crit­ics brayed). Accord­ing to Cineu­ropa, he began pho­tog­ra­phy on his belat­ed fea­ture fol­low-up, Il Buco, in Sep­tem­ber 2019, and fol­lows the Pied­mont Spele­o­log­i­cal Group and their dis­cov­ery, in 1961, of the world’s sec­ond deep­est cave. And if that’s not the per­fect ele­va­tor pitch right there, then I don’t know what is. DJ

Chloé Zhou 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. Appar­ent­ly the film is in post-pro­duc­tion, and prob­a­bly would have done the fes­ti­val cir­cuit this autumn, so maybe we’ll see it some­time in the first half of 2021. HW

Don­ald Ray Pollock’s nov­el is dis­turb­ing tale of mur­der, incest and reli­gious fer­vour between an inter­con­nect­ed group of peo­ple in post-World War II Ohio; per­fect mate­r­i­al for Anto­nio Cam­pos, who has a knack for sto­ries which focus on the dark­er side of human­i­ty. If this isn’t enough to lure you in, con­sid­er the stacked cast: Robert Pat­tin­son, Mia Wasikows­ka, Sebas­t­ian Stan, Tom Hol­land, Eliza Scanlen, Bill Skars­gard, Jason Clarke, Haley Ben­nett, Riley Keough and Har­ry Melling. What a line-up. HW

ETA: 16 Sep­tem­ber, Netflix

One of the ban­ner releas­es for Apple’s new stream­ing ser­vice is the lat­est film from Sofia Cop­po­la. After her last two films (The Beguiled and The Bling Ring) were adapt­ed from exist­ing work, she’s gone back to basics, pen­ning the sto­ry and screen­play her­self – and reunit­ing with Bill Mur­ray, the star of her Oscar-win­ning Lost in Trans­la­tion. Set in New York, On the Rocks sees a young moth­er (Rashi­da Jones) reunite with her play­boy father (Mur­ray) for a cross-city caper in which they try to mend their frac­tured rela­tion­ship. HW

Ana Lily Aman­pour took a bit of a crit­i­cal past­ing for her post-apoc­a­lyp­tic thriller The Bad Batch, but we’re not count­ing her out just yet. She’s spent the last few years direct­ing tele­vi­sion, and her new film focus­es on a girl with ​“unusu­al pow­ers” who escapes a psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal and sets out on her own in New Orleans. Kate Hud­son, Ed Skrein and Craig Robin­son are attached. HW

There have been plen­ty of films about Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe, but Andrew Dominik’s new one does sound quite promis­ing. Based on Joyce Car­ol Oates’ fic­tion­alised account of Monroe’s life, it stars Ana de Armas as the blonde bomb­shell, along­side Adrien Brody as The Play­wright (Arthur Miller), Bob­by Can­navale as The Ath­lete (Joe DiMag­gio) and Cas­par Phillip­son as John F Kennedy (the same role he played in Pablo Larrain’s Jack­ie). Oates’ nov­el is a whop­per at over 700 pages long, and has already been adapt­ed once, into a lit­tle-known minis­eries. Let’s see how Dominik’s ver­sion shapes up. HW

King of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty Steven Soder­bergh always seems to have some­thing on the boil. His lat­est film is a com­e­dy star­ring Meryl Streep as a famous author who goes on a cruise with her nephew, played by Lucas Hedges. She’s joined by old friends Dianne Wiest and Can­dice Bergen to have some fun and heal some old wounds. That’s all we know so far, and it seems a bit dif­fer­ent for Soder­bergh – but we’ll watch any­thing he does, and his come­dies are among his best films. Though giv­en Soderbergh’s work eth­ic, we wouldn’t be sur­prised if he’s man­aged to write at least three more scripts while in lock down. HW

One of the most excit­ing aspects of observ­ing a film fes­ti­val play out in anoth­er coun­try is spot­ting the explo­sions when a film with no real pro­file is sud­den­ly the talk of the town. Gar­rett Bradley’s slow-cooked explo­ration of the prison indus­tri­al com­plex draws togeth­er a vast array of mate­ri­als to doc­u­ment a decent-sized frag­ment of the 60 year incar­cer­a­tion hand­ed down to Rob Richard­son for armed rob­bery. At the 2020 Sun­dance fes­ti­val, Bradley picked up the best direc­tor prize, and had her film snapped up by Ama­zon. DJ

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 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

Tay­lor Sheri­dan spe­cialis­es in grim tales about the worst of human­i­ty, so no prizes for guess­ing what this one’s about. Based on Michael Koryta’s nov­el of the same name, the sto­ry fol­lows a 14-year-old boy who wit­ness­es a mur­der and goes into the wit­ness pro­tec­tion pro­gramme, hid­den in a Mon­tana wilder­ness camp for trou­bled teens. How­ev­er, he’s pur­sued by the killers, and his only pro­tec­tion comes in the form of the cou­ple who run the pro­gramme, and Han­nah Far­ber, a lone woman who occu­pies a fire watch­tow­er. Details about who’s play­ing who are thin on the ground (though we know Angelia Jolie is Far­ber) but Nicholas Hoult, Aiden Gillen, Tyler Per­ry and Jon Bern­thal are down to star. HW

Peren­ni­al mis­er­ab­list Bruno Dumont’s mid-career piv­ot to com­e­dy has been sur­pris­ing­ly suc­cess­ful, result­ing in his folk-met­al retelling of young Joan of Arc (Jeanne) and the screw­ball Twin Peaks that are his two ​“Coin­Coin” TV seri­als. On paper, On a Half Clear Morn­ing looks like he’s stick­ing with the fun­nies, as the film is said to be about a celebri­ty jour­nal­ist (Léa Sey­doux) whose life and career go into a tail­spin fol­low­ing a car acci­dent. We’d usu­al­ly have a line here say­ing, ​“expect this,” or, ​“expect that,” but frankly, we’ve got no idea what Bruno’s up to with this one. DJ

Frances Ford’s grand­daugh­ter Gia Cop­po­la made her direc­to­r­i­al debut with Palo Alto back in 2013, and has been work­ing on music videos in the inter­im. Her lat­est film, star­ring Andrew Garfield, Maya Hawke and Jason Schwartz­man, is set in Los Ange­les and focus­es on a trio of friends who rage against the cor­po­rate machine only to find the lure of cap­i­tal­ism all too appeal­ing. Garfield was pho­tographed dressed as a giant rat on the set last sum­mer, so y’know. Con­sid­ered us inter­est­ed. HW

After open­ing the pre­vi­ous decade with his dar­ing and pro­fane Par­adise Tril­o­gy, then fill­ing out the rest of the 2010s with a pair of doc­u­men­taries, the great Ulrich Sei­dl has returned to nar­ra­tive film­mak­ing. He shares cred­it with wife Veroni­ka Franz on the screen­play about a pair of broth­ers return­ing home to Aus­tria to bury their moth­er and drink to her mem­o­ry. Upon return­ing to their respec­tive lives in Roma­nia and Italy, how­ev­er, they find that some­thing has changed. From this broad premise, a life­time of regret and repres­sion will come unspooled, if the director’s past films are any indi­ca­tion. One could say that this auteur… has got­ten back in the Sei­dl. CB

Just when you thought every imag­in­able movie about the flick­ers of courage and resis­tance dur­ing the Holo­caust had already been made, in comes Romania’s favorite son Cris­t­ian Mungiu with one more take on the mate­r­i­al. In this adap­ta­tion of a real-life survivor’s mem­oir, a teen man­ages to sneak out of the death camps and take refuge in the moun­tains, where he falls in with an under­ground coali­tion of Jews span­ning nations and gen­er­a­tions. As they pre­pare a coun­terof­fen­sive against the inhu­man­i­ties rag­ing below, Mungiu indulges in breath­tak­ing nat­ur­al-vista pho­tog­ra­phy to rival that of Ter­rence Malick’s recent high-alti­tude A Hid­den Life. Try not to get a nose­bleed. CB

It’s been nine long years since Miran­da July’s last film The Future, so it’s about time to wel­come her back to the big screen. Kajil­lion­aire focus­es on a quirky fam­i­ly of scam­mers liv­ing in Los Ange­les: Robert (Richard Jenk­ins) There­sa (Debra Winger) and their daugh­ter, Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood). Dur­ing a trip to New York they encounter the street­wise Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) and she becomes part of their crew, much to Old Dolio’s cha­grin. We loved it at Sun­dance, and can’t wait for it to get a release in the UK. HW

French direc­tor Alain Guiraudie wowed Cannes with his piquant gay nud­ist beach mur­der mys­tery Stranger by the Lake in 2013, and then con­fused the same audi­ence with the head-spin­ning weird­ness of its fol­low-up, Stay­ing Ver­ti­cal. Next up is the intrigu­ing Cler­mont-Fer­rand-set sto­ry of a young man who begins to feel affec­tion for an old­er sex work­er at the time the city expe­ri­ences a ter­ror­ist attack. Guiraudie has proven him­self adept at fus­ing togeth­er seem­ing­ly ill-fit­ting genre ele­ments, and we’re keen to see how this one plays out, espe­cial­ly as it’s also a Christ­mas movie. DJ

There’s plen­ty of fresh work from Chi­nese leg­end Zhang Yimou that has yet to be seen by West­ern audi­ences: One Sec­ond, his ode to Cul­tur­al Rev­o­lu­tion-era cin­e­ma, hasn’t played since state cen­sors yanked it from its Berlin pre­mière, and he’s report­ed­ly read­ied a pro­pa­gan­da pic­ture called Me and My Home­town. But most intrigu­ing of all would be Impasse, an espi­onage thriller that seems to be in line with his recent, excel­lent action-fan­ta­sy Shad­ow. Though it’s the first spy film in Zhang’s long and sto­ried fil­mog­ra­phy, he’s demon­strat­ed a chameleon­ic ver­sa­til­i­ty that’s served him well across dis­parate gen­res. There’s lit­tle doubt he’ll fig­ure it out. CB

Lucre­cia Mar­tel made the film that the esteemed brain-trust at LWLies tow­ers named the finest of 2018 (Zama) and for her fol­low-up she’s opt­ed to make her first doc­u­men­tary fea­ture in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Sun­dance Insti­tute and London’s ICA cin­e­ma. The title refers to one Javier Choco­bar, a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, activist and chief of the Dia­gui­ta Indi­an tribe who was mur­dered when forcibly removed from his land. Mar­tel has been invest­ed in his sto­ry for more than eight years, attend­ing var­i­ous tri­als and hear­ings, and her film is said to be an admo­ni­tion of cen­turies of colo­nial­ist plun­der in Argentina.

We like cats. We like pic­tures of cats. We like weird psy­che­del­ic pic­tures of cats. The lat­ter will like­ly fea­ture heav­i­ly in Will Sharpe’s forth­com­ing biopic of the schiz­o­phrenic artist Louis Wain who made his name by pro­duc­ing eerie-cute paint­ings of anthro­po­mor­phic cats in var­i­ous pos­es. In the title role is Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch who, per avail­able images of Wain, will be grow­ing a big bushy mous­tache, and lip-smack­ing sup­port comes in the shape of Claire Foy, Andrea Rise­bor­ough and Toby Jones. DJ

Adri­an Lyne wasn’t squeezed out of Hol­ly­wood; he was mere­ly lying in wait, bid­ing his time until we were ready for his genius once again. The one-time mas­ter of the erot­ic thriller revives that grand­ly igno­min­ious tra­di­tion with his first film in twelve years, a psy­chot­ic pas de deux between real-life cou­ple Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas. They play spous­es long since fall­en out of love, now get­ting their jol­lies by play­ing increas­ing­ly risky mind games with one anoth­er, a sadis­tic vol­ley that begins to rack up a body count. Who’s the cul­prit? What’s their plan? And will there be copi­ous sex scenes of sig­nif­i­cant steami­ness? On at least that final count, we can be cer­tain. CB

ETA: 20 Novem­ber, 20^th Cen­tu­ry Studios

If the basic con­cept of time, for any rea­son, just stopped work­ing, we would like­ly be able to rough­ly gauge the pass­ing of the sea­sons by count­ing films made by the Kore­an auteur Hong Sang-soo, who seems to be on a rota­tion of about one every six months. That said, 2019 was the first year he didn’t make a film since 2007, so The Woman Who Ran could be gar­land­ed as his big return. It pre­miered at the 2020 Berlin Film Fes­ti­val to wide acclaim, and it’s anoth­er intu­itive, iron­ic med­i­ta­tion on love and long­ing which stars his cur­rent part­ner and muse, Kim Min-hee. DJ

We’re intrigued by the con­cept of this anthol­o­gy minis­eries by Steve McQueen, made in five parts for the BBC. Two fea­ture-length parts (Man­grove and Lovers Rock) were cho­sen for the Offi­cial Selec­tion at Cannes 2020, which is a pret­ty big hon­our, and the entire series of films will pre­mière on BBC1 and iPlay­er lat­er this year. The series focus­es on the expe­ri­ences of the London’s West Indi­an com­mu­ni­ty from the ​’60s to the ​’80s, and stars Leti­tia Wright, Micheal Ward, Kedar Williams-Stir­ling and Jack Low­den. HW

ETA: Late 2020, BBC

In the future, assas­si­na­tions will be car­ried out in vic­ar­i­ous ves­sels, as ghast­ly machin­ery trans­plants the con­scious­ness of a high­ly-trained killer into the body of some fall-tak­ing schmo. That’s square one for this hor­ror of abstrac­tion from Bran­don Cro­nen­berg (yes, they’re relat­ed), which places Andrea Rise­bor­ough and Christo­pher Abbott in a psy­chi­cal war for con­trol of the latter’s phys­i­cal form. Hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry inter­ludes mess­ing around with colours and tex­tures wowed audi­ences back at the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val, where the film snapped up a US dis­tri­b­u­tion deal with NEON set to move for­ward lat­er this year. CB

Tom Han­ks goes west in his sec­ond film with Paul Green­grass, as a Tex­an who brings head­lines from around the globe to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties in late 19^th cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca. He agrees to escort a young girl (played by the won­der­ful Hele­na Zen­gel, who was cast after her stir­ring per­for­mance in Sys­tem Crash­er last year), to San Anto­nio, but his charge isn’t so keen on the idea. It’s based on a best-sell­ing nov­el by Paulette Giles, but Luke Davies and Paul Green­grass have been work­ing on the script. HW

ETA: 21 Jan­u­ary, 2021, Universal

As pro­duc­tion ramps back up in a Chi­na still recov­er­ing from the coro­n­avirus cri­sis, so begins what has been pro­ject­ed as an eleven-month shoot for the lat­est epic from the peer­less Wong Kar-wai. The film chron­i­cles a young man’s tra­vails in 1990s Shang­hai while search­ing for love and a way to advance his sta­tus, an epochal sto­ry told on a sure­ly stag­ger­ing scale. Wong works at a famous­ly grad­ual pace (the script has been in the works for five years), so it may be a good while until any­one can actu­al­ly lay eyes on this project – at the soon­est, it could grace the 2021 fall fes­ti­val cir­cuit, though the mas­ter won’t rush for any­body. CB

Yeon Sang-ho’s zom­bie thriller Train to Busan was warm­ly received in 2016 by crit­ics and audi­ences alike, and went down an absolute storm in its native South Korea. Its sequel takes place four years lat­er, after the coun­try has been rav­aged by the zom­bie out­break, and fea­tures a whole new cast of char­ac­ters strug­gling to sur­vive against the oncom­ing hordes. The film’s title refers to the entire coun­try of Korea – in this vision of the apoc­a­lypse, the North and South have been dec­i­mat­ed, ren­der­ing pol­i­tics and bor­ders obso­lete, but appar­ent­ly it’s focus­ing more on the gore and action than the poten­tial for social com­men­tary. HW

One ques­tion we’ve been ask­ing our­selves since see­ing the 2014 mas­ter­piece Jau­ja: when is Lisan­dro Alon­so going to make anoth­er movie? A recent press-release about a host of titles in-devel­op­ment via the Locarno Film Fes­ti­val sug­gest he’s tin­ker­ing on some­thing called Eure­ka right now. All that’s known about it, via pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny web­site Luxbox, is an archive image of the Devil’s Tow­er out in the South Dako­ta wilder­ness, a jut­ting rock that’s just a stone’s throw from a hub of movie west­ern lore, Dead­wood. Which is one hell of a teas­er for the Alon­so heads… DJ

If you’ve seen William Goulding’s 1947 car­ni­val-based shock­er Night­mare Alley, you’ll know that the news that Guil­er­mo del Toro is co-writ­ing (along with Kim Mor­gan) and direct­ing a new ver­sion makes a whole lot of sense. The mad, mad sto­ry sees sees a gruff, des­per­ate carny work­er (Bradley Coop­er) attempt to learn a secret mind-read­ing tech­nique from star attrac­tion Zeena (Toni Col­lette) in order to become part of a wider mon­ey-mak­ing scheme, but every­thing goes very awry very quick­ly. Throw Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Rooney Mara, Richard Jenk­ins and Ron Perl­man into the mix, and at the very least you’ve got a star-span­gled ensem­ble to die for. DJ

We all agree that Apichat­pong Weerasethakul’s Palme d’Or win for Uncle Boon­mee Who Can Recall His Past Lives in 2010 was the sin­gle great­est event of the new cen­tu­ry. His new film, Memo­ria, was shot in Colum­bia – the first of his films to be made out­side his native Thai­land – and its sto­ry is woven around the pres­ence of the coolest A‑lister going, Til­da Swin­ton. The film sees Swin­ton as a Scot­tish trav­eller who starts to ques­tion her own iden­ti­ty and exis­tence, with some kind of spec­tral ele­ment that is par for the course for Apichat­pong. Film Com­ment pub­lished an excel­lent ear­ly set diary which con­tains lots of images of the pro­duc­tion, so worth head­ing there for a deep­er delve. DJ

A sequel to his suc­cess­ful 2019 reboot/​sequel Hal­loween and the twelfth instal­ment in John Car­pen­ter and Debra Hill’s icon­ic fran­chise, this slash­er is due in cin­e­mas Octo­ber 14, just in time for the spooky sea­son. A teas­er trail­er sug­gests it picks up where the last film left off, with three gen­er­a­tions of the Strode fam­i­ly (Jamie Lee Cur­tis, Judy Greer and Andi Matichak) hav­ing escaped Michael Myers and leav­ing him in the burn­ing remains of Laurie’s home. But you can’t keep a good psy­cho killer down. The tril­o­gy is slat­ed to end in 2022 with the appro­pri­ate­ly-titled Hal­loween Ends. HW

ETA: 15 Octo­ber, 2021, Universal

A high­light of TIFF’s Plat­form selec­tion last year, Dar­ius Marder’s debut fea­ture sees Riz Ahmed play a drum­mer in a met­al band who dis­cov­ers he’s los­ing his hear­ing. Olivia Cooke co-stars as his band­mate and girl­friend, and they’re joined by a large cast of deaf per­form­ers in a land­mark for on-screen rep­re­sen­ta­tion. This is an excep­tion­al­ly spe­cial film with incred­i­ble immer­sive sound design and a career-best per­for­mance from Ahmed, which will be released with sub­ti­tles for deaf and hard of hear­ing audi­ences. HW

He’s often referred to as the great chron­i­cler of insti­tutes, from state capi­tols and depart­ment stores to wel­fare offices and abat­toirs. Aged 90, this is Fred­er­ick Wiseman’s 46^th film, and it will see him take his cam­eras and (prob­a­bly) long-time cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er John Dav­ey to hang out in the cor­ri­dors and meet­ing rooms of Boston’s City Hall. As with all of Wiseman’s films, they main­tain a tight focus on a sin­gle place or sub­ject, but oper­ate as pro­found and poet­ic med­i­ta­tions on soci­ety, civil­i­sa­tion and human­i­ty, and it’s not hyper­bole to say that his immense body of work is one of the great­est of any film­mak­er liv­ing or dead. DJ

Tai­wanese mae­stro Hou Hsiao-hsien is thought to be work­ing on a new fea­ture, his first since 2015’s rhap­sod­ic wux­ia epic, The Assas­sin. The sto­ry is said to be set in mod­ern day Taipei and fol­lows a man’s rela­tion­ship with a water sprite who has long called the epony­mous riv­er her home, but is now left in a state of woe and con­fu­sion as the riv­er has now been con­cret­ed over and cov­ered with rail­way tracks. Hou has nev­er made any­thing that’s even close to a bad or mis­fired film, so take our word for it when we say we’re extreme­ly eager to catch this one. DJ

At the grand old age of 82, Rid­ley Scott could be for­giv­en for putting his feet up and hav­ing a cup of tea, but no – he’s still hard at work. His lat­est film sees Matt Damon and Adam Dri­ver face off as 14^th cen­tu­ry knights who come to blows when Jean de Car­rouges (Matt Damon) accus­es Jacques Le Gris (Adam Dri­ver) of rap­ing his wife Mar­guerite (Jodie Com­er). Ben Affleck co-stars as King Charles VI and pre­sum­ably the wig bud­get was in the mil­lions. Film­ing in Ire­land was delayed due to the pan­dem­ic, leav­ing Damon and his fam­i­ly on lock­down in the Emer­ald Isle. HW

ETA: 8 Jan­u­ary, 2021, 20^th Cen­tu­ry Studios

Aaron Sorkin’s direc­to­r­i­al debut Molly’s Game was a bit patchy, but he’s back with anoth­er true crime tale. This time, it’s the sto­ry of sev­en men who were charged with con­spir­ing to organ­ise riots dur­ing the 1968 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion. As for the cast list, it’s pret­ty long. Sacha Baron Cohen plays counter-cul­ture icon Abbie Hoff­man, and he’s joined by Eddie Red­mayne, Jere­my Strong, John Car­roll Lynch, Joseph Gor­don-Levitt, Frank Lan­gel­la, Mark Rylance, Kelvin Har­ri­son Jr, Michael Keaton and William Hurt. Net­flix bought the rights to dis­tri­b­u­tion from Para­mount after COVID hit, and are plan­ning to release the film some­time before the USA’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Novem­ber. HW

ETA: Late 2020, Netflix

Usu­al­ly when peo­ple use the phrase ​“Kaf­ka-esque” it’s as short­hand for some sort of strange­ness, but in the case of Quentin Dupieux’s next project, we mean it in the sense that he’s made a film about a giant fly. Due out in France in time for Christ­mas, the sto­ry fol­lows two friends who find the insect in the back of a car, and decide to train him with hopes of earn­ing some mon­ey. If you saw Dupieux’s last film, Deer­skin, about a jack­et that was, uh, to die for (and indeed any of his sur­re­al oeu­vre) you’ll already know that this one is like­ly to be every bit as odd as his past works. The film is head­ed for a release in France in Decem­ber all being well. HW

Nicholas Roeg’s 1990 adap­ta­tion of Roald Dahl’s clas­sic children’s book about a child who acci­den­tal­ly dis­cov­ers a gath­er­ing of pow­er­ful witch­es is con­sid­ered a clas­sic, so Robert Zemeck­is has his work cut out to try and step out of that tall shad­ow. He claims his ver­sion is clos­er to the book than Roeg’s, but remem­ber what hap­pened when Tim Bur­ton remade Char­lie and the Char­lie Fac­to­ry? Oh well – the star­ring play­ers are Anne Hath­away (in the role made famous by Anjel­i­ca Hous­ton) Octavia Spencer, Chris Rock and Stan­ley Tuc­ci, while Jahzir Kadeem Bruno will play the cen­tral role. HW

After a long wait, A Hid­den Life appeared at Cannes 2019 to much fan­fare, and we’ve made no secret of how much we love Ter­rence Malick’s last film. Per­haps it’s wish­ful think­ing putting his next pic­ture on a list of films we expect to see in 2021 as he famous­ly likes to take his time in the edit suite, but we can dream. After years of reli­gion being a theme in his work, he’s tak­ing on the source mate­r­i­al this time, envi­sion­ing key sto­ries from the life of Jesus Christ. Hun­gar­i­an actor Géza Röhrig will take on the main role as the Son of God and Matthias Schoe­naerts is play­ing Saint Peter, while Mark Rylance has revealed he’s play­ing four dif­fer­ent ver­sions of Satan. Nice. HW

Take away all the moon bug­gy shoot-outs and death-defy­ing dances with hurtling space debris, then James Gray’s 2019 film Ad Astra was a sim­ple tale of a father recon­nect­ing with his son. His fol­low-up, Armaged­don Time, may sound like a bro’d‑up Michael Bay sequel, but its sto­ry is in fact ripped from the writer/director’s own child­hood and is said to be a com­ing-of-age tale set against the back­drop of Ronald Reagan’s rise to the pres­i­den­cy. Oscar Isaac, Robert De Niro and Cate Blanchett top-line the cast, which makes this a must-see before even a frame has been filmed. DJ

Mau­ri­tan­ian direc­tor Abder­rah­mane Sis­sako stunned with his dark, polit­i­cal­ly cor­us­cat­ing 2014 fea­ture Tim­buk­tu, and it’s good to see that a new offer­ing is on the hori­zon. Lit­tle is known at this point about the intrigu­ing­ly titled The Per­fumed Hill, oth­er than that it is a love sto­ry set in Africa and Chi­na. Sis­sako is a mas­ter of visu­al metaphor and poet­ic sym­bol­ism, and also suf­fus­es his seri­ous, angry sto­ries with a dry, almost whim­si­cal sense of humour, but as with any film­mak­er worth his salt, he’s also unpre­dictable in terms of plot struc­tures and set­tings. Which makes this prospect of this one even more entic­ing. DJ

This adap­ta­tion of Shakespeare’s clas­sic tragedy marks the first time one of the Coen Broth­ers has worked alone – Ethan is tak­ing a break to focus on the­atre, so Joel’s on his own for script and direct­ing duties. His wife Frances McDor­mand takes on the role of one of the great lit­er­ary vil­lains of all time in Lady Mac­Beth, while Den­zel Wash­ing­ton plays her doomed hus­band. Bren­dan Glee­son, Corey Hawkins, Har­ry Melling and Ralph Inesen are lined up, too, with Shake­speare pro Kathryn Hunter play­ing the witch­es. All three of them, appar­ent­ly. HW

We man­aged to catch this one at the 2020 Berlin Film Fes­ti­val, and you can read our tem­pered but most­ly pos­i­tive first look review right here. Merg­ing the myth­i­cal with the mod­ern and toy­ing with visu­al and emo­tion­al anachro­nism, Ger­man direc­tor Chris­t­ian Pet­zold takes the fairy tale of soul­less water nymph Undine and play­ful­ly trans­pos­es it to con­tem­po­rary-era Berlin. As with his pre­vi­ous films Tran­sit and Phoenix, it’s like­ly that Undine is the type of work that doesn’t offer an instant fix, but sticks in the craw and nags for a repeat view­ing. DJ

Jonathan Glaz­er has been pret­ty busy late­ly, cre­at­ing a ter­ri­fy­ing short film enti­tled The Fall which aired unex­pect­ed­ly on tele­vi­sion last year. His sec­ond film for the BBC debuts July 20 and is a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Mica Levi and Sadler’s Wells, and sees some of the world’s best dancers take inspi­ra­tion from an invol­un­tary mania which took hold of Stras­bourg in 1518. His next fea­ture film, how­ev­er, is loose­ly based on a nov­el by Mar­tin Amis, about a Nazi offi­cer who falls in love with his camp commander’s wife. It’s set to shoot in Poland this year, so we’re hop­ing for a 2021 release, pos­si­bly on the fes­ti­val cir­cuit. HW

After the slight mis­step of First Man, the Damien Chazelle audi­ences know and love – the star­ry-eyed kid in thrall of the pas­sion of music and the glitz of show­biz – has soft­shoed back onto the scene. In this glossy new dra­ma, he’ll whisk audi­ences away to Tin­sel­town cir­ca the Gold­en Age’s tail end, just as those new­fan­gled talkies were mint­ing stars and putting old ones out of busi­ness. Emma Stone leads as Clara Bow, pro­to-A-lis­ter and insa­tiable sex­u­al dynamo, while Brad Pitt will por­tray a fic­ti­tious fig­ure rumoured by some to be based on silent screen star John Gilbert. Pre­sum­ably, they’re both ready for their respec­tive close-ups. CB

Joan­na Hogg’s The Sou­venir was the best film of 2019, so our excite­ment for the fol­low-up knows no bounds. Hon­or Swin­ton Byrne will reprise her cen­tral role as Julie, while her real-life mum Til­da will also return. Char­lie Heaton, Har­ris Dick­in­son and Joe Alwyn com­prise the trio of young men attached, after Robert Pat­tin­son dropped out due to sched­ul­ing con­flicts. Prin­ci­pal pho­tog­ra­phy began on the film last sum­mer, so we could look for­ward to see­ing it at Sun­dance 2021, after The Sou­venir had its pre­mière in the 2019 edi­tion. HW

Emer­gent Japan­ese tal­ent Ryū­suke Ham­aguchi won over a new wave of admir­ers at Cannes in 2018 for Asako I & II, his sen­si­tive sketch of a woman torn between two men and the diver­gent lives they rep­re­sent. Those cur­rents of long­ing and exis­ten­tial melan­choly will like­ly course through his next fea­ture, which sends a Japan­ese star­let to a the­atre school in France for some soul-search­ing. The diverse array of peo­ple she meets there, and the var­ied per­spec­tives they show to her, reori­ent her think­ing about her­self and her desires in life. Ham­aguchi makes per­fect rainy-day movies, ide­al­ly paired with some lilt­ing thought about where we’ve gone wrong in life, and this sounds like no excep­tion. CB

Read Part 2 here. Have we missed some­thing? Let us know @LWLies.