100 upcom­ing films we can’t wait to see – part 2

You’ve had the first 50 – so here are 50 more. These are the films we can’t wait to inject direct­ly into our eye­balls as soon as it’s safe to go back in the metaphor­i­cal water. Have we missed some­thing? Let us know @LWLies.

When this writer was at junior school, the 1992 film ver­sion of Can­dy­man was in cin­e­mas, and many had to be sent home in floods of apoplec­tic tears if they were to hear the word ​“Can­dy­man” spo­ken three times. Hope­ful­ly, this ter­ri­fy­ing scare sto­ry will do the rounds of edu­ca­tion­al insti­tutes once more as a new ver­sion of the film doomi­ly swoops into cin­e­mas with direc­tor Nia DaCos­ta at the helm and Jor­dan Peele on scriptwrit­ing details. Though Peele is the big, ban­ner name on this pro­duc­tion, we’re very excit­ed to see what DaCos­ta does with this mate­r­i­al, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the back of her laud­ed 2018 debut, Lit­tle Woods. David Jenk­ins

ETA: 16 Octo­ber, Universal

The cre­ative syn­the­sis between expat direc­tor Abel Fer­rara and his con­stant muse Willem Dafoe hits a new high in this free-form char­ac­ter study. Dafoe flees his for­mer life by play­ing bar­tender at a dive joint in the deep­est, frosti­est reach­es of Rus­sia. But one night, after dog-sled­ding to a cave with a mys­ti­cal yon­ic aura, he’s reborn through his own past. A men­tal odyssey con­fronts him with mem­o­ries of his father, broth­er, wife, and child as he attempts to make sense of his choic­es and pos­si­ble future in between trans­portive visions. With Fer­rara, we can safe­ly bank on some soul-scrap­ing intro­spec­tion and pro­found self-loathing (not to men­tion exten­sive nudi­ty from the esteemed Mr. Dafoe, con­firmed at the Berli­nale pre­mière ear­li­er this year). Charles Bramesco

Sir Rid­ley Scott has long been attached to a screen ver­sion of Don Winslow’s 2005 crime nov­el The Pow­er of the Dog, but this one from Jane Cam­pi­on is actu­al­ly an adap­ta­tion of a 1967 west­ern psy­chodra­ma by Thomas Sav­age, star­ring Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch and Jesse Plem­mons as broth­ers on a far-flung Mon­tana ranch. Their strict rit­u­als and broth­er­ly nobil­i­ty is upend­ed and then some when one broth­er mar­ries a local wid­ow (Kris­ten Dun­st) and brings her and her young son to the ranch. Pro­duc­tion had begun on the film in New Zealand but was halt­ed in April due to the pan­dem­ic, but resumed in the mid­dle of June and will hope­ful­ly sur­face at the begin­ning of 2021. DJ

Tai­wanese slow-cin­e­ma pio­neer Tsai Ming-liang con­tin­ues to refine his lega­to, hyper-min­i­mal style in a two-han­der pair­ing his usu­al star Lee Kang-sheng with first-timer Laot­ian immi­grant Anong Houngheuangsy. The film con­trasts their dis­parate lives: the for­mer lives in a spa­cious, pala­tial estate while the lat­ter spends his days in a poor­ly fur­nished lit­tle apart­ment. But an unex­pect­ed inter­sec­tion of their lives dur­ing a fate­ful mas­sage has a pro­found effect on the men joined by this fleet­ing moment of shared human­i­ty. Lyri­cal, poet­ic, med­i­ta­tive, it’s anoth­er key plank in the life­long work of a sig­nif­i­cant artist. CB

After years of delays, cast changes, spec­u­la­tion, and miss­ing dogs, we know that Leos Carax’s first film since 2012’s Holy Motors is fin­ished. Accord­ing to Sparks’ Ron Mael (who wrote the music along­side his brother/​band mate Rus­sell) the film was sup­posed to be at Cannes this year. Alas, COVID had oth­er ideas, and it doesn’t seem like­ly to pop up at Venice or Toron­to giv­en that both fes­ti­vals have dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduced their line-ups. We’re hop­ing for a Cannes 2021 bow for this musi­cal, star­ring Adam Dri­ver as a stand-up come­di­an and Mar­i­on Cotil­lard as his opera singer wife, whose lives are upend­ed when their daugh­ter, Annette, is born with a unique gift. Han­nah Woodhead

Orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for a pre­mière at Cannes and a Sep­tem­ber release but now delayed to next spring, Edgar Wright’s new film sees him hop back across the pond after the suc­cess of Baby Dri­ver, and return to his hor­ror roots. This time-trav­el thriller set in the heart of Lon­don stars Anja Tay­lor Joy and Thomasin Macken­zie and sees the lat­ter trans­port­ed back to the 1960s: a time peri­od she’s obsessed with. Matt Smith, Dian­na Rigg and Ter­ence Stamp co-star, and the whole thing is lensed by Chung Chung-hoon, best-known for his work with Park Chan-wook. HW

ETA: 23, April 2021, Universal

UK audi­ences have yet to expe­ri­ence the full rut­ting aston­ish­ments of Spaniard Albert Serra’s 18^th-cen­tu­ry dog­ging movie Lib­erté, and by the time they have done so (it is set for release lat­er this year), Ser­ra may have bro­ken the back of its fol­low-up, Bora Bora. This one charts the love affair between a French diplo­mat and a Poly­ne­sian author on the famed Pacif­ic sun spot and is said to be set against a back­drop of racial ten­sion and polit­i­cal espi­onage. On paper it seems like Ser­ra might be attempt­ing to court a slight­ly broad­er audi­ence than his exper­i­men­tal sex odyssey, but with him, you nev­er real­ly know. DJ

Con­tin­u­ing carv­ing out his niche as the creepy his­tor­i­cal ghost sto­ry guy, Robert Eggers’ next film is described as a viking revenge film. He’s reteam­ing with The Light­house star Willem Dafoe and The Witch​’s Anya Tay­lor-Joy, but there’s a whole lot of addi­tion­al A‑List tal­ent: Nicole Kid­man, Claes Bang, and Skars­gård broth­ers Alexan­der and Bill. Pro­duc­tion was paused due to COVID, but as of July, they resumed shoot­ing in Ire­land. Could a Cannes 2021 com­pe­ti­tion slot be on the cards giv­en The Lighthouse’s mas­sive suc­cess in Director’s Fort­night last year? HW

Ali­ta: Bat­tle Angel spawned a legion of ded­i­cat­ed fans and did pret­ty well at the box office, so all eyes will be on Robert Rodriguez’s next project, which was sup­posed to begin film­ing in Los Ange­les ear­li­er this year. It’s now set to film in Austin round about now. Ben Affleck stars as a detec­tive involved in a miss­ing per­sons case, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly inves­ti­gat­ing a string of heists which should be impos­si­ble. Rodriguez him­self has described the film as a ​“very mod­ern Hitch­cock-type movie”, which is quite a claim. HW

A biopic based on the life of Elvis Pres­ley has been in the works for ages, and the tit­u­lar role caused some­thing of a scuf­fle among young Hol­ly­wood heart­throbs keen to play an Old Hol­ly­wood heart­throb. In the end, Austin But­ler won the role, and he’ll star along­side Tom Han­ks, Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal and Rufus Sewell in Baz Luhrmann’s undoubt­ed­ly spec­tac­u­lar spec­tac­u­lar. Pro­duc­tion was under­way in Aus­tralia when COVID hit (notably, Han­ks and his wife con­tract­ed the virus). Film­ing is expect­ed to resume this autumn – is But­ler gun­ning for the cov­et­ed Best Actor Imper­son­at­ing A Beloved Musi­cian Oscar? Only time will tell. HW

ETA: 5 Novem­ber, 2021, Warn­er Brothers

It was way back in 2016 that British artist film­mak­er Ben Rivers would make his debut nar­ra­tive fea­ture with the assis­tance of the great Rook Films label, found­ed by Andy Starke and Ben Wheat­ley. Since then he has made the delight­ful Kra­bi 2562 in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Thai direc­tor Anocha Suwichako­rn­pong, so After Lon­don may not quite tech­ni­cal­ly count as a fic­tion debut. Beyond the title, very lit­tle is known of the project, but Rivers is some­one who main­tains a con­stant flow of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and his unique, intu­itive, lyri­cal per­son­al style will make this one a must see when­ev­er it final­ly sur­faces. DJ

For his next trick, Roman­ian enve­lope-push­er Radu Jude will apply his sig­na­ture blur­ring of archival exca­va­tion, the­atri­cal recre­ation, doc­u­men­tary and nar­ra­tive cin­e­mat­ic forms to one ghast­ly foot­note from nation­al his­to­ry. From all angles, the film inspects an episode in Ceausescu’s 1980s in which the secret police appre­hend­ed sub­ver­sive graf­fi­ti artist Mugur Cali­nes­cu and near­ly inter­ro­gat­ed the life out of him. As a whole, this mul­ti­va­lent project forms an uncon­ven­tion­al the­sis on the dan­gers of state sur­veil­lance, the might of fas­cism, and the vital impor­tance of indi­vid­ual rebel­lion. (Ioana Iacob, the mes­meris­ing star of his last fea­ture I Do Not Care If We Go Down In His­to­ry As Bar­bar­ians, also returns.) CB

We’re big fans of Josephine Deck­er at Lit­tle White Lies, and can’t wait for her sub­lime new film to get a release this autumn. Elis­a­beth Moss gives a blis­ter­ing per­for­mance as Shirley Jack­son, acclaimed Amer­i­can hor­ror writer, while Michael Stuhlbarg plays her hus­band Stan­ley Hyman. The pair play host to a new­ly­wed cou­ple (Odessa Young and Logan Ler­man) at their rur­al Ver­mont home, and things start to get strange, as Jack­son finds lit­er­ary inspi­ra­tion in the dis­ap­pear­ance of a local col­lege stu­dent. Lush, sexy, and just a lit­tle wicked, we can’t hype this one enough. HW 

Adam McK­ay will con­tin­ue his Seri­ous Satir­i­cal Com­men­tary phase on Net­flix, with an alle­gor­i­cal com­e­dy in which a pair of clear-eyed ana­lysts must warn the Amer­i­can peo­ple of impend­ing dis­as­ter. But it’s not the finan­cial col­lapse, or the elec­tion of Don­ald Trump, or the out­break of a world­wide pan­dem­ic – there’s a gar­gan­tu­an aster­oid on track to oblit­er­ate Earth, and yet no one seems fazed by this news. Some reject the infor­ma­tion as a hoax, some can’t be both­ered to care, oth­ers give up, but nobody’s doing any­thing. Sound famil­iar? The two astronomers try­ing to shake the world into giv­ing a damn will be played by Cate Blanchett and Jen­nifer Lawrence, who would osten­si­bly have lit­tle trou­ble get­ting peo­ple to pay atten­tion to them, but that’s movies for you. CB

After the mas­sive suc­cess of Aqua­man, James Wan is going back to his hor­ror roots. Based on a sto­ry writ­ten by Wan and his wife Ingrid Bisu, the plot is a close­ly-guard­ed secret, and although the film was orig­i­nal­ly due to be released this sum­mer, it was pulled from Warner’s slate at the start of the pan­dem­ic and hasn’t been resched­uled yet. We do know the cast though: Annabelle Wal­lis, Jake Abel and McKen­na Grace lead the way. HW

Some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent from the Brit mas­ter of may­hem. Last seen in 2018 pre­sent­ing the bril­liant, small-scale ensem­ble com­e­dy Hap­py New Year, Col­in Burstead, and with numer­ous big tick­et Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tions always on the cusp of sign-off, Ben Wheat­ley has has tak­en a sur­prise shift to the lav­ish peri­od lit­er­ary adap­ta­tion by tak­ing on the mul­ti­far­i­ous beast that is Daphne du Mau­ri­er​’s Rebec­ca. With Armie Ham­mer as dash­ing sad­boi wid­ow­er ​“Max­im” de Win­ter and Lil­ly James as his name­less, timid bride try­ing to live up to the immac­u­late stan­dards of the late Mrs de Win­ter, Rebec­ca. Expect gor­geous goth­ic trap­pings and breath­less melo­dra­ma, with a bit of the added Wheat­ley weird­ness. DJ

French direc­tor Lucile Hadz­i­halilovic doesn’t make films very often, but when she does, it is our duty to embrace them ful­ly. She fol­lowed up her creepy 2004 debut, Inno­cence, with the art­ful­ly-inclined body hor­ror of Evo­lu­tion in 2015 (both are must-see movies if you haven’t par­tak­en already), and she is cur­rent­ly tin­ker­ing away with an adap­ta­tion of Bri­an Catling’s 2019 steam­punk hor­ror novel­la ​‘Ear­wig’. It involves a young girl with teeth made from ice and her nervy car­er who once day receives a daunt­ing call that he must trav­el with her from Liege to Paris for some unknown rea­son. Book us the entire front row now for this one. DJ

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 this 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. HW

Paul W S Ander­son is an old hand when it comes to adapt­ing video games, being the force behind the Res­i­dent Evil fran­chise. He’s teamed up with Mil­la Jovovich again for a new adven­ture based on the video game series of the same name; she plays one mem­ber of a Unit­ed Nations mil­i­tary team who fall through a por­tal into a world where humans fight giant mon­sters. These beast­ies threat­en to invade the earth, so they’ve got to be stopped. Ron Perl­man, rap­per TI and Tony Jaa co-star, and the film has been com­plet­ed for a while, but COVID means its release is delayed until next year. HW

ETA: 23 April, 2021, Sony

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, so there’s a chance we’ll get to see it by the end of the year, or in ear­ly 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. CB

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? DJ

Jude Law deliv­ers a tour de force of sleek con­temptibil­i­ty as a father method­i­cal­ly destroy­ing his own fam­i­ly in Sean Durkin’s long-await­ed fol­low-up to Martha Mar­cy May Mar­lene. He uproots his wife (Car­rie Coon) and chil­dren from their Amer­i­can home to an Eng­lish man­sion they can’t afford, all so he can project the appear­ance of wealth long enough to advance at his job. The break­down of this hare­brained plan dri­ves a wedge in their mar­riage, an emo­tion­al decay that Durkin rep­re­sents with a chill­ing, bor­der­line hor­ror-movie atmos­phere per­vad­ing the house that soon comes to feel like their tomb. Those tak­en in by the exquis­ite class fric­tions of The Sou­venir would do well to mark this one on their cal­en­dars. CB

ETA: 18 Sep­tem­ber (US), IFC Films

How do you fol­low up a per­for­mance like the one Adam San­dler gave in Uncut Gems? With a slap­stick Hal­loween-themed Net­flix com­e­dy of course! Fol­low­ing on from the actu­al­ly-pret­ty-good Mur­der Mys­tery, San­dler plays com­mu­ni­ty vol­un­teer and local source of mock­ery Hubie DuBois, who finds him­self the cen­tre of a mur­der case on Hal­loween in the icon­ic town of Salem, Mass­a­chu­setts. Kevin James, Steve Busce­mi, Rob Schnei­der and David Spade co-star, to the sur­prise of absolute­ly no one. HW

The ques­tion with the Fil­ipono 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 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 giv­en how fast Schrad­er works, it’s fea­si­ble we might get to see this one soon­er rather than lat­er. 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: 4 June, 2021, Universal

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 Promis­ing Young Woman 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 hope­ful­ly it will get a release some time in the near future. HW

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

ETA: Novem­ber 2020, Universal

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 first step. 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 ear­li­er this 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

Sun­rise, sun­set – anoth­er Bat­man fran­chise. Robert Pat­tin­son dons the cowl for the umpteenth time around with the dark knight, recharg­ing the ol’ movie star bat­ter­ies in earnest for the first time since the Twi­light days. The stuffed cast cor­rals Paul Dano, Zoe Kravitz, Jef­frey Wright, John Tur­tur­ro, Peter Sars­gaard, Andy Serkis, and Col­in Far­rell for a full reboot, intro­duc­ing a new Bruce Wayne hope­ful­ly rein­vent­ed in some mean­ing­ful way by direc­tor Matt Reeves. He says he wants to look at a younger Bat­man than the Affleck and Bale films, fram­ing him more as a detec­tive than a super­hero, but who knows what to believe when it comes to these kookoo capes-and-tights movies. CB

ETA: 1 Octo­ber, 2021, Warn­er Brothers

The direc­to­r­i­al debut of Aus­tralian musi­cian Sia is – you guessed it – a musi­cal. She pre­vi­ous­ly The film was announced back in 2015 as a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Sia and her reg­u­lar music video star Mad­die Ziegler, and is appar­ent­ly fin­ished, though it was pushed back from an Octo­ber 2019 release. It stars Kate Hud­son as Zu, a recent­ly-sober woman who has to care for her half-sis­ter Music (Ziegler), who is on the autis­tic spec­trum. Leslie Odom Jr and Hec­tor Eli­zon­do co-star. HW

Pro­duc­tion was paused on Ruben Östlund’s fol­low-up to The Square, but it’s now back under­way 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. Either way, all aboard! HW

In the same way that David Finch­er has made some­thing of a rep for him­self about being judi­cious and exact­ing behind the cam­era, he also car­ries over those qual­i­ties when it comes to the film gigs he signs up for. After near­ly a decade of whis­pers, almosts and thanks-but-no-thankses, he’s final­ly set­tled down at Net­flix (home of his ace Mind­hunter ser­i­al killer series) to make Mank, from a script penned by his own father, about the mys­tery of who real­ly wrote Cit­i­zen Kane, Orson Welles or Joseph Mankiewicz? DJ

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. 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, but the fes­ti­val was called off in light of COVID, and A24 have been keep­ing qui­et on when we might get to see it. 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

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: 21 May, 2021, Lionsgate

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

The mar­quee pre­mière from this year’s all-vir­tu­al Cannes returns to the time-hon­oured nar­ra­tive tra­di­tion of ​‘the sum­mer every­thing changed,’ with all the teenage hor­mones and furtive humid-night hookups implied there­in. The age dif­fer­en­tial from Call Me by Your Name shrinks for 16-year-old Alex (Felix Lefeb­vre) and 18-year-old David (Ben­jamin Voisin), telegenic boys seized by desire while on hol­i­day in the Nor­mandy sea­side ham­let of Tre­port. They embark upon an ill-fat­ed affair de coeur that direc­tor François Ozon relates in par­al­lel time­lines aping the source novel’s unortho­dox struc­ture; Alex also pro­vides nar­ra­tion from the future, tes­ti­fy­ing about that first taste of love in a court­room try­ing him for a to-be-revealed crime. 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

Anoth­er title that was meant to be at Cannes 2020 (RIP) is this lat­est Pixar film. It’s also the first of their films to fea­ture a black lead in the form of Jamie Foxx’s Joe Gard­ner. A mid­dle school music teacher with aspi­ra­tions of becom­ing a jazz musi­cian, his soul is acci­den­tal­ly sep­a­rat­ed from his body and he must go on a jour­ney through the after­life to pre­vent his untime­ly death. Tina Fey, Dav­eed Dig­gs, Angela Bas­sett, Richard Ayoade and Quest­love co-star, and the score is pro­vid­ed by those hep­cats Trent Reznor and Atti­cus Ross. HW

ETA: 27 Novem­ber, Dis­ney Pixar

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. Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met plays young Paul Atrei­des, while Oscar Isaac and Rebec­ca Fer­gu­son are his par­ents, Duke Leto Atrei­des 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, how will Vil­lenueve stack up to David Lynch’s 1984 film and Ale­jan­dro Jodorowsky’s unre­alised vision? HW

ETA: 18 Decem­ber, Warn­er Brothers

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. 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

Fran­cis Lee (cor­rect­ly) became the dar­ling of British cin­e­ma fol­low­ing the sleep­er suc­cess of his debut fea­ture, God’s Own Coun­try, a film love sto­ry about tran­scend­ing class and racial bor­ders that just hap­pened to focus on two men. His fol­low-up takes him to Juras­sic Coast of Lyme Reg­is in the 1840s and a self-start­ing palaeon­tol­o­gist (Kate Winslet) who devel­ops a rela­tion­ship with the young wife (Saoirse Ronan) of a tourist pass­ing through town. If it’s any­thing like Lee’s debut, expect coiled emo­tions and rich sub­texts. DJ

Have we missed some­thing? Let us know @LWLies.