100 films to look for­ward to in 2024 – part one

With Christ­mas and the excite­ment of the hol­i­days over, one can be left with a strange feel­ing of empti­ness. That’s why we look for­ward to pub­lish­ing this list every year – an expan­sive pre­view of all the most inter­est­ing new films tipped to hit fes­ti­vals and cin­e­mas in 2024. Check back tomor­row for part two, and let us know what you’re excit­ed about by tweet­ing @lwlies.

1. The Iron Claw (Sean Durkin)

The sto­ry of the Von Erich fam­i­ly – regard­ed by many as one of the great­est wrestling dynas­ties of all time – is one of unthink­able tragedy, brought to the big screen by indie god­head Sean Durkin with an all-star cast. Zac Efron plays eldest son Kevin Von Erich, a sweet Labrador of a man who loves his broth­ers, wrestling, and his dad­dy – in that order. He’s joined by Har­ris Dick­in­son and Jere­my Allen White as his younger broth­ers, while the indomitable Holt McCallany plays their dom­i­neer­ing, sin­gle-mind­ed father Fritz. The wigs are big, the span­dex is tight, and the emo­tions run high. Han­nah Strong

ETA: 9 Feb­ru­ary via Lion­s­gate (UK)

2. Space­man (Johan Renck)

As a card-car­ry­ing mem­ber of the Adam San­dler Acad­e­my Award lob­by, I’ve been keep­ing a close eye on this sci-fi dra­ma, adapt­ed from Jaroslav Kalfař’s 2017 nov­el about a Czech astro­naut who trav­els to a far cor­ner of space to inves­ti­gate a cloud of mys­te­ri­ous dust. He leaves behind his preg­nant wife, Lenka (Carey Mul­li­gan), but not the trau­ma of his child­hood, shaped by his father who was a mem­ber of the secret police, and the fall of Com­mu­nism in Czecho­slo­va­kia. Deter­mined to redeem his family’s hon­our he’s tak­en on a mis­sion no one else want­ed, which will see him befriend a giant, gen­tle arach­nid named Hanuš (voiced by Paul Dano). Sounds nuts – count me in. HS

ETA: Spring 2024 via Netflix

3. Glad­i­a­tor II (Rid­ley Scott)

Paul Mescal has some big san­dals to fill in this long-await­ed sequel to Scott’s his­tor­i­cal epic, which is set 15 years after the events of Glad­i­a­tor. Mescal plays Lucius Verus, the wee tyke that Rus­sell Crowe’s Max­imus saved back in the day – after liv­ing in the wilder­ness for some time, he emerges in search of his moth­er (Con­nie Nielsen repris­ing her role as Lucil­la). With a star­ry cast includ­ing Den­zel Wash­ing­ton, Joseph Quinn and Pedro Pas­cal – plus Dji­mon Houn­sou return­ing as for­mer glad­i­a­tor Juba and Derek Jaco­bi as con­niv­ing politi­cian Grac­chus – this is set to be one of the cin­e­mat­ic events of the year, and not just because we get to see Mescal fight a load of baboons. HS

ETA: 22 Novem­ber via Universal

4. Kind of Kind­ness (Yor­gos Lanthimos)

Pre­sum­ably Search­light realised that the pre­vi­ous title ​‘And’ was an SEO night­mare – but we can expect Lan­thi­mos’ next project roll out some­time in 2023. Shot right after he com­plet­ed Poor Things, this anthol­o­gy film reunites Lan­thi­mos with his muse Emma Stone, plus Poor Things stars Willem Dafoe and Mar­garet Qual­ley, The Favourite​‘s Joe Alwyn, and new col­lab­o­ra­tors Jesse Ple­mons, Hong Chau and Hunter Schafer. When speak­ing to LWLies ear­li­er this year, Lan­thi­mos con­firmed the film com­pris­es sev­er­al chap­ters, with the same actors appear­ing in dif­fer­ent roles. HS

ETA: TBC via Searchlight

5. Love Lies Bleed­ing (Rose Glass)

As seems to be the case with so many ris­ing direc­tors these days, Rose Glass made a name for her­self in hor­ror (the wrench­ing Saint Maud) only to piv­ot out of the genre and explore wilder nar­ra­tive ter­ri­to­ries. Fans of watch­ing Kris­ten Stew­art do things will be excit­ed to learn that Kris­ten Stew­art stars as the pro­tec­tive lover of a female body­builder (Katie M. O’Brian), con­cerned that her para­mour will be chewed up and spat out by the cut­throat world of com­pet­i­tive mus­cle­women. The press release fore­told a ​“romance fueled by ego, desire, and the Amer­i­can dream” which places this film in the com­pact, fas­ci­nat­ing canon of movies about the US made from a Euro­pean van­tage. Charles Bramesco

ETA: TBC via A24 (US)

6. Dune II (Denis Villenueve)

Those curi­ous about what will take place in the sec­ond instal­ment of Denis Villeneuve’s sandy, spicy sci-fi epic can just con­sult any­one who’s read the nov­el — the peo­ple who have love noth­ing more than being asked about it. As for the laypeo­ple, there’s still plen­ty to look for­ward to in the intro­duc­tion of new cast mem­bers Flo­rence Pugh, Austin But­ler, Lea Sey­doux, and Christo­pher Walken, plus the promise of more screen time for the hereto­fore sparse­ly-shown Zen­daya. Eyes will glow, empires will fall, Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met will prob­a­bly do that goofy lit­tle two-step walk across the desert again. Now that the SAG strike has end­ed and Warn­er Bros. will pre­sum­ably cool it with the delays, bring on the giant worms! CB

ETA: 1 March via Warn­er Bros

7. Padding­ton in Peru (Dou­gal Wilson)

The lit­tle bear with the big heart returns after the phe­nom­e­nal suc­cess of his 2017 adven­ture Padding­ton 2. This time, he’s head­ed back to his native Peru (some­thing the Tories will prob­a­bly be delight­ed about) and tak­ing the Brown clan with him, on a voy­age to vis­it his beloved Aunt Lucy. Of course hijinks ensue. Anto­nio Ban­deras will play ​‘Hunter Cabot’, sure­ly the film’s big bad, with his daugh­ter played by Car­la Tous after Rachel Zegler had to drop out due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. There are two oth­er big changes too: Sal­ly Hawkins has been replaced in the role of Mrs Brown by Emi­ly Mor­timer, and Dou­gal Wil­son subs in for direc­tor Paul King, who had pri­or com­mit­ments with Won­ka. No pres­sure then! HS

ETA: 8 Novem­ber via Stu­dio­Canal (UK)

8. Mega­lopo­lis (Fran­cis Ford Coppola)

Soon, it will have been thir­teen years since Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la last com­plet­ed a movie, and many more since he made one gen­er­al­ly agreed upon as ​“good.” But that’s no rea­son to approach his sure­fire come­back with any­thing less than fever­ish excite­ment; when you’re the guy who did The God­fa­ther, you get the ben­e­fit of the doubt. In his long-ges­tat­ing new sci-fi/­fan­ta­sy, an archi­tect (Adam Dri­ver) drafts a bold blue­print for the future of New York in the wake of a dis­as­ter dec­i­mat­ing the city, a sweep­ing propo­si­tion that cor­rals a mas­sive ensem­ble cast includ­ing For­est Whitak­er, Jon Voight, Nathalie Emmanuel, Lau­rence Fish­burne, Aubrey Plaza, Dustin Hoff­man, Jason Schwartz­man, Shia LaBeouf, and Kathryn Hunter, among oth­ers. Dri­ver has called his time work­ing on the film ​“one of the best shoot­ing expe­ri­ences of [his] life.” Can it be one of the best view­ing expe­ri­ences of ours? CB

9. Jok­er: Folie a Deux (Todd Phillips)

Per­haps one day I’ll under­stand what it is about the role of the Jok­er that fas­ci­nates Joaquin Phoenix so much. He’s joined by Lady Gaga for the sequel to Todd Phillips’ grit­ty DC stand­alone – she’s play­ing the psy­chi­a­trist Dr. Harleen Quinzel, who is assigned to treat Jok­er in prison and sub­se­quent­ly falls in love, tak­ing on the moniker Harley Quinn. Giv­en the raft of acco­lades that inex­plic­a­bly fol­lowed the first film, chances are Hol­ly­wood will be rolling out the red car­pet for Phillips and co this time around. Expect a ritzy pre­mière, pos­si­bly at the Venice Film Fes­ti­val, where Jok­er won the Gold­en Lion back in 2019. HS

ETA: 4 Octo­ber via Warn­er Bros

10. The Nick­el Boys (RaMell Ross)

RaMell Ross’s doc­u­men­tary Hale Coun­ty This Morn­ing, This Evening was wide­ly regard­ed as one of the finest films of 2018, earn­ing him an Acad­e­my Award nom­i­na­tion. He returns with an adap­ta­tion of Col­son Whitehead’s The Nick­el Boys, which marks his nar­ra­tive fea­ture debut, and cen­tres on the his­toric Dozi­er School for Boys in Flori­da, which was noto­ri­ous for its abu­sive treat­ment of pupils. A fic­tion­alised ver­sion of the school appears in Ross’s film, which fol­lows a young African-Amer­i­can stu­dent who is sent there and forms a friend­ship with class­mate Turn­er. From there, the pair try to sur­vive the hor­rors of the Nick­el School togeth­er. HS

ETA: TBC via Ama­zon MGM

11. Mick­ey 17 (Bong Joon-ho)

After crank­ing it among the stars for Claire Denis in High Life, Robert Pat­tin­son will return to the deep­est reach­es of the cos­mos with an even high­er-pro­file glob­al auteur, por­tray­ing a series of men­tal­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ing clones sent to colonise an ice plan­et in Bong Joon-ho’s fol­low-up to crossover smash Par­a­site. It’s one of the year’s most gid­di­ly antic­i­pat­ed releas­es, but the March date sug­gests a pass on a fes­ti­val pre­mière (too big for Sun­dance, too on the radar for Berlin) as well as a pos­si­ble lack of con­fi­dence from Warn­er Bros., a com­pa­ny that made some unfor­tu­nate deci­sions over the past year. Only time will tell whether our jokes about this film’s debut close­ly fol­low­ing the entrance of Mick­ey Mouse to the pub­lic domain — and the graph­i­cal­ly sex­u­al poten­tial implied there­in — have come true. Or maybe it’ll just be exis­ten­tial­ism in space. Either way, it’s direc­tor Bong, so the floor on expec­ta­tions is still pret­ty high. CB

ETA: 29 March via Warn­er Bros

12. Civ­il War (Alex Garland)

Described as an ​“action epic”, Garland’s film sounds like his most ambi­tious to date, set in a future Unit­ed States where the states have gone to war. Kirsten Dunst​, Wag­n­er Moura and Stephen McKin­ley Hen­der­son appear to be play­ing mem­bers of the press cov­er­ing the con­flict, while Nick Offer­man is the Pres­i­dent. Cailee Spae­ny, Jesse Ple­mons and Karl Glus­man also star, but I’m a lit­tle con­cerned by Gar­land describ­ing the film as a ​“com­pan­ion piece” to his last film, Men, which was…not great. Still, his ster­ling work on Ex Machi­na, Anni­hi­la­tion and Devs is enough to ensure I’m still root­ing for him, and hope that Civ­il War is a return to form. HS

ETA: 26 April via A24 (US)

13. Wiz­ards! (David Michôd)

Franz Rogows­ki and Pete David­son, togeth­er at last! The odd cou­ple play hap­less, per­ma­nent­ly zoot­ed beach bar own­ers who come across some stolen loot that quick­ly proves more trou­ble than it’s worth. It sounds like Michôd is return­ing to the comedic ter­ri­to­ry of Hes­h­er and War Machine after his rather drea­ry take on Shakespeare’s Hen­ri­ad – hope­ful­ly a piv­ot that will pay off. HS

ETA: TBC via A24 (US)

14. Chal­lengers (Luca Gudagnino)

Pushed from a Venice 2023 pre­mière to an arguably less glam April release, Luca Gudagnino’s ten­nis love tri­an­gle dra­ma set puls­es rac­ing with its trail­er last sum­mer, in which we caught a glimpse of Zen­daya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor set to Rihanna’s clas­sic bondage bop S&M. The trio play the ten­nis pros caught up in an endur­ing love affair, and it’s Guadagni­no, so you can count on big emo­tions, a flair for the dra­mat­ic, excel­lent nee­dle drops and some gor­geous cos­tumes. HS

ETA: 26^th April via MGM/​Amazon (US) Warn­er Bros (Inter­na­tion­al)

15. The Watch­ers (Ishana Shyamalan)

Like father like daugh­ter – M Night’s prog­e­ny start­ed out work­ing with her dad on his tele­vi­sion series Ser­vant, where she wrote and direct­ed var­i­ous episodes, and then served as a sec­ond unit direc­tor on his 2021 hol­i­day thriller Old. She strikes out on her own with The Watch­ers, in which Dako­ta Fan­ning plays Mina, an artist strand­ed in an Irish for­est. She meets three strangers, but the group soon find them­selves stalked by mys­te­ri­ous crea­tures at night. The Watch­ers has been described as a dark fairy tale, and study­ing under a mod­ern mas­ter, we’re excit­ed to see what Isahana’s picked up from her pops. HS

ETA: TBC via Warn­er Bros 

16. Twisters (Lee Isaac Chung)

Lee Isaac Chung’s semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal dra­ma Minari was a 2020 Sun­dance stand­out (and a LWLies cov­er film!) It net­ted six Acad­e­my Award nom­i­na­tions back in 2021, with Youn Yuh-jung becom­ing the first Kore­an to win an Oscar for her per­for­mance as mis­chie­vous grand­ma Soon-ja. How does one fol­low such a well-received film? By mak­ing a sequel to the 1996 dis­as­ter film Twister of course! Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Pow­ell and Antho­ny Ramirez are slat­ed to star, though film­ing was halt­ed back in the sum­mer due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, so it may yet end up mov­ing out of the 2024 sched­ule. Nev­er­the­less, we’re inter­est­ed to see how Chung takes on a big-bud­get block­buster, con­sid­er­ing the beau­ty of Minari was its incred­i­ble inti­ma­cy. HS

ETA: 19 July, via Uni­ver­sal (US) Warn­er Bros (Inter­na­tion­al)

17. Janet Plan­et (Annie Baker)

Annie Bak­er, the finest play­wright-turned-film­mak­er since Ken­neth Lon­er­gan, arrived in aus­pi­cious fash­ion on the fall fes­ti­val cir­cuit with this qua­si-mem­oir recount­ing a pas­sage of her girl­hood in a lib­er­al enclave of the Mass­a­chu­setts boonies. The mor­dant, hilar­i­ous Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) watch­es her sin­gle moth­er (Julianne Nichol­son, aston­ish­ing) try on dif­fer­ent part­ners and ver­sions of her­self, but this is no soul-searchy Sun­dance cast-off. Bak­er has bona fide chops as a slow-cin­e­ma for­mal­ist, her con­fi­dent com­po­si­tions and unhur­ried edit­ing betray­ing her as a true stu­dent of the medi­um rather than anoth­er stage expat treat­ing the screen like a big prosce­ni­um. Rich with emo­tion­al nuance, expan­sive in its qui­et con­tem­pla­tions, this is one of the all-time great debuts — no fur­ther qual­i­fi­ca­tion required. CB

ETA: TBC via A24 (US)

18. Night­bitch (Marielle Heller)

Marielle Heller’s pecu­liar new film adapts Rachel Yoder’s 2021 nov­el, in which an accom­plished artist (the still-some­how-Oscar­less Amy Adams) takes a step back from her career to care for her child, and finds her­self chaf­ing under the small­ness of domes­tic life. Instead of tak­ing up pills like so many before her, how­ev­er, she instead starts turn­ing into a dog and wan­ders into a sin­is­ter mul­ti-lev­el mar­ket­ing scheme run by house­wives. Who among us, right? Fes­ti­val selec­tion com­mit­tees baulked at the sur­re­al, black­ly com­ic approach to fer­al fem­i­nism this past fall, but Heller’s got a cou­ple of strong movies to her name in Diary of a Teenage Girl and Can You Ever For­give Me, and that’s more than enough to earn her ​“one to keep an eye on” sta­tus. CB

ETA: TBC via Searchlight

19. Dri­ve Away Dolls (Ethan Coen)

Two paths diverged in the yel­low wood of the Coen broth­ers’ direct­ing part­ner­ship, and their first solo projects sug­gest why; Joel gave us an aus­tere, exper­i­men­tal-the­atre-inspired adap­ta­tion of Mac­beth in 2021, and soon Ethan will retort with a long-delayed ​“action-sex-com­e­dy” road movie chock­ablock with bawdy, sap­ph­ic hijinks. Mar­garet Qual­ley and Geral­dine Viswanathan play a pair of les­bians tra­vers­ing the great lat­tice of Amer­i­can high­ways cir­ca 1999, encoun­ter­ing along the way a ​“pot­pour­ri of a sev­ered head in a hat­box, a bit­ter ex-girl­friend, a mys­tery brief­case, and an evil sen­a­tor.” Cowrit­ten with Coen’s wife Tri­cia Cooke under the work­ing title of Dri­ve-Away Dykes, it’s a start to rec­ti­fy­ing the urgent issue of not hav­ing enough present-day Russ Mey­er homages. CB

ETA: 15 March via Universal

20. Mufasa: The Lion King (Bar­ry Jenkins)

This sequel to 2019’s The Lion King was announced back in 2020, but the pan­dem­ic and then the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes slowed things down a lit­tle bit. What we do know is that it will be an orig­i­nal pre­quel rather than an adap­ta­tion of The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride, with Aaron Pierre voic­ing Mufasa and Kelvin Har­ri­son Jr voic­ing Scar (boo hiss, because Simba’s Pride had some bang­ing orig­i­nal songs). Bil­ly Eich­n­er, Seth Rogen and John Kani are expect­ed to return as Tim­on, Pum­ba and Rafi­ki. The script was writ­ten by Jeff Nathanson, who also wrote the script for the 2019 film. Bar­ry Jenk­ins’ involve­ment has con­fused a lot of peo­ple, but with his track record, we’re will­ing to give him the ben­e­fit of the doubt. HS

ETA: 20 Decem­ber via Disney

21. Bor­der­lands (Eli Roth)

For the unini­ti­at­ed, Bor­der­lands is a first-per­son shoot­er video game series which achieved par­tic­u­lar pop­u­lar­i­ty in the 2010s. Inspired by the likes of Mad Max, the games focused on loot-seek­ing indi­vid­u­als bat­tling their way across bar­ren plan­ets in search of fabled prizes. A film adap­ta­tion has been on the table since 2015, ini­tial­ly under the super­vi­sion of Leigh Whan­nell, before Eli Roth became involved in 2020. Despite ini­tial­ly wrap­ping film­ing in 2021, Bor­der­lands has had a rocky pro­duc­tion his­to­ry. Reshoots took place in 2023 under Tim Miller as Roth was shoot­ing his fes­tive hor­ror Thanks­giv­ing, and screen­writer Craig Mazin had his name removed from the film in 2023, replaced by ​‘Joe Crom­bie’. So, who knows what the fin­ished film will look like. But at least we can look for­ward to Cate Blanchett play­ing ​‘a infa­mous out­law with a mys­te­ri­ous past’! HS

ETA: 9 August via Lionsgate

22. Immac­u­late (Michael Mohan)

Those bemoan­ing the lack of good sleaze in today’s movie land­scape have a friend in Michael Mohan, who mas­saged devi­ous wit into the long-dor­mant erot­ic thriller with 2021’s The Voyeurs, and will soon set his sights on the august tra­di­tion of the psy­cho nun flick with Immac­u­late. Syd­ney Sweeney plays a maid­en of God on the assign­ment of a life­time at a pres­ti­gious con­vent in the Ital­ian coun­try­side, only to dis­cov­er that the sis­ters (one of whom is played by Simona Tabas­co, Sweeney’s fel­low alum­na from TV’s The White Lotus) har­bour a dark secret. Prin­ci­pal pho­tog­ra­phy wrapped ear­ly this year, and even with strike-relat­ed delays in post-pro­duc­tion, it should’ve been a lock for Sundance’s Mid­night sec­tion this Jan­u­ary. No such luck, but ​“a trash-ified Black Nar­cis­sus homage fea­tur­ing two of Earth’s most rap­tur­ous­ly gor­geous women” shouldn’t be such a hard sell when­ev­er it comes around. CB

23. The Front Room (The Eggers Brothers)

If you recog­nise the sur­name, is because Max and Sam are the broth­ers of Robert ​“The VVitch” Eggers. They’re mak­ing their fea­ture debut with The Front Room, star­ring US singer Brandy Nor­wood and British the­atre leg­end Kathryn Hunter. Togeth­er at last! Accord­ing to Screen Inter­na­tion­al, the film fol­lows ​“a young, new­ly preg­nant cou­ple who are forced to take in an ail­ing step­moth­er who has long been estranged from the fam­i­ly”. Sure sounds like a con­ve­nient set-up for a psy­cho­log­i­cal hor­ror. HS

24. The Zone of Inter­est (Jonathan Glazer)

If you’re read­ing this list from the USA or France, you’ll have already had the chance to catch Jonathan Glaz­er​‘s haunt­ing Cannes Gran Pix win­ner back in 2023, but the UK has to wait a lit­tle bit longer. It’s worth it though – Glazer’s fourth film focus­es on the day-to-day life of Auschwitz camp com­man­der Rudolf Höss and his fam­i­ly, expos­ing the cal­lous indif­fer­ence of those ​‘just fol­low­ing orders’ dur­ing the Holo­caust, and the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of the unthink­able. Shot with a dis­com­fort­ing, voyeuris­tic cam­era set up and fea­tur­ing impos­ing dis­cor­dant sound­scapes by Mica Levi, it’s a hor­ror sto­ry played out amid immac­u­late gar­dens and ambi­ent ter­ror. HS

ETA: 2 February

25. Humane (Caitlin Cronenberg)

Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of dad David and broth­er Bran­don, Caitlin Cro­nen­berg will make her fea­ture debut in 2024 with the envi­ron­men­tal hor­ror Humane, star­ring Jay Baruchel, Emi­ly Hamp­shire and Peter Gal­lagher. Tak­ing place over a sin­gle day, the film is set months after a glob­al envi­ron­men­tal col­lapse, with world lead­ers forced to take ​“extreme mea­sures” to reduce the earth’s pop­u­la­tion. Mass mur­der it is then. Just as cheery as we’d expect from a Cro­nen­berg! HS

26. Hot Milk (Rebec­ca Lenkiewicz)

Rebec­ca Lenkiewicz is best known as a screen­writer but makes the jump to direc­tor with this adap­ta­tion of Deb­o­rah Levy’s best­selling nov­el, which was short­list­ed for the Man Book­er Prize in 2016. Emma Mack­ey plays Sofia, a young woman who trav­els to Spain with her unwell moth­er Rose (Fiona Shaw) in search of a dubi­ous cure for her debil­i­tat­ing paral­y­sis. While ten­sions with her moth­er height­en, Sofia becomes infat­u­at­ed with a trav­eller named Ingrid (Vicky Krieps) and begins to expe­ri­ence free­dom for the first time. The bonds between Sofia and Rose quick­ly begin to strain under the ten­sion. HS

27. Lit­tle Death (Jack Begert)

Jack Begert is best known as a music video direc­tor and makes the jump to films with an all-star cast at Sun­dance 2024. A screen­writer (David Schwim­mer) suf­fers a midlife cri­sis and a pair of taco truck oper­a­tors (Talia Ryder and Dominic Fike) search for an opi­oid fix among a cast of oth­er odd­balls in this LA sto­ry, which also fea­tures ​“sur­re­al mon­tage” and ​“AI ani­ma­tion”. Hmm. Jena Mal­one, Fred Melamed, Gaby Hoff­man and Karl Glus­man also star. HS

28. Baby­girl (Hali­na Reijn)

Nicole Kid­man plays a high-fly­ing busi­ness­woman who begins an affair with her intern (played by Har­ris Dick­in­son) in the next project from Bod­ies Bod­ies Bod­ies direc­tor Hali­na Rei­jn. Her debut fea­ture, Instinct, was an erot­ic thriller, so she’s got form here, and if the prospect of Kidman/​Dickinson get­ting up close and per­son­al wasn’t tan­ta­lis­ing enough, con­sid­er the fact Jude Law is on board too. Make movies sexy again! HS

29. Love Me (Sam & Andy)

Kris­ten Stew­art has a busy Sun­dance – along­side Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleed­ing, she’ll star along­side Steven Yeun in a decid­ed­ly dif­fer­ent romance. The pair play ​“a smart buoy and an orbit­ing satel­lite” in ​“a love sto­ry that spans a bil­lion years” in the direc­to­r­i­al debut of Sam and Andy Zuchero, which will focus on ques­tions of iden­ti­ty, sen­tience, real­i­ty and exis­tence. Sun­dance has a track record for high-con­cept indie films that don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly nail the exe­cu­tion, but Stew­art and Yeun are two of our finest, so we’re intrigued all the same. HS

30. Bird (Andrea Arnold)

Demon­strat­ing an affin­i­ty for sin­gle-word ani­mal-themed titles that began with her short film Wasp and con­tin­ued with Cow, Andrea Arnold returns to fic­tion with Bar­ry Keoghan and Franz Rogows­ki on side. We don’t know much else about this upcom­ing title, oth­er than the fact it was shot last sum­mer in the south of Eng­land and on the Isle of Shep­pey, but giv­en the Cannes suc­cess of her past films, it seems like­ly Bird will debut on the Croisette. HS

31. Juror No. 2 (Clint Eastwood)

Prov­ing that age real­ly ain’t noth­ing but a num­ber, 93-year-old Clint fin­ished up his 40^th direct­ing cred­it in Novem­ber 2023. It’s his first film after a few years off – some naysay­ers spec­u­lat­ed that Cry Macho might actu­al­ly be his swan song, but you can’t keep a good man down, or Clint away from the director’s chair. He works with Nicholas Hoult for the first time on this legal dra­ma, about a man who dis­cov­ered he is actu­al­ly respon­si­ble for the mur­der he’s on the jury for. Yikes. Toni Col­lette, Zoey Deutch, Kiefer Suther­land and Chris Messi­na co-star. HS

32. Rebel Ridge (Jere­my Saulnier)

Fine pur­vey­or of mis­er­able sto­ries that he is, it’s no sur­prise that the IMDB log­line for Jere­my Saulnier’s lat­est thriller is “​A high-veloc­i­ty thriller that explores sys­temic Amer­i­can injus­tices through bone-break­ing action sequences, sus­pense and dark humor.” John Boye­ga was orig­i­nal­ly slat­ed to star, but after he dropped out Aaron Pierre (best-known as Mid-Sized Sedan in M Night Shyamalan’s Old, lat­er to be seen voic­ing Mufasa in Bar­ry Jenk­ins’ Lion King sequel) stepped in. He stars along­side Don John­son, James Badge Dale, Anna­Sophia Robb and James Cromwell. HS

33. Mother’s Instinct (Benoît Delhomme)

Benoît Del­homme is best known as a cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er, hav­ing shot films includ­ing Tran Anh Hung’s The Scent of Green Papaya, John Hillcoat’s The Propo­si­tion, and James Marsh’s The The­o­ry of Every­thing. He makes his direc­to­r­i­al debut with a remake of the 2018 Bel­gian thriller Duelles, which was adapt­ed from Bar­bara Abel’s nov­el Der­rière La Haine (Behind the Hate) psy­cho­log­i­cal thriller star­ring pow­er­house actress­es Jes­si­ca Chas­tain and Anne Hath­away, who play best friends and neigh­bours Alice and Celine in tran­quil 1960s sub­ur­bia. Fol­low­ing an acci­dent, their rela­tion­ship is shat­tered, and para­noia and sus­pi­cion begin to take hold. HS

34. Furiosa (George Miller)

The sun is ris­ing on anoth­er love­ly day. After decamp­ing to Namib­ia to shoot his crowd-pleas­ing Fury Road, George Miller has blazed a path back to his home of Aus­tralia for the lat­est addi­tion to the aston­ish­ing­ly con­sis­tent fran­chise of post-apoc­a­lyp­tic motor opera. Anya Tay­lor-Joy fills out the robot arm pre­vi­ous­ly wield­ed by Char­l­ize Theron as the war­rior hero­ine Imper­a­tor Furiosa, lash­ing out against a patri­ar­chal bik­er gang led by War­lord Demen­tus (a mus­ta­chioed Chris Hemsworth). Meet­ing the stan­dard set by the most rap­tur­ous­ly acclaimed action pic­ture of the mil­len­ni­um is no small feat, but George Miller can do it, and indeed, has done it on mul­ti­ple occa­sions in the past. Any­one fool­hardy enough to think, ​“Well, sure­ly this one can’t be as good as the oth­ers” is bet­ting against the house. CB

ETA: 24 May via Warn­er Bros

35. Amer­i­can Fic­tion (Cord Jefferson)

It’s great to see the great author Per­ci­val Everett have his work adapt­ed for the big screen, and this soul­ful satire sees Jef­frey Wright as a writer whose jokey attempt at a main­stream lit­er­ary hit back­fires in the strangest way pos­si­ble. Tak­ing its cues from Spike Lee’s Bam­boo­zled, Jef­fer­son Cord’s film is a more laid-back and ambling affair, and it’s always just a real treat to have peren­ni­al sup­port­ing guy Wright in a lead role. David Jenk­ins

ETA: 2 Feb­ru­ary via Cur­zon (UK)

36. Nos­fer­atu (Robert Eggers)

Robert Eggers’ con­tin­u­ing odyssey through the most obscure cor­ners of the past has brought him to Roma­nia cir­ca 1838, where Tran­syl­van­ian towns­peo­ple whis­per of Count Orlok, the ghoul­ish own­er of the house on the hill that junior real estate agent Thomas Hut­ter has come to inspect. Eggers want­ed his remake of F.W. Murnau’s pro­to-hor­ror land­mark to be his sec­ond film, only to hold it as a pas­sion project while he shift­ed focus to The Light­house and The North­man, but he’s final­ly got the indus­try fire­pow­er to make it hap­pen his way — which, as he told LWL in a 2022 inter­view, has a lot to do with Bie­der­meier-style fur­ni­ture design. With Bill Skars­gård as the not­ed blood­suck­er, Nicholas Hoult as the hap­less Hut­ter, and Lily-Rose Depp tak­ing over for Anya Tay­lor-Joy as his bride, it’s sure to be a major event, though when we’ll see it is anyone’s guess. Eggers brought The Light­house to Cannes in the Direc­tors’ Fort­night, so maybe this could be his entrée to Com­pe­ti­tion. Maybe US dis­trib­u­tor Focus will hold for the fall fes­ti­vals. Or maybe they’ll bypass it all and count on the nat­ur­al buzz gen­er­at­ed by one of the most acclaimed genre film­mak­ers cur­rent­ly in the game tak­ing on a mon­ster icon promi­nent­ly lodged in cin­e­ma his­to­ry. CB

ETA: 25 Decem­ber via Universal

37. Y2K (Kyle Mooney)

Kyle Mooney starred in and co-wrote the under­rat­ed Brigs­by Bear and was con­sis­tent­ly one of the bet­ter per­form­ers on NBC’s dwin­dling sketch com­e­dy series Sat­ur­day Night Live before he left in 2022, so his film­mak­ing debut is some­thing to keep a close eye on. Two high school losers (Jae­den Martell and Julian Den­ni­son) crash a par­ty on New Year’s Eve 1999, only to find the pro­ject­ed events of Y2K actu­al­ly come true. HS

38. Lon­glegs (Oz Perkins)

Mai­ka Mon­roe plays young FBI agent Lee Hark­er, who is tasked with solv­ing a ser­i­al killer case in Oz Perkins’ fourth fea­ture, pro­duced by Nico­las Cage who also stars. The case quick­ly becomes stranger, tak­ing a turn for the occult, and Hark­er realis­es there’s a famil­ial con­nec­tion between her and the killer. Back at the end of 2022 Cage men­tioned the film dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with John Car­pen­ter, and referred to his char­ac­ter as a ​“pos­sessed Gep­pet­to, who’s mak­ing these dolls”. Sure! HS

39. Lisa Franken­stein (Zel­da Williams)

It’s not real­ly her rep, but scan­ning her fil­mog­ra­phy, one may notice that screen­writer Dia­blo Cody has qui­et­ly become a polar­is­ing quan­ti­ty; though the tide has turned in favour of Jennifer’s Body, her last two pro­duced scripts (for 2018’s Tul­ly and 2015’s Ric­ki and the Flash) have as many detrac­tors as cham­pi­ons for their winky mid­dle­brow wit. She’s tak­ing a hard left turn into the weird and whim­si­cal for the fea­ture debut from Zel­da Williams (daugh­ter of Robin), in which a lone­ly, horny teen goth (Kathryn New­ton) lands a boyfriend by rean­i­mat­ing the corpse of a gal­lant Vic­to­ri­an (Cole Sprouse, bet­ter known as TV’s Hot Jug­head on Riverdale). Any­one who’s ever made love to them­selves while pic­tur­ing Mr. Dar­cy from Pride and Prej­u­dice will feel seen. CB

ETA 22 March via Focus/​Universal

40. Echo Val­ley (Michael Pearce)

We were big fans of Michael Pearce’s eerie debut Beast, which also brought Jessie Buck­ley and John­ny Fly­nn into the main­stream. His sopho­more film, Encounter was a bit of a dis­ap­point­ment, but he’s assem­bled a very excit­ing cast for film num­ber three: Julianne Moore plays a horse train­er liv­ing in Pennsylvania’s Echo Val­ley, whose daugh­ter returns home one day cov­ered in some­one else’s blood. Domh­nall Glee­son pro­vides an air of men­ace as a local thug with an axe to grind. Fuck us up, Michael! HS

41. Hol­land, Michi­gan (Mimi Cave)

Mimi Cave’s mod­ern can­ni­bal break­out Fresh debuted at Sun­dance in 2022 and was prompt­ly snapped up by Search­light for dis­tri­b­u­tion. She’s har­nessed some seri­ous star pow­er for her next film: Nicole Kid­man stars as a woman liv­ing in a small town who begins to sus­pect her hus­band is liv­ing a dou­ble life – but the real­i­ty is even more shock­ing than she could have imag­ined. Kid­man is joined by Gael Gar­cía Bernal, Matthew Mac­fadyen and Rachel Sen­nott, plus cute kid Jude Hill, who played a young Ken­neth Branagh stand-in in Belfast. The script for this one has been doing the rounds for a while, first appear­ing on the Black­list in 2013, and now it seems to have found a home at Ama­zon. HS

42. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

How do you fol­low up a very unlike­ly for­ay into the wilds of Amer­i­can award sea­son, which Japan­ese film­mak­er Ryusuke Ham­aguchi expe­ri­enced with his Muraka­mi adap­ta­tion, Dri­ve My Car? Well, with some­thing very much the same, but very much dif­fer­ent at the same time. This new one, which has already received an award at the 2023 Venice Film Fes­ti­val, sees the mem­bers of a rur­al enclave gen­tly push­ing back against a ​“glamp­ing” start-up who want to take over their land. DJ

ETA: 1 March via Mod­ern Films

43. The Order (Justin Kurzel)

While I wasn’t so keen on Nitram, plen­ty of oth­er fine folks found a lot to admire about Kurzel’s true crime film about the Port Arthur mas­sacre. Con­tin­u­ing his inter­est in the dark­er side of human behav­iour, Kurzel has teamed up with writer Zach Baylin for this inter­pre­ta­tion of the non-fic­tion book The Silent Broth­er­hood, which focused on ​‘The Order’, a white suprema­cist group active in the Unit­ed States through­out the 1980s. In this film Jude Law plays an FBI agent who dis­cov­ers that a rad­i­cal group may be respon­si­ble for a string of vio­lent bank rob­beries across the Pacif­ic North­west – lead­ing him to their charis­mat­ic leader Robert Jay Math­ews (played by Nicholas Hoult). HS

44. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun) 

Schoenbrun’s fea­ture debut We’re All Going to the World’s Fair was one of the great sur­pris­es of 2022, so all eyes are on them for their sec­ond film. Jus­tice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine play the leads, with Smith’s Owen intro­duced to a mys­te­ri­ous late-night tele­vi­sion show which sug­gests a super­nat­ur­al world exist­ing beneath their own. Soon enough Owen’s vision of real­i­ty begins to dis­tort. The rest of the cast is eclec­tic: Danielle Dead­wyler, Hele­na Howard, Con­nor O’Malley, Phoebe Bridgers and Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst. A Sun­dance debut fol­lowed by a Berli­nale bow sug­gests we’ll get a release some­time in 2024 – hope­ful­ly in the UK as well as the US. HS

45. Timestalk­er (Alice Lowe)

Agnes has a prob­lem – every time she’s rein­car­nat­ed, she falls in love with the wrong man. Sounds pret­ty incon­ve­nient, but like the premise for a very fun twist on the rom-com. Alice Lowe writes, directs and stars in her sec­ond fea­ture, and it’s a wel­come return sev­en years after her crim­i­nal­ly under­rat­ed debut Pre­venge. Her sup­port­ing cast is pret­ty great too: we’ve got Jacob Ander­son (cur­rent­ly win­ning audi­ences over in the Inter­view with the Vam­pire tele­vi­sion series), Aneurin Barnard (David Cop­per­field), Tanya Reynolds (Sex Edu­ca­tion) and Nick Frost (you know who he is!) HS

46. Swim­ming Home (Justin Anderson)

The sec­ond Deb­o­rah Levy adap­ta­tion slat­ed to hit cin­e­mas this year after Hot Milk, Swim­ming Home sounds like it has shades of La Piscine about it – a trou­bled mar­ried cou­ple and their teenage daugh­ter hol­i­day­ing in the south of France find their idyll inter­rupt­ed by the appear­ance of a naked stranger in their swim­ming pool. It turns out she’s a big fan of poet Joe, and despite her intru­sion, matri­arch Isabel invites her to stay with them. Ari­ane Labed, Christo­pher Abbott and Macken­zie Davis are tipped to star. HS

47. Vis­i­ta­tion (Nico­las Pesce)

Nico­las Pesce’s The Eyes of My Moth­er and Pierc­ing were great – his remake of The Grudge…less so. But his next film sounds promis­ing: with her moth­er dying, 14-year-old Maria (Isla John­ston, who played a young Anya Tay­lor John­son in The Queen’s Gam­bit) is sent away to live with Catholic nuns, but her arrival turns sin­is­ter as one of her care­tak­ers becomes enam­oured with her. Olivia Cooke plays a nun in the sto­ry – no word on if she’s the sin­is­ter one or not. HS

48. The Bik­erid­ers (Jeff Nichols)

Tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from pho­to­jour­nal­ist Dan­ny Lyon’s 1968 book which doc­u­ment­ed the exploits of a group of motor­cy­clists, Jeff Nichols has craft­ed a roman­tic homage to the easy rid­ing hey­days of Harley David­son. Austin But­ler stars as a James Dean-esque fig­ure, while Com­er plays his fast-talk­ing, no-non­sense wife, and Michael Shan­non, Tom Hardy and Boyd Hol­brook round out the cast as mem­bers of the bik­er gang. Despite a pos­i­tive recep­tion out of Tel­luride and Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val, Search­light chose to offload The Bik­erid­ers to Focus for release, but don’t let that put you off – in typ­i­cal Nichols fash­ion, this is a poet­ic, lov­ing­ly craft­ed take on the gold­en age of bike rid­ing. HS

ETA: 21 June via Focus/​Universal

49. Babes (Pamela Adlon)

Vet­er­an actor Pamela Adlon is best known as the voice of Bob­by Hill and for her col­lab­o­ra­tions with Louis CK, but she’s also been writ­ing, pro­duc­ing and direct­ing for a long time. Babes is her fea­ture debut, in which Ilana Glaz­er plays the aggres­sive­ly sin­gle Eden, who becomes preg­nant after a one-night stand and leans on her mar­ried best friend to help her nav­i­gate this new chap­ter of her life. Hasan Min­haj, Michelle Buteau, John Car­roll Lynch, Stephan James and Oliv­er Platt round out the cast. HS

50. Faces of Death (Daniel Goldhaber)

After the excel­lent Cam and How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Daniel Gold­haber has estab­lished him­self as one to watch with­in the Amer­i­can indie film­mak­ing scene. Along with cre­ative part­ners Isa Mazzei and Isabelle Link-Levy, he’s tack­ling the icon­ic Faces of Death, which achieved noto­ri­ety back in 1978 for alleged­ly show­cas­ing actu­al death on film. Of course, most of the footage was staged, but the leg­end of the film endures – and now it’s being updat­ed for a new gen­er­a­tion. Star­ring Bar­bie Fer­reira and Dacre Mont­gomery, this new ver­sion ​“revolves around a female mod­er­a­tor of a YouTube-like web­site, whose job is to weed out offen­sive and vio­lent con­tent and who her­self is recov­er­ing from a seri­ous trau­ma, that stum­bles across a group that is recre­at­ing the mur­ders from the orig­i­nal film.” HS