100 films to look for­ward to in 2024 – part two

If yesterday’s first half wasn’t enough, good news: we’ve got a belat­ed Christ­mas gift in the form of the sec­ond half of our 2024 pre­view. Movies, now more than ever! Let us know what you’re excit­ed about by tweet­ing @lwlies.

51. The Out­run (Nora Fingscheidt)

Ger­man film­mak­er Fin­gschei­dt announced her­self in impres­sive style with Sys­tem Crash­er, but her 2020 fol­low-up The Unfor­giv­able was a bit­ter dis­ap­point­ment, so all bets are off with her next dra­ma. We’re hop­ing for some­thing spe­cial, and that might come in the form of Saoirse Ronan. She plays Rona, a recov­er­ing alco­holic who returns to her native Orkney after rehab, and recon­nects with the farm­land where she grew up. Paa­pa Essiedu and Stephen Dil­lane co-star in this dra­ma based on Amy Liptrot’s best­selling mem­oir of the same name. With Steven McQueen’s Blitz on the hori­zon too, 2024 could be a big year for Ronan. Han­nah Strong

ETA: TBC via StudioCanal

52. Pussy Island (Zoë Kravitz)

A hot con­tender for the best film title of 2024 since Dri­ve Away Dykes became Dri­ve Away Dolls, Pussy Island is Kravitz’s direc­to­r­i­al debut (she co-wrote the script with E.T. Feigen­baum). Her boyfriend Chan­ning Tatum plays a tech mogul whom Nao­mi Ackie’s cock­tail wait­ress Fri­da becomes obsessed with – result­ing in a trip to his pri­vate island, where things begin to go wrong. Join­ing them are Simon Rex, Chris­t­ian Slater, Geena Davis, Adria Arjona, Haley Joe Osment, Alia Shawkat and Kyle McLach­lan, in what has to be one of the most excit­ing ensem­bles of the year. HS

53. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg)

Vin­cent Cas­sel por­trays a griev­ing wid­ow­er who devis­es a con­trap­tion allow­ing con­tact with the dead, Guy Pearce and Diane Kruger round out the sup­port­ing cast, but the big name here is that of writer-direc­tor David Cro­nen­berg. After a near­ly decade-long hia­tus pri­or to Crimes of the Future, the god­fa­ther of body hor­ror is strik­ing while the iron is hot for his fol­low-up, a heart­en­ing sign that the eighty-year-old is real­ly and tru­ly back in action. They shot back in May, which should leave him plen­ty of time for a return to Com­pe­ti­tion at Cannes. Back in 2022, he was ful­ly shut out of the awards cat­e­gories, a grave injus­tice that the jury could very well get a chance to right with the lat­est exper­i­ment in Late Style from Canada’s proud­est son. Charles Bramesco

54. Polaris (Lynne Ramsay)

Lynne Ram­say sur­prised every­one back in August when she announced that her next project – a reunion with Joaquin Phoenix after 2017’s You Were Nev­er Real­ly Here – had already wrapped shoot­ing. We don’t know much else, apart from the fact his char­ac­ter is a pho­tog­ra­ph­er and this is Ramsay’s first orig­i­nal script since Rat­catch­er. One blog sug­gests the film is about ​“A pho­tog­ra­ph­er who meets the dev­il in Alas­ka” and if that’s true we’d love to see it, but with so many rumours con­stant­ly swirling regard­ing Ramsay’s projects, it’s best to just wait and see what shakes loose. Prob­a­bly at Cannes 2024. HS

55. Sasquatch Sun­set (The Zell­ner Brothers)

It’s been six long years since The Zell­ner Broth­ers released a movie. At the end of 2023 they direct­ed three episodes of the Nathan Field­er and Ben­ny Safdie tele­vi­sion series The Curse, but it’s great to see them pop­ping back up in the Sun­dance line-up with a suit­ably quirky project. Jesse Eisen­berg plays a sasquatch in this film that doc­u­ments ​“a year in the life of a sin­gu­lar fam­i­ly” – it’s unclear yet if Keough and co-stars Christophe Zajac-Denek and David Zell­ner will play sasquatch­es too, but accord­ing to Eisen­berg, he doesn’t have any dia­logue. ​“I grunt, but no lines,” he told Vari­ety. HS

56. Moth­er Mary (David Lowery)

Progress on David Lowery’s pop-star­dom melo­dra­ma con­tin­ued apace through the strikes, as one of the ear­li­est and most promi­nent pro­duc­tions to secure a waiv­er from the nego­ti­at­ing unions. So it won’t be a long wait for the hordes clam­our­ing to get a look at Anne Hath­away as a pri­ma don­na songstress and Michaela Coel as the fash­ion design­er with whom she cul­ti­vates a report­ed­ly ​“com­plex” rela­tion­ship. (Com­plex in a les­bian way? We shall see!) Throw in a sup­port­ing turn from ris­ing tal­ent Hunter Schafer along with orig­i­nal songs from Char­li XCX and it-pro­duc­er Jack Antonoff, and you’ve got the mak­ings of a pre­fab phe­nom­e­non among the influ­encer class. As if the prospect of a new David Low­ery movie wasn’t a draw unto itself. CB

57. Coy­ote vs Acme (Dave Green)

This ani­ma­tion/live-action hybrid com­e­dy has been in the news of late, owing to Warn­er Bros’ rather baf­fling deci­sion to try and shelve the film and include it as a tax-off. After a lot of back­lash from social media, the film’s team and oth­er film­mak­ers, WB backpedalled and have been shop­ping the title to oth­er stu­dios – which seems pret­ty smart, giv­en the buzz around screen­writer Samy Burch fol­low­ing her work on Todd Haynes’ May Decem­ber. With an amus­ing premise (Wile E. Coy­ote attempts to sue Acme fol­low­ing years of frus­tra­tion with their sub­stan­dard prod­ucts) and the star pow­er of John Cena, we’re excit­ed to see why on earth WB tried to keep this one in the vault. HS

58. Hed­da (Nia DaCosta)

After being done dirty by Dis­ney with The Mar­vels, we’re glad to see Nia DaCos­ta reteam­ing with Lit­tle Woods star Tes­sa Thomp­son for an adap­ta­tion of Ibsen’s 1812 play Hed­da Gebla. Thomp­son will play the title role, the daugh­ter of a gen­er­al trapped in a mar­riage and house she has no inter­est in. No word yet on how DaCos­ta will put her spin on Ibsen’s work, which has been adapt­ed var­i­ous times for the big and small screen, but know­ing DaCos­ta it will be some­thing spe­cial. HS

59. Weapons (Zack Cregger)

Bar­bar­ian was one of 2022’s stand­out hor­ror films, so plen­ty of peo­ple are await­ing Zack Cregger’s fol­low-up with bat­ed breath. It’s unclear if Weapons has already start­ed shoot­ing, so we’re not sure if it’s wish­ful think­ing to hope for a 2024 release date, but call us eter­nal opti­mists. Anoth­er hor­ror, this one sup­pos­ed­ly focus­es on the dis­ap­pear­ance of high school stu­dents in a small town, and has been com­pared to Paul Thomas Anderson’s Mag­no­lia (brave words). Two of the buzzi­est stars around are slat­ed to lead: Pedro Pas­cal and Renate Reinsve. But giv­en how busy they both seem at the moment, we wouldn’t be sur­prised if things change with Weapons and it ends up shift­ing to a 2025 release. HS

60. Win­ner (Susanne Fogel)

It’s unfor­tu­nate for Susanne Fogel that 2023 already had a great film about Real­i­ty Win­ner in from filmmaker/​playwright Tina Sat­ter, so she has a bit of an uphill bat­tle here. So too does star Emil­ia Jones, as Syd­ney Sweeney already turned in a great per­for­mance as the NSA whistle­blow­er who was pros­e­cut­ed for expos­ing Russ­ian inter­fer­ence in the 2016 elec­tion. This is a more star­ry biopic (the cast is filled out by Con­nie Brit­ton, Zach Gal­i­fi­anakis, Kathryn New­ton, and Dan­ny Ramirez), and like­ly a more expan­sive one, as Sat­ter focused pure­ly on the expe­ri­ence of Reality’s arrest and inter­ro­ga­tion. While Fogel’s last film, also a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Jones, was very poor, Winner’s sto­ry is inter­est­ing enough that per­haps there’s more to see here. HS

61. The Taste of Things (Tran Anh Hung)

We caught this one at the 2023 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, and we can defin­i­tive­ly say to you that you’re in for a treat. Juli­ette Binoche is on her most sparkling form in ages as a rud­dy-cheeked coun­try cook and gar­den­er. Benoit Mag­imel is mag­net­ic as the ​“Napoleon of gas­tron­o­my” who spends his days invent­ing menus, sam­pling dish­es and mak­ing nosh for his ​“suite” of fel­low food­ies. It’s been a long while since French-Viet­namese film­mak­er Tran Anh Hung has been on the scene, but with The Taste of Things, he’s back with deli­cious vengeance. DJ

ETA: 16 Feb­ru­ary via Pic­ture­house (UK)

62. La Retour (Mati Diop)

Mati Diop achieved crit­i­cal acclaim and a Grand Prix at Cannes for her fea­ture debut Atlantics, and now turns her eye to doc­u­men­tary (hav­ing made var­i­ous shorts pre­vi­ous­ly) for her next film. She will focus on the return of the roy­al trea­sures of Abomey from Paris to their coun­try of ori­gin, Benin, which occurred in 2022. Details are oth­er­wise thin on the ground, but giv­en Diop’s rela­tion­ship with Cannes, it seems like­ly that if the film is fin­ished, we might see it when the line-up drops in April. HS

63. Love Child (Todd Solondz)

I’ll con­cede that it’s unlike­ly Solondz will man­age to shoot and edit his next film in time for a 2024 debut, but I’m just excit­ed that the wheels are in motion for his first film since 2016’s Wiener-Dog. Orig­i­nal­ly set to star Col­in Far­rell and Rachel Weisz, Eliz­a­beth Olsen is now attached, and she’ll be play­ing the moth­er of pre­co­cious (and delu­sion­al) 11-year-old Junior, whom, after near­ly killing his abu­sive father, per­suades the hand­some man liv­ing in the family’s guest­house to pur­sue a rela­tion­ship with his moth­er. But when the two fall in love, Junior becomes sick with jeal­ousy, and plots to frame the man for his father’s mur­der. Sounds like busi­ness as usu­al for Solondz, if I’m hon­est. HS

64. Sis­ters (Ari­ane Labed)

After work­ing with film­mak­ers includ­ing Joan­na Hogg, Peter Strick­land and her hus­band Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos, the excel­lent Ari­ane Labed is get­ting behind the cam­era for this adap­ta­tion of Daisy Johnson’s best­selling nov­el. Teenage sis­ters July and Sep­tem­ber move from Oxford to York­shire with their men­tal­ly ill moth­er, com­ing to reside in a dilap­i­dat­ed house on the North York Moors. Giv­en the frac­tured per­spec­tive of the nov­el and its eerie ener­gy, we’re excit­ed to see what Labed has cooked up. HS

65. Bring Them Down (Christo­pher Andrews)

Two of Hollywood’s hottest young stars – Bar­ry Keoghan and Christo­pher Abbott – end­ed up in this Irish thriller after Paul Mescal and Tom Burke dropped out. Abbott plays Michael, the last son of a shep­herd­ing fam­i­ly, who lives with his ail­ing father, Ray (Irish leg­end Colm Meaney). Bur­dened by a ter­ri­ble secret, Michael has iso­lat­ed him­self from the world. When a con­flict with rival farmer Gary (Paul Ready) and his son Jack (Keoghan) esca­lates, Michael is drawn into a dev­as­tat­ing chain of events, forc­ing him to con­front the hor­rors of his past and leav­ing both fam­i­lies per­ma­nent­ly altered. Sounds bleak. I’m in! HS

66. Maria (Pablo Larraín)

Angeli­na Jolie makes a wel­come return to act­ing after tak­ing a few years to be with her fam­i­ly, and giv­en Larraín’s track record with Jack­ie and Spencer, we could be in for the per­for­mance of a life­time. She will play Amer­i­can-born Greek sopra­no Maria Callas, wide­ly regard­ed as one of the most influ­en­tial opera singers of the 20^th cen­tu­ry, who passed away in 1977 aged just 53. Giv­en Callas’ rep­u­ta­tion as a diva, this is a chance for Jolie to do some­thing spe­cial – while it’s cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly far too ear­ly to even think of men­tion­ing the Oscars, it’s the sort of role that a lot of actress­es would trip over them­selves for. HS

67. La tour de glacé (Lucile Hadžihalilović)

It feels ter­ri­bly dis­mis­sive to refer to French film­mak­er Lucile Hadži­halilović as a high priest­ess of weird, but if you look at her films pre­vi­ous films, Ear­wig and Evo­lu­tion, she most def­i­nite­ly fits that bill. But weird is under­selling it: she cre­ates ambi­ent, tac­tile fairy tales with an inter­est in the cor­po­re­al, and we love her even when the works them­selves don’t entire­ly con­nect. She recon­nects with Mar­i­on Cotil­lard (who start­ed in her debut, Inno­cence) for this new film which has been billed as one of her most approach­able yet. The log­line sounds incred­i­ble: a kid flees from her moun­tain orphan­age to Paris where she holes up in a film stu­dio where they’re shoot­ing The Snow Queen. DJ

68. On Swift Hors­es (Daniel Minahan)

Tele­vi­sion vet­er­an Daniel Mina­han directs Bryce Kass’s script, adapt­ed from Shan­non Pufahl’s 2019 nov­el about Muriel and Lee, a new­ly­wed cou­ple whose idyl­lic life togeth­er in 1950s Amer­i­ca is inter­rupt­ed by the arrival of Lee’s younger broth­er Julius, who has a gam­bling prob­lem and a secret. Muriel finds her­self swept up in Julius’s orbit, dis­cov­er­ing a pas­sion for bet­ting on hors­es, even as he dis­ap­pears to Las Vegas and falls for a black­jack deal­er. Daisy Edgar Jones and Will Poul­ter play the new­ly­weds, with Jacob Elor­di as Julius and Diego Cal­va as his lover Hen­ry. HS

69. Trap (M Night Shyamalan) 

A new M Night movie has become an annu­al treat – one we hope con­tin­ues for a long time to come. He’s described Trap as ​“a psy­cho­log­i­cal thriller set at a con­cert” and Josh Har­nett (enjoy­ing a post-Oppen­heimer renais­sance) is slat­ed to star. We don’t know much else, but notably this is the first film in M Night’s new deal with Warn­er Bros, after part­ing ways with his long-time stu­dio part­ner Uni­ver­sal. HS

ETA: 2 August via Warn­er Bros

70. Surfer (Lor­can Finnegan)

Here’s a pre­dictably Nico­las Cage-esque log­line for a new Nico­las Cage film: A man returns to his native Aus­tralia after many years in the US intend­ing to buy back his family’s beach­front prop­er­ty, only to find him­self in a vio­lent con­flict with the young surfers who have tak­en up res­i­dence there. But the old-timer isn’t back­ing down eas­i­ly. If Lor­can Finnegan’s pre­vi­ous film, Vivar­i­um, is any­thing to go on, things will prob­a­bly get real weird real quick with this one. HS

71. Han­dling the Undead (Thea Hvistendahl)

The Worst Per­son in the World break­out star Renate Reinsve reunites with her co-star Anders Danielsen Lie in Thea Hvistendahl’s adap­ta­tion of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s nov­el (he also wrote Let the Right One In, which is, er, a wild read if you’ve only ever seen the film). Set at the height of an Oslo sum­mer, the new­ly dead return to life, leav­ing three fam­i­lies to grap­ple with the con­se­quences of this strange phe­nom­e­non. HS

72. Oh Cana­da (Paul Schrader)

Schrad­er reunites with Amer­i­can Gigo­lo star Richard Gere for this adap­ta­tion of Rus­sell Banks’ nov­el – the first to be writ­ten and direct­ed by Schrad­er since 1997’s Afflic­tion. The sto­ry cen­tres on ​“Cana­di­an-Amer­i­can left­ist doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er” Leonard Fife, who dodged the Viet­nam draft. Some years lat­er, he decides to give a tell-all deathbed inter­view to his for­mer pro­tégée, Mal­colm, played by Jacob Elor­di – but the rev­e­la­tions to come will have mas­sive ram­i­fi­ca­tions for those around him. Schrader’s been on a roll since First Reformed, and giv­en the Amer­i­can Gigo­lo spin-off TV series made with­out him crashed and burned, the reunion between him and Gere seems all the more excit­ing. HS

73. Io Cap­i­tano (Mat­teo Garrone)

Mat­teo Gar­rone tack­les the top­ic of emi­gra­tion from Africa to Europe in his new dra­ma, based on accounts from Kouas­si Pli Adama Mamadou, Arnaud Zohin, Ama­ra Fofana, Brhane Tareke, and Sia­ka Doumbia. In the film, two young Sene­galese cousins jour­ney from Dakar to Europe, encoun­ter­ing the dan­gers of the desert and ocean as well as the hor­rors of Libyan refugee camps. HS

ETA: 8 March via Altitude

74. The Last Plan­et (Ter­rence Malick)

Lis­ten – we men­tioned Malick’s Jesus biopic in 2022 and 2023, and I will keep putting this film on our annu­al pre­view lists until it turns up. What do we know so far? Well, the title has changed from The Way of the Wind, Hun­gar­i­an actor Géza Röhrig is play­ing the big JC him­self, and Mark Rylance men­tioned he’s play­ing var­i­ous ver­sions of Satan. All of Jesus’s dis­ci­ples are expect­ed to fea­ture, includ­ing Matthias Schoe­narts as Saint Peter and Aiden Turn­er as Saint Andrew. Ben Kings­ley, Dou­glas Booth and Franz Rogows­ki are on the rumoured cast list too, but it’s impor­tant to remem­ber any­one can end up miss­ing the final cut when it comes to Mal­ick. Just as long as he didn’t can this guy. HS

75. Green Bor­der (Agniesz­ka Holland) 

The title of Agniesz­ka Holland’s film refers to the forests between Belarus and Poland, where refugees from the Mid­dle East and Africa are caught up in a cri­sis caused by trig­gered by Belaru­sian dic­ta­tor Alexan­der Lukashenko. Attempt­ing to pro­voke Europe, refugees are lured to the bor­der by pro­pa­gan­da that promis­es easy pas­sage to the EU – in the process, the lives of an activist, a bor­der guard and a fam­i­ly of refugees inter­twine. Holland’s film, shot in stark black and white, received rave reviews at the Venice Film Fes­ti­val, even if it’s like­ly to be a har­row­ing watch. HS

ETA: 8 March via Mod­ern Films

76. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello) 

The cere­bral stal­wart of the art­house tapped stars Léa Sey­doux and George MacK­ay to play lovers dip­ping in and out of each other’s lives over one hun­dred and thir­ty years, from the ear­ly twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry into the near­by future, where an exper­i­men­tal pro­ce­dure can remove all emo­tions. Loose­ly (very loose­ly) inspired by Hen­ry James’ The Beast in the Jun­gle, this one got a mixed recep­tion on the autumn fes­ti­val cir­cuit, but Team LWLies are firm­ly on board and look­ing for­ward to argu­ing down the pub about this film for many months to come. HS

ETA: 19 April via Vertigo

77. Blitz (Steve McQueen)

The remark­able mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary artist Steve McQueen has had a busy six years since his last stand­alone nar­ra­tive fea­ture, cre­at­ing the Small Axe series, the Gren­fell instal­la­tion, plus the doc­u­men­tary Occu­pied City based on his wife Bian­ca Stigter’s non-fic­tion book about Ams­ter­dam under Nazi occu­pa­tion. Blitz marks his return to the more con­ven­tion­al film­mak­ing world, with Apple TV+ pick­ing up his orig­i­nal dra­ma about Lon­don dur­ing the WWII Blitz. Saoirse Ronan is report­ed­ly play­ing the lead, but the rumoured sup­port­ing cast is pret­ty stacked too, with Har­ris Dick­in­son, Stephen Gra­ham, Paul Weller, Hay­ley Squires, Kathy Burke and Ben­jamin Clemen­tine all in the mix. McQueen nev­er miss­es, so this is one of the biggest titles of the year. HS

78. Alien: Romu­lus (Fede Alvarez) 

Fede Alvarez takes on his third fran­chise reboot after Evil Dead and The Girl in the Spider’s Web, this time with a stand­alone sto­ry set in the Alien uni­verse between the events of Alien and Aliens. It’s some six years since the last attempt to revi­talise the Alien fran­chise fiz­zled out with Alien: Covenant, but now with a Noah Haw­ley tele­vi­sion series in devel­op­ment and the suc­cess of Hulu’s Preda­tor pre­quel Prey, it seems like a con­cert­ed effort is being made to bring the xenomorphs back. Priscil­la break­out Cailee Spae­ny stars, with Isabela Merced, David Jon­s­son and Archie Renaux join­ing her. HS

ETA: 16 August via Disney

79. In the Hands of Dante (Julian Schnabel)

Schn­abel has been work­ing on an adap­ta­tion of Nick Tosches’ nov­el for over a decade – ini­tial­ly John­ny Depp was slat­ed to star, but in a huge win for me per­son­al­ly, Oscar Isaac took over the dual role in 2022 when the film final­ly went into pro­duc­tion (he worked with Schn­abel on At Eternity’s Gate, play­ing the painter Paul Gau­guin). The plot of the nov­el is a bit bizarre, com­bin­ing the sto­ry of a fic­tion­alised ver­sion of Tosches as he inves­ti­gates a poten­tial orig­i­nal copy of the Divine Com­e­dy with an account of Dante Alighieri attempt­ing to fin­ish said work. Jason Momoa, Gal Gadot, Ger­ard But­ler, Louis Can­cel­mi and John Malkovich co-star, with Schnabel’s long­time friend (and the film’s pro­duc­er) Mar­tin Scors­ese also mak­ing a cameo. HS

80. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)

A new film from Italy’s Alice Rohrwach­er is always a cause for excite­ment, ever since she crash-land­ed into the 2018 Cannes com­pe­ti­tion (and Bong Joon-ho’s list of all-time favourite films!) with Hap­py as Laz­zaro. La Chimera is the mean­der­ing, gor­geous­ly pho­tographed sto­ry of an Eng­lish, linen-suit­ed divin­er (Josh O’Connor) who has the mys­ti­cal abil­i­ty to uncov­er tombs filled with trea­sures from antiq­ui­ty. The film offers a chron­i­cle of this fas­ci­nat­ing sub­cul­ture, while also weav­ing in a tale of obses­sive love that tran­scends the bounds of time. David Jenk­ins

ETA: TBC via Cur­zon (UK)

81. The Bru­tal­ist (Brady Corbet)

Anoth­er film we’ve been wait­ing years for – will 2024 be the one? With his direct­ing debut Child­hood of a Leader, Brady Cor­bet tracked the ascen­dance of fas­cism in Europe, while his fol­low-up Vox Lux the­o­rised about the sources and influ­ence of Amer­i­can ter­ror­ism. His third film syn­the­sis­es his transat­lantic inter­ests, its sub­ject an immi­grant cou­ple (Adrien Brody and Felic­i­ty Jones) who come to Amer­i­ca to flee the rub­ble of World War II. They pur­sue the ide­al of an archi­tec­tur­al mas­ter­piece with the help of a mys­te­ri­ous bene­fac­tor (Guy Pearce), an ​“epic saga” sprawl­ing out over thir­ty years and told in a com­bi­na­tion of Eng­lish, Yid­dish, Hun­gar­i­an, and Ital­ian. Add to the cast Joe Alwyn, Isaach de Bankolé, Emma Laird, and Alessan­dro Nivola along with Vox Lux stars Raf­fey Cas­sidy and Sta­cy Mar­tin, and a pres­ti­gious fes­ti­val berth is all but assured. CB

82. Father Moth­er Sis­ter Broth­er (Jim Jarmusch)

Cate Blanchett reteams with Jim Jar­musch after last work­ing togeth­er on Cof­fee and Cig­a­rettes all the way back in 2003. Report­ed­ly shoot­ing is split between New Jer­sey and Paris, but we don’t know much more beyond Jar­musch describ­ing it as​”a fun­ny, sad film”. Yeah, that sure sounds like a Jar­musch pic­ture. Any­way, what­ev­er it ends up being, it sounds very dif­fer­ent to his 2019 off­beat zom­bie com­e­dy The Dead Don’t Die, which got some­thing of a luke­warm recep­tion back at Cannes. HS

83. Hit Man (Richard Linklater)

The sur­prise hit of the Venice Film Fes­ti­val, Richard Lin­klater co-wrote this black com­e­dy with Glen Pow­ell, who stars as Gary John­son, a mild-man­nered psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor who moon­lights as a wire­tap­per for the New Orleans PD. When a col­league is sus­pend­ed he begins work­ing under­cov­er to entrap peo­ple try­ing to hire a hit­man – a line of work that he quick­ly gets a lit­tle too attached to. Net­flix snapped this com­e­dy up for $20 mil­lion after its rap­tur­ous Venice recep­tion, and it has the poten­tial to make a killing with the date night crowd (if it gets a cin­e­ma release). HS

ETA: TBC via Netflix

84. Emmanuelle (Audrey Diwan)

A suit­able fol­low-up to her 2021 Gold­en Lion win­ner Hap­pen­ing, Audrey Diwan’s next dra­ma is a new take on Emmanuelle Arsan’s clas­sic erot­ic sto­ry about a young woman’s sex­u­al voy­age of self-dis­cov­ery. From a script devel­oped by Diwan and Rebec­ca Zlo­tows­ki, Noemie Mer­lant will play the lead role after Lea Sey­doux dropped out, and the film will be Diwan’s Eng­lish lan­guage debut. No word yet on how close the film will hue to the orig­i­nal nar­ra­tive, but giv­en Emmanuelle’s sto­ried (and often lurid) on-screen his­to­ry, it’s excit­ing to think how a female film­mak­er might shake things up. HS

85. Imag­i­nary (Jeff Wardlow) 

We’ve had evil dolls, evil pup­pets, evil restau­rant ani­ma­tron­ics, evil dolls that also have AI, and final­ly, Blum­house are brave enough to bring us…evil ted­dy bears. DeWan­da Wise plays Jes­si­ca, a moth­er who must face off against a sin­is­ter stuffed bear (named Chauncey) who is ter­ror­is­ing her young step­daugh­ter Alice. Turns out the bear is actu­al­ly an imag­i­nary friend from Jessica’s child­hood – and guess what? He’s not very hap­py about being left in the base­ment for years. Does this look ridicu­lous? Yes. Am I still going to see it? You bet. HS

ETA: 8 March via Lionsgate

86. The Feel­ing That The Time For Doing Some­thing Has Passed (Joan­na Arnow)

A stand­out from Cannes’ Director’s Fort­night side­bar in 2023, this off­beat indie about a young woman’s strained rela­tion­ship with both BDSM and her par­ents (though not at the same time) fea­tures a brief cameo from LWLies own Charles Bramesco and his betrothed Mad­die Whit­tle. That alone should be enough of a rea­son to see it, but if you need more con­vinc­ing, Arnow’s wicked­ly fun­ny film is a charm­ing, often sweet sto­ry of the search for con­nec­tion in a dis­con­nect­ed world. It’s got a US dis­tri­b­u­tion deal for this spring, and I very much hope a UK one fol­lows soon. HS

87. Ano­ra (Sean Baker)

Sean Bak­er heads to NYC for his eighth fea­ture, which was shot in Brook­lyn – a first for the lo-fi film­mak­er. After the pos­i­tive response to Red Rock­et and The Flori­da Project, it’s like­ly that Bak­er will get anoth­er prime fes­ti­val spot for this one, billed as a com­e­dy about a sex work­er and star­ring Mikey Madi­son (who had a sup­port­ing role as a Man­son Girl in Once Upon A Time in Hol­ly­wood), Mark Eydelshteyn, Yuriy Borisov, Kar­ren Karag­u­lian and Vache Tov­masyan. HS

88. Death of a Uni­corn (Alex Scharfman)

Alex Scarf­man is best known as a pro­duc­er, but he makes his fea­ture debut with this black com­e­dy, star­ring Paul Rudd and Jen­na Orte­ga as a father and daugh­ter who acci­den­tal­ly hit a uni­corn with their car while en route to a work retreat. Rudd’s bil­lion­aire boss – played by Richard E Grant – imme­di­ate­ly sees an oppor­tu­ni­ty to exploit the dead myth­i­cal creature’s remains for prof­it, but things quick­ly start to go awry. Great premise, great cast, but even more excit­ing: John Car­pen­ter is doing the score! HS

89. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Radu Jude) 

If most film com­e­dy could be classed as weak domes­tic mass-mar­ket­ed beer, then Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World is max-strength gut-rot that will leave your head throb­bing for days to come. A cor­po­rate satire of sorts about the mak­ing of a safe­ty video, this foul-mouthed odyssey into Romania’s self-lac­er­at­ing heart of dark­ness – replete with Andrew Tate Ins­ta fil­ters – has to be seen to be believed. DJ

ETA: 8 March via Sov­er­eign (UK)

90. Cuck­oo (Tilman Singer)

Tilman Singer’s sopho­more film wrapped in 2022, so we’re not sure why it hasn’t made an appear­ance yet (could it be due to rumoured ani­mat­ed sequences?) but we’re still excit­ed to see it at Berli­nale 2024. Hunter Schaf­fer plays Gretch, a 17-year-old who has moved to an alpine resort fol­low­ing the death of her moth­er. Pur­sued by a mys­te­ri­ous woman, Gretchen finds her­self at the heart of a con­spir­a­cy that threat­ens both her­self and her sis­ter. As well as Schaf­fer, Jes­si­ca Hen­wick, Dan Stevens and Astrid Bergès-Fris­bey star. HS

91. Hoard (Luna Carmoon) 

We’re very excit­ed to catch Luna Carmoon’s buzzy, sur­re­al psy­chodra­ma Hoard fol­low­ing the plau­dits it received from its ini­tial fes­ti­val run. Word on the street that the film sig­nals the arrival of a bold and brassy new voice on the British film scene, one that holds lit­tle truck for the time­worn tra­di­tions of con­ven­tion­al sto­ry­telling in this coun­try. DJ

ETA: 10 May via Ver­ti­go (UK)

92. The Idea of You (Michael Showalter)

A movie can come from any­where — for exam­ple, an adult woman’s fan­fic­tion about tak­ing her teenage daugh­ter to a One Direc­tion August Moon con­cert only to so enchant singer Har­ry Styles Hayes Camp­bell that they tum­ble into a May-Decem­ber romance spec­u­lat­ed by read­ers to be inspired by a cer­tain pop star. Robinne Lee’s marked­ly Fifty Shades of Grey-ish nov­el comes to the screen cour­tesy of jour­ney­man direc­tor Michael Showal­ter, with the cougar pro­tag­o­nist played by Anne Hath­away oppo­site Nicholas Glitzine, who’s been mak­ing a name for him­self with roles in Bot­toms and Red, White and Roy­al Blue. Wish ful­fil­ment is a pow­er­ful moti­va­tor, so who knows, maybe we’ll have anoth­er left-field phe­nom­e­non from hum­ble ori­gins on our hands. CB

ETA: TBA via Amazon

93. We Live In Time (John Crowley)

Andrew Garfield and Flo­rence Pugh were papped plen­ty on the Lon­don set of Brook­lyn direc­tor John Crowley’s new romance, and giv­en the col­lec­tive star pow­er of these bright young things, we’re expect­ing some­thing spe­cial. Crowley’s adap­ta­tion of The Goldfinch was a bit of a let­down, but we’re not hold­ing that against him. While there’s no sign of fur­ther plot details at the moment, suf­fice to say we’ll always be seat­ed for Garfield and Pugh. HS

94. The Sub­stance (Coralie Fargeat)

Demi Moore and Mar­garet Qual­ley play moth­er and daugh­ter in Coralie Fargeat’s fol­low-up to her 2018 thriller Revenge, which is rumoured to be a body hor­ror. It was also sup­posed to star Ray Liot­ta, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, he passed away before film­ing could fin­ish, and was replaced by Den­nis Quaid. There hasn’t been much said about this one since the sum­mer of 2022 when Qual­ley con­firmed she was still work­ing on the film, but if it has indeed wrapped pro­duc­tion since then, per­haps a 2024 pre­mière is on the cards. HS

95. Between the Tem­ples (Nathan Silver)

Jason Schwartz­man had an excel­lent 2023 with his turn in Wes Anderson’s Aster­oid City, so we’re look­ing for­ward to see­ing him again in this ​“anx­ious com­e­dy” along­side Car­ol Kane. He plays a can­tor locked in a cri­sis of faith, who dis­cov­ers his new adult Bat Mitz­vah stu­dent is none oth­er than his for­mer eighth-grade teacher. More good news: Tri­an­gle of Sad­ness break­out Dol­ly De Leon co-stars and the film was shot by New York lo-fi’s favourite cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er, Sean Price Williams. HS

96. A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg)

To hon­our their beloved Jew­ish grand­moth­er and learn more about their her­itage, David and Ben­ji set off on a tour of Poland – but the cousins couldn’t be more dif­fer­ent, and against the back­drop of their shared fam­i­ly his­to­ry, old ten­sions begin to flare. Although Jesse Eisenberg’s film­mak­ing debut When You Fin­ish Sav­ing the World was a dis­ap­point­ment, there’s enough here to war­rant a look – not least the fact that Eisenberg’s co-star is the always-excel­lent Kier­an Culkin. HS

97. Greedy Peo­ple (Pot­sy Ponciroli)

The res­i­dents of a small island town are rocked by a sen­sa­tion­al mur­der and the sub­se­quent dis­cov­ery of a large sum of mon­ey in Pot­sy Ponciroli’s black com­e­dy, which boasts the stacked casts of Joseph Gor­don-Levitt, Lily James, Himesh Patel, Tim Blake Nel­son, Uzo Adu­ba and Simon Rex. Ponciroli’s pre­vi­ous film Old Hen­ry, which also starred Tim Blake Nel­son, received favourable reviews – this one is being likened to Far­go and the tele­vi­sion series Bet­ter Call Saul. HS

98. MaXXXine (Ti West)

The third film in a Mia Goth tril­o­gy also con­tain­ing X and Pearl, Ti West sets his sights on the lurid world of 1980s Hol­ly­wood as Max­ine – the only sur­vivor of the farm­house mas­sacre in X – pur­sues her dream of becom­ing an actress. But it seems that bod­ies stack up wher­ev­er Max­ine goes, and there’s a ser­i­al killer in Los Ange­les who’s just dying to meet her. Halsey, Lily Collins, Gian­car­lo Espos­i­to and Eliz­a­beth Debec­ki play var­i­ous film indus­try fig­ures, while Bob­by Can­navale and Michelle Mon­aghan are the long arm of the law. X and Pearl have a strong con­tin­gent of fans, so we’re expect­ing some sort of buzzy fes­ti­val pre­mière for the final instal­ment. HS

99. Ash (Fly­ing Lotus)

Musi­cian and artist Fly­ing Lotus makes his sec­ond fea­ture in Ash, which focus­es on a woman played by Eiza González, who wakes up on a plan­et and finds the crew of her space sta­tion have been vicious­ly killed. A man – played by Aaron Paul – arrives to res­cue her, but his appear­ance sparks more ques­tions than answers. We’ll like­ly get a Fly­ing Lotus score too, and giv­en the artist’s wild imag­i­na­tion, this prob­a­bly won’t be your stan­dard sci-fi thriller. HS

100. Freaky Tales (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck)

In the years since they direct­ed Cap­tain Mar­vel, direc­tor duo Boden and Fleck have spent a lit­tle time in tele­vi­sion, direct­ing episodes of Mrs. Amer­i­ca and the upcom­ing Spiel­berg and Han­ks-pro­duced WW2 minis­eries Mas­ters of the Air. They return to film­mak­ing with some­thing that errs clos­er to the indies of their pre-Mar­vel career, reunit­ing with Ben Mendel­sohn after Mis­sis­sip­pi Grind and Cap­tain Mar­vel, and work­ing with Dominique Thorne, Ji-young Yoo and Angus Cloud, who sad­ly passed away in 2023. Com­prised of our inter­con­nect­ed sto­ries set in 1980s Oak­land, the Sun­dance log­line out­lines ​“Teen punks defend their turf against Nazi skin­heads, a rap duo bat­tles for hip-hop immor­tal­i­ty, a weary hench­man gets a shot at redemp­tion, and an NBA All-Star set­tles the score.” HS