101 films to look for­ward to in 2023 – part one

Wel­come to the new year! As always, it’s time to look for­ward to the films we’re hop­ing to see hit the cin­e­ma and fes­ti­val cir­cuit this year, from block­busters to indies, and 2023 is shap­ing up to pro­vide some­thing to sat­is­fy just about every view­er. Let us know what you’re excit­ed to see by tweet­ing us @LWLies.

1. Sanc­tu­ary (Zachary Wigon) 

If I had a pound for every time Christo­pher Abbott plays a man who hires an escort only to find him­self in way over his head, I’d have two pounds, which isn’t a lot but it’s fun­ny that it’s hap­pened twice. Mar­garet Qual­ley plays the woman in ques­tion – a dom­i­na­trix who has been serv­ing the meek but wealthy Hal – and things take a turn when her client attempts to end the rela­tion­ship. This one got a lot of pos­i­tive buzz out of the Toron­to Film Fes­ti­val and the com­bi­na­tion of Abbott and Qual­ley is cer­tain­ly appeal­ing, so fin­gers crossed for dis­tri­b­u­tion soon. Han­nah Strong

2. Enys Men (Mark Jenkin, BFI)

Just nor­mal men. Nor­mal, enys-ent men. Actu­al­ly, it’s pro­nounced ​“Ennis Main” as the title of Jenkin’s sec­ond fea­ture – fol­low­ing break­out Bait – is Cor­nish for ​‘Stone Island’. Like Bait, the film is shot on 16mm with post-synched sound, but this time Jenkin is work­ing with colour, and the star is Mary Wood­vine, who plays a researcher liv­ing and work­ing on a remote Cor­nish island in 1973. She’s study­ing the local fau­na, and seems quite con­tent with her own com­pa­ny until it becomes appar­ent that past trau­ma is haunt­ing our unnamed pro­tag­o­nist. It’s less a straight­for­ward nar­ra­tive and more a sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence for the view­er, hum­ming with strange sounds and unusu­al tex­tures. Jenkin is fast emerg­ing as a unique film­mak­ing tal­ent, and Enys Men is only fur­ther evi­dence he’s one to keep a close eye on. HS

ETA: 13 Jan­u­ary (UK)

3. Dumb Mon­ey (Craig Gillespie) 

Aussie film­mak­er Gille­spie trad­ed the big screen for the small one for Pam & Tom­my, but he’s back with anoth­er ripped-from-the-head­lines dram­e­dy cen­tered on the group of Red­di­tors who caused a Wall Street melt­down in Jan­u­ary 2021 when they worked against a group of investors who had bet that shares in US retail­er GameStop would fall. Think The Big Short with more key­boards. Pre­dictably there’s a star­ry cast attached: Gille­spie reunites with Sebas­t­ian Stan, who starred in Pam & Tom­my and I, Tonya, with Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Pete David­son and Shai­lene Wood­ley all slat­ed to co-star. HS

4. EO (Jerzy Skolimows­ki, BFI) 

EO fever has already swept Amer­i­ca, and short­ly the UK will get the chance to fall in love with the cinema’s newest and pointi­est-eared hero. The long-await­ed return of Pol­ish vir­tu­oso Jerzy Skolimows­ki fol­lows a very good don­key as he ram­bles through Europe: eat­ing car­rots; falling in with some soc­cer hooli­gans; killing a guy. Most­ly, though, he’s bear­ing wit­ness to the foibles of human­i­ty and bear­ing the brunt of our imper­fec­tion, just like Jesus Christ before him. Re-ener­giz­ing the premise of Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balt­haz­ar with star­tling for­mal exper­i­men­ta­tion and a bang­ing EDM sound­track (not to men­tion the cameo of the year cour­tesy of Isabelle Hup­pert), Skolimows­ki has made one of his illus­tri­ous career’s freest films at the ten­der age of eighty-four. Charles Bramesco

ETA: 3 Feb­ru­ary (UK)

5. Knock At The Cab­in (M Night Shya­malan, Universal)

The Shya­ma­ni­acs will be out in force come Feb­ru­ary, when M Night’s adap­ta­tion of Paul G Tremblay’s apoc­a­lyp­tic hor­ror nov­el hits cin­e­mas. Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge play Andrew and Eric, a vaca­tion­ing cou­ple whose iso­lat­ed idyll is rude­ly inter­rupt­ed by a gang of weapon-wield­ing doom­say­ers (lead by Dave Bautista and Ser­vant star Rupert Grint) who claim that the end is nigh, and in order to pre­vent it, they have to make the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice. Hav­ing read Tremblay’s har­row­ing nov­el, I for one can’t wait to see what tricks Shya­malan has up his sleeve, par­tic­u­lar­ly after the wild ride that was 2022’s Old. HS

ETA: 3 Feb­ru­ary (UK/USA)

6. Bro­ker (Hirokazu Koree­da, Picturehouse)

Two soul­ful scum­bags steal aban­doned babies and sell them on to rich fam­i­lies through black mar­ket adop­tions in this Hirokazu Kore-eda heart­warmer. Sang-heon, played by Song Kang-ho, owns a small laun­dry busi­ness and runs the infant-pinch­ing side hus­tle with his friend Dong-so, played by Gang Dong-won – togeth­er they pil­fer sprogs from the ​‘baby-box­es’ (places where peo­ple can anony­mous­ly leave unwant­ed chil­dren) at a local church. When they’re dis­cov­ered by a young moth­er who returns after leav­ing her baby, the bro­kers team up with her and embark on a dys­func­tion­al road trip to seek out the best new par­ents for the kid, all the while unwit­ting­ly pur­sued by a pair of detec­tives. Bro­ker won the Ecu­meni­cal Jury Award at the last Cannes, and Kang-ho was award­ed Best Actor – sounds like a ten­der, sparky sto­ry about the fam­i­lies we choose, and as long as it’s not too sop­py, always up for one of those. Sask­ia Lloyd-Grainger

ETA: 24 Feb­ru­ary (UK)

7. Blue Jean (Geor­gia Oak­ley, Altitude)

A Venice break­out and BIFA win­ner, Blue Jean is the aus­pi­cious debut of Geor­gia Oak­ley, and con­cerns a clos­et­ed PE teacher liv­ing under the bootheel of Thatcher’s reign of ter­ror. Jean (a lumi­nous Rosey McE­wan) ekes out a qui­et exis­tence, keep­ing her sex­u­al­i­ty a secret from her fam­i­ly, much to the frus­tra­tion of her girl­friend Viv. When a new stu­dent starts at Jean’s school and is the sub­ject of les­bo­pho­bic bul­ly­ing, Jean’s qui­et exis­tence is threat­ened, and she has to choose between love and life as she knows it. It’s a melan­choly slice-of-life dra­ma that cuts to the heart of how inhu­mane the Sec­tion 28 era tru­ly was – some­thing worth remem­ber­ing, giv­en the UK’s cur­rent gov­ern­ment would prob­a­bly bring it back giv­en half a chance. HS

ETA: 10 Feb­ru­ary (UK)

8. Bar­bie (Gre­ta Ger­wig, Warn­er Bros) 

Life is plas­tic and fan­tas­tic in Gre­ta Gerwig’s heav­i­ly pap-shot­ted yet still large­ly mys­te­ri­ous entrée into the IP game. Sure­ly her take on the perky play­thing has a few tricks up its ruf­fled taffe­ta sleeve, start­ing with rumours that stars Mar­got Rob­bie and Ryan Gosling aren’t the only Bar­bie and Ken in a uni­verse oper­at­ing under The LEGO Movie’s meta­tex­tu­al elas­tic­i­ty. If any­one can blaze a path through the stu­dio sys­tem while retain­ing their cre­ative iden­ti­ty, it’s Ger­wig, one in a small hand­ful of direc­tors from her gen­er­a­tion with name-brand cachet to throw around. Best-case sce­nario, it’s play­time for the think­ing person’s block­buster. CB

ETA: 21 July (UK/USA)

9. Women Talk­ing (Sarah Pol­ley, Universal)

For Sarah Polley’s first film in a decade, she takes to an iso­lat­ed Men­non­ite colony turned into a fem­i­nist bat­tle­ground: the local women have got­ten wise to a pro­gram of sys­temic rape and con­ceal­ment, leav­ing them with the options to stay and reform a pop­u­la­tion of cru­el and com­plic­it men, or forge out on their own and build a new path to God. Claire Foy, Jessie Buck­ley, and Rooney Mara give some of the year’s most wide­ly-laud­ed per­for­mances as the spokes­peo­ple for the stay, leave, and swing vot­ing blocs. Com­ing from Pol­ley, a sur­vivor of insti­tu­tion­alised pre­da­tion who left Hol­ly­wood behind to make it in the indie wilds, it’s a thun­der­ous­ly per­son­al state­ment. CB

ETA: 10 Feb­ru­ary (UK)

10. Oppen­heimer (Christo­pher Nolan, Universal)

Christo­pher Nolan has con­quered war, dreams, mem­o­ry, space, time, super­hero fran­chis­ing — all that’s left is the end of the world, and that’s just where the stakes have been set for his lat­est megabud­get epic. The qua­si-biopic cov­ers forty-five years in the life of atom­ic bomb inven­tor Robert Oppen­heimer, as the scientist’s reck­less inno­va­tion under the Man­hat­tan Project ends World War II and dras­ti­cal­ly reshapes humankind’s under­stand­ing of its own capac­i­ty for destruc­tion. Cil­lian Mur­phy plays the man respon­si­ble for begin­ning our march toward plan­e­tary sui­cide, joined by a huge, eclec­tic ensem­ble includ­ing Robert Downey Jr., Flo­rence Pugh, Matt Damon, and Emi­ly Blunt. This sum­mer, we are all sons of bitch­es. CB

11. Dune: Part II (Denis Vil­lenueve, Warn­er Bros) 

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. Bring on the giant worms! CB

ETA: 3 Novem­ber (UK/USA)

12. Spi­der-Man: Across the Spi­der-Verse Part One (Joaquim Dos San­tos, Kemp Pow­ers, Justin K. Thomp­son, Sony) 

Visu­al­ly play­ful and non-cring­ing­ly self-aware in its mul­ti­ver­sal antics, Spi­der-Man: Into the Spi­der­verse was joy­ful­ly faith­ful to the infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ty of inter­sect­ing com­ic book worlds in a way that the Dis­ney-neutered live-action reboots, with their cor­po­rate­ly damp­ened wit, haven’t quite mus­tered. The sequel Across the Spi­der­verse, the sec­ond in what will be a tril­o­gy, promis­es to be even more artis­ti­cal­ly ambi­tious, incor­po­rat­ing six dif­fer­ent dom­i­nant visu­al styles and fur­ther stretch­ing the bounds of ani­ma­tion in the main­stream. Miles Morales returns and is reunit­ed with Gwen – and it’s been spec­u­lat­ed that Spi­der-Punk, Spi­der­man 2099 and the Japan­ese Spi­der­man will join the bus­load of par­al­lel-world Spi­der-folk for more psy­che­del­ic web-sling­ing adven­tures. SLG

ETA: 2 June 2023 (UK/USA)

13. Mis­sion Impos­si­ble: Dead Reck­on­ing Part One (Christo­pher McQuar­rie, Paramount) 

It’s been a long time com­ing – five years in fact – but soon the dynam­ic duo of McQuar­rie and Cruise will be light­ing up our screens again. Dead Reck­on­ing rep­re­sents the most ambi­tious entry in the Mis­sion: Impos­si­ble fran­chise to date, with the two films pro­duced back-to-back and serv­ing as a send off to Ethan Hunt, beloved IMF agent, and his mot­ley crew of asso­ciates includ­ing Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebec­ca Fer­gu­son and Vanes­sa Kir­by. Nat­u­ral­ly the plot is being kept tight­ly under wraps, but it’s guar­an­teed we’ll be see­ing Cruise throw­ing him­self off build­ings, out of planes, and bat­tling all man­ner of né’er-do-wells. You’ll want to see this one on as big a screen as you can find. HS

ETA: 14 June 2023 (UK/USA)

14. God Is a Bul­let (Nick Cassavetes) 

Nick ​‘Son of John’ Cas­savetes has had a fas­ci­nat­ing career both on-cam­era and behind it – while he’s best known as the man behind weepy rom-coms The Note­book and My Sister’s Keep­er, for his first film in nine years he’s strik­ing out into action-thriller ter­ri­to­ry, with a lit­tle help from Jamie Foxx, Nico­laj Coster-Wal­dau and… er, Andrew Dice Clay. Boston Teran’s orig­i­nal nov­el sees a hard­ened small-town cop search­ing for his teenage daugh­ter, who’s been kid­napped by a satan­ic cult – his only lead is an ex-mem­ber, cur­rent junkie, who he’s forced to team up with in order to find her. Sure to be a cheery watch then. HS

15. Pas­sages (Ira Sachs)

Here at LWLies, we would fol­low Franz Rogows­ki to the ends of the earth, so it’s no chal­lenge to get excit­ed about his next project – star­ring in a new film from Amer­i­can direc­tor Ira Sachs. He plays a film­mak­er whose mar­riage to his hus­band Mar­tin (Ben Whishaw) is test­ed when he embarks on a whirl­wind romance with Agathe (Adèle Exar­chopou­los). Mar­tin begins an affair of his own in retal­i­a­tion, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing mat­ters, and lead­ing the cou­ple to recon­sid­er the bound­aries of their rela­tion­ship. Juicy stuff! HS

16. The Way of the Wind (Ter­rence Malick)

We have it on good author­i­ty that Ter­ry is hard at work on bring­ing his 11^th fea­ture film to audi­ences, but any­one who knows his films knows you can’t rush the mas­ter. Still, we might get to see his take on the life of Jesus Christ at Cannes or even the Venice Film Fes­ti­val lat­er in the year. What do we know so far? Well, Hun­gar­i­an actor Géza Röhrig is play­ing the big JC him­self, while 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 and Franz Rogows­ki are on the cast list too, but it’s impor­tant to remem­ber any­one can end up miss­ing the final cut when it comes to Mal­ick. Still, we couldn’t be more excit­ed to see what the mas­ter has been work­ing on. HS

17. Beau Is Afraid (Ari Aster, A24) 

Orig­i­nal­ly report­ed under the title ​‘Dis­ap­point­ment Boule­vard’, Ari Aster’s much-dis­cussed third fea­ture stars Joaquin Phoenix as ​“one of the most suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neurs of all time”. Way back in June 2020 – on the Mid­som­mar press tour – he described his next project as ​“a four-hour night­mare com­e­dy”. It’s unclear how much that fac­tors into the fin­ished result. What we do know is that an eclec­tic cast includ­ing Michael Gan­dolfi­ni, Pat­ti LuPone, Nathan Lane and Richard Kind have been assem­bled along­side Phoenix, and it’s every bit as like­ly to divide view­ers as Hered­i­tary or Mid­som­mar. HS

18. Poor Things (Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos, A24)

Now in full Hol­ly­wood mode with his pick of the A‑lister lit­ter, Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos has tapped a 1992 nov­el putting a spin on the Franken­stein mythos: a woman (Emma Stone) drowns her­self to escape her abu­sive hus­band (Ramy Youssef), only to be rean­i­mat­ed by her mad sci­en­tist father (Willem Dafoe) with the brain of her own unborn child. Mark Ruf­fa­lo, Jer­rod Carmichael, Christo­pher Abbott, Mar­garet Qual­ley and Kathryn Hunter also appear in what’s sure to be a grim, dead­pan, atmos­phere-heavy revi­sion of the hor­ror play­book. The Favourite made him an awards dar­ling — will the main­stream fol­low him into stranger, gris­li­er ter­ri­to­ry? CB

19. The Killer (David Finch­er, Netflix)

It’s not clear why exact­ly Fincher’s lat­est was delayed from 2022 – maybe Net­flix are court­ing a fes­ti­val pre­mière, maybe Fincher’s just tak­ing his time in the edit suite – but it’s hard to not be excit­ed about the prospect his return to the dark sub­ject mat­ter that made his name, reunit­ing with Se7en screen­writer Andrew Kevin Walk­er. Adapt­ed from the French com­ic book of the same name about a hard­ened assas­sin known only as The Killer in the grips of a psy­chi­atric down-spi­ral, Michael Fass­ben­der will be ter­ror­is­ing us in due course, along­side Til­da Swin­ton and Charles Par­nell. HS

20. Infin­i­ty Pool (Bran­don Cro­nen­berg, Neon)

2022 belonged to Cro­nen­berg Sr – 2023 belongs to the brood. Bran­don Cro­nen­berg has been carv­ing out a nasty lit­tle niche for him­self as a pur­vey­or of shocks, while still man­ag­ing to not lean too heav­i­ly on famil­ial influ­ence. Alexan­der Skars­gård and Mia Goth star in his third film as James and Em Fos­ter, a cou­ple on vaca­tion at an exclu­sive resort who are invit­ed into a world of deprav­i­ty for the ultra-elite. In excit­ing news for sick­os every­where, the film was slapped with an NC-17 rat­ing by the MPAA, which was chal­lenged and upheld. It’s since been re-edit­ed to bag a more palat­able (and dis­trib­utable) R rat­ing, but we’re strap­ping in for some­thing suit­ably mind-bend­ing all the same. This one will pre­mière in Jan­u­ary at the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val. HS

21. On Dry Grass (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) 

Turkey’s most esteemed film­mak­er returns with anoth­er terse, ele­gant dra­ma plumb­ing the fis­sures with­in the souls of ordi­nary men. This time around, the great Nuri Bilge Cey­lan takes as his sub­ject a teacher, com­plet­ing a manda­to­ry mis­sion in the snow-dust­ed hills of Ana­to­lia while he awaits reas­sign­ment to the more clement, met­ro­pol­i­tan con­di­tions of Istan­bul. Dur­ing this time, he ​“los­es per­spec­tive,” per an inter­view with Cey­lan, though that could mean any­thing from polit­i­cal dis­si­dence to reli­gious cri­sis. But we can safe­ly bank on painter­ly com­po­si­tions of pas­toral nature scenes, med­i­ta­tions on moral turpi­tude, and per­haps a lit­tle dia­logue expound­ing on the dif­fer­ences between vari­eties of yogurt. In any case, a bow at Cannes is prac­ti­cal­ly guar­an­teed. CB

22. 1976 (Manuela Martelli)

Back in May, Chilean actress Manuela Martel­li received pos­i­tive notices out of Cannes for her direc­to­r­i­al debut, a para­ble with sharp polit­i­cal under­tones. Aline Kup­pen­heim stars as Car­men, a woman off to ren­o­vate her beach house and turn a blind eye to the oppres­sive Pinochet régime, though the ugli­ness of mod­ern life won’t leave her alone. A priest beseech­es her to look after the young man he’s been hid­ing, and her agree­ment sets her on a path toward ​“unex­plored ter­ri­to­ries, away from the qui­et life she’s used to.” As of late, Pablo Lar­raín has been car­ry­ing the ban­ner of Chilean cin­e­ma on the glob­al stage pret­ty much solo; it’s heart­en­ing to see some­one else com­ing in to expand the world’s under­stand­ing of all the nation­al cin­e­ma can do. CB

23. 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 are 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

24. Alcar­ràs (​Car­la Simón, Mubi)

Crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed win­ner of the Gold­en Bear and Best Inter­na­tion­al Fea­ture Film at the Acad­e­my Awards, Car­la Simon’s fam­i­ly dra­ma about the decline of peach har­vest­ing in rur­al Cat­alo­nia had one of the best box office turnouts of 2022 in Spain. The Sole fam­i­ly have spent every sum­mer pick­ing peach­es from their orchard in Alcar­ràs, but this tra­di­tion is threat­ened when they face evic­tion on account of the pro­posed instal­la­tion of solar pan­els. A poignant med­i­ta­tion on fam­i­ly, the sense of long­ing for a van­ished place, and the clash between agri­cul­ture and indus­try, Alcar­ràs has already moved many. Its suc­cess as a Cata­lan-lan­guage film with a cast of non-pro­fes­sion­al actors and such gen­tle sub­ject mat­ter, is both laud­able and encour­ag­ing. SLG

25. Inside (Vasilis Katsoupis) 

Those on the look­out for break­out direc­to­r­i­al tal­ents would do well to keep an eye on this aus­pi­cious fea­ture debut from Vasilis Kat­soupis, in which an art thief trig­gers an alarm that auto­mat­i­cal­ly locks him in the pent­house he was ran­sack­ing. So the scene is set for an intense spec­i­men of the escape pic­ture, as days of dehy­dra­tion and star­va­tion force this man to the core of his most pri­mal sur­vival instincts and into the deep­est recess­es of his unrest­ful psy­che. Willem Dafoe puts on a har­row­ing one-man show in the lead role, beck­on­ing us to join him in a spi­ral of mad­ness and des­per­a­tion — not that we’d expect any­thing less from the famous­ly intre­pid actor. This one’s bound for the Berlin Film Fes­ti­val in Feb­ru­ary. CB

26. Super Mario Bros Movie (Aaron Hor­vath, Michael Jelenic, Universal)

Any­one feel­ing per­son­al­ly betrayed that star Chris Pratt does not do The Voice as the mush­room-stomp­ing Ital­ian plumber of repute — your expe­ri­ences are valid. But there’s still a strong curios­i­ty fac­tor to the most famous char­ac­ter in video gaming’s first big-screen out­ing since the shall-we-say polar­is­ing live-action vehi­cle with Bob Hoskins in 1993. As is tra­di­tion, he’s on a mis­sion to save the Mush­room King­dom from the clutch­es of rep­til­ian vil­lain Bows­er (voiced by Jack Black) and res­cue the beloved Princess Peach (voiced by Anya Tay­lor-Joy), now pow­ered-up with the post-Min­ions com­ic sen­si­bil­i­ty of ani­ma­tion stu­dio Illu­mi­na­tion. Whether that’s a good thing or not is up to you, or in many cas­es, your chil­dren. CB

ETA: 7 April 2023

27. Indi­ana Jones and the Dial of Des­tiny (James Man­gold, Disney)

The less said about Indi­ana Jones and the King­dom of the Crys­tal Skull the bet­ter – it’s time to focus on the future, and hope­ful­ly Num­ber 5 will be a more com­pelling entry into this clas­sic adven­ture fran­chise. Set against the back­drop of the Space Race, Indy and his god­daugh­ter Helen (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) will face off against the nefar­i­ous for­mer Nazi – yes, Nazis again – Jür­gen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) who ​“seeks to use the moon land­ing pro­gram for his own good”. Spiel­berg was orig­i­nal­ly set to return as direc­tor, but he was replaced by Man­gold, mak­ing this the first Indy flick with­out him at the helm. Will it all hold togeth­er with­out him? HS

ETA: 30 June 2023

28. Fer­rari (Michael Mann, STX) 

The apt­ly named Adam Dri­ver gets to put on his Ital­ian brand dynasty boots again to step into the role of Enzo Fer­rari in car-mad Michael Mann’s long-await­ed new biopic, co-writ­ten with Ital­ian Job writer Troy Kennedy Mar­tin, who died in 2009. Assum­ing no bloody doors will be blown off in homage, but you nev­er know. Rather than explor­ing Ferrari’s whole life, the film con­cen­trates on one win­dow in 1957, when things had gone a bit tits up for Fer­rari – then near­ly 60, so Driver’s aging up – who had lost a son and was skirt­ing bank­rupt­cy. It fol­lows him as he throws cau­tion to the wind and enters the infa­mous Mille Miglia, a 1000-mile endurance race between Bres­cia and Rome. Pene­lope Cruz stars as Ferrari’s wife Lau­ra, Shai­lene Wood­ley as his mis­tress Lina Lar­di, Patrick Dempsey as Piero Taruf­fi, anoth­er race­car dri­ver, and the crew fea­tures a clus­ter of Oscar-nom­i­nees – Pietro Scalia is edi­tor, Mas­si­mo Can­ti­ni Par­ri­ni is cos­tume design­er, and Erik Messer­schmidt is direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy. SLG

29. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol­ume 3 (James Gunn, Disney)

James Gunn bids farewell to the MCU with the final install­ment in his Guardians of the Galaxy tril­o­gy, as he heads off to helm rival stu­dios Warn­er Bros’ DC divi­sion. It’s been quite a wait (by super­hero stan­dards) between sequels, and in that time Chris Pratt has man­aged to oblit­er­ate most pub­lic good­will towards him by espous­ing Repub­li­can polit­i­cal views, but there’s no doubt that audi­ences will turn out for this one, which co-stars Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Zoe Sal­dana, Vin Diesel, Bradley Coop­er and Pom Kle­men­ti­eff, with Will Poul­ter and Chuk­wu­di Iwu­ji join­ing as the bad­dies. Appar­ent­ly this send-off will explore the ori­gins of the wise-crack­ing anthro­po­mor­phic Rock­et Rac­coon, and undoubt­ed­ly set the set for the next part of Marvel’s Phase Five. HS

ETA: 5 May

30. Unti­tled Safdies/​Sandler Project (Safdie Broth­ers, Netflix)

Scors­ese has De Niro, Almod­ó­var has Cruz, and the Safdie Broth­ers have Adam San­dler. After the roar­ing suc­cess of Uncut Gems, it was only a mat­ter of time before they got the band back togeth­er, and Net­flix board­ed the project in Octo­ber 2022. Of course we don’t know any­thing about the plot (or the rest of the cast) yet, but while receiv­ing a life­time achieve­ment award at the Gothams in Novem­ber, San­dler revealed ​“I can’t say that I’m gonna look that hand­some in it. It’s not a hand­some moment…It’s gonna be tough.” HS

31. Mae­stro (Bradley Coop­er, Netflix)

A biopic of musi­cal leg­end Leonard Bern­stein has been in the works for a long while now, and Mar­tin Scors­ese was ini­tial­ly tipped to direct, before he decid­ed to work on The Irish­man instead. After him, Steven Spiel­berg was lined up, but he ced­ed the cam­era to Coop­er after A Star is Born. Coop­er serves as direc­tor, star and co-writer, with Carey Mul­li­gan play­ing his wife Feli­cia Mon­teale­gre and Jere­my Strong as the art crit­ic and writer John Gru­en, who even­tu­al­ly wrote the biog­ra­phy The Pri­vate World of Leonard Bern­stein. One of the most respect­ed con­duc­tors and com­posers of all time (and the men­tor of Lydia Tár) this one has awards glo­ry writ­ten all over it. HS

32. Aster­oid City (Wes Ander­son, Searchlight)

The obvi­ous cliché term for this one is star-stud­ded. There it is, we said it. Wes Anderson’s newest is just that – with new recruits like the ubiq­ui­tous Mar­got Rob­bie as well as Brody, Dafoe and all the old chest­nuts – and set at a Junior Stargaz­er astron­o­my con­ven­tion in a fic­tion­al Amer­i­can desert town, Aster­oid City is all about the etoiles. As par­ents and their heav­en-gaz­ing off­spring gath­er for the con­ven­tion of sci­en­tif­ic schol­ars, their lives begin to inter­link in strange and mes­meris­ing ways. Expec­ta­tions are as ever either extreme­ly high amongst fans for Wes to work his par­tic­u­lar mag­ic, or scoffed at from the off by the Ander­son-averse – so it’s guar­an­teed either to please or to edi­fy­ing­ly piss off. It also seems we might get The Won­der­ful Sto­ry of Hen­ry Sug­ar, Anderson’s new Roald Dahl adap­ta­tion for Net­flix, this autumn. SLG

ETA: 17 June

33. Won­ka (Paul King, Warn­er Bros) 

Hot Won­ka! He’s Willy Won­ka, he’s hot — whad­daya need, a road map? Okay, okay, so there’s some under­stand­able scep­ti­cism sur­round­ing this ori­gin pic­ture for the whim­si­cal choco­lati­er, played as a spright­ly young lad by Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met war­bling the occa­sion­al musi­cal num­ber. But hasn’t direc­tor Paul King more than earned the ben­e­fit of the doubt on the mer­it of his two Padding­ton films? And hey, they made a good Won­ka film once upon a time, so it stands to rea­son it can be done again. One can only assume this kid­die con­fec­tion will reck­on with the dark lega­cy of colo­nial­ism ingrained in the enslave­ment and dis­place­ment of the indige­nous Oom­pa-Loom­pa pop­u­la­tion. CB

ETA: 15 December 

34. Killers of the Flower Moon (Mar­tin Scorsese) 

Del­i­cate­ly titled and over­flow­ing with cin­e­mat­ic heavy­weights, Scors­ese deliv­ers his first film since The Irish­man. Robert DiNiro, Jesse Ple­mons, Lily Glad­stone, Bren­dan Fras­er and Leonar­do DiCaprio, who is also a pro­duc­er on the film, form the cen­tral cast. It drama­tis­es the non-fic­tion book ​‘Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Mur­ders and the birth of the FBI’, by David Gramm, which explores a series of mur­ders com­mit­ted in Okla­homa in the 1920s in the Osage Nation, linked to the dis­cov­ery of oil on trib­al land. This leads to a major inves­ti­ga­tion by the then-new­ly formed FBI. The bud­get is report­ed­ly the largest to have ever been spent on an Okla­homa-based pro­duc­tion, so this had bet­ter be good. SLG

35. Haunt­ed Man­sion (Justin Simien, Disney) 

In 2003, a few months after Pirates of the Caribbean proved that theme park rides could be trans­lat­ed into head-spin­ning box-office receipts, the Mouse House tried squeez­ing a movie out of anoth­er one of their attrac­tions. The Eddie Mur­phy-led com­e­dy set in the spooky old estate from Dis­ney­land came in undead on arrival, but Justin Simien may have cracked it this time around — at the very least, he’s got­ten off on the right foot by cast­ing Lakei­th Stan­field as a para­nor­mal inves­ti­ga­tor and Tiffany Had­dish as a Cajun psy­chic, aid­ing sin­gle mom Rosario Daw­son as she attempts to purge her New Orleans home of appari­tions por­trayed by Jared Leto and Jamie Lee Cur­tis. No hour­long queu­ing times required! CB

ETA: 11 August

36. Creed III (Michael B Jor­dan, Warn­er Bros)

Steel your­self for some per­son­nel changes in this, the sec­ond sequel to the most rap­tur­ous­ly received reboot of the IP Era. Though he’s stayed on as pro­duc­er, the pre­vi­ous films’ direc­tor Ryan Coogler has ced­ed his seat to fran­chise star Michael B. Jor­dan, behind the cam­era for the first time. Sylvester Stal­lone, the OG Rocky Bal­boa him­self, will not get back in the ring for this round. But the space he leaves behind will be more than amply filled by a chis­eled-from-rock Jonathan Majors, enter­ing the fray as a new rival to our man Ado­nis. But how­ev­er things change, when you get down to it, each match is still a bat­tle of wills between two men fight­ing for their lives. Put ​‘em up. CB

ETA: 3 March

37. M3gan (Ger­ard John­son, Universal) 

The killer-doll sub­set of hor­ror cin­e­ma enters the 21^st cen­tu­ry with the cheru­bic M3GAN, a hunk of dan­ger­ous­ly pow­er­ful tech­nol­o­gy that wants noth­ing more than to be your bestest friend. She can dance! She can run around on all fours like some kind of demon horse! And if any bul­lies give you a shove, she can mur­der them with swift and extreme prej­u­dice! Robot­ics expert Alli­son Williams has cre­at­ed a mon­ster to hang out with the niece left in her cus­tody fol­low­ing her sister’s pass­ing, a not-so-sub­tle com­men­tary on the haz­ards of AI run amok. Twice as fab­u­lous as Chucky and twice as cold as Pat­ty McCor­ma­ck, M3GAN is a true force to be reck­oned with. CB

ETA: 6 Jan­u­ary (USA) 13 Jan­u­ary (UK) 

38. The Exor­cist (David Gor­don Green)

David Gor­don Green is try­ing to improve on per­fec­tion with an Exor­cist reboot. What pow­er com­pelled the direc­tor to attempt to make anoth­er fol­low up to the beloved orig­i­nal near­ly 50 years after its release in 1973, fol­low­ing the 1977 mega-flop that was The Exor­cist 2 and the slight­ly bet­ter third iter­a­tion in 1990, is a mys­tery. But it’s hap­pen­ing. Set to be released on the suit­ably cursed Fri­day the 13^th of Octo­ber 2023, the unti­tled Exor­cist film will doubt­less draw huge cin­e­ma crowds – but who will win their bets, the naysay­ers or the hope­ful? SLG

ETA: 13 October

39. Ren­field (Chris McK­ay, Universal) 

One of the many perks of the pub­lic domain is that side char­ac­ters can be spun into pro­tag­o­nists to add to the elas­tic canon. Whether this shows itself as an enter­tain­ing change of per­spec­tive or a wince-wor­thy dis­play of bar­rel-scrap­ing in the instance of Chris McKay’s immi­nent Ren­field, is all to play for. Nico­las Hoult plays the epony­mous fly-munch­ing hench­man to Count Drac­u­la, inhab­it­ed by the oth­er Hol­ly­wood Nico­las, Cage. The premise is that Ren­field is revi­talised by falling in love with an angry traf­fic cop, per­plex­ing­ly dubbed Rebec­ca Quin­cy and played by Akwa­fi­na, in mod­ern day New Orleans. Writ­ten by Ryan Rid­ley and part of a grand Uni­ver­sal Pic­tures scheme to reboot the clas­sic screen mon­sters (again), Ren­field leaps into the mix of comedic vam­pire cin­e­ma in April. SLG

ETA: 14 April

40. De humani cor­poris fab­ri­ca (Ver­e­na Par­avel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor) 

Don’t wor­ry about the reports of mass walk­outs at the Cannes pre­mière of the lat­est project from the bound­ary-bust­ing Har­vard Sen­so­ry Ethnog­ra­phy Lab; a select class of strong-stom­ached view­ers will find that it’s actu­al­ly impos­si­ble to look away from this slimy, squelchy, intri­cate­ly tex­tured col­lec­tion of footage from French sur­gi­cal hos­pi­tals. With micro-cam­eras devised specif­i­cal­ly for this doc­u­men­tary, we ven­ture into sen­si­tive cran­nies of the human body for an unprece­dent­ed­ly inti­mate view of what makes our biol­o­gy go, an obser­va­tion­al bent that also extends beyond our guts to frame these med­ical insti­tu­tions as com­plex organ­isms unto them­selves. The cathar­tic final scene already has one entry on 2023’s run­ning list of great nee­dle drops sort­ed. CB

41. Mag­ic Mike’s Last Dance (Steven Soder­bergh, Warn­er Bros)

Soder­bergh and Chan­ning Tatum bid farewell to sweet strip­ping him­bo prince Mike Lane this Feb­ru­ary, as he leaves the Unit­ed States for the Unit­ed King­dom (hoards of mid­dle-aged women were spot­ted hang­ing around Peck­ham dur­ing pro­duc­tion). Sel­ma Hayek co-stars, but it doesn’t appear as though any of Mike’s posse will be return­ing for this tril­o­gy-ender, more’s the pity. Even so, grab your gal pals and a bot­tle of rosé – there’s noth­ing that will stave off the win­ter blues quick­er than watch­ing Tatum cavort to the sound of Ginuwine’s Pony. HS

ETA: 10 February

42. The Colour Pur­ple (Blitz Baza­wule, Warn­er Bros) 

Steven Spielberg’s adap­ta­tion of Alice Walker’s clas­sic nov­el was a mas­sive suc­cess (though famous­ly didn’t win any of the 11 Oscars it was nom­i­nat­ed for) but this new ver­sion is actu­al­ly based on the pop­u­lar Broad­away musi­cal. Ghan­ian artist and direc­tor Blitz Baza­wule, prob­a­bly best known for direct­ing Beyonce’s Black is King, is at the helm, with singer Fan­ta­sia in the lead role of Celie Har­ris John­son. Col­man Domin­go, Tara­ji P. Hen­son, Danielle Brooks and singer H.E.R co-star. HS

ETA: 20 December

43. Foe (Garth Davis)

In the near future, Junior and Hen live in peace on a remote farm, until their idyll is shat­tered by the arrival of a stranger who informs them that Junior must trav­el to a remote space sta­tion for two years, and is to be replaced by a bio­me­chan­i­cal dupli­cate until his return. That’s the premise of Iain Reid’s nov­el which serves as the basis of Garth Davis’ new film, star­ring Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan as the unhap­py cou­ple. Any­one famil­iar with Reid’s oth­er work – I’m Think­ing of End­ing Things, adapt­ed by Char­lie Kauf­man in 2021 – will prob­a­bly know things aren’t like­ly to end well for the cou­ple in ques­tion. This is Davis’ first film in five years, and sounds like it might have more in com­mon with his work on Top of the Lake than his oth­er films. HS

44. Fast X (Louis Leter­ri­er, Universal)

La Famil­ia went to space in Fast 9 – what could pos­si­bly top that? Maybe the recruit­ment of Jason Momoa, who plays the vil­lain in the next install­ment (whom he’s described as ​“very sadis­tic and androg­y­nous and he’s a bit of a peacock…he’s def­i­nite­ly got some dad­dy issues”). Not enough? How about Rita Moreno as Dom Toretto’s moth­er? Brie Lar­son? Then there’s the return of Jason Statham, John Cena, Helen Mir­ren, Car­di B, Char­l­ize Theron, Sung Kang – actu­al­ly, just about any­one who’s ever been in a Fast and Furi­ous film apart from The Rock is slat­ed to return for the big 1 – 0. Start your engines, folks. It’s gonna be in cin­e­mas all sum­mer. HS

ETA: 19 May

45. Saw X (Kevin Greutert, Lionsgate) 

Series loy­al­ists weren’t so keen on Spi­ral, the most recent install­ment of the long-run­ning Saw tor­ture-thon, which mud­dled the sim­ple plea­sures of bod­i­ly muti­la­tion with cop-flick hokum. The rein­state­ment of actor Tobin Bell as pup­pet mas­ter Jig­saw bodes well for those eager to see a return to form in the tenth go-round, and the involve­ment of direc­tor Kevin Greutert (the fiendish mind behind the sixth and sev­enth films, as well as edi­tor of the first five) promis­es anoth­er obsta­cle course chock­ablock with clever con­trap­tions designed to flense, pierce, shred, or oth­er­wise make lunch­meat of their unlucky vic­tims. Strap in and try not to lose your head. CB

46. The Out­run (Nora Fin­gschei­dt, Studiocanal)

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 a recov­er­ing alco­holic who returns to her native Orkney to get some breath­ing room, and recon­nects with the farm­land where she grew up. Based on Amy Liptrot’s best­selling mem­oir of the same name, this could be anoth­er ban­ner per­for­mance for Ronan. HS

47. The Meg 2: The Trench (Ben Wheat­ley, Warn­er Bros) 

The fuck­ing big shark is back! John Turtletaub’s been ditched as direc­tor and replaced by Ben Wheat­ley. With such black come­dies as Sight­seers under his belt, Wheat­ley might bring some much-need­ed gory humour to the large fish saga. Hope­ful­ly Jason Statham and co will have a bit more sol­id script mate­r­i­al to work with this time when bat­tling the mas­sive toothy preda­tor. A fair few of the first film’s cast are set to return to their roles, prob­a­bly exclud­ing those who got munched. Lit­tle is known about the plot but judg­ing from a quick glance at what hap­pens in the sec­ond Meg book in the fran­chise on which the films are based, the gang are back in the Trench and there might even be a baby mega­lodon involved. Cute. SLG

ETA: 4 August 

48. Rebel Ridge (Jere­my Saulnier, Netflix) 

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

49. Eileen (William Oldroyd)

Lady Mac­beth made waves and intro­duced the world to Flo­rence Pugh back in 2017 – it’s been a long wait for Oldroyd’s sec­ond fea­ture. Based on a sto­ry by best­selling Ottes­sa Mosh­fegh, Thomasin McKen­zie stars in the tit­u­lar role as a strange young woman who becomes attract­ed to the glam­orous new ther­a­pist at the prison where she works (played by Anne Hath­away). Their entan­gle­ment leads to a shock­ing crime with last­ing ver­ber­a­tions. This one’s also head­ed for the snowy screen­ing rooms of Park City as part of the Sun­dance line-up, and hope­ful­ly our screens lat­er in the year. HS

50. Lee (Ellen Kuras) 

Kate Winslet will be gun­ning for her sec­ond Acad­e­my Award with this biopic of mod­el-turned-war-pho­tog­ra­ph­er Lee Miller, who was the offi­cial cor­re­spon­dent for Vogue dur­ing World War Two and gained a rep­u­ta­tion for her strik­ing images of life dur­ing wartime. She was orig­i­nal­ly set to reunite with her The Hol­i­day co-star Jude Law, but Alexan­der Skars­gård has since replaced him in the role of Miller’s hus­band Roland Pen­rose, with Josh O’Connor set to play their son (curi­ous to see how that fac­tors into the time­line). Most excit­ing­ly, this is Ellen Kuras’ direc­to­r­i­al debut – best known for her cin­e­matog­ra­phy work with Michel Gondry and Spike Lee – so we’re hop­ing for some­thing visu­al­ly arrest­ing. HS