101 films to look for­ward to in 2023 – part two

Fifty films down, fifty films to go, and we’ve bare­ly scratched the sur­face of what we’re hop­ing to see at the cin­e­ma next year. Have we missed some­thing you’re count­ing down the days until? Let us know by tweet­ing us @LWLies.

51. Cocaine Bear (Eliz­a­beth Banks, Universal)

He’s a bear. He’s tak­en a shit­load of cocaine. You do the math. Cin­e­ma has a rich tra­di­tion of cre­at­ing these strange crea­ture fea­tures which go on to be a lot of fun (I’m look­ing at you, Snakes on a Plane) so don’t count direc­tor Eliz­a­beth Banks out yet. This hor­ror com­e­dy claims to be based on a true sto­ry, and I sup­pose that’s true, as a bear did once eat a load of cocaine, but rather than going on a Tony Mon­tana-style ram­page through the for­est, he just suf­fered mas­sive organ fail­ure and died. But that’s prob­a­bly not as cin­e­mat­ic. The wild cast list com­pris­es Keri Rus­sell, Mar­go Mar­tin­dale, Ray Liot­ta, Brook­lynn Prince, O’Shea Jack­son Jr. and – Hobie Doyle him­self! – Alden Ehren­re­ich. Han­nah Strong

ETA: 24 February

52. The Iron Claw (Sean Durkin, A24)

You might not know the Von Erich name if you’re not into pro-wrestling, but they’re con­sid­ered one of the most famous dynas­ties with­in the sport, not least because of the many tragedies that dogged them through­out the 80s and 90s. When patri­arch Fritz passed away in 1997, five of his six sons had pre­de­ceased him, three by sui­cide. Sean Durkin is a great pick to bring this sad sto­ry to the big screen (go and watch The Nest if you haven’t done so already) and he’s assem­bled a strong cast in the form of Zac Efron, Har­ris Dick­in­son and Jere­my Allen White to play three of the Von Erich boys, while Holt McCallany will play Papa Fritz. HS

53. And (Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos, A24) 

The hard­est-to-Google movie of all time is an anthol­o­gy of inde­ter­mi­nate nature, though with direc­tor Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos, it’s a safe bet that the inter­lock­ing tales will prof­fer a dark­ly com­ic look at some­thing grim or unspeak­able. What we do know is that he’s brought Emma Stone, Jesse Ple­mons, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau, Mar­garet Qual­ley, Joe Alwyn, and Mamoudou Athie down to shoot in New Orleans, where prin­ci­pal pho­tog­ra­phy is set to wrap before the end of the year. With the Franken­stein riff Poor Things next on Lan­thi­mos’ dock­et, this one could wind up get­ting pushed to 2024, but he could just as eas­i­ly dou­ble down with a pre­mière at Cannes and anoth­er at the fall fes­ti­vals. Charles Bramesco

54. The Island (Pawel Pawlikowski)

The awards-fes­tooned suc­cess­es of Ida and Cold War may have recent con­verts to the work of Pawel Paw­likows­ki think­ing of him as a son of Poland through and through, but he relo­cat­ed to Lon­don as a teenag­er and made his first few films in Eng­lish. He now returns to our side of the lan­guage bar­ri­er a big­ger-named film­mak­er, evi­dent in the cast­ing of glob­al movie stars Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix for the new dra­ma-thriller based on the fac­tu­al account of a cou­ple who seced­ed from soci­ety to start anew on a remote island. When a Euro­pean count­ess gets wind of their lit­tle Eden, a pri­vate project becomes a pub­lic sen­sa­tion and threat­ens the idyll they’ve built. Pawlikowski’s flu­ent in doomed romance, an inter­na­tion­al tongue if ever there was one. CB

55. The Red Sky (Chris­t­ian Petzold) 

For­est fires and smokin’ gay sex scenes appar­ent­ly abound in Ger­man film­mak­er Chris­t­ian Petzold’s new one. Set one hot dry Sum­mer on the Baltic coast, four young peo­ple meet and fall in love as for­est fires rage ever clos­er. The pop­u­lar if unlike­ly-sound­ing syn­op­sis adds that ​“they doubt, they are afraid – not because of the fires, it is the love that scares them.” Could go absolute­ly any­where, in sequences of dreamy fric­tion. Pet­zold is col­lab­o­rat­ing again with his muse Paula Beer, so hope­ful­ly the result will be as beguil­ing as his last work, Undine. Sask­ia Lloyd Grainger

56. Napoleon (Rid­ley Scott, Apple)

After the bonan­za year of 2021, in which The Last Duel and House of Guc­ci both debuted, Sir Rid’s been hard at work on his long-ges­tat­ing epic about France’s most famous gen­er­al. There have been a few pap snaps of Joaquin Phoenix on set as Napoleon, and Vanes­sa Kir­by is set to play the great love of his life, Josephine (replac­ing Jodie Com­er, who dropped out due to sched­ul­ing con­flicts) but oth­er­wise we don’t have much to go on, aside from the knowl­edge that no one can mount a large-scale epic like Scott can. After the mut­ed recep­tion to his last few films, could this be the film that puts Rid­ley back in the Academy’s good graces? He won’t be los­ing any sleep over it, that’s for sure. HS

57. The Old Oak (Ken Loach)

Ken Loach shot his 26^th fic­tion film in mid-2022, so it’s like­ly the two-time Palme d’Or win­ner will be head­ing to the Croisette come May. He reunites with his Sor­ry We Missed You star Dave Turn­er for this migrant dra­ma, along­side new­com­er Ebla Mari, and the sto­ry fol­lows a Syr­i­an refugee’s expe­ri­ence liv­ing in a dilap­i­dat­ed north­ern min­ing town. Shot in Coun­ty Durham (where he also filmed I, Daniel Blake and Sor­ry We Missed You), the film’s title comes from the pub run by Turner’s TJ Bal­lan­tyne. Yara (Mari) and TJ form an unlike­ly friend­ship after the unex­pect­ed arrival of her group of Syr­i­an refugees in the town, where years of gov­ern­ment neglect and eco­nom­ic down­turn have tak­en a toll. HS

58. Les Indésir­ables (Ladj Ly)

Ladj Ly is back with his sec­ond fea­ture after hard Les Mis­érables, which won the 2019 Jury Prize in Cannes, was nom­i­nat­ed for 2020 Best Inter­na­tion­al Film Oscar and upset Emmanuel Macron so much with its very real­is­tic depic­tion of every­day strug­gles in Mont­fer­meil after the 2018 FIFA World Cup that he was stirred to try to get his shit togeth­er about qual­i­ty of life in Paris’ ban­lieues. Les Inde­sir­ables will be pro­duced by SRAB films (also behind Hap­pen­ing) and report­ed­ly focus­es on a social work­er and a may­or who clash over the poten­tial gen­tri­fi­ca­tion about a run-down neigh­bour­hood. CB

59. La Retour (​Cather­ine Corsini)

Cannes fix­ture Cather­ine Corsi­ni will most like­ly step out on the Croisette once again for her twelfth fic­tion fea­ture, a dra­ma about labour, fam­i­ly, and youth. The ​“forty-some­thing” Kheì­did­ja (Ais­satou Dial­lo Sagna) must accom­pa­ny the wealthy Parisian fam­i­ly she works for as nan­ny to Cor­si­ca, the upside being that she’s invit­ed to bring her own daugh­ters along. But this island, which they fled 15 years ear­li­er under unspec­i­fied trag­ic cir­cum­stances, dis­lodges some over­whelm­ing mem­o­ries for the women as they try to drink in all their sur­round­ings have to offer. If noth­ing else, a tick­et to Corsini’s lat­est will be far cheap­er than a Mediter­ranean hol­i­day.CB

60. Strangers (Andrew Haigh)

A loose adap­ta­tion of Taichi Yamada’s nov­el of the same name with a queer twist, Haigh’s first film since 2017’s Lean on Pete stars Fleabag heart­throb Andrew Scott as a man who sud­den­ly finds his long-dead par­ents have come back to life – and appear as they did in their youth (as Jamie Bell and Claire Foy) – fol­low­ing an encounter with his mys­te­ri­ous neigh­bour (Twit­ter fave Paul Mescal). This sounds like some­thing a lit­tle more fan­tas­ti­cal than we usu­al­ly see from Haigh, and a whole lot lighter in tone than his grim (but very good) minis­eries The North Water. HS

61. Chal­lengers (Luca Guadagni­no, Warn­er Bros)

After spot­ting him in West Side Sto­ry, Luca Guadagni­no wast­ed no time in cast­ing Mike Faist in his next film, along­side equal­ly bright young things Zen­daya and Josh O’Connor. Togeth­er they form the super hot love tri­an­gle at the heart of this ten­nis-based dra­ma, in which a hot­shot play­er suf­fer­ing from a los­ing streak goes up against his wife’s ex-lover in a Chal­lengers event. Trent Reznor and Atti­cus Ross are scor­ing the film after work­ing with Guadagni­no on Bones and All, but this is the first col­lab­o­ra­tion between the direc­tor and play­wright Justin Kuritzkes. To wit, the film is described as a ​“roman­tic sports-com­e­dy” – humour isn’t usu­al­ly some­thing asso­ci­at­ed with Luca’s work, so colour us intrigued. HS

62. The Book of Solu­tions (Michel Gondry) 

We haven’t heard from mae­stro of off-kil­ter whim­sy Michel Gondry since 2015, but judg­ing by the premise of his unex­pect­ed come­back, the inter­ven­ing years have done noth­ing to iron out his eccen­tric­i­ties. He’s gone auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal­ly meta for his lat­est fea­ture, fol­low­ing a frus­trat­ed film­mak­er in the throes of cre­ative block as he strug­gles to free him­self from the demons block­ing his process. Cast mem­bers Pierre Niney and Blanche Gardin are joined by none oth­er than liv­ing leg­end Fran­coise Lebrun, cur­rent­ly enjoy­ing a surge in pop­u­lar­i­ty with the re-release of The Moth­er and the Whore. Could this be Gondry’s 8 ½? CB

63. The Lit­tle Mer­maid (Rob Mar­shall, Disney) 

To the great cha­grin of online racists — many of them adult men, pre­sum­ably with jobs or even fam­i­lies — Halle Bai­ley stars as the fish-girl who dreamed of walk­ing in the sur­face world and mack­ing on the hand­some, raven-haired sailor liv­ing there. By this point, we all know the drill with these live-action Dis­ney remakes: songs re-record­ed with fresh voic­es, shots recre­at­ed with mud­di­er colours, a few new jokes. Even those feel­ing blasé can still work up some inter­est in Melis­sa McCarthy as Ursu­la the Sea Witch or Javier Bar­dem as King Tri­ton, though it’s hard not to imag­ine what could’ve been if Sofia Coppola’s planned adap­ta­tion had got­ten off the ground. Or, er, ocean floor. CB

ETA: 26 May

64. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello)

The onset of the pan­dem­ic derailed Bertrand Bonello’s work on this sci-fi opus — in the mean­while, he made the lock­down snap­shot Coma, prob­a­bly the truest cin­e­mat­ic time cap­sule of its moment — but he’s back on track and ready to reach a wider audi­ence than ever. The cere­bral stal­wart of the art­house tapped stars Léa Sey­doux and George MacK­ay for a project that sounds like it’ll have slight­ly broad­er reach, as the two 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. There, an exper­i­men­tal pro­ce­dure can remove all emo­tions, but if we learned any­thing from High Life, it’s to nev­er trust a sci-fi premise that sounds straight­for­ward. CB

65. Strange Way of Life (Pedro Almodóvar)

Almod­ó­var revealed details of his ​“answer to Broke­back Moun­tain” on pop star Dua Lipa’s pod­cast (because of course he did), stat­ing that Pedro Pas­cal and Ethan Hawke play a gun­slinger and a sher­riff respec­tive­ly, who reunite after sev­er­al decades apart. The short is about 40 min­utes in length, sim­i­lar to his Til­da Swin­ton col­lab­o­ra­tion The Human Voice from 2020, and while we could hap­pi­ly sit through a film three times that long, we’ll take what we can get with Almod­ó­var. Slat­ed for a ritzy Cannes pre­mière and described as a ​“queer West­ern, in the sense that there are two men and they love each oth­er”, this one’s guar­an­teed to send Twit­ter into a tizzy. HS

66. Last Sum­mer (Cather­ine Breillat) 

Pro­duc­tion has long since wrapped on the new film from French light­ning rod Cather­ine Breil­lat, her first in ten long years, and the inter­ven­ing time has evi­dent­ly done noth­ing to dull her edge. The dra­ma con­cerns a clas­sic Brady Bunch sit­u­a­tion — a com­bined fam­i­ly forms between Mom (Léa Druck­er), her two daugh­ters, Dad (Olivi­er Rabour­din), and his sev­en­teen-year-old son (Samuel Kircher) — that spins out into incest as the boy shacks up with his lusty step­mom. Ah, the French! Breil­lat is no stranger to Cannes, which would be an excel­lent launch­ing pad for her pos­si­ble come­back pic­ture, and they could always use the scan­dal. CB

67. Limonov, the Bal­lad of Eddie (Kir­ill Serebrennikov)

From the cre­ator of Leto and Petrov’s Flu comes a non-lin­ear biog­ra­phy of Eduard Limonov, rad­i­cal Russ­ian lat­ter 20^th Cen­tu­ry tour du force – played by a grubb­i­fied, punk-ed up Ben Whishaw. Based on a book by Emmanuelle Car­rere, Limonov fol­lows this con­ti­nent-hop­ping provo­ca­teur raised in present-day Kharkiv, then part of the Sovi­et Union, from which he escaped to New York, got FBI-ed out of the States and washed up in Paris where he trans­formed into a lit­er­ary dar­ling, then crept back into Rus­sia and found­ed the Nation­al Bol­she­vik par­ty, became a poster boy for dis­si­dent Russ­ian youths and was locked up by Putin. Limonov’s bonkers life sto­ry has been par­al­leled by the crazy cir­cum­stances of the film’s pro­duc­tion – Sere­bren­nikov is still sup­posed to be serv­ing a three-year sus­pend­ed sen­tence, thrown at him by Putin on absurd charges, and was shoot­ing Limonov in Rus­sia when the war broke out. He man­aged to escape and fin­ish the film in Europe. You couldn’t make this stuff up. SLG

68. Love Lies Bleed­ing (Rose Glass, A24)

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 (Jena Mal­one, pos­si­bly – her role as of yet unspec­i­fied), 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. CB

69. My Name is Alfred Hitch­cock (Mark Cousins)

It’s been 100 years since the scowl­ing colos­sus of cinema’s first fea­ture, lost and unfin­ished Num­ber Thir­teen, the non-pro­duc­tion of which he once described as ​“a some­what chas­ten­ing expe­ri­ence.” To mark this cen­te­nary, Cousins has put togeth­er a doc­u­men­tary that explores the cur­rent rel­e­vance of Hitchcock’s work through the director’s own voice, the essence of the nar­ra­tive device being that the auteur sits down to watch back his own films and we tra­verse that gamut with him on his sofa. Voiced by Alis­tair McGowan and billed to be both cel­e­bra­to­ry and insight­ful, My Name is Alfred Hitch­cock will hope­ful­ly offer an inno­v­a­tive and human­is­ing take on a bloke so mas­sive­ly influ­en­tial that he seems a bit unre­al. SLG

70. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)

The murky world of tombaroli (tomb raiders) in the 1980s is the sub­ject of Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, star­ring Josh O’Connor and Isabel­la Rosseli­ni. O’Connor plays Arthur, a young Eng­lish archae­ol­o­gist involved in the black mar­ket traf­fick­ing of ancient Etr­uscan objects. Rohrwach­er reunites with mul­ti­ple fre­quent col­lab­o­ra­tors to bring La Chimera into being, includ­ing pro­duc­tion design­er Emi­ta Friga­to, cos­tume design­er Loredana Busce­mi and edi­tor Nel­ly Quet­ti­er. Rohrwach­er told Vari­ety that La Chimera forms ​‘the final piece of a trip­tych’ she began with The Won­ders and fol­lowed up with Hap­py As Laz­zaro, the three films linked by their explo­ration of the ques­tion ​‘What to do with the past?’. Phi­los­o­phy and ques­tions of cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty aside, it promis­es beau­ti­ful Tus­can scenery and Rohrwacher’s char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly del­i­cate mag­ic real­ism. SLG

71. Evil Dead Rise (Lee Cronin, StudioCanal)

The Evil Dead just won’t darned die – back for a fifth instal­ment, the vis­cera-soaked fran­chise resumes but this time with an entire­ly new cast and a fresh sto­ry­line. Sam Rei­mi, Robert Tapert and Bruce Camp­bell are pro­duc­ing the Evil Dead Rise, but alas Camp­bell won’t be return­ing as Ash Williams to say ​‘groovy’ in that irre­sistible way he does. Instead, the film has sis­ters Beth and Ellie’s reunion prop­er­ly wrecked by the dis­cov­ery of a mys­te­ri­ous book (haven’t they ever seen an Evil Dead film?) in the base­ment of Ellie’s L.A. build­ing, which unleash­es some real­ly nasty flesh-pos­sess­ing demon crea­tures called Dea­dites. Beth fights to sur­vive, and judg­ing by what Warn­er Bros have to say about the film’s premise, Ellie’s kids are def­i­nite­ly not alright. SLG

ETA: 21 April

72. Kaf­ka (Agniesz­ka Holland)

Could the Agniesz­ka Hol­land we know and love be back? As of late, the Pol­ish great who appren­ticed under Krzysztof Zanus­si and Andrzej Waj­da has kept her bills paid with work some­what less pres­ti­gious than the likes of Europa Europa. Her sojourns in the wilds of Amer­i­can TV led her to a recent pair of more encour­ag­ing­ly accom­plished biopics, which she’ll make a tril­o­gy with her upcom­ing por­trait of Franz Kaf­ka, struc­tured as a series of vignettes stretch­ing from cra­dle to crypt. How­ev­er she plays it, she’s unlike­ly to cov­er any of the same ground as Steven Soderbergh’s high­ly con­cep­tu­al, semi-fac­tu­al take on the exis­ten­tial titan’s life and times. CB

73. Occu­pied City (Steven McQueen) 

Steve McQueen’s jour­ney into non-fic­tion is set to begin with Sec­ond World War doc­u­men­tary Occu­pied City, based on the his­to­ry book ​‘Atlas of an Occu­pied City, 1940−1945’ by writer and film­mak­er Bian­ca Stit­ger, who also hap­pens to be mar­ried to McQueen. The book maps the traces of the war in the cap­i­tal, as will the doc­u­men­tary. The Nether­lands Film Fund, a part­ner on the NL-UK col­lab­o­ra­tion, have said in rela­tion to the project that ​‘Liv­ing in Ams­ter­dam is like liv­ing with spir­its. It looks like there are two par­al­lel worlds. The past is always there.’ Even as there are few­er and few­er liv­ing peo­ple recall this time, the war remains present in col­lec­tive mem­o­ry – the city is sat­u­rat­ed with it. In pos­ses­sion of a $5M bud­get, Occu­pied City has the poten­tial for a rich and cre­ative explo­ration of these lin­ger­ing ghosts. SLG

74. Un Silence (Joachim Lafosse)

Emmanuelle Devos and Daniel Auteuil star in Bel­gian direc­tor Lafosse’s tenth fea­ture, which focus­es on the after­math of a crime and the silence that sur­rounds it, as well as the dif­fi­cul­ty of speak­ing out. But don’t just take my word for it – here’s Lafosse’s descrip­tion: ​‘With Un silence, I want to try to show why silence is still so pow­er­ful, despite the impor­tant place giv­en to this ben­e­fi­cial right. I want to try to show and explain why it’s so dif­fi­cult to speak out.” His last film The Rest­less, received a mut­ed response at Cannes 2021, but is well worth a watch, and it’s like­ly this one will bow on the French Riv­iera, who love to show sup­port for local(ish!) film­mak­ing. SLG

75. Coy­ote vs. Acme (Dave Green, Warn­er Bros) 

Described as a ​‘live-action/­com­put­er gen­er­at­ed legal com­e­dy’, this lat­est Loony Toon is part­ly based on an Ian Fra­zier short sto­ry of the same name, that appeared in the New York­er. Wile E. Coy­ote decides to hire a bill­board lawyer, played by Will Forte, to sue the ACME cor­po­ra­tion after he’s out­done by the nifty Road­run­ner yet again. The defen­dant – for­mer boss of ACME corp – is John Cena. Direct­ed by Dave Green, with a screen­play by Samy Burch, the Warn­er Bros chimera flick is built on the not unsteady grounds that the notion of car­toon char­ac­ters solv­ing real-life prob­lems, sub­ject to real-world forces like grav­i­ty or the law, is auto­mat­i­cal­ly hilar­i­ous – and come on, it is John Cena… SLG

76. Nation­al Anthem (Tony Tost)

Euphoria’s Syd­ney Sweeney, Richard Jew­ell him­self Paul Wal­ter Hauser, Red Rock­et​‘s Simon Rex and singer Halsey are set to star in Tost’s direc­to­r­i­al debut, who is best known for his tele­vi­sion work on series includ­ing Long­mire, Damna­tion and The Ter­ror. In what’s sure to be a thorny tale, a group of peo­ple com­pete to get their hands on a valu­able Lako­ta Ghost Shirt (a type of gar­ment sacred to Native Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties). Some have pure inten­tions, oth­ers not so much. HS

77. Club Zero (Jes­si­ca Hausner) 

Jes­si­ca Haus­ner broke into the Com­pe­ti­tion sec­tion at Cannes with 2019’s Lit­tle Joe, a cun­ning anti-hor­ror pic­ture about a botanist slow­ly real­is­ing that her seem­ing­ly omi­nous sur­round­ings may not be as evil as she pre­sumed. Hav­ing launched prin­ci­pal pho­tog­ra­phy back in the sum­mer, the Aus­tri­an film­mak­er could very well be back with this super­nat­u­ral­ly-tinged ensem­ble piece, in which an edu­ca­tor (Mia Wasikows­ka) at an elite board­ing school forms a strong bond with sev­er­al stu­dents that starts look­ing a whole lot like a cult. Sidse Bab­bett Knud­sen — anoth­er actress with an oth­er­world­ly sort of pres­ence — also fig­ures promi­nent­ly into an off-beat genre piece from a direc­tor deserv­ing of a high­er pro­file. CB

78. Chick­en Run: Dawn of the Nugget (Sam Fell, Netflix)

As the chil­dren haunt­ed off their KFC by the first Chick­en Run become 20-some­things who Deliv­eroo their own pro­tein, the sequel appears in the form of Dawn of the Nugget. Aard­man have part­nered with Net­flix and French pro­duc­ers Stu­dio­Canal to cre­ate the fol­low-up film, which sees Gin­ger, Rocky, fresh­ly hatched daugh­ter Mol­ly and the flock con­tent on the island they escaped to fol­low­ing their break-out from Tweedy’s farm. Until, that is, a new threat aris­es in the form of Dr.Fry’s das­tard­ly plan to turn all the chick­ens in his lab into nuggets. The flock must risk their sanc­tu­ary to save their brethren from being bat­tered. Thandi­we New­ton, Bel­la Ram­sey, Zachary Levi and Romesh Ran­ganathan give voice to the plas­ticine fowl. Is a sequel nec­es­sary? We’ll find out. SLG 

ETA: June 22

79. Priscil­la (Sofia Cop­po­la, Apple)

Last year we got Elvis – now it’s time for a look at the woman behind the man. Putting her Cus­tom of the Coun­try tele­vi­sion series on the back burn­er for now, Cop­po­la has cast rel­a­tive new­com­er Cailee Spae­ny as Mrs. Pres­ley, who famous­ly met Elvis when she was 14 and he was 23, and Euphoria’s res­i­dent sociopath Jacob Elor­di as The King. The cou­ple would even­tu­al­ly mar­ry and Priscil­la would give birth to Presley’s only child, Lisa Marie, before they sep­a­rat­ed in 1973. The script is based on Priscilla’s 1985 mem­oir, and if there’s any­one who can do jus­tice to the com­plex­i­ties of the Pres­ley sto­ry, it’s Hol­ly­wood roy­al­ty like Cop­po­la. HS

80. 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, per­haps best known for the con­tro­ver­sy-spark­ing Net­flick Pur­ple Hearts. Wish ful­fill­ment is a pow­er­ful moti­va­tor, so who knows, maybe we’ll have anoth­er left-field phe­nom­e­non from hum­ble ori­gins on our hands. CB

81. Emil­ia Perez (Jacques Audiard)

With 2018’s The Sis­ters Broth­ers, Jacques Audi­ard tried his hand at Eng­lish-lan­guage film­mak­ing with known Hol­ly­wood stars — a mode the French fes­ti­val favourite returns to with a daffy, undoubt­ed­ly con­ver­sa­tion-gen­er­at­ing com­e­dy. To evade the law, a nar­co on the run gets gen­der reas­sign­ment surgery, but comes to miss her chil­dren and re-inserts her­self into their lives as a Mrs. Doubt­fire-style aunt after ten years away. Oh, and also, it’s a musi­cal. The lead actress Kar­la Sofia Gascón could have overnight star­dom in her future, and ear­ly reports have also linked Sele­na Gomez and Zoe Sal­daña to the trans riff on the arche­typ­al cross-dress­ing com­e­dy. CB

82. The Fab­u­lous Four (Joce­lyn Moorhouse)

Susan Saran­don! Megan Mul­lal­ly! Sis­sy Spacek! Bette Midler! I could just leave this descrip­tion right there. What more do you need to shell out for a cin­e­ma tick­et? Okay, fine – The Fab­u­lous Four is the big come­back for Aussie film­mak­er Joce­lyn Moor­house and cen­ters on a trio of friends (Saran­don, Mul­laly, and Spacek) who trav­el to Key West to serve as brides­maids at the unex­pect­ed wed­ding of their pal (Midler). Moor­house knows a thing or two about nup­tials – she was the pro­duc­er on her husband’s cult clas­sic Murial’s Wed­ding. HS

83. True Love (Gareth Edwards)

The best of the remake del­uge that flood­ed the 2010s would prob­a­bly be Gareth Edwards’ stag­ger­ing­ly-scaled Godzil­la, a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion of megabud­get IP-ser­vic­ing with gen­uine cre­ative inge­nu­ity. Aside from the well-regard­ed Star Wars spin­off Rogue One, he hasn’t had much chance to fol­low through on that heart­en­ing ear­ly exam­ple, so all eyes are on this sci-fi project about which lit­tle is pub­licly known. Edwards has been hard at work shoot­ing in Thai­land with John David Wash­ing­ton, Gem­ma Chan, Alli­son Jan­ney, Ken Watan­abe, and Ralph Ine­son, but beyond that, it’s one big ques­tion mark. Maybe they all keep hear­ing this mys­te­ri­ous noise and have to fig­ure out where it’s com­ing from. If it worked once…! CB

84. Mas­ter Gar­den­er (Paul Schrader)

It’s anoth­er Paul Schrad­er pro­duc­tion, so a few assump­tions can be safe­ly made: there will be an intense, age­ing man (Joel Edger­ton, as a hor­ti­cul­tur­ist hid­ing an oblig­a­tory dark past) with a weird name (Narvel Roth, in this instance) paired with a younger com­pan­ion (Quin­tes­sa Swindell, tak­ing over for Schrader’s ini­tial pick Zen­daya) whose soul he must sal­vage before it’s too late. This time, how­ev­er, we’ve also got Sigour­ney Weaver as the wealthy dowa­ger who owns the estate so duti­ful­ly tend­ed by Narvel. Sin, penance, and redemp­tion will swirl togeth­er in one Protes­tant shame spi­ral, as is Schrader­ian tra­di­tion. Who could ask for any­thing more? CB

85. But­ter­fly Jam (Kan­temir Balagov)

Dash­ing Russ­ian wun­derkind Kan­temir Bal­agov won over a lot of new fans with 2019’s bru­tal, lush Bean­pole, among them Mid­som­mar direc­tor Ari Aster, who’s pro­duc­ing Balagov’s first for­ay into Eng­lish-lan­guage film­mak­ing. The dra­ma unfolds in a New Jer­sey enclave of Kabar­dian immi­grants, where a father-son rela­tion­ship is com­pli­cat­ed by the boy’s ten­den­cy to imbue his dad with qual­i­ties that aren’t real­ly present. The fiz­zle-out of Balagov’s involve­ment with the Last of Us HBO series only height­ens the antic­i­pa­tion for a new work sure to intro­duce him to an even wider swath of West­ern view­ers. Whether they’ll be ready for the guar­an­teed emo­tion­al pul­veris­ing is a sep­a­rate ques­tion entire­ly. CB

86. Eric Larue (Michael Shannon)

Mak­ing his direc­to­r­i­al debut, Shan­non teams up with his play­wright bud­dy Brett Nevue for what sounds like a har­row­ing watch: ​“Jan­ice, the moth­er of a high school mur­der­er, pre­pares to vis­it her son in prison, and to meet a col­lec­tion of bereaved local par­ents.” He’s work­ing with some excel­lent tal­ent too – Judy Greer is the moth­er in ques­tion, act­ing along­side Ali­son Pill, Tracey Letts and Shannon’s Lit­tle Drum­mer Girl co-star Alexan­der Skars­gård. Fun fact: Skars­gård is gear­ing up to shoot The Park, his own direc­to­r­i­al debut, in 2023 which will fea­ture (his Lit­tle Drum­mer Girl co-star!) Flo­rence Pugh. HS

87. Unti­tled Ethan Coen Les­bian Road Trip movie 

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 last year, and soon Ethan will retort with an ​“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

88. Cat Per­son (Susan­na Fogel, StudioCanal)

Every so often an arti­cle pops up that real­ly cap­tures the pub­lic imag­i­na­tion, and in 2017 it was Kris­ten Roupenian’s Cat Per­son, about a 20-year-old cin­e­ma work­er who engages in a short, unpleas­ant roman­tic rela­tion­ship with an old­er man. The sto­ry was laud­ed for cap­tur­ing the pow­er imbal­ances present in many mod­ern dat­ing sit­u­a­tions, although received con­sid­er­able push­back from the story’s unwit­ting inspi­ra­tion. Nev­er­the­less, a film ver­sion star­ring Emil­ia Jones and Nicholas Braun is drop­ping some­time in 2023, co-star­ring Fred Melamed and Isabel­la Rosselli­ni. We’ll see if the film man­ages to match the zeit­geist-cap­tur­ing suc­cess of the source mate­r­i­al. HS

89. Attack the Block 2 (Joe Cornish)

Talk of a sequel to Joe Cornish’s 2011 action-com­e­dy about a group of teens defend­ing their hous­ing estate from an alien inva­sion has been going on for years, but it’s final­ly hap­pen­ing, and the film­mak­er will be reunit­ing with star John Boye­ga, who played reluc­tant hero Moses in the first film. Boye­ga is pro­duc­ing this time as well, and has already hint­ed that the sequel will tack­le London’s gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, which has explod­ed in the past decade, as well as a new alien threat. Allow it! HS

90. 65 (Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, Sony) 

From A Qui­et Place scribes Scott Beck and Bryan Woods comes a pre­his­toric action-thriller, star­ring Adam Dri­ver as Mills, an astro­naut who crash­lands on a for­eign plan­et only to find him­self back on Earth…65 mil­lion years ear­li­er than planned. With the res­i­dent dinosaurs none too pleased about their new guest, Mills must work with the only oth­er sur­vivor, a young girl named Koa (Ari­ana Green­blatt) to sur­vive. Sam Rai­mi is pro­duc­ing, and Dan­ny Elf­man has com­posed the score. Curi­ous. SLG

91. Hav­oc (Gareth Evans, Netflix)

Rugged detec­tive wad­ing through the crim­i­nal under­world in the wake of a botched drug deal, attempt­ing to res­cue the lost son of a politi­cian, expos­ing a web of dodgi­ness lac­ing his grimy city? Sounds like Hav­oc, which will crash onto Net­flix in ear­ly 2023. The crime dra­ma stars Tom Hardy (also a pro­duc­er) and is direct­ed by Gangs of London’s Gareth Edwards, who made Indone­sian mar­tial arts films like The Raid and Mer­an­tau, so it could well be fighty and shooty in a pret­ty well-chore­o­graphed way even if the plot rings a few bells. Shot across var­i­ous loca­tions in South Wales, it’s unclear where the film is set, but Hardy’s co-stars have been con­firmed as Tim­o­thy Olyphant, For­est Whit­tak­er and Jesse Mei Li. Hav­oc isn’t based on any pre-exist­ing mate­r­i­al, and may prove refresh­ing in that sense. SLG

92. Land­scape With Invis­i­ble Hand (Cory Finley)

After the excel­lent Thor­ough­breds and Bad Edu­ca­tion, we can’t wait to see what Finley’s cooked up with this sci-fi dra­ma adap­ta­tion, set in the after­math of an alien takeover of earth. Attempt­ing to scrape a liv­ing togeth­er, Adam (Asante Blackk) and Chloe (Kylie Rogers) live stream their courtship for an intrigued alien view­er, but things quick­ly go awry. Audi­ences at Sun­dance will be the first to catch this one, but we’re hop­ing the UK will get a chance soon after. HS

93. The Bik­erid­ers (Jeff Nichols)

Wel­come back Jeff Nichols! It’s been too long since Arkansas’ favourite son put a pic­ture togeth­er, and his next project takes inspi­ra­tion from pho­to­jour­nal­ist Dan­ny Lyon’s 1968 book of the same name, which doc­u­ment­ed the exploits of a group of motor­cy­clists. While Nichols’ script is entire­ly fic­tion­al, those images of a very spe­cif­ic moment in Amer­i­can pop cul­ture form the foun­da­tion, and one per­son who’s going to be thrilled this long-ges­tat­ing project is final­ly com­ing to life is Nichols’ friend and col­lab­o­ra­tor Michael Shan­non, who once said: ​“You’ve been talk­ing about that damn idea for so long. You’re nev­er gonna make that”. Along­side Shan­non, Jodie Com­er, Austin But­ler, Tom Hardy, Boyd Hol­brook and Mike Faist star, assem­bling undoubt­ed­ly the hottest cast of 2023. HS

94. May Decem­ber (Todd Haynes)

Todd Haynes and Julianne Moore’s fourth col­lab­o­ra­tion seems like a shoo-in for Cannes 2023 – she plays a woman whose noto­ri­ous romance with a much younger man was the sub­ject of tabloid scruti­ny, who is forced to revis­it the past when an actress (played by Natal­ie Port­man) arrives to research her for a role. Inter­est­ing­ly, writer Samy Burch is bet­ter known as a cast­ing direc­tor – May Decem­ber is his first pro­duced screen­play, though he’s also work­ing on the script for Coy­ote v. Acme, also on this list. In any case, Portman/​Moore is a pair­ing we’re keen to see. HS

95. Dar­ling (Cattet/​Forzani) 

The Bel­gian hus­band-and-wife direct­ing team of Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cat­tet have always cul­ti­vat­ed a loose rela­tion­ship with real­i­ty in such hyper­styl­ized head trips as Amer, The Strange Col­or of Your Body’s Tears, and Let the Corpses Tan. They’ll leave the mate­r­i­al world behind entire­ly for their first go with fea­ture-length ani­ma­tion, an adap­ta­tion of a con­tro­ver­sial Beat nov­el by Iris Owens about a woman who lives in down­town Man­hat­tan dur­ing the swing­ing ​‘60s, and who’s vicious­ly vio­lat­ed one night by a fig­ure with blind­ing white eyes. Unmoored and drift­ing into psy­chosis, she begins prowl­ing the streets in search of her attack­er, work­ing her way through a hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry atmos­phere redo­lent of Bel­ladon­na of Sad­ness. And, much to the delight of ani­mé fans, the oth­er pri­ma­ry ref­er­ence point they’ve named is the work of Satoshi Kon. Dig it, daddy‑O. CB

96. The Bru­tal­ist (Brady Corbet) 

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 (Joel Edger­ton and Mar­i­on Cotil­lard) 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 (Mark Rylance), an ​“epic saga” sprawl­ing out over thir­ty years and told in a com­bi­na­tion of Eng­lish, Yid­dish, Hun­gar­i­an, and Ital­ian. Add to the cast Sebas­t­ian Stan, Isaach de Bankolé, Vanes­sa Kir­by, and Alessan­dro Nivola along with Vox Lux stars Raf­fey Cas­sidy and Sta­cy Mar­tin, and a pres­ti­gious fes­ti­val berth is all but assured. CB

97. How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Daniel Gold­haber, Neon)

The break­out suc­cess of this year’s Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val was a pulse-pound­ing heist thriller informed by a keen sense of polit­i­cal prin­ci­ple, smug­gling rad­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy adapt­ed from Andreas Malm’s non­fic­tion book of the­o­ry into the invit­ing for­mat of first-order Hol­ly­wood enter­tain­ment. A mul­ti­cul­tur­al cell of young eco-ter­ror­ists (led by Ariela Bar­er, pro­duc­er and cowriter of the film) plots the con­trolled demo­li­tion of a crude oil pipeline in west Texas, a tick­ing-clock mis­sion that plays out with the pop sen­si­bil­i­ty of Ocean’s 11 and the raised-fist irrev­er­ence of La Chi­noise. Direc­tor Daniel Gold­haber mar­ried effect and mes­sage to spec­tac­u­lar results. CB

98. The Roy­al Hotel (Kit­ty Green)

The Assis­tant was one of the best films of 2019, and report­ed­ly caused quite a ruckus behind the scenes in Hol­ly­wood. Emerg­ing tal­ent Kit­ty Green reunites wth her star Julia Gar­ner for this new social thriller, in which Gar­ner and Jes­si­ca Hen­wick played BFFs back­pack­ing across Oz. When they run out of cash they take jobs work­ing for odd­ball pub land­lord Hugo Weav­ing, but things quick­ly go down­hill when the girls come up against old-fash­ioned atti­tudes in the rur­al min­ing town. Could this be Green’s own spin on Wake in Fright? Fin­gers crossed. HS

99. Die, My Love (Lynne Ramsay)

At any giv­en time Lynne Ramsay’s name is con­nect­ed to a num­ber of in-devel­op­ment projects, and few of them ever make it to our screens. It’s a lit­tle unlike­ly we’ll see this one any time soon, but the prospect of a Ram­say film star­ring Jen­nifer Lawrence should hope­ful­ly spur some pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny into action. Die My Love is an adap­ta­tion of Ari­ana Harwicz’s cult nov­el, about a new moth­er expe­ri­enc­ing post-par­tum depres­sion and psy­chosis in the French coun­try­side – so fits into Ramsay’s body of work quite nice­ly. Let’s hope this one gets off the ground. HS

100. Ski­na­marink (Kyle Edward Ball, Shudder) 

A true word-of-mouth suc­cess, Kyle Edward Ball’s exper­i­men­tal hor­ror had its pre­mière at the Fan­ta­sia Film Fes­ti­val, where it gen­er­at­ed a mod­est amount of buzz. Things real­ly start­ed to pick up when social media got a hold of the film via var­i­ous – ahem – sources, and soon tongues were wag­ging about a creepy, uncon­ven­tion­al haunt­ed house film that defied the usu­al trap­pings of the genre. Made on a microbud­get and employ­ing cre­ative tac­tics to over­come shoot­ing con­straints, Ski­na­marink has been hailed as the most excit­ing hor­ror film of the year, and was prompt­ly snapped up for dis­tri­b­u­tion in 2023 by Shud­der. HS

101. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoen­brun, A24)

Schoenbrun’s fea­ture debut We’re All Going to the World’s Fair was one of the great sur­pris­es of 2022, so all eyes on her for her sec­ond film, which focus­es on a pair of teenagers whose real­i­ty starts to change after their favourite tele­vi­sion show is can­celled. The cast is excit­ing too: Jus­tice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Hele­na Howard and Danielle Dead­wyler will star, though it’s the cin­e­mat­ic debut of Phoebe Bridgers that has many tongues wag­ging on social media. HS