100 films to look for­ward to in 2025 – part two

Here it is! The sec­ond half of our mam­moth pre­view of films we’re expect­ing (or hop­ing) to see hit fes­ti­vals and cin­e­mas in 2025. Have we missed your most antic­i­pat­ed films? Let us know what you’re excit­ed about on Bluesky.

We were big fans of Dan­ish-Pales­tin­ian film­mak­er Mah­di Fleifel’s 2012 film A World Not Ours, so we’re very excit­ed to see he’s back with a thrilling tale of dis­placed Pales­tini­ans resid­ing in Athens attempt­ing to secure refugee sta­tus in Ger­many. As hos­til­i­ties still rage on the west bank, this vital cin­e­mat­ic offer­ing show­cas­es a film­mak­er meld­ing polit­i­cal con­cerns with genre thrills while doing the good work need­ed to keep con­ver­sa­tions about per­se­cu­tion and asy­lum alive in 2025. David Jenk­ins

ETA: 14 February

The mem­o­ry of Michel Hazanavicius’s exe­crable Redoubtable (a glossy bio of Jean Luc-Godard’s ear­ly years with Louis Gar­rell) still lingers hard, and per­haps even taints our excite­ment for this new Richard Lin­klater film about the mak­ing of JLG’s Breath­less. And yet, see­ing some of the ear­ly black-and-white set pho­tographs from the film, and the fideli­ty towards how that era has been doc­u­ment­ed, makes us feel that Lin­klater will more like­ly soar where Haz­anavi­cius crashed and burned. DJ

ETA: To be announced

Pat­ti Cake$ direc­tor Gere­my Jasper sticks with the musi­cal theme with this rock opera star­ring Stranger Things and The Whale break­out Sadie Sink, who has a back­ground in musi­cal the­atre and is cur­rent­ly star­ring on Broad­way. She’s joined by Kel­ly Mac­don­ald, Regi­na Hall, Mur­ray Bartlett and Kelvin Har­ri­son Jr. in this sto­ry of a farm girl who trav­els to a mys­te­ri­ous city in search of a fam­i­ly heir­loom. But when she meets her true love, she’s test­ed even more than she ever imag­ined. Han­nah Strong

ETA: To be announced

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic was five years ago, but like most of us, mem­o­ries of that chal­leng­ing time still fes­ter in the mind of mod­ern hor­ror auteur Ari Aster. This has man­i­fest­ed in Edding­ton, his new horror/​western/​dark com­e­dy host­ing a line-up of hot top­ic stars such as Pedro Pas­cal, Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone and Austin But­ler. Revolv­ing around a cou­ple strand­ed in a remote town dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, pre­pare to re-expe­ri­ence 2020 hys­te­ria in the style of Hered­i­tary, Mid­som­mar and Beau is Afraid. Bar­ney Nuttall

ETA: To be announced

It’s eight long years since You Were Nev­er Real­ly Here left us reel­ing, and in the inter­im sev­er­al Ram­say projects have been rumoured but ulti­mate­ly nev­er mate­ri­alised. We know from expe­ri­ence the Scot­tish leg­end likes to take her time, and who are we to rush genius? Luck­i­ly we know for sure that her next film is wrapped – pro­duc­tion stills of Jen­nifer Lawrence and Robert Pat­tin­son sur­faced in late 2024. Her next dra­ma (anoth­er lit­er­ary adap­ta­tion) cen­ters on a new moth­er who starts to lose her grip on real­i­ty after the birth of her child. HS

ETA: To be announced

56. Ella McCay (James L. Brooks)

It seems absurd that we haven’t had a James L. Brooks film since 2010’s How Do You Know, but the gods are smil­ing upon us and the Broad­cast News direc­tor has returned with this com­e­dy dra­ma, star­ring Emma Mack­ey as the tit­u­lar char­ac­ter, described as ​“an ide­al­is­tic young politi­cian who jug­gles famil­ial issues and a chal­leng­ing work life while prepar­ing to take over the job of her men­tor, the state’s long­time incum­bent gov­er­nor.” Jamie Lee Cur­tis, Jack Low­den, Woody Har­rel­son, Rebec­ca Hall and Ayo Ede­biri round out the cast. HS

ETA: To be announced

Cate Blanchett reteams with Jim Jar­musch after last work­ing togeth­er on Cof­fee and Cig­a­rettes all the way back in 2003. Jar­musch described it as​”a fun­ny, sad film”, which focus­es on two sib­lings who reunite with their emo­tion­al­ly dis­tant par­ents. 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, but Jar­musch works with Adam Dri­ver for the third time. HS

ETA: To be announced

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

ETA: To be announced

After mak­ing Lon­glegs, mar­ket­ed as the scari­est film of all time, Osgood Perkins has made a sage deci­sion to employ a killer toy mon­key in his antic­i­pat­ed fol­low up. Based on a short sto­ry by Stephen King, the film sees Theo James wit­ness a series of grue­some deaths linked to his father’s toy mon­key. It may not fea­ture Nicholas Cage dressed like a dis­eased Mar­i­lyn Man­son, but an evil, wind-up pri­mate is prob­a­bly the next best thing. BN

ETA: 21 February

On the one hand, there are lots of film­mak­ers who are look­ing back to the clas­sic Uni­ver­sal Mon­ster archive for inspi­ra­tion, but on the oth­er, when it’s peo­ple like Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal, Leigh Whan­nell and Guiller­mo del Toro, then it’s real­ly all good. GDT has been post­ing pro­duc­tion images from the 2024 shoot in Edin­burgh and has teased his ver­sion of Mary Shelley’s lode­stone as being a return to the style and inten­tions of Crim­son Peak. Sign. Us. TF. Up. DJ

ETA: To be announced

His­to­ry will be kind to Chloé Zhao’s Eter­nals, her eccen­tric Mar­vel movie which prized ideas and aes­thet­ics over the usu­al CG non­sense. Yet it’s still heart­en­ing to see that, for her next film, she’s adapt­ing Mag­gie O’Farrell wild­ly pop­u­lar and crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed his­tor­i­cal fic­tion nov­el ​‘Ham­net’ for her next fea­ture. The sto­ry tells of William Shakespeare’s son, who died aged 11, and how the grief expe­ri­enced by the boy’s par­ents (played by Paul Mescal and Jessie Buck­ley) end­ed up being sub­tly chan­neled into the work. DJ

ETA: To be announced

Aki­ra Kurosawa’s 1963 kid­nap thriller, High and Low, is one of those films that you watch with jaw firm­ly affixed to the floor. In its sto­ry­telling, act­ing and the way it’s shot, it’s weird­ly per­fect. Spike Lee doesn’t have great form when it comes to remak­ing south-east Asian cin­e­ma (cf 2013’s Old Boy), but he on a great run at the moment, so we’re fas­ci­nat­ed to see what he deliv­ers, espe­cial­ly with Den­zel Wash­ing­ton in the role that Toshi­ro Mifu­ne played so bril­liant­ly in the orig­i­nal. DJ

ETA: To be announced

There’s no place like home, and home for Guy Ritchie is macho action films fea­tur­ing hard nosed crim­i­nals. Hen­ry Cav­ill and Jake Gyl­len­haal are on call as two extrac­tion spe­cial­ists work­ing to get a senior nego­tia­tor to safe­ty, both beef­cakes hav­ing appeared in recent Ritchie projects. Filmed in the pin­na­cle locale of the British bud­get hol­i­day, Tener­ife, In the Grey will be all bul­lets, brawn, and brawl­ing in a fast-paced explo­sion of epic com­bat, typ­i­cal of the cock­ney gun nut’s style. BN

ETA: To be announced

It seems only nat­ur­al that action men like Gareth Evans and Tom Hardy would find each oth­er even­tu­al­ly, and they do so with this grim thriller co-star­ring Tim­o­thy Olyphant and For­est Whitak­er. Per the log­line, Hardy’s bruised detec­tive must fight his way through the seedy crim­i­nal under­world of his city to res­cue a politician’s son, uncov­er­ing a web of cor­rup­tion in the process. There will almost cer­tain­ly be blood. Lots of it. HS

ETA: To be announced

Pixar alum­ni Alexan­der Wood Erik Ben­son branch off into their fan­tas­ti­cal tale in In Your Dreams, a fam­i­ly-friend­ly adven­ture fol­low­ing two children’s search for the myth­i­cal Sand­man, who they hope will save their parent’s fail­ing mar­riage. Get your tis­sues ready, as this ten­der ani­ma­tion will undoubt­ed­ly be a tear-jerk­er. Craig Robin­son, Simu Liu, and break­out star of The Pen­guin Christin Mil­i­oti con­tribute to this mag­i­cal adven­ture born from some of animation’s biggest tal­ents. BN

ETA: To be announced

If brat earned a spot in your Spo­ti­fy Wrapped list this year, here’s some triv­ia for you: Char­li xcx’s icon­ic, inces­sant­ly memed album art­work was actu­al­ly inspired by the title cred­its of Gregg Araki’s 2007 ston­er com­e­dy, Smi­ley Face. It’s a love­ly full cir­cle moment of sorts, then, that the pop star is star­ring in Araki’s upcom­ing film: an erot­ic, art world-set thriller in which a young man (Coop­er Hoff­man, whose screen debut in PTA’s Licorice Piz­za wowed us back in 2022) becomes a famous artist’s (Olivia Wilde) sex­u­al muse. It’s also been a whole decade since Araki’s last fea­ture, so it’s safe to say that the antic­i­pa­tion lev­els for this one are pret­ty high. Mari­na Ashoti

ETA: To be announced

Aha! Our very own Alan Par­tridge (well, Steve Coogan real­ly) is team­ing up with a pen­guin, con­tribut­ing to the obscure sub­genre of men and pen­guin films. Oscar nom­i­nat­ed Full Mon­ty direc­tor Peter Cat­ta­neo returns after his domes­tic choir dra­ma Mil­i­tary Wives with a poignant dram­e­dy about a man’s self dis­cov­ery in Argenti­na. Also there’s a pen­guin. Jonathan Pryce is on hand for an added dose of home­li­ness while Coogan goes all Dolit­tle. This is one for the die-hard Mr Popper’s Pen­guins fans. BN

ETA: 18 April

After co-writ­ing Bar­bie with his oth­er half Gre­ta Ger­wig, Noah Baum­bach has col­lab­o­rat­ed with Emi­ly Mor­timer on his next project, shot in Lon­don with a mega cast includ­ing George Clooney, Adam San­dler, Eve Hew­son, Lau­ra Dern and Jim Broad­bent. Plot details are thin on the ground, but con­sid­er­ing how great the last San­dler-Baum­bach team-up was, we’re keen to see what the next one looks like. HS

ETA: To be announced

One of the sol­diers of cin­e­ma as a tac­tile medi­um, Cor­nish leg­end Mark Jenkin qui­et­ly shot his fol­low-up to Enys Men in the sum­mer of 2024, and he brought George McK­ay along with him for the ride. Lit­tle is known about the film at this point, but we will say that we’ve real­ly come around on McK­ay as a per­former, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to his any­thing-goes atti­tude and the fact he clear­ly has a nose for excit­ing direc­to­r­i­al tal­ent. DJ

ETA: To be announced

Mary Bronstein’s lo-fi direc­to­r­i­al debut, Yeast, fea­tured a pre-star­dom Gre­ta Ger­wig – but that was some 17 years ago, so we’re quite excit­ed to see her next film, which stars Rose Byrne as a woman whose life comes crash­ing down around her as she con­tends with her child’s mys­te­ri­ous ill­ness, her absent hus­band, a miss­ing per­son, and an increas­ing­ly hos­tile rela­tion­ship with her ther­a­pist. The sup­port­ing cast is par­tic­u­lar­ly intrigu­ing, with Conan O’Brien, Daniel Zol­ghadri, Ivy Wolk and A$ap Rocky list­ed. HS

ETA: To be announced

Adapt­ed from Adam Mars-Jones’ ​‘Box Hill’, Har­ry Lighton’s debut dra­ma made head­lines when it was announced A24 had picked up the US dis­tri­b­u­tion rights. Har­ry Melling stars as a meek young man who embarks on a BDSM rela­tion­ship with the charis­mat­ic, dan­ger­ous leader of a bik­er gang (played by Alexan­der Skars­gård) who intro­duces him to the world of kink. Sign us up! HS

ETA: To be announced

After wrap­ping up his Oslo tril­o­gy with The Worst Per­son in the World in 2021, Joachim Tri­er has teamed up with Renate Reinsve again for his Eng­lish lan­guage debut. Co-writ­ten with his cre­ative part­ner Eskil Vogt, the sto­ry con­cerns two sis­ters who must deal with their estranged father after the death of their moth­er. The rest of the cast isn’t too shab­by either: Cory Michael Smith, Elle Fan­ning and Stel­lan Skars­gård as the dif­fi­cult dad in ques­tion. HS

In the 2022 book Peter Hujar’s Day, author Lin­da Rosenkrantz asked her pal, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er Peter Hujar, to write down every­thing he did in a sin­gle day, and now Ira Sachs has adapt­ed that fas­ci­nat­ing con­ceit into a movie. He col­lab­o­rates once more with Ben Whishaw, who was so, so great in 2023’s Pas­sages, yet this is less a film that’s ​“qui­et: genius at work” and more a study of the ties between art and cap­i­tal, and the fact that the vast major­i­ty of artists in 1960s and ​’70s Amer­i­ca were liv­ing in a state of near-penu­rary. The film is set to pre­mière at the 2025 Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val, and will go on to play in Berlin after that. DJ

ETA: To be announced

No-one has men­tal­ly recov­ered from the bril­liant Deci­sion to Leave, but Park Chan-wook, in an expect­ed­ly bru­tal fash­ion, is deliv­er­ing anoth­er thriller to twist viewer’s mind. South Kore­an cin­e­ma stal­wart Lee Byung-hun fea­tures in this social satire where, in a bid to break through the impos­si­bly com­pet­i­tive employ­ment mar­ket, a man devis­es a plan to elim­i­nate his com­pe­ti­tion. It’s safe to assume his meth­ods won’t be pleas­ant. Watch­ing a Park Chan-wook film is always bruis­ing and total­ly cap­ti­vat­ing; this approach to the infa­mous­ly impen­e­tra­ble South Kore­an job pool will no doubt be both of those things. BN

ETA: To be announced

Spain’s Albert Ser­ra qui­et­ly made one of 2024’s great­est films with his bull­fight­ing doc­u­men­tary After­noons of Soli­tude, but due to its vio­lent con­tent, it seems unlike­ly that it’ll show up in UK cin­e­mas. He’s back on grander fic­tion­al ter­rain with Kris­ten Stew­art on hand to tell a sto­ry about the polit­i­cal ten­sions between the US and Rus­sia and how they’ve evolved since the bom­bard­ment of Ukraine. As this is the man who made 2022’s Paci­fic­tion, it seems unlike­ly this’ll be a cut-and-dried spy thriller in the John le Car­ré mould. DJ

ETA: To be announced

It’s been a long, strange jour­ney for Bong Joon-ho’s much-antic­i­pat­ed Par­a­site fol­low-up to make it to release, dur­ing which time we’ve heard all sorts of rumours. Stu­dio pow­er strug­gles, final cut quib­bles – it seems absurd that the toast of 2019 has had to wait five years for his next film to see the light of day, but fin­gers crossed there isn’t anoth­er delay this time. The first trail­er had supreme Snow­piercer ener­gy, which is a huge plus for me. Robert Pat­tin­son clones caus­ing chaos in space? Who doesn’t want to see this?! HS

ETA: 18 April

With his first two films, Kaili Blues and Long Day’s Jour­ney into Night, we’re ful­ly on board and have a life­time pass to the Bi Gan train. (Plus the fact he always seems to namecheck Kung Fu Pan­da in inter­views). This new one has been billed as a ​“sci-fi dra­ma about woman whose con­scious­ness falls into eter­nal time”, and we can only say we’re excit­ed and intrigued by what is a very open-end­ed prospect. His last film was in 3D, so expect some added 4DX action with this one. DJ

ETA: To be announced

There has just been a remake/​remaster of the clas­sic game, Silent Hill 2, released to plau­dits on the Playsta­tion 5, so this feels like good tim­ing for genre jour­ney­man Christoph Gans deliv­er a sequel to his 2006 Silent Hill. While the game is con­sid­ered to be the gold stan­dard of hor­ror games, Gans is def­i­nite­ly not a direc­tor who has done much of note in his time, so we’re com­ing to this one with, at best, cau­tious opti­mism. DJ

ETA: To be announced

The Safdie Broth­ers struck gold when they saw a char­ac­ter actor in Adam San­dler, cast­ing him in their adren­a­line hur­ri­cane Uncut Gems. Now Ben­ny Safdie has his eyes set on Dwayne ​“The Rock” John­son, mor­ph­ing him into aggro UFC cham­pi­on Mark Kerr in this biopic. Like San­dler in Uncut Gems, all eyes will be on how Johnson’s per­for­mance com­pli­ments Safdie’s kinet­ic film­mak­ing. Biopics are gen­er­al­ly regard­ed as bland nowa­days, but this strange pair­ing of action star and indie auteur could ele­vate this non­fic­tion nar­ra­tive above the rest. BN

ETA: To be announced

As read­ers of Lit­tle White Lies will know, we’re mas­sive fans of the Fil­ipino film­mak­er who burst into the pub­lic eye with her bold, sen­su­al dra­ma, Lin­gua Fran­ca, in 2019 (even if it did take a while to make it to UK shores!). She has been tin­ker­ing with a quixot­ic dream project called Trop­i­cal Goth­ic for years, but as the parts for that come togeth­er, San­doval has return to the Philip­pines to make a noir romance where she plays against type as an indus­tri­ous, opaque­ly-moti­vat­ed detec­tive who devel­ops a rela­tion­ship with a col­league while try­ing to solve a case of local cor­rup­tion. With post-pro­duc­tion under­way now, we have fin­gers and toes crossed for a Cannes pre­mière. DJ

ETA: To be announced

The track record for young super­star actors turn­ing their hand to direct­ing is patchy to say the least, but if – like Kris­ten Stew­art – you’ve worked with the likes of Kel­ly Reichardt and Olivi­er Assayas, then at least you’ll have gleaned some tech­nique from the best. Stew­art has dab­bled in music videos from behind the cam­era, but this is her full fea­ture debut, com­pris­ing an adap­ta­tion of Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 mem­oir, The Chronol­o­gy of Water. This could go either way, but we’re very excit­ed to see that the great Tho­ra Birch is one of the main cast mem­bers. DJ

ETA: To be announced

I’m a lit­tle bit flum­moxed at the speed of Kristof­fer Borgli’s ascent con­sid­er­ing how lit­tle I enjoyed his break­out film Sick of Myself, but it seems enough peo­ple liked that and his Eng­lish-lan­guage debut Dream Sce­nario that he’s scored a super-star­ry lead­ing cou­ple in Zen­daya and Robert Pat­tin­son for his next film. They star as a cou­ple days away from mat­ri­mo­ny, whose plans are derailed by sud­den rev­e­la­tions that change how they see each oth­er. HS

ETA: To be announced

Lat­vian ani­ma­tion direc­tor Gints Zil­balodis works with a stripped back dig­i­tal palette to tell most­ly-silent adven­ture tales burst­ing at the seams with alle­gor­i­cal rich­ness. Flow takes as its hero a lit­tle black cat who, due to a ran­dom glob­al cat­a­stro­phe, must team up with his ani­mal brethren and con­coct sim­ple sur­vival meth­ods as the plan­et is con­sumed by the ele­ments. We’ve seen it, it’s rous­ing and inge­nious, so def­i­nite­ly one to mark down as a must-see. DJ

ETA: 21 March (UK)

Star­ring Lily-Rose Depp, Renate Reinsve and Squid Game star, Hoyeon, this erot­i­cal­ly-tinged adap­ta­tion of Anne Serre’s 2018 nov­el from Joe Tal­bot (mak­er of the impres­sive The Last Black Man in San Fran­cis­co) has been a lit­tle up in the air since its orig­i­nal announce­ment in 2023. But all signs point to it even­tu­al­ly see­ing the light of day in 2025, so look out at a fes­ti­val near you. DJ

ETA: To be announced

This one is going to send legions of fan­girls into a tail­spin: Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor star as two Amer­i­can sound recordists dur­ing World War One who set out to doc­u­ment the sto­ries of their coun­try­men and find them­selves falling in love in the process. Adapt­ed from a Ben Shat­tuck novel­la and direct­ed by the excel­lent Oliv­er Her­manus, we fore­see a glitzy fes­ti­val debut ahead. HS

ETA: To be announced

One of the busiest men in film­mak­ing con­tin­ues to deliv­er the goods – after a bumper 2024 we can expect to see his next dra­ma soon, star­ring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield and Ayo Adibiri, plus Guadagni­no alum­ni Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevi­gny. Shot last sum­mer in North Lon­don, it focus­es on a col­lege pro­fes­sor whose own secre­tive past comes to the fore after a col­league deals with a seri­ous accu­sa­tion. As Luca him­self gid­di­ly relaid to me this very autumn, there’s ​“no sex, no desire” in this one. We’ll see about that… HS

ETA: To be announced

David Lowry has an eclec­tic back cat­a­logue, with his most evoca­tive fea­ture being the dark fan­ta­sy The Green Knight which fea­tured intri­cate­ly craft­ed cos­tumes. To then see that his next pur­suit is a cos­tume dra­ma with Anne Hath­away and break­out Eupho­ria cast mem­ber Hunter Schafer draws the eye. This dra­ma about a rela­tion­ship between a musi­cian and fash­ion design­er does noth­ing to nar­row Lowry’s var­ied back cat­a­logue, instead reit­er­at­ing his excit­ing genre-hop­ping abil­i­ty. BN

ETA: To be announced

Kel­ly Reichardt and Josh O’Connor seem like a match made in heav­en. Add in the words ​“heist movie set dur­ing the Viet­nam war co-star­ring Alana Haim and John Mag­a­ro” and we could not be more seat­ed. Oth­er details are thin on the ground, but we know our friends at Mubi are pro­duc­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing this one, and we’re hop­ing it turns up on the 2025 fes­ti­val cir­cuit with a big­ger fan­fare than her under­rat­ed 2022 dram­e­dy Show­ing Up. HS

ETA: To be announced

It’s become an annu­al tra­di­tion to put Ter­ence Malick’s Jesus biopic on our annu­al pre­view list and we will keep doing so until it turns up. The title has changed from The Way of the Wind, Hun­gar­i­an actor Géza Röhrig is play­ing the big JC him­self, and Mark Rylance has 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. We now have some more plot details cour­tesy of Röhrig, as detailed by The Film Stage, who report that the film con­cerns ​“Peter want­i­ng Jesus to become polit­i­cal­ly involved in stop­ping Roman oppres­sion and Jesus not believ­ing he should.” HS

ETA: To be announced

Since sea­son three of The Bear was a bit of a damp squib, audi­ences’ hunger for a culi­nary pot-boil­er remains unsat­ed. Alon­so Ruiz­pala­cios’ appears to serve the desired hot plate of stress in La Coci­na, a dra­ma set in a chaot­ic Times Square kitchen with Raúl Briones and Rooney Mara. Shot in mono­chrome, there’s more than just adren­a­line on offer as we see the kitchen staff strive for that ol’ chest­nut The Amer­i­can Dream. It cer­tain­ly pleased fes­ti­val juries, tak­ing an arm­ful of awards last year. BN

ETA: 28 March (UK)

Keep your eyes on Sun­dance 2025 if you want to see the ear­ly word on this remake of Ang Lee’s scin­til­lat­ing 1993 film of the same name, though we must say that direc­tor Andrew Ahn has a moun­tain to climb if he wants to trump the clas­sic orig­i­nal. The sto­ry, about a young Chi­nese man com­ing out to his par­ents at his green card wed­ding, stars Bowen Yang in the lead and has the great Lily Glad­stone on hand for sup­port­ing detail. DJ

ETA: To be announced

This may be the only fran­chise which deserves count­less iter­a­tions. While Glass Onion saw Rian John­son take Daniel Craig’s Ken­tucky-fried detec­tive Benoit Blanc to a sun­ny Greek island, this time the mas­ter sleuth will be in a dark­er, goth­ic locale. The cast is stacked as per, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to Cailee Spae­ny, Josh Brolin, Andrew Scott, Josh O’Connor and Glenn Close, and Blanc has been giv­en a rugged makeover befit­ting the film’s creepi­er vibe. The char­ac­ters are in place, traps are set, and audi­ences are eager to unpack anoth­er mur­der­ous mys­tery. BN

ETA: To be announced

There was a brief sneak peek at Laika’s next project dur­ing their recent BFI exhi­bi­tion, but the ani­ma­tion stu­dio are famous­ly tight-lipped about what they’re work­ing on. Nev­er­the­less, a new Lai­ka film is def­i­nite­ly worth get­ting excit­ed about, espe­cial­ly when it’s got a cast includ­ing Carey Mul­li­gan, Maher­sha­la Ali, Awka­fi­na and Tom Waits. Young­ster Pey­ton Eliz­a­beth Lee plays the main char­ac­ter Prue McK­eel, who sets off on a per­ilous jour­ney into the forests out­side Port­land in search of her kid­napped broth­er. HS

ETA: To be announced

Cin­e­mat­ic dis­course is usu­al­ly dom­i­nat­ed by brash action block­busters or scream-induc­ing hor­ror films. So when a ten­der romance about the fragili­ty of rela­tion­ships and life makes a lot of noise, you know you have some­thing spe­cial. Celine Song’s Oscar nom­i­nat­ed debut fea­ture Past Lives made waves upon release, so the pres­sure is on for her sec­ond film. But with Hol­ly­wood heavy­weights Pedro Pas­cal, Chris Evans and Dako­ta John­son on set, Song looks pre­pared to deliv­er anoth­er heart­break­ing explo­ration of love and loss. We are seat­ed and buck­led in. BN

ETA: To be announced

We’ve left this one to the end, but in terms of excite­ment lev­els, this is one that Team LWLies are going to place all the chips on. Mia Hansen-Løve is one of the best in the busi­ness, and though her stock in trade is sen­si­tive, philo­soph­i­cal, qui­et­ly rad­i­cal French char­ac­ter stud­ies, she’s turn­ing her cam­era towards renowned Eng­lish fem­i­nist Mary Woll­stonecraft for the upcom­ing If Love Should Die. It has been classed in the trade papers as a ​“biopic”, but we’re sure Hansen-Løve will do some­thing excit­ing with that mori­bund form. DJ

ETA: To be announced

The Safdie Bros might have part­ed cre­ative ways after Uncut Gems, but they’ve cer­tain­ly not stopped work­ing. While Ben­ny has The Smash­ing Machine com­ing up, old­er broth­er Josh has the much-hyped Mar­ty Supreme, which sees him work with Safdie fan­boy Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met from a script co-writ­ten by Safdie and long-time col­lab­o­ra­tor Ronald Bron­stein. It’s a peri­od piece about a 1950s table ten­nis pro, but a Josh Safdie peri­od piece is hard­ly like­ly to be a Mer­chant Ivory Affair. Gwyneth Pal­trow, Tyler the Cre­ator and Odessa A’zion co-star. HS

ETA: To be announced

Amalia Ulman’s debut fea­ture El Plan­e­ta was a high­light of the 2021 Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val, so it’s excit­ing to learn her sopho­more fea­ture is on the way, with a cast includ­ing Chloë Sevi­gny, Simon Rex, Alex Wolff and Amalia her­self. Per Sun­dance, where the film will pre­mière, ​“A media crew mis­tak­en­ly ends up in the wrong coun­try while try­ing to pro­file a musi­cian. As they col­lab­o­rate with locals to cre­ate a viral trend, rela­tion­ships form amid an unfold­ing health cri­sis.” HS

ETA: To be announced

How’s this for a cast: Austin But­ler, Zoë Kravitz, Regi­na King, Matt Smith, Grif­fin Dunne and Bad Bun­ny star in Dar­ren Aronofsky’s crime thriller, based on the book of the same name by Char­lie Hus­ton. But­ler plays a for­mer base­ball play­er who finds him­self wrapped up in New York’s crim­i­nal under­bel­ly in the 1990s. It’s a big year for But­ler, who is also set to star in Luca Guadagnino’s ​“readap­ta­tion” of Amer­i­can Psy­cho, fill­ing Chris­t­ian Bale’s con­sid­er­able shoes. HS

ETA: To be announced

It feels like a life­time since Trey Edward Shultz made waves with Waves, but he’ll be back this year with a pret­ty star­ry col­lab­o­ra­tion with The Week­nd, described as ​“an exten­sion of the antic­i­pat­ed album of the same title which stands along­side the film’s score by The Week­nd and Daniel Lopatin.” The musi­cian stars along­side Jen­na Orte­ga and Bar­ry Keoghan. HS

ETA: To be announced

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

ETA: To be announced