50 films to look for­ward to in 2016 – part 1

We don’t know about you, but we’ve had a blast at the movies this year. Yet while many of our favourite the­atri­cal releas­es of 2015 will live long in the mem­o­ry, we’re already look­ing ahead to the next 12 months.

There are a bunch of great movies that don’t appear on this list – Loud­er Than Bombs, Son of Saul, Dheep­an, Knight of Cups to name just a few – which we’ve inten­tion­al­ly omit­ted on the grounds that they’ve either a) already done the rounds on the fes­ti­val cir­cuit or b) been out for sev­er­al months else­where. Now that we’ve got that small caveat out of the way, in no par­tic­u­lar order…

Eta 29 January

Okay, so Pao­lo Sorrentino’s sev­enth fea­ture may have had its pre­mière at the 2015 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val back in May, but we think it deserves its place on this list because, well, it’s com­plete­ly bril­liant. Michael Caine is on top form as retired con­duc­tor Fred Ballinger, who expe­ri­ences a late-life cri­sis while on vaca­tion at a fan­cy Swiss spa resort. Daugh­ter Lena (Rachel Weisz) and best bud­dy Mick (Har­vey Kei­t­el) do their best to stem the flow of his malaise, while a curi­ous assort­ment of side char­ac­ters pro­vide light relief. Youth is at once a mirac­u­lous, mov­ing and sear­ing­ly fun­ny film that’s right up there with the director’s very best work. Watch the brand new UK trail­er and see for your­self. Adam Wood­ward

Eta unknown

Adèle Haenel (Water Lilies, Les Com­bat­tants) is a 26-year-old blonde French actress who embod­ies every role with com­mit­ted pas­sion. We’re thrilled that she has come to the atten­tion of the Dar­d­enne broth­ers, who have cast her as the lead in their eighth fea­ture, The Unknown Girl. Haenel is Jen­ny, a doc­tor who becomes obsessed with the iden­ti­ty of an unknown woman who died after being refused surgery. The com­bi­na­tion of the Dar­d­ennes’ gen­tly expos­ing social real­ism with Haenel’s cap­ti­vat­ing ener­gy is going to be a rich dish. Although, after the per­fec­tion that was Mar­i­on Cotil­lard in Two Days, One Night, it will be inter­est­ing to see how a new Dar­d­ennes’ lead­ing lady fares. Sophie Monks Kaufman

Eta 8 January

Quentin Tarantino’s pre-game shenani­gans have made for juicy fod­der for film colum­nists, with the out­spo­ken direc­tor decid­ing to take aim at the US police force. He’d bet­ter hope they’re not the types who dig west­erns (films about the law of the gun, machis­mo, etc), as his new one is a riff on this most Amer­i­can of gen­res. For the last few films, there’s been the feel­ing that Taran­ti­no has final­ly made the movie that he and no-one else would actu­al­ly want to watch, but audi­ences have turned up in droves. With no bank­able ​“movie stars” in The Hate­ful Eight, one won­ders if this could be the one that final­ly breaks him. David Jenk­ins

Eta 11 March

Anom­al­isa is Char­lie Kaufman’s sec­ond fea­ture as direc­tor (fol­low­ing 2008’s Synec­doche, New York) and sev­enth as a writer. It’s an intri­cate psy­cho­log­i­cal tragi­com­e­dy told using stop-motion pup­pets, for which he’s teamed up with ani­ma­tor Duke John­son. David Thewlis voic­es alien­at­ed cus­tomer ser­vices guru Michael; Jen­nifer Jason Leigh voic­es Lisa. When describ­ing this film, the temp­ta­tion is to unleash a rain­storm of adjec­tives. Superla­tives like ​‘mas­ter­ful’, ​‘heart­break­ing’ and ​‘accom­plished’ are accu­rate but when the cre­ators have been so spe­cif­ic in their world-build­ing, tak­ing the baton involves greater imag­i­na­tion. Anom­al­isa is a tiny, hand-craft­ed vision of the John Mil­ton quote: ​“The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heav­en out of hell and a hell out of heav­en.” SMK

Eta 11 March

This impres­sive debut from robust­ly monikered Swedish writer/​director Mag­nus von Horn takes place in a rur­al com­mu­ni­ty that’s thrown into tur­moil after the release of a local young offend­er. Talent­ed up-and-com­er (and Sweden’s answer to Ed Sheer­an) Ulrik Munther plays John, who returns home hav­ing served his time des­per­ate to get on with his life only to find that not all of his peers are will­ing to for­give and for­get. An intel­li­gent film that asks us to find sym­pa­thy for some­one guilty of a ter­ri­ble and trag­ic crime. AW

Eta 29 January

In a year with no dis­cernible Oscar fron­trun­ner, there are wags and award prog­nos­ti­ca­tors whis­per­ing that this could be the year of Tom McCarthy’s Spot­light, the director’s uni­ver­sal­ly adored fol­low-up to the uni­ver­sal­ly despised Adam San­dler vehi­cle, The Cob­bler. This ensem­ble pro­ce­dur­al fol­lows the inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism unit at the Boston Globe whose stir­ling, metic­u­lous jour­nal­is­tic efforts help to uncov­er mass cor­rup­tion in the Catholic church. The film is also proof that Bird­man wasn’t Michael Keaton’s big come­back – it was just his warm up for this. DJ

Eta 12 February

With the excep­tion of Spy, 2015 was a bang aver­age year for main­stream come­dies. Now, it’s too ear­ly to spec­u­late as to whether next year will be any bet­ter, but we’re already pin­ning our hopes on Zoolan­der 2 – although the trail­er for this long-await­ed sequel does kind of make us wish that Ben Stiller had retired his nar­cis­sis­tic com­ic cre­ation in favour of a Mugatu spin-off. This one sees Derek Zoolan­der and Hansel (Owen Wil­son) team up to thwart a major con­spir­a­cy to rid the world of its most ridicu­lous­ly good-look­ing peo­ple. Expect big hair and (man­i­cured dig­its crossed) big­ger laughs. AW

Eta 19 February

Hear­ing all kinds of strange thing about this neo-west­ern about a can­ni­bal hunter played by Kurt Rus­sell. Most talk of how S Craig Zahler film takes its good sweet time to reach its gory dénoue­ment, focus­ing on ripe genre dia­logue and build­ing up meaty side char­ac­ters than sim­ply offer­ing a stock cav­al­cade of genre con­ven­tions and 10-a-pen­ny thrills. This film has come out of nowhere, but here’s hop­ing that it, along­side The Hate­ful Eight, can kick­start the Oater revival. DJ

Eta Spring

Debut direc­tor Helen Walsh is an estab­lished cre­ator of mys­te­ri­ous, sex­u­al­ly curi­ous fic­tion­al females. The War­ring­ton-born writer has four pub­lished nov­els: ​‘Brass’, ​‘Once Upon a Time in Eng­land’, ​‘Go to Sleep’ and ​‘The Lemon Grove’. The Vio­la­tors is set around the Birken­head docks in Liv­er­pool and con­cerns the com­ing-of-age of 15-year-old Shelly (Lau­ren McQueen), a school drop-out who fills her days list­less­ly walk­ing across this urban waste­land. The film takes a dark turn but tone remains strange­ly serene and hope­ful. The Vio­la­tors plays like a more poet­ic and cryp­tic Clio Barnard film. Walsh’s abil­i­ty to con­jure elec­tric sen­su­al­i­ty out of com­pro­mised sit­u­a­tions is dis­qui­et­ing and fas­ci­nat­ing. SMK

Eta Spring

Nico­las Wind­ing Refn and Elle Fan­ning. If there’s a more intrigu­ing director/​star pair­ing com­ing our way in 2016 we haven’t seen it. The Neon Demon sees the Dri­ve and Only God For­gives direc­tor fix his crosshairs on the mod­el­ling indus­try, fol­low­ing the sto­ry of an aspir­ing ingénue named Jesse (Fan­ning) who’s swal­lowed by the fash­ion world when she relo­cates to Los Ange­les. On the gen­e­sis of the project Refn has said: ​“One morn­ing I woke and realised I was both sur­round­ed and dom­i­nat­ed by women. Strange­ly, a sud­den urge was plant­ed in me to make a hor­ror film about vicious beau­ty,” Colour us intrigued. AW

Eta 4 March

One of the high­lights of the 2015 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, this doc­u­men­tary by cinephile and pro­gram­mer Kent Jones takes the famous tome of the title and runs with its spir­it rather than its sto­ry. There is love­ly footage of inquis­i­tive Nou­velle Vague god­head Fra­noçois Truf­faut fir­ing prob­ing ques­tions at an Alfred Hitch­cock who is clear­ly lov­ing the atten­tion, but what Jones has done is made a film in which he has roped in a host of oth­er famous direc­tors (David Finch­er, Arnaud Desplechin, Wes Ander­son, James Gray, etc.) to talk about Hitch­cock and how his work affect­ed their own work. It’s a movie about how direc­tors talk about them­selves, and a fas­ci­nat­ing and live­ly one at that. DJ

Eta 25 March

Report­ed to be one of the biggest box office hits of all time in its native Chile, Pablo Larrain’s The Club is also a movie that works in neat tan­dem with anoth­er title on this list – Tom McCarthy’s Spot­light. Where the lat­er film focus­es on the exter­nal process of reveal­ing a dark, shroud­ed secret, this film explores the sit­u­a­tion of cor­rupt­ed priests from an inte­ri­or van­tage, tak­ing place in and around a small, beach-side bunkhouse to which dis­graced priests are post­ed to repent for their sins away from pry­ing pub­lic eyes. DJ

Eta 15 April

When Dis­ney revealed that they were devel­op­ing a new live action adap­ta­tion of Rud­yard Kipling’s cher­ished col­lec­tion of sto­ries, our imme­di­ate reac­tion was one of indif­fer­ence. Since that 2013 announce­ment there’s not been a marked shift in our antic­i­pa­tion lev­el. That was until we saw some exclu­sive test footage at a Dis­ney slate pre­sen­ta­tion. For starters, the voice cast is sen­sa­tion­al: Bill Mur­ray (Baloo); Scar­lett Johans­son (Kaa); Idris Elba (Shere Khan); Lupi­ta Nyong’o (Rak­sha); Ben Kings­ley (Bagheera); Christo­pher Walken (King Louie). Then there’s the pho­to­re­al­is­tic CG ani­ma­tion which, aside from look­ing com­plete­ly amaz­ing, lends the film an unex­pect­ed­ly dark tone. Give the trail­er a whirl and get excit­ed. AW

Eta unknown

In April 2015, writer/​director Joan­na Hogg (Arch­i­pel­ago, Exhi­bi­tion) spoke at a BFI pan­el dis­cus­sion cel­e­brat­ing Lau­ra Mulvey’s visu­al plea­sures essay. She men­tioned that she was writ­ing a screen­play ​“set in the 1980s about a young female stu­dent” that drew inspi­ra­tion from the essay. She went on to cite a spe­cif­ic line: ​‘the silent image of woman still tied to her place of bear­er of mean­ing, not mak­er of mean­ing,’ reveal­ing that the line trig­gered a mem­o­ry that she will use in her new film. ​“It was the mem­o­ry of my par­ents hav­ing a din­ner par­ty with friends. Then, towards the end of the din­ner par­ty, the women got up, myself includ­ed. My moth­er and wives left the table and left the men talk­ing at the table. We moved next door.” SMK

Eta 29 April

Jean-Marc Valée has become some­thing of the awards sea­son go-to guy for A‑listers look­ing to get a nom­i­na­tion under their belt. In the case of Matthew Mcconaugh­ey, make that a cer­ti­fied win for The Dal­las Buy­ers Club. This new one see Jake Gyl­len­haal actu­al­ly dial­ing it back lit­tle after a series of ​“big” turns in South­paw and Night­crawler to play a griev­ing wid­ow­er who is unable to locate an out­let for his feel­ings. The film traces his trans­for­ma­tion from a slick, unfeel­ing cor­po­rate stooge to some­one who’s a lit­tle bit more free and easy with his life, and this change is kick­start­ed by the rela­tion­ship he devel­ops with a woman (Nao­mi Watts) work­ing in the com­plaints depart­ment of a vend­ing machine com­pa­ny. DJ

Eta 29 July

After rein­ter­pret­ing an Eng­lish clas­sic with Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Vin­ter­berg is back on edgy Dan­ish ter­rain. The man who co-found­ed the nat­u­ral­ism-lov­ing Dogme 95 man­i­festo with Lars von Tri­er is at his best when putting ordi­nary peo­ple into low-key sit­u­a­tions that slow­ly become melo­dra­mat­ic. Fes­ten and The Hunt both piv­ot­ed around alle­ga­tions of child abuse, detail­ing the fall-out at a fam­i­ly cel­e­bra­tion and for a cosy small town. The Com­mune is par­tial­ly drawn from Vinterberg’s child­hood expe­ri­ence of liv­ing in a com­mune. The trail­er shows a com­fort­able mid­dle-aged cou­ple with pro­gres­sive ideals open­ing the doors of their large house. Tobias Lind­holm (A Hijack­ing, A War) co-wrote the script, just as he did for The Hunt. Expect knife-edge ten­sion, mul­ti-faceted char­ac­ter­i­sa­tions and painful group dynam­ics. SMK

Eta 1 April

The new new one-take won­der on the block, Vic­to­ria is a film by Ger­man direc­tor Sebas­t­ian Schip­per which unfolds in a sin­gle, unbro­ken shot. The film was shot between 4am and 6.30am on the streets of Kreuzberg in Berlin, and it fol­lows the night­time tra­vails of the tit­u­lar char­ac­ter (played by Laia Cos­ta) as she tipsi­ly stum­bles from a late night club dance club and hooks up with a group of latchkey knock­abouts who let them into their world. What ini­tial­ly feels like a defin­i­tive por­trait of those char­ac­ter build­ing moments which occur before the sun ris­es soon becomes some­thing more high risk and dra­mat­ic, but we won’t tell you exact­ly what goes down. DJ

Eta unknown

This sees Amma Asante con­tin­ue to explore racial ten­sion at fas­ci­nat­ing, less­er-told his­tor­i­cal junc­tures. Belle har­nessed the full star pow­er of Gugu Mbat­ha Raw to tell the true sto­ry of Britain’s first black aris­to­crat, Dido Eliz­a­beth Belle. A Unit­ed King­dom is Asante’s third fea­ture and flips the racial ten­sion of her pre­vi­ous film using two inter­na­tion­al­ly acclaimed British actors: David Oyelowo plays Prince Seretse Khama of Botswana, who caus­es a social stir after he weds a white woman, Ruth Williams, played by Rosamund Pike. Their rela­tion­ship and its reper­cus­sions is based on actu­al events from the 1940s. SMK

Eta Spring

The seem­ing­ly ubiq­ui­tous Tom Hid­dle­ston caps off a busy 2015 with lux­u­ri­ant music biopic in which he steps into the cow­boy boots of beloved coun­try croon­er Hank Williams. Marc Abraham’s film is extreme­ly tra­di­tion­al in its for­mal out­look, and it’s all the more inter­est­ing for it. Instead of attempt­ing to impose a neat arc on Williams’ sad­ly cur­tailed life, or try­ing to sec­ond guess the sig­nif­i­cance of his actions for the plea­sures of a con­tem­po­rary audi­ence, the film stands back and observes a life being lived, and Hiddleston’s effort­less screen charis­ma lend a melan­choly smooth­ness to the whole impres­sive and old fash­ioned affair. DJ

Eta Sum­mer

“An ani­mat­ed movie about one sausage’s quest to dis­cov­er the truth about his exis­tence.” If the offi­cial plot syn­op­sis hasn’t suf­fi­cient­ly whet your appetite for this Evan Gold­berg and Seth Rogen-penned com­e­dy, chances are you’re either dead inside or a veg­e­tar­i­an. Sausage Par­ty boasts the vocal tal­ents of Paul Rudd, Kris­ten Wiig and James Fran­co… and pret­ty much every oth­er top Hol­ly­wood com­ic actor you could care to men­tion. We have absolute­ly no clue how this one will turn out, but to be per­fect­ly frank the film had us at ​‘R‑rated 3D-ani­mat­ed sausage com­e­dy’. AW

Eta unknown

Pedro Almodóvar’s twen­ti­eth fea­ture spans 30 years in the life of a woman named Juli­eta, with the role split between Span­ish actress­es, Emma Suárez and Adri­ana Ugarte. The film was orig­i­nal­ly titled Silence, but was changed as it clashed with Mar­tin Scorsese’s lat­est (more on that in part two). Back in March, before the change, Almodóvar’s pro­duc­tion house El Deseo described the film as being: ​“about inevitable des­tiny, a guilt com­plex, the unfath­omable mys­tery which makes us aban­don the ones we love, excis­ing them out of our life as if they had nev­er meant any­thing to us, and about the pain this aban­don­ment caus­es in the vic­tim.” It sounds like the type of oper­at­ic female-led melo­dra­ma that Almod­ó­var has built his name on. To quote his pre­vi­ous work, I’m so excit­ed! SMK

Eta Spring

Just in case the actu­al doc­u­men­tary (Cit­i­zen­four) about fugi­tive whistle­blow­er Edward Snow­den was too dry, Oliv­er Stone is here with his own sexed-up ver­sion of events. Joseph Gor­don-Levitt is Snow­den, Shai­lene Wood­ley is Snowden’s sen­si­tive, fit­ness advo­cate girl­friend, Lind­say Mills, and Melis­sa Leo as Cit­i­zen­four direc­tor Lau­ra Poitras, with Nicholas Cage, Rhys Ifans, Zachary Quin­to, Tim­o­thy Olyphant and Joe­ly Richard­son adding sup­port. At the risk of sound­ing cyn­i­cal, Snow­den sounds more like­ly to be a ham­my hoot than a lean paean to truth. Drama­tis­ing the sto­ries of polit­i­cal fig­ures before any per­spec­tive can be applied tends to go that way *cough* The Fifth Estate *cough* although Antho­ny Dod Man­tle is direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy so at least it will look pret­ty. SMK

Eta 26 July

With JJ Abrams away on a dif­fer­ent fan­boy-bat­ing fran­chise behe­moth, the door was left open for Justin ​“Fast & Furi­ous” Lin to nav­i­gate the USS Enter­prise through this block­buster sequel. An action-packed trail­er revealed plen­ty of plot details, although we’re only giv­en the briefest of glimpses of new recruit Idris Elba, who’s report­ed­ly play­ing the vil­lain. Up until now this reboot series has been sur­pris­ing­ly great, and we’re will­ing Lin not to drop a Klin­gon-shaped clanger. AW

Eta unknown

After mak­ing one of the great­est films of the new mil­len­ni­um, Tex­an gold­en boy Richard Lin­klater should now have carte blanche to do what­ev­er the hell he likes. And so he’s cho­sen to pick up the reigns on his long-ges­tat­ing ​“spir­i­tu­al sequel” to his ear­ly defin­ing state­ment, Dazed and Con­fused. At one point called That’s What I’m Talkin’ About, the film com­pris­es a cast of unknowns and it explores a sub­ject that’s very close to the director’s heart: the col­lege base­ball scene of the 1980s. The film will receive its world pre­mière at the 2016 South by South­west Film Fes­ti­val in March. DJ

Eta 25 March

It’s hard for us to muster up too much excite­ment for a new Zack Sny­der joint, giv­en the Wag­ner­ian wind­bag­gery of his 2013 effort Man of Steel. And yet Sny­der still man­ages to com­mand gigan­tic bud­gets for his so-called ​“dark” super­hero movies. The ear­ly teas­er trail­ers sug­gest this will be busi­ness as usu­al, with Hen­ry Cav­ill once more slid­ing into the icon­ic blue-n-red leo­tard and cape, while Ben Affleck takes up his tenure as the Dark Knight. Here’s hop­ing Sny­der sur­pris­es us with some­thing vague­ly coher­ent. DJ

Look out for part 2 of our 2016 pre­view tomor­row and let us know which forth­com­ing releas­es you’re most excit­ed about @LWLies