Most Anticipated Films of 2024
So ...this year's edition of my "most anticipated" list is a little...irregular. This was not by design; it just happened that way. To put it plainly, there's a lot of speculation and mystery surrounding some of these projects as far as whether or not they've actually been filmed. And some of them have wrapped production, but it's difficult to say whether they'll complete post in time for a release or festival debut this year. I wanted to do what I normally do and put together a list of 50 films, but because a few of the projects I'm most excited for have unconfirmed production statuses, I decided I'd add just a couple more titles (so it's not my usual 50.) There are a couple other odd changes to the list as well, but you'll see what I mean as you go through it. 2023 was an excellent year for film, so I'm hoping that 2024 is up to the challenge of meeting or surpassing it. With last year's strikes, a lot of films were put on halt in the middle of production, and some projects never even got cameras rolling, so it will be interesting to see just how many of these films actually come out. With that said, I hope you enjoy what I have put together, and may your 2024 be booked and blessed.
Part One aka Sometimes I like to Snack In Between Meals, and That's OK
60. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Director: Tim Burton (Sweeney Todd, Batman Returns) Cast: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Catherine O'Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, and Willem Dafoe.
This one has been a long time coming. Burton's original 1988 film, about a recently deceased couple who employ the help of a "bio-exorcist" poltergeist (Keaton, in one of his funniest and most iconic roles) to scare off the new "living" residents who have moved into their home, is a classic in its own right and boasts a very large and devoted following. For many years, fans have salivated at the idea of Burton and Keaton returning to this character, and it always seemed like one of those projects that was destined to be fantasized about, but likely never to materialize. However, for Burton and Keaton, it was never as simple as just wanting to return to Beetlejuice just for the sake of going back; that the idea of going back was fun enough in and of itself that that's all that really mattered. No. It was always agreed upon that they would only revisit Beetlejuice if the script was just right. Perhaps that's why this thing has been in development since 2011, and now, 36 years later since the original movie was released, is finally nearing a stage of completion. Like I said, it's been a long time coming. But will it be worth the wait? I sure hope so. I hate the idea of sequels and I'm extremely wary of them, but I want the movie to be a success. Not just because Burton desperately needs a hit (his last truly great film in my opinion was over 10 years ago with Sweeney Todd), but because I love the original Beetlejuice (it's one of my favorite Burton films) and I think the right amount of time has passed that a sequel would actually feel fresh and interesting (granted it's done right.) As if it doesn't already go without saying, Keaton is set to reprise his role as Betelguese, with Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara also returning to their respected roles as Lydia and Delia Deetz. Joining them are Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, and Willem Dafoe as a host of new characters, as well as Jenna Ortega, reuniting with Burton following their collaboration on the Netflix series, Wednesday (which I actually found very delightful), as Lydia's daughter, Astrid.
Release: September 6th.
59. Gladiator II
Director: Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Napoleon) Cast: Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Connie Nielsen, May Calamawy, Derek Jacobi, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger, and Pedro Pascal.
"Are you not entertained?!" This may be the most iconic quote from Ridley Scott's 2000 sword-and-sandals epic starring Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix, which would go on to gross over half a billion dollars at the box office and earn a total of 12 Oscar nominations at the 73rd Academy Awards, winning five of those nominations; it's also the perfect encapsulation of this stage in Scott's career as a filmmaker, who at 86 has made a total of eight films in the last ten years alone and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon, as if almost daring us to dare him to stop. Granted, the body of work he's delivered in the last decade in no way measures up to his earlier, greatest works, but there's something almost inspiring about the way he always has a new project lined up almost as soon as he finishes his next one. Like Burton though, however, he desperately needs a hit. I liked The Last Duel for a lot of different reasons (and probably disliked it for just as many), but it's still probably the strongest film he's made since Prometheus in 2012, and even that movie has its detractors. (Please note that I have still not seen Napoleon yet, which I've heard very polarizing things about, but I hope to remedy that very soon.) I suppose though when you find yourself in a creative rut, the best way to recenter yourself is to return to what you do best, so perhaps it's no surprise that Scott is returning to the "arena" of one of his most acclaimed films. Admittedly, I'm not completely sold yet on the idea of a sequel to Gladiator; it was never really a movie that required one. That being said, I can't dispute that the entertainment aspect of it has the makings of a guilty pleasure written all over it. (I mean, who doesn't want to see Mescal, Washington, and Pascal unite to ham it up in a good ol' fashioned sword-and-sandals epic?) Gladiator II also reunites Soctt with his Napoleon scribe, David Scarpa (another reason I need to see his latest film asap, so that I'll have a better idea of what to expect from this sequel), but plot details of the script are very vague at this point other than it follows a grown-up Luscious (Mescal), the nephew of Phoenix's villainous Commodus who was a child in the previous film.
Release: November 22nd.
58. Joker: Folie á Deux
Director: Todd Phillips (Joker, The Hangover) Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Zazie Beetz, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Jacob Lofland, and harry Lawtey.
Heeeeee's baaaaaack! That's right, you're favorite (but also not-so-favorite) DC villain/ DC human crutch/ favorite excuse ever for "serious" actors to go full method and let loose their inner bat-sh*it crazy freak flag fly....the Clown Prince of Crime himself: Joker! To tell you the truth, I'm so sick of seeing this character portrayed on screen for the umpteenth time; not just because it's been done into redundancy more times than anyone can count, but I'm also not sure it's especially healthy for us as a society to see characters like this that are an affirmation and unfriendly reminder of the chaos and dystopian hellscape we're all currently living in. It just feels like some kind of cruel...joke. And yet, like a moth drawn to the warm, incinerating flame that I (should) know has nothing good to offer except a burning, painful reminder of my own mortality and terrible taste in shiny, bright things, I find myself mildly curious as to what Todd Phillips, Joaquin Phoenix and now Lady Gaga (making her comic book-movie debut) have been cooking up on the Warner Bros. lot. A sequel to Philips' 2019 dark character study posing as a comic book movie, Folie á Deux will pick up where the last film left off and continue exploring the psyche of psychotic criminal, Arthur Fleck aka Joker (Phoenix), and his romance with his psychiatrist-turned-lover, Harley Quinn (Gaga.) I honestly wasn't that big of a fan of Philips' last Joker film, which, despite being met with near universal acclaim, I found to be rather juvenile and hackneyed. There were definitely elements about it that I appreciated (mainly Phoenix's performance), but it ultimately felt like a ripped-off Taxi Driver with a message that had all the profundity of watching an angry, medicated high school student stand on his desk and scream, "F*ck the man!" So why the hell then am I excited for this movie? (Remember that bit I said earlier about moths and flames.) The new sequel...is reportedly...A MUSICAL! Yes, Joker: Folie á Deux is a musical (hearing this, you suddenly realize there may have been more than one reason Lady Gaga was cast in this movie.) According to inside sources from Warner Bros., the musical aspect of Folie á Deux has shades reminiscent of Leos Carax's Holy Motors, and according to details divulged from the script (which I have restrained myself from reading) the sequel will take its psychological, dystopian horrors further than its predecessor in ways that recall Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. Ok, I'm curious. I could very well end up regret having said this and find myself watching a film that revels in its ugly excesses while borrowing from other, better films. But whatever. I'll say it: I'm curious.
Release: October 4th.
57. Wicked: Part One
Director: Jon M. Chu (In the Heights, Crazy Rich Asians) Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Michelle yeoh, and Jeff Goldblum.
It's been 20 years since Elphaba first rose above audiences in a packed San Francisco theater and "defied gravity" to become a worldwide sensation on Broadway. Wicked, which was adapted for the stage by Winnie Holzman from Gregory Maguire's NY Times best-selling novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, and tells the origin story of the eponymous, green-faced villain from L. Frank Baum's, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, has broken box office records around the world and carved out its place in the pantheon of the greatest and most beloved stage musicals ever performed. To this day, every time Idina Menzel- who famously played the character during the show's original tour- belts out another soulful power ballad, people can't help but recall the reverberations of Elphaba commanding her destiny and claiming her identity through the power of Stephen Schwartz's gorgeous music and lyrics; so much of the actor's stage presence and astonishing vocals feel inextricably tied to that character. For the younger generation, they may always hear Elsa from Disney's Frozen, but most of the rest of us knew her long before she was building castles out of ice while belting "Let It Go" into the wind. It feels as though a film adaptation has been excitedly teasing us all for years now, and really that's because ...it has! In 2012, producer Marc Platt announced the film was a go, and for nearly five years the project began crystalizing in its earliest stages of development before it was finally announced in 2017 that Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) had been hired to direct the movie. Daldry would eventually drop out of the project in 2020 due to scheduling conflicts, which then paved the way for Jon M. Chu, having just demonstrated his incredible prowess at adapting a full-blown Broadway musical for the screen with his electrifying In the Heights, to dance his way to the top of the list of candidates chosen to replace him. And although I couldn't be more thrilled that the film has finally reached a point that is near completion, it also can't help but feel a little dead on arrival; the excitement has died down, as perhaps a result of spending so much time and energy waiting with excitement for so many years. I expect that Cynthia Erivo will be an absolute powerhouse as Elphaba, and I'm even kind of nervously excited to see how Ariana Grande's acting chops hold up against Erivo's (who is only two awards shy of being an EGOT) as she takes on the role of Glinda, who was originally played by the incomparable Kristin Chenoweth opposite Menzel's Elphaba. (Interestingly enough, Grande actually began her career singing on Broadway prior to becoming a pop star sensation, so she may end up surprising a lot of people.) I think a lot of my apprehension though has more to do with the fact that the film will be split into two parts. Studios deliberately do this kind of tactic all the time to squeeze more potential millions out of projects, and it just feels so manipulative and impulsively greedy; it also really dilutes the power and spell that a film can have over you. Is it so wrong to just want ONE very long, epic film, something you can just live in for more than a couple of hours and let wash over you as you collectively bask in it with an engaged audience in a dark theater? I really don't think I'm asking all that much here!
RELEASE: November 27th.
56. Alien: Romulus
Director: Fede Álvarez: (Don't Breathe, Evil Dead) Cast: Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu.
The Alien franchise has really struggled to recapture the excitement and cultural zeitgeist it had amongst fans since the original first two films. Personally, I really liked Prometheus (Ridley Scott's prequel/spinoff to his original 1979 film from 2012), even if it did draw the ire of some disappointed fans who had been looking forward to seeing something with more xenomorphs and a direct connection to Alien, but I found Alien: Covenant (its xenomorph-heavy sequel which fared even less well with critics and audiences) lacked the sophistication and mystery of its predecessor while proving there can indeed be too much of a good thing. Which brings us now to Alien: Romulus, the most recent attempt at resurrecting the franchise and the first since Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox; a television series from showrunner, Noah Hawley, is also in the works, but that's another story. Romulus is helmed by Fede Álvarez, the director behind the taught thriller, Don't Breathe (a sort of reverse Wait Until Dark), and who also attempted to resurrect another popular franchise with 2013's, Evil Dead. I suppose my lukewarm feelings about Evil Dead should make me overly cautious and apprehensive about Álvarez's handling of another popular IP I hold dear, but I thought his control of tone and tension in Don't Breathe was quite impressive, so I'm curious what he could bring to what is essentially the ultimate haunted house story in space. On top of that, the film recently received the endorsement of none other than Ridley Scott himself, who called it, "f*cking great," after he attended a private screening of the director's cut. The casts is comprised of younger, relatively unknown actors (which could either be the film's greatest or worst asset), and includes Priscilla-breakout, Cailee Spaeny, who recently picked up the award for Best Actress at Venice following her subtle and poignant turn as Mrs. Elvis Pressley.
RELEASE: August 16th.
55. The Gorge
Director: Scott Derrickson (The Black Phone, Sinister) Cast: Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Sigourney Weaver.
After the box office success and critical acclaim of his last film, The Black Phone (which I think is the director's strongest work yet), I've been ready to embrace whatever Scott Derrickson delivers next, and I must say the package he's getting ready for us looks very appealing (at least from the outside.) His upcoming film, The Gorge, which finds the director enlisting the talents of two incredible leads in the form of Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, is being marketed as a bold and exciting genre mashup that combines elements of romance, sci-fi, horror, and action. The story revolves around two expert marksmen (Teller and Taylor-Joy) who get assigned to guard the west and east side of a gigantic gorge located deep in a European forest, tasked with ensuring that nothing comes out. After the two develop a courtship and find an unlikely soul mate in one another, one of them finds themselves plunged into the unknown depths of the wilderness where they've been stationed (with the other following soon after to rescue them), eventually leading to a fight for survival that brings them into the thick of their mission's terrifying secrets. At one point, I was lot more excited for this film (it has the kind of premise I love to show up at the box office for- action, romance, mystery, and horror all rolled into one), but that was until I found out who penned the screenplay. That would be Zach Dean, the screenwriter behind recent blockbuster blunders such as Fast X and The Tomorrow War. While I am still hoping that my suspicions are unfairly misplaced- after all, the script did make the 2020 "Black List" of most-liked screenplays that were unproduced, and Anya Taylor-Joy also dropped out of Robert Eggers' Nosferatu remake so she could star in this instead- a recent reaction from someone who attended a test screening did not sound promising at all. Granted, this is still only one person's opinion, but it's difficult to ignore what they're saying when they're citing the very things you were concerned about in the first place. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see!
RELEASE: TBA
54. Presence
Director: Steven Soderbergh (Unsane, Side Effects) Cast: Lucy Liu, Julia Fox, Chris Sullivan, Callina Lang, Eddy Maday, and West Mulholland.
Steven Soderbergh seems to have mostly stepped back from the big-to-mid-level budget, Hollywood mainstream fare that made him a recognizable name in the industry (assuming you ignore last year's, Magic Mike's Last Dance, and you absolutely should.) These days he generally makes movies on a budget under $5 million, employing innovative techniques to cut costs while demonstrating how to make a solid and sustainable indie feature in a box office-driven marketplace. I'm not expecting too much from Presence, Soderbergh's upcoming psychological horror-thriller about a mysterious entity in a suburban house that causes things go bump in the night for the family who lives there, other than to be modestly if pleasantly satisfied with whatever pulpy genre offerings it has in store for its 85-minute runtime. (I'm totally getting vibes of his 2018 film, Unsane, which I'm not mad about.) The script is penned by David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible) and it stars Lucy Liu and Julia Fox, so how bad can it be?
RELEASE: The film has its premiere at Sundance on January 19th, with an official release date that is still yet to be announced.
53. Love Lies Bleeding
Director: Rose Glass (Saint Maud) Cast: Kristen Stewart, Katy O'Brian, Ed Harris, Jena Malone, Anna Baryshnikov, and dave Franco.
Originally predicted to come out last year, Rose Glass's sophomore feature was sadly never finished in time for Cannes, Venice, or TIFF, so it eventually settled for this year's Sundance lineup. I honestly wasn't as crazy for Saint Maud (the director's debut feature) as much as some other people were; I thought the central character (Maud) lacked depth and a compelling story arc, and the film's confusion of nihilism and cynicism with cool edginess to be rather pedestrian. However, I do believe that Glass has a strong cinematic eye, and I'm hoping I'm more on board with her next feature, which actually sounds very interesting. Labeled as a "romantic thriller," Love Lies Bleeding centers on a pair of star-crossed lovers whose relationship becomes an entanglement of ego, desire, and the illusion of the American dream. The A24-produced film stars Kristen Stewart as Lou, a reclusive gym owner who falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder with big dreams on her way to Vegas. Things get messy and unpredictable though when the two get pulled into the violence of Lou's criminal family. A trailer was released a few weeks ago, giving major 80s vibes and promises of many pulp thrills to come, so I'm sold at this point.RELEASE: The film has its premiere at Sundance on January 20th and then screens at Berlin before hitting theaters on March 8th.
52. I Saw the TV Glow
Director: Jane Schoenbrun (We're All Going to the World's Fair) Cast: Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman, Helena Howard, Amber benson, Fred Durst, and Danielle Deadwyler.
Even before their debut narrative feature, We're All Going to the World's Fair, Jane Schoenbrun had been steadily making a name for themselves in the indie-film community, serving as a producer on a variety of feature-length films, shorts, and documentaries, all of which had microbudgets, no major distribution, and a very minimalist approach. With their next film backed by the respectable A24 and primed for a Sundance premiere in only a matter of days, I think it's fair to say that Schoenbrun has made some wide leaps since their last film, which debuted only two years ago (during the pandemic no less.) Overall, I found We're All Going to the World's Fair to be a very fascinating exploration of our relationship with the internet wrapped up in a goosebumps-inducing coming-of-age tale, even when its minimalism and challenging narrative proved to be frustrating at times. The director's next film, I Saw the TV Glow, finds Schoenbrun shifting their gaze from the internet to our relationship with television and pop culture, following a pair of teenagers who bond over their mutual love of a strange late-night television series. However, when the show is mysteriously and unexpectedly cancelled, the two teenagers' realities begin to slowly blur and unravel. Brilliant premise. I'm really looking forward to this one!
RELEASE: The film has its premiere at Sundance on January 18th and then screens at Berlin, with an official release that is still yet to be announced.
51. HIT MAN
Director: Richard Linklater (School of Rock, Bernie) Cast: Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, and retta.
Last year's lineup at Venice was stacked! With star-studded titles from renowned auteurs such as Yorgos Lanthimos, David Fincher, and Michael Man, to acclaimed international filmmakers from around the globe such as Bertrand Bonello, Matteo Garrone, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, it was definitely a festival edition to remember with no shortage of talent (and that's just to name a few of the big-name directors who were there.) That's why it was so surprising that Richard Linklater's action-comedy, Hit Man, which premiered Out of Competition no less, had one of the strongest and most positive receptions at the fest, becoming one of the hottest titles without a distributor to come out of the Lido. Don't get me wrong, Linklater is an insanely talented auteur and I love his work, but the last thing I expected was an action-comedy starring Glen Powell to be the talk of the town. It wasn't long before Netflix swooped in and picked the movie up, acquiring the film for a whopping $20 million, making it the most expensive film acquisition of 2023. In the film, Powell plays an undercover officer who moonlights as a hit man so that he can arrest dangerous criminals who try enlist his services. Things get complicated and muddy though when he falls for a woman in need of his help who tries to hire him. Netflix is already planning a theatrical run for the film before releasing it on their streaming service, so you know it's got to be good! I'm even willing to give Glen Powell a chance, despite not having liked him in anything I've seen so far.
RELEASE: A limited theatrical run begins on May 31st, before streaming wide on June 7th.
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