SEPTEMBER

Resident Evil — Zach Creggers (Barbarian, Weapons) has his way with the venerable franchise, adapting the raving zombie game series into an immersive horror thriller, starring Austin Abrams as a medical courier caught in the middle of a viral outbreak of flesh-eaters. (Now playing)

Primetime — On a roll since The Batman, Robert Pattinson might have nailed the voice and air of self-satisfaction wafting off former Dateline NBC host Chris Hansen with his portrayal of the TV journalist in director Lance Oppenheim’s exposé on the making of Hansen’s undercover sting series, To Catch a Predator. Hansen wasn’t involved in the production of the film, which he’s called a “piece of fiction,” but he has bought ad time for his TCAP-inspired streaming network TruBlu to run before every showing of the movie, so he’s betting that audiences will go out to see it. (Now playing)

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother — It isn’t the Blade reboot that Marvel fans, star Mahershala Ali, and filmmaker Bassam Tariq had been pushing for since the 2019 announcement that two-time Oscar-winner Ali would bring the sword-wielding half-vampire antihero to life in the MCU, but this action-drama, written and directed by Tariq, about a blade-wielding hitman who’s also a devoted single dad, might be the next best — or even better — thing. (Now playing)

Heart of the Beast — Brad Pitt re-ups with his Fury writer-director David Ayer, whose last two features were B-movie actioners starring Jason Statham, for a survival thriller that sounds like a movie Statham might have starred in had Pitt passed. The star plays a Special Forces officer who, along with his doggedly loyal combat dog, survives a plane crash deep in the Alaskan wilderness, where they must confront the cruel elements and other dangers to make it out alive. (Now playing)

OCTOBER

Digger — Hollywood maverick Tom Cruise practically disappears beneath mounds of makeup to play eccentric oilman Digger Rockwell, “the world’s most powerful man,” charged with trying to save millions of innocent people from a disaster his company created. The dark comedy is directed and co-written by Birdman and The Revenant Oscar-winner Alejandro Iñárritu, and co-stars Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, and John Goodman as the dictatorial President of the United States. (10/2)

Beware Boiúna — This monster thriller set in the Amazon follows a medical mission terrorized by an ancient colossal snake that’s referred to in the trailer and promos as serpent, beast, and predator, but never anaconda, although that’s apparently what it is. Will anyone in the movie actually say the word, or are they contractually forbidden? Therein lies the real suspense. (10/2)

Verity — The longer shadows and encroaching chill of autumn put us in the mood for saucy adult thrillers like this Colleen Hoover adaptation, teaming Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett, and Anne Hathaway as the title character, a bestselling author, rendered comatose by a mysterious accident. Her husband hires a comely ghostwriter to complete her unfinished book series. Somebody’s getting double-, triple-, or quadruple-crossed here, we just know it. (10/2)

Other Mommy — Based on Josh Malerman’s award-winning 2024 horror novel Incidents Around the House, which was narrated in first-person by 8-year-old Bela, spooked by a paranormal entity that looks identical to her mother, this Blumhouse adaptation directed by Rob Savage (The Boogeyman) gives creepy J-horror vibes, with Jessica Chastain as Mom and “Other Mommy,” and Arabella Olivia Clark as frightened daughter. (10/9)

Sense and Sensibility — Sorry, Jane Austen fans, but truly, there are So. Many. Other. Authors out there. Were it not for the fact that British director Georgia Oakley’s adaptation, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles as the charming but destitute Dashwood sisters, also starred our Femme fave George MacKay as Elinor’s shy paramour Edward Ferrars, we’d just as soon skip it, or re-watch Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning ’90s version. But, by George, we might check it out. (10/16)

La Bola Negra — Granted a sneak peek at this queer Spanish epic from Cannes Award-winning co-directors (and ex-es) Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, we can say that fans of richly layered cinema, gay author Federico García Lorca, and handsome men in love are in for a treat of lusty, literate period drama, also featuring Penélope Cruz in a scintillating Dietrich-esque role as a saloon singer who’s seen it all. (10/16 in NYC and LA, 10/30 in D.C.)

Whalefall — The premise, based on the book by Daniel Kraus, is pretty hard to swallow, but the curiosity factor remains high. First, to see how an 80-foot sperm whale gulps down a hapless scuba diver (played by Weapons breakout Austin Abrams), then how said scuba diver manages to escape the behemoth’s belly before running out of oxygen — if he does actually escape. (10/16)

Wicker — Olivia Colman stars as a lonesome medieval villager who requests that local master weaver (Peter Dinklage) make her a husband out of wicker, which he does, much to her delight, because her man of good wood is built like Alexander Skarsgård, who, assisted mostly by Weta Workshop’s practical effects and prosthetics, “and a small amount of visual effects,” brings Wicker Husband to sexy, spirited life. (10/23)

NOVEMBER

Club Kid — Not unlike the acclaimed queer Polish TV series Proud, which streams on HBO Max in the U.S., Club Kid concerns a gay party boy (Jordan Firstman) whose sex-and-drugs-fueled ride hits a speed bump when he’s suddenly saddled with fatherhood. Making his feature writing and directing debut, Firstman, who’s enjoyed pissing people off on the internet, has won over festival audiences with the film’s sensitive portrayal of a modern family. (11/6)

Godzilla: Minus Zero — A sequel to Takashi Yamazaki’s breathtaking Godzilla Minus One — which claimed an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects on its way to becoming the most successful Japanese Godzilla film of all time — was as inevitable as the King of Monsters running into an angry arch-nemesis this second go-round. The film’s trailer teases exactly which of Godzilla’s towering enemies shows up, as fighter pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) gets back in the cockpit to try once again to save Japan from monster mayhem. (11/6)

Wild Horse Nine — The word is, John Malkovich adds another singular performance to his lengthy portfolio with his portrayal of an ailing CIA agent working a pivotal mission in 1973 Chile, ahead of the coup d’état. Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey, and Tom Waits round out the action-comedy’s cast. Martin McDonagh, following up his egregiously Oscar-snubbed The Banshees of Inisherin, directs. (11/6)

Ebenezer — A seemingly odd choice of comeback vehicle for the embattled Johnny Depp, who hasn’t appeared in a major studio release since 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, this gothic fantasy take on the Dickens tale, directed by X trilogy auteur Ti West, of all people, does offer Depp a chance to play a notorious asshole seeking redemption, so the casting might make perfect sense. There will be no redeeming the movie’s dumb tagline, though — “Before he was Scrooge, he was…Ebenezer” — since, technically, he was always Ebenezer Scrooge. Sir Ian McKellen’s Jacob Marley and Tramell Tillman’s Ghost of Christmas Present help nudge him away from the edge of darkness. (11/13)

Paper Tiger — James Gray dives back into the crime thriller genre where he launched his filmmaking career (Little Odessa, The Yards), pitting brothers Adam Driver, a former cop, and Miles Teller, a suburban family man married to Scarlett Johansson, against the Russian mob in ’80s Queens. Expect plenty of guns, hairpieces, and New Yawk accents. (11/13)

Bitter Christmas — “Writing and making films isn’t everything,” someone tells celebrated filmmaker Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia) in Pedro Almodóvar’s intricate tragicomedy. “For me it is,” Raúl replies, likely echoing Almodóvar’s own sentiments in this story-within-a-story about the trouble writers cause for themselves and their nearest and dearest by turning their lives into “fiction.” (11/13 in select cities, 11/25 nationwide)

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping — We lost count of how many Hunger Games films have entered the box office arena (this will make six), and have long since lost interest in the dystopian series based on the YA novels of Suzanne Collins. But Francis Lawrence’s commitment to directing these mammoth productions (this will make five) is more than respectable, and this prequel installment, focused on the younger version of Woody Harrelson’s mentor character, Haymitch Abernathy (portrayed as a 16-year-old by Joseph Zada), also adds ever-reliable Jesse Plemons as a younger Plutarch Heavensbee, not yet the Head Gamesmaker portrayed in three previous films by the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman. (11/13)

Elsinore — So heartbreakingly good in 2023’s underrated All of Us Strangers, Andrew Scott is likely to leave ’em crying in the aisles again with his portrayal of Chariots of Fire star Ian Charleson in this biographical drama from director Simon Stone. Co-starring Olivia Colman, the film details Charleson’s courageous last stand prepping for and performing Hamlet at London’s National Theatre in his final months before succumbing to an AIDS-related illness. (11/16)

DECEMBER/JANUARY

Behemoth! — Pedro Pascal reportedly replaced good buddy Oscar Isaac in this drama from writer-director Tony Gilroy (Andor) about a renowned cellist juggling complicated relationships with his ex (Olivia Wilde), his musician father (Hank Azaria) and brother (Will Arnett), and a younger cellist who catches his eye (Sorry, Baby star Eva Victor). Pascal put in hours of lessons in preparation for the role he calls one of his toughest ever, telling Vanity Fair, “Being in a gladiator arena or hanging from a harness — that stuff pales in comparison to learning how to play the cello and making it look convincing as you’re doing Tchaikovsky.” (12/4)

George Michael: The Faith Tour — The iconic gay Father Figure of ’80s pop, in his prime, center stage in Paris, 1988, performing his smash hit solo debut album Faith, including chart-toppers “Father Figure,” “Monkey,” and “One More Try.” It’s remastered for the big screen and includes never-before-seen live footage of the artist. Wild horses couldn’t keep us away. (12/11)

The Debut — Oscar buzz is building loudly around Julianne Moore’s performance in this dramedy as a mousy suburban housewife who discovers her voice with a part in a community theater musical directed by the so-called “biggest name in New Jersey community theater” (Paul Giamatti). Jesse Eisenberg wrote, directed, co-stars, and even composed the original songs. (12/11)

Avengers: Doomsday — The MCU’s Avengers, original recipe and new, assemble for a blockbuster showdown with preeminent Marvel villain Doctor Doom. The studio has already given away the would-have-been-shocking identity of the actor behind Doom’s mask, plus several superhero guest stars, including the Fantastic Four and a handful of X-Men, so we hope returning franchise filmmakers Anthony and Joe Russo are hoarding other welcome surprises, namely, more tightly staged action in the vein of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and a minimum of big-budget bloat. (12/18)

Dune: Part Three — The real showdown for Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday will be at the opening weekend box office versus Denis Villeneuve’s latest installment of the hit sci-fi franchise, combining Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah narrative of now-Emperor Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) ruthlessly wielding power, with grandly scaled production, elegantly stark design, and a powerhouse cast now including Robert Pattinson as a thorn in Paul’s side. Attempts to turn Dunesday into a neo-Barbenheimer cultural event would most benefit Dune, since we’re betting the superheroes easily conquer the sandworms this weekend. (12/18)

Coward — A sweeping World War I drama from acclaimed director Lukas Dhont (Close), French-language Coward tells the gay love story between a soldier in the trenches and his confidently femme comrade, portrayed, respectively, by Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Compagne, who shared the award for Best Actor at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. (12/25)

Werwulf — The stylized, painstakingly detailed work of Robert Eggers has left us wowed (The Northman), inspired (The Lighthouse), unenthused (Nosferatu), and hotly intrigued to see what he does with this gothic horror set in 14th-century England and spoken entirely in Middle English (so dust off your Chaucer primers). Co-written with Northman collaborator Sjón, the film stars Willem Dafoe, Lily-Rose Depp, Ralph Ineson, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the ripped farmer who bears the curse of the werwulf. (12/25)

Mr. Irrelevant — The DCU’s current Superman, David Corenswet, works up a sweat as late football running back John Tuggle, picked last in the 1983 NFL draft. (Hence, the movie’s title, a nickname for the guy picked last.) Tuggle burned bright in his rookie season for the New York Giants, but was soon sidelined by a cancer diagnosis and his fight to survive, inspiring his whole team, and this uplifting biopic from Long Shot director Jonathan Levine. (12/25)

Jumanji: Open World — One last game, they’re claiming, as the Jumanji crew of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan reunite for a third outing (the fifth in the franchise, if we’re counting the 1995 Robin Williams original and 2005 spin-off Zathura: A Space Adventure), as Jumanji video game characters, and herds of wild animals, are sucked into the real world, and innocent real people get sucked into the game. (12/25)

Artificial — Never-dull Queer (and queer) filmmaker Luca Guadagnino takes us into the rarefied world of controversial tech titan Sam Altman, portrayed by Andrew Garfield in a drama following OpenAI’s development of ChatGPT. “We opened Pandora’s Box together,” Altman warns in the film’s trailer, as Speedo-clad twinks lounge around the gay CEO’s palatial modern manse, and, as is the case with artificial intelligence, who knows whether we’ll be laughing or crying by the end. (12/25)

Children of Blood and Bone — Tomi Adeyemi, outspoken author of this best-selling African folkloric fantasy novel, co-wrote the film adaptation with director Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Woman King), yet has since vehemently distanced herself from the film. Adeyemi supporters who want to take the writer’s feelings into consideration might still find it hard to resist the vivid supernatural atmosphere and star-studded cast, which includes Damson Idris, Cynthia Erivo, Amandla Stenberg, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Regina King, Idris Elba, and Viola Davis. (1/15)

André Hereford is Metro Weekly’s senior film critic.