1. Greed
Steve Coogan stars in this comedy from Michael Winterbottom about a ghastly retail mogul throwing a wild 60th birthday party in Greece. Isla Fisher is his wife, David Mitchell a journalist. Any resemblance to Philip Green is strictly coincidental.
2. Ammonite
Francis Lee follows 2017’s acclaimed ‘Yorkshire Brokeback’ ‘God’s Own Country’ with a tale of 1840s lesbian palaeontology starring Saoirse Ronan as famous fossil hunter Mary Anning and Kate Winslet as a gentlewoman sent to convalesce by the sea.
3. Sorry We Missed You
With thoughts of retirement seemingly well forgotten, Ken Loach continues to churn them out, arguably hitting a career high with benefits-assessment drama ‘I, Daniel Blake’. Now Loach turns his attention to another relevant-as-tomorrow’s-newspapers topic: the gig economy, specifically a self-employed van driver struggling to keep his and his family’s heads above water.
4. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Hippie-era LA … Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio star in ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’. After having his say in the western and blaxploitation genres, Quentin Tarantino turns to true crime and the gruesome Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969. While QT has not covered himself in glory in the #MeToo era, his film has attracted a stellar cast (DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie) and carries itself as a homage to hippie-era LA.
5. Memoria
New one from Apichatpong Weerasethakul? Yes please. Starring Tilda Swinton? Absolutely. About a Scottish woman travelling in Colombia who “begins to notice strange sounds”, then “begins to think about their appearance”? Just try and stop us.
6. Us
Jordan Peele’s follow-up to ‘Get Out’ is a supremely creepy-sounding horror about a family holiday by the beach upset by uninvited guests. Big scissors feature heavily in the promotion. Elisabeth Moss and Lupita Nyong’o star.
7. Little Women
Director Greta Gerwig reunites with ‘Lady Bird’s’ Saoirse Ronan and Timothee Chalamet for yet another version of the Louisa May Alcott yarn. Still, this one has serious pedigree: they’re joined by Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern and Meryl Streep.
8. The Irishman
Arguably Netflix’s most high-profile capture to date, this passion project of Martin Scorsese’s reunites Pacino, De Niro, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel and takes aim at the mafia-union wars of the 70s. De Niro plays mob hit man Frank Sheeran and Pacino corrupt teamster union boss Jimmy Hoffa; the film is based on Sheeran’s book in which he claimed responsibility for Hoffa’s murder.
9. The Souvenir
Joanna Hogg had a slight wobble with her third film, Exhibition, back in 2013, but this belated new one, due to premiere at Sundance next month, looks much more promising. Honor Swinton-Byrne stars as a young film student in the early 1980s who begins an affair a dubious older fella (Tom Burke). Swinton-Byrne’s real-life mother, Tilda, plays her mother; Martin Scorsese executive produces.
10. Untitled Roger Ailes movie
Life moves pretty fast in showbiz. In May 2016, Fox boss Roger Ailes fell fast from grace after allegations of sexual misconduct from employees. After briefly serving as an adviser to Donald Trump, he died in May 2017; next year this very starry story of his ignominious end arrives, with John Lithgow in the lead, Malcolm McDowell as Rupert Murdoch, and Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron as two of high-profile accusers: Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly.
11. Toy Story 4
Pixar’s original and best just keeps rolling along: this fourth chunk has been in the works since 2014 at least. A few major details have emerged: there’s a new character — a fork — called, you guessed it, Forky, voiced by Arrested Development’s Tony Hale, and there’s the usual mad trip outside, this time to rescue Bo Peep.
12. Untitled Noah Baumbach film
While We’re Young’s standout Adam Driver reunites with its director for this comedy about a long-distance divorce co-starring Scarlett Johansson. Ray Liotta and Laura Dern co-star.
13. Misbehaviour
Keira Knightley is a women’s libber who invaded the stage with 50 others when the Albert Hall hosted Miss World in 1970. Greg Kinnear is Bob Hope, the host upset by their football rattles and flour bombs, Gugu M’batha Raw plays Miss Grenada, the first ever black winner of the competition.
14. Frozen 2
Girl power … what next for the royal sisters? Photograph: Disney/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
Historically, Disney has tended to avoid sequels to its animated hits, preferring to dump follow-ups on straight-to-DVD and similar. But the advent of Pixar has changed all that, and the siren call of another Frozen film was too much to resist. Expect a second dose of inspirational girl-power stylings.
15. Star Wars: Episode IX
As yet untitled, this follow-up to ‘The Last Jedi’ (and the third in the sequel-trilogy begun with ‘The Force Awakens’) sees JJ Abrams step back into the director’s chair, after Colin Trevorrow left the project. Plot details are scarce as ever, but we know that unused footage from episodes seven and eight will be used to give Princess Leia a purchase in the storyline, despite the death of Carrie Fisher in 2016.
16. Benedetta
Paul Verhoeven is now very much back in the game after the success of Elle; here he is courting controversy once again with a thigh-slapper about lesbian nuns in renaissance-era Italy. Virginie Efira plays real life sister and mystic Benedetta Carlini, tormented by erotic visions and having an affair with another woman. Charlotte Rampling puts in an inevitable appearance.
17. The Laundromat
Laundromat as in money laundering. Steven Soderbergh’s new one is a return to the ripped-from-the-headlines thriller he did so well with ‘Traffic’ and ‘Erin Brockovich’. This time it’s about the journalism surrounding the Panama papers data dump, which revealed the tax avoidance strategy of a host of influential figures.
18. The Dead Don’t Die
A second foray into the realm of the undead (after the brilliantly deadpan rocker-vampire mash-up ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’) by former indie-auteur god Jim Jarmusch. Major names — Adam Driver, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton — are back for a Jarmusch zombie comedy; sadly Daniel Craig appears to have dropped out.
19. Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
Richard Linklater’s latest is a larky looking mystery based on Maria Semple’s novel and starring Cate Blanchett as a cynical but loving mother who disappears suddenly on the eve of a family trip to Antarctica with her husband (Billy Crudup) and 13-year-old daughter. Kristen Wiig and Judy Greer are among her much-loathed local parents.
20. Captain Marvel
The much-heralded first female superhero film from Marvel (shamefully nearly two years after DC’s Wonder Woman) sees Brie Larson, Oscar winner for Room, take on the role of Carol Danvers, a fighter pilot endowed with humongous alien powers after an accident. A “de-aged” Samuel L Jackson pops up as a young(ish), pre-eyepatch Nick Fury.
21. You Are My Friend
Key players from two of this year’s most affectionately met movies collaborate for this new biopic. The first is Marielle Heller, director of the brilliant, scabrous comedy Can You Ever Forgive Me? The second: Mr Rogers, subject of Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and beloved US children’s TV presenter, being played here by — who else — Tom Hanks.
22. Untitled Richard Curtis/Danny Boyle movie
EastEnder Himesh Patel gets a high-profile big screen lead in this comedy, scripted by Richard Curtis and directed by Danny Boyle, about the only man in the world who can remember the Beatles. Lily James co-stars; Ed Sheeran and Kate McKinnon also feature.
23. Jojo Rabbit
This, we suspect, will be something like Donnie Darko had Mel Brooks directed it. During the second world war a lonely American kid has an imaginary friend: Adolf Hitler. And Hitler is played by Taika Waititi, of What We Do in the Shadows and Thor 3. Well, of course he is. Waititi also directs — it’s exactly how any sane film-maker would follow up a smash hit Marvel superhero movie, isn’t it?
24. Bergman Island
The English-language debut from Mia Hansen-Love stars John Turturro and Greta Gerwig as an American couple who head to Faro, the Swedish micro-island where Ingmar Bergman lived and worked to soak up the atmos and work on their own screenplays. But the muse proves insidious and their relationship — and well as they work — starts to suffer. Mia Wasikowska co-stars.
25. Last Christmas
This time next year there will be no more thinkpieces about how Brits no longer make festive films, for we shall have this great big gift: a holiday romance, set in London, written by Emma Thompson, directed by Paul Feig and using the music of George Michael. Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding star.
26. Cats
The claws have already been out for this one: Tom Hooper’s latest big-screen transfer of a West End staple — in this case, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s yowling feline extravaganza. The cast is as starry and as batty as you’d hope: Judi Dench, Idris Elba, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson, James Corden, Ian McKellen. Even if the prospect gives you hives, this puss will boot out the competition next December.
27. Knives Out
The project that Daniel Craig hopped aboard after Bond 25 was pushed back is a return for Rian Johnson to Brick neo-noir territory: a modern-day murder mystery with classic whodunnit stylings. Joining Craig are Chris Evans, Michael Shannon, Christopher Plummer, Jamie Lee Curtis and Lakeith Stanfield.
28. Ad Astra
James Gray’s latest looks set to catapult Brad Pitt into ‘Gravity’ territory, as he travels through the solar system in search of his father (Tommy Lee Jones) who went to Neptune to look for alien life 20 years previously. Donald Sutherland and Ruth Negga co-star.
29. Avengers: Endgame
The sequel/conclusion to ‘Infinity War’, this is shaping up to be the monster hit of 2019. After the finger-snapping, carnage-inducing finale of the last filmI, the Russo brothers and Marvel will somehow find a way to resuscitate all those beloved superheroes who dropped dead in the last one. Strap in.
30. The Beach Bum
The McConaissance continues in this new comedy from Harmony Korine, very much ploughing the Spring Breakers furrow, but with a dash of Jeffrey Lebowski added to the mix. Matthew McC plays a poet and waster called Moondog, boomeranging from one crazed incident to another. Strip-lit, neon-pink giggles will ensue, we hope.
31. Dumbo
Disney continues to ransack its classic cartoon back catalogue, and puts Tim Burton to work on a live-action version of the flappy-eared elephant, with Michael Keaton along for the ride as shifty entertainment mogul VA Vandermere.
32. Parasite
Bong Joon-ho returns to his South Korean roots after English-language movies ‘Okja’ and ‘Snowpiercer’: details of this one are foggy, but apparently there are no creepy-crawlies, just a family of four, each of whom has “unique characteristics”.
33. Zombieland 2
Ten years after the first outing, a sequel for the much-loved post-apocalyptic horror comedy, with original cast members Emma Stone, Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg and Abigail Breslin reunited, along with director Ruben Fleischer.
Zombieland ... what fresh surprises await Jesse Eisenberg and friends? Photograph: Allstar/Columbia Pictures
34. Pain & Glory
Pedro Almodovar returns with an autobiographical meltdown movie about a film director “reflecting on the choices he’s made in life, as past and present come crashing down around him”. Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz star, obviously.
35. Resistance
Not a remake of the British alternative-history drama from 2011, but a Hollywood-goes-to-war yarn in which Jesse Eisenberg plays (I kid you not) Marcel Marceau in his pre-mime days, when as a resistance fighter he helped save hundreds of kids from the Nazis. From Secuestro Express director Jonathan Jakubowicz.
36. Lego Movie 2
Let’s hope everything remains awesome in the Legoverse for this second helping (‘Lego Batman’, of course, was a spin-off). Emmett, Lucy and co are plunked down in a Blade Runner-type wasteland, where the righteous Lego-ites are being menaced by vile Duplo invaders. Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks and Will Arnett are back, with Tiffany Haddish as shape-shifter Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi.
37. Joker
Make it more like Scorsese, they said, and so the man himself was attached to produce this Batman spin-off (until he dropped out, presumably to concentrate on The Irishman). Still, we have Joaquin Phoenix directed by Todd Phillips in what’s being punted as a gritty, street-style origins story for the great Gotham City bad guy.
38. The Woman in the Window
Tracy Letts adapts AJ Finn’s best-selling domestic noir about an agoraphobic woman who witnesses one of her neighbours carrying out a violent act in Joe Wright’s first film since Churchill biopic ‘Darkest Hour’. This one also stars Gary Oldman, alongside Amy Adams, Julianne Moore and Brian Tyree Henry.
39. Light of My Life
A couple of years after his Oscar win as a grieving janitor in ‘Manchester By the Sea’ and a decade since his last outing as a director (Joaquin Phoenix mockumentary ‘I’m Still Here’), Casey Affleck is both behind and in front of camera for this Leave No Trace-ish yarn about a father and daughter trapped in the woods.
40. Detective Pikachu
Back in 2014, The Lego Movie was a lesson in how to give the most unpromising material a sassy, smart-talking makeover: this Pokemon-related movie has taken the idea to extremes by hiring Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool himself, as the voice of the sleuthing incarnation of Pokemon’s squeaking yellow cat thing. Bound to be massive.
