The top 35 must-see films of 2024

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From tennis-based dramas to post-apocalyptic landscapes filled with apes and cars, here are the films we’re most excited about in 2024.

Written by: Lauren Miles; Simon Brew; Ryan Lambie; Maria Lattila; James Harvey; John Moore

Ah, 2023. How we’ll miss you. It’s been an odd old year at the movieplex: a doll, a plumber and a nuclear physicist have strolled, not into a bar, but the top three spots at the box office. Superhero movies and sequels have sunk without a trace. For more than a hundred days, concurrent writers and actors strikes meant no one in Hollywood made any movies.

But as Jools Holland is getting warmed up to bring in the new year, we’re looking to the future. 2024 could be one of the most unpredictable moviegoing years in a while. Deadpool 3 is the only film currently slated to head out of Marvel Studios, and DC are swinging for the fences with the distinctly un-mass marketable Joker: Folie a Deux.

It’s not all change in Hollywood, though. We’ve got sequels to Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Beetlejuice and Inside Out on the way, alongside all manner of prequels, requels and adaptations of popular video game franchises. We’ve also got new films from Bong Joon-ho, Lynne Ramsay and Robert Eggers, as well as feature debuts from Zelda Williams and Dougal Wilson.

But 2024 could also be the year of the movie musical. Four of the films on this list wouldn’t look out of place on a Broadway stage, and a fifth – Bob Marley: One Love – looks to include more than a few tunes to tap your feet to. Curiously, none of them have the word ‘musical’ in the title, though we’re sure the marketing team behind that one know what they’re doing…

Honorable mentions: Before we get going, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis would be right up the list. But it’s not certain at all it’ll appear in 2024, and so for the moment, it’s not here. But should it land, a hasty re-edit will be carried out. (Hasty re-edit: Megalopolis does indeed look like it’ll be released on 27th September. Consider it appropriately high on our list).

Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things and Andrew Haigh’s All Of Us Strangers are also all coming to the UK in January, but as we’ve already seen them at all the posh festivals someone forgot to lock us out of, we thought including them here would be a bit unfair. Suffice to say, all three are bloody brilliant.

Now, grab a coffee and get settled in – here are our most anticipated films of 2024, with our reviews of each added beneath each entry as the year unwinds.

35. Deadpool 3

Release date: 26th July

Director: Shawn Levy

With Marvel Studios currently placing all their cinematic eggs in one very sweary basket, Deadpool 3 has us all rather intrigued. Will Shawn Levy’s stab at the merc with a mouth maintain the franchise’s traditional R-rating? Will Disney allow Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine to do some naughty stuff in front of a global audience? Will Deadpool 3 properly introduce the rest of the X-Men into the MCU, and will we get more close-ups of people being shot in the bonce? We’ll have to wait and see.

We like Dogpool, though. He looks nice. – JH

34. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Release date: 29th March

Director: Gil Kenan

Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan are teaming up once again to bring us the follow-up to their 2021 film, this time with Kenan in the director’s chair and Reitman producing. They’ve both contributed to the story, which sees the Spengler family head back to the franchise’s roots – Manhattan. As you can probably gather from the title, the Big Apple has been hit by a bout of inclement weather, and a ghostly force called the Death Chill is the culprit. A lot of the cast is returning, including Finn Wolfhard and McKenna Grace as the grandchildren of OG Ghostbuster Egon Spengler. Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson and Dan Akroyd are also back, with Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt and James Acaster cast in unknown roles. – LM

33. Argylle

Release date: 2nd February

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Matthew Vaughn, who’s spent recent years working on the Kingsman movies, returns with a new original film. It’s still all about espionage, though, and also includes a really cute cat. Bryce Dallas Howard plays Elly Conway, the author of the Argylle series of spy novels. In the film, her leading man is played by none other than Henry Cavill, and it seems from the trailer that he’ll be enacting all kinds of insane action scenes based around classic spy movie tropes. Elly’s life is upended when one of her books is too close to reality, and she becomes embroiled in the world of real-life super spies – alongside the aforementioned cat, Alfie. Kingsman: The Golden Circle and The King’s Man were both a step down from the first film in the series, but Argylle has a great cast that includes Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara and John Cena. That in itself has us excited to see how this one turns out. – LM

32. The Beekeeper

Release date: 12th January

Director: David Ayer

The Statham starts what we can only hope is a brand new franchise, where he shoots the shit out of people, whilst also tending to an assortment of animals. The Beekeeper sees him tending a hive… nope, sadly not. Instead, there’s an undercover organisation, that’s all secret and stuff, that sees our hero on the rampage after something to do with computer phishing.

Well, it’s a start.

Insert your own gag about buzz etc, whilst we tell you that Kurt Wimmer has penned the script, and Suicide Squad helmer David Ayer has been calling the shots. Hopefully, this is proper R-rated Stath, gruffly dispatching people and negotiating a sequel clause in his contract. – SB

31. Twisters

Release date: 19th July

Director: Lee Isaac Chung

If you had to create a list of films due a legasequel, you’d probably get through a couple of sheets of paper before you considered Jan De Bont’s 1996 flying cow flick, Twister. But here we are. What a world, eh? With De Bont not having directed a movie since 2003’s Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life, Bill Paxton and Phillip Seymour Hoffman sadly having left us back in 2017 and 2014 respectively, Twisters will be helmed by Lee Isaac Chung – who wrote and directed 2020’s Minari – with Kiernan Shipka, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Top Gun: Maverick star Glenn Powell topping the cast list. According to reports, while – like the original – the film will be under Universal and Amblin banners (Stephen Spielberg Exec Produced the 1996 film) and produced by Frank Marshall (husband of the original’s producer, Kathleen Kennedy, who’s a bit busy running Lucasfilm we suppose), it will not be a narrative descendent of the Paxton/Helen Hunt-led story. Instead, the studio say it will be “a new chapter” with no place for returning characters. Still, betcha it’s going to be just as loud. – JM

30. Ballerina

Release date: ~~7th June~~ – now delayed until 2025…

Director: Len Wiseman (with a bit of help from Chad Stahelski, according to reports)

ana de armas, star of the upcoming 2024 film, Ballerina — Credit: MGM

We may not be seeing much of Keanu Reeves’ John Wick for a while, but his universe is about to get a bit bigger with the release of the first movie spin-off, Ballerina. We saw a little bit of the ballerinas (that are part of the Ruska Roma crime syndicate) in the lengthily-titled John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and this film takes place between the third and fourth movies. It will see a ballerina assassin played by Anna de Armas hunt down the murderers of her family. To anchor the tale further in the world of John Wick, Keanu Reeves will make a cameo appearance in the film, and so will the late Lance Reddick, appearing posthumously. Also starring in Ballerina are Gabriel Byrne and Norman Reedus. TV spin-off The Continental got a mixed reception, so we’ll have to see if Ballerina improves the franchise’s fortunes outside of the main series. – LM

29. Beetlejuice 2

Release date: 6th September

Director: Tim Burton

Director Tim Burton said the name of his famous bio-exorcist three times and conjured up a sequel to his 1988 cult classic. It’s been a long time coming, with attempts to make another Beetlejuice movie dating all the way back to 1990 with a working title of Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. Sadly, I don’t think that’s the route Warner Bros has gone down for this version of the film, which stars Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega as the daughter of Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz. Ryder is back for the sequel, as is Catherine O’Hara, who played artist Delia Deetz in the original movie. Newcomers include Monica Bellucci playing none other than Beetlejuice’s wife, and Justin Theroux. We don’t know much about the story at the moment, but perhaps this sequel will focus more on its title character. This will only be the second time Burton’s tackled a sequel, so we’re definitely intrigued, but mainly we’re hoping for some Harry Belafonte music on the soundtrack! – LM

28. IF

Release date: 17th May

Director: John Krasinski

john krasinski a quiet place — Credit: Paramount

If (ha) you were wondering why John Krasinski isn’t directing the A Quiet Place prequel, this might just be the reason. He’s been a bit busy writing and directing a fantasy comedy where a young girl develops the ability to see people’s abandoned imaginary friends. Sounds a far cry from limby bat aliens and Emily Blunt stepping on nails, but it sounds like a bit of fun! – JH

27. The Fall Guy

Release date: 1st March

Director: David Leitch

Having co-directed John Wick with Chad Stahelski, David Leitch has subsequently brought us the likes of Nobody, Violent Night and Bullet Train. When it comes to action movies with frankly awesome fight choreography, the man knows what he’s doing. It’s unsurprising then that we’re very excited to see The Fall Guy, which Leitch is directing. Based on the 1980s series of the same name, the film will see Ryan Gosling playing a past-his-prime stuntman who runs into the star he used to double for (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) on a movie set. That star then goes missing. How anyone could cast Gosling as “past his prime” I don’t know, but it sounds like it’s all very tongue-in-cheek. Emily Blunt is also starring as the stuntman’s former girlfriend who’s now directing her first film. As a former stunt performer himself, David Leitch is the perfect person to helm a movie all about a stuntman – and there’s sure to be some incredible stunts in the film itself, too. – LM

26. Wicked: Part One

Release date: November 27th

Director: Jon M. Chu

Jon M. Chu follows up his underrated Broadway-to-big-screen port of In The Heights with a cinematic take on another Great White Way Whale, the long-running Stephen Schwartz belt-along, WIcked. Now split into two films, the first – which will, presumably, climax with stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Eviro shaking seats with the show’s act one closer, Defying Gravity – due in ‘24 and the second in 2025. Michelle Yeoh will support as Shiz University’s Madame Morrible (just go with it, okay), alongside Jeff Goldblum, who’s getting his green on as – you guessed it – the Wizard. While there appears to be nothing more than cameo potential for the pair that made the show famous on the stage, Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenowith, The Greatest Showman standout Keala Settle is set to appear as a character named Miss Coddle, created solely for the film. So expect a showstopper from her. It’s going to be popular, this one… – JM

25. Ship

Release date: TBC

Director: TBC

A ship (Credit: Gregory Varnum, Creative Commons)

Well, you see, it’s like this. 2023 brought us Plane, a remarkable piece of cinema that saw Gerard Butler captaining a plane, landing a plane, and, well, spoilers. It was thoughtful that he took the time to put his craft on the ground so he could go around shooting people for a bit, and I for one appreciated it.

The title of the film was, spoilers, not one that misdirected its audience, and I’ve a sneaking suspicion that the snappily-monikered follow-up may follow a similar philosophy.

Mike Colter is taking over lead duties, with Gerard Butler apparently not able to navigate a boat with the same confidence he manages to fly his aircraft. No matter, it’s teased he might pop along for a cameo, and hopefully Colter can direct his Ship to a point where Hovercraft can continue the boxset. – SB

24. A Quiet Place: Day One

Release date: 28th June

Director: Michael Sarnoski

If you’re looking for more on the adventures of Emily Blunt and the Abbott family, this ain’t it. What it is, though, is a prequel set in the same universe when everything starts kicking off (i.e., very limby bat-monsters start murdering everything that squeaks). Based on an original story by John Krasinski, Michael Sarnoski has taken over as writer-director this time around, and we don’t know much more than that. Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn are set to star, and presumably they’ll last a lot longer than we would in their shoes (imagine recording a podcast in the Quiet Place? A nightmare). – JH

23. Inside Out 2

Release date: 14th June

Director: Kelsey Mann

Pixar mastered its usual trick of giving inanimate objects feelings when, in 2015, it decided to give feelings to feelings themselves. Inside Out saw the young Riley deal with a multitude of emotions that lived in her head, including Joy, Sadness, and Disgust. Nearly ten years later and Pixar is releasing a sequel that will see Riley deal with her teenage years and the new emotions that come with them. That’s all we know about the story of this film so far, but the original was so memorable that we’re looking forward to the follow-up. The Good Dinosaur writer Kelsey Mann is directing from a script by Meg LeFauve, who co-wrote Inside Out, so it’s clearly in good hands. – LM

22. Mean Girls

Release Date: 12th January

Directors: Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr.

The most confusingly-titled film of 2024 doesn’t make Tina Fey’s musical refresh of her 2004 cult classic any less exciting. While you’d struggle to tell from the bizarre marketing campaign, this really isn’t your mother’s Mean Girls. Based on Fey’s own hit musical which dazzled Broadway audiences back in 2018 (and arrives on London’s West End next year), the film which blatantly should be, but isn’t, called Mean Girls: The Musical is hitting screens in early January. The stage show is sometimes referred to as Mean Girls – The Musical, though, so when you’re buying tickets, make sure you’re seeing Mean Girls (the one that’s a musical and a film) not Mean Girls (which is a film but not a musical) or Mean Girls – The Musical (which is a musical but isn’t a film). Something tells me someone didn’t think this through… – JH

21. Venom 3

Release date: 12th July

Director: Kelly Marcel

Tom Hardy in a still from Venom: Let There Be Carnage — Credit: Sony

The first Venom was an intriguing combination of the mundane with the bizarre. Riz Ahmed played a pretty cookie-cutter CEO villain. Eddie Brock taught a parasite not to eat people. Tom Hardy sat in a lobster tank. Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage, saw Andy Serkis take the reigns for a film which nearly, but not quite, put Woody Harrelson in an Annie wig. Spider-Man: No Way Home made its hero get drunk in a beach hut. We know next to nothing about Venom 3, other than production in the UK was shut-down by the SAG-AFTRA strike, Tom Hardy’s got a co-story credit, and it’s directed by long-term Venom-scribe Kelly Marcel in her feature debut. We don’t even know its full name. But whatever Venom 3 has planned, we can’t wait. – JH

20. Lisa Frankenstein

Release date: 1st March

Director: Zelda Williams

The trailer for Zelda Williams’ directorial debut has split opinion in the Film Stories offices. For some, it looks reticent of the kind of 80s movie we don’t see enough of – a quirky, Heathers-inflected meditation on the introspection of the high school experience through the medium of tanning bed resurrection from the writer of Jennifer’s Body and the star of Freaky. Other, unnamed staff members have called it “naff” and “a bit bad”. History will decide who is correct (not that I’m biased, but it’s the former). – JH

19. Alto Knights

Release date: ~~15th November~~ (Now delayed until 31st March 2025)

Director: Barry Levinson

No official images yet, so for now, imagine this man and double it. (Credit: Paramount)

Barry Levinson makes rare forays behind the camera, but Alto Knights – previously known as Wiseguys – sees the Oscar-winning director back on a film set. He’s attracted Robert De Niro to the lead role of his film too, which comes from the pen of Nicholas Pileggi. Pileggi of course penned Goodfellas, which was also previously known as Wiseguys, so he’s making a bit of a habit of this.

The film is a story of competing mob bosses, and De Niro – greedy bugger – seems to be playing both of the lead roles here. It’s also a movie that’s take around five decades to get to the screen, having originally been considered all the way back in the 1970s. It’s senior Hollywood here tackling what could and should be a compelling mob drama. Delayed due to the strikes (you know the ones), it’s an end of 2024 release now. If all goes to plan, a small awards run might greet it. Imagine! De Niro could get a double nomination! – SB

18. Joker: Folie a Deux

Release date: 4th October

Director: Todd Philips

Todd Philips returns to direct and co-write the sequel to 2019’s Joker, which despite being R-rated, managed to make over a billion dollars in ticket sales. About a particularly down-at-heel incarnation of the Clown Prince of Crime, played with method intensity by Joaquin Phoenix, it took at least a couple of Martin Scorsese movies – namely Taxi Driver and The King Of Comedy – and mixed them in a blender to audience-pleasing effect. The sequel, which co-stars Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, is reportedly a musical.

After Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese made a musical, New York New York. Will Philips borrow liberally from that movie, too? Possibly not, given how it fared critically and financially. Still, here’s a fun movie connection: A Star Is Born co-starred Lisa Minelli, whose mother, Judy Garland, starred in the original A Star Is Born. Lady Gaga appeared in the most recent remake of A Star Is Born. We’ve probably been over-thinking this a bit. – RL

17. Drive-Away Dolls

Release date: 23rd February

Director: Ethan Coen

This is another film that was meant to come out in the latter part of this year, but was delayed due to the Hollywood strikes. Drive-Away Dolls is Ethan Coen’s second solo-directed film after the 2022 documentary Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble In Mind, and he’s also co-written and edited the movie alongside wife Tricia Cooke. This fun-looking comedy crime caper stars Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan as two friends – one very extroverted and the other not so much – who go on a road trip together. Things go sideways when they run into a group of inept criminals. Coen has got together a great cast for this who can assuredly handle the comedic material, including Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Beanie Feldstein and Colman Domingo. This should be good fun. – LM

16. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes

Release date: 24th May

Director: Wes Ball

Matt Reeves, who brought a sense of the biblical epic to the previous Apes films, has long since moved onto all things Batman. In his place comes Wes Ball, who made those nifty, dystopian Maze Runner films. Given his track record for telling stories against devastated, post-apocalyptic backdrops, he sounds like a logical choice for this continuation of the story, which picks up after the events of 2017’s War For The Planet Of The Apes.

Humanity has descended into the feral state that Charlton Heston encountered in the 1968 film, while Owen Teague’s casting as Cornellius – son of Andy Serkis’ Caesar, will provide another link to the earlier films in the franchise (which are technically sequels…). There’s a cracking cast in this one as well, including William H Macy and Kevin Durand. Writing duo Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver – who’ve either written or produced all the Apes films since 2011’s Rise – are also back. As such, we’ve high hopes that this one will continue the series’ unusually reliable quality. – RL

15. Borderlands

Release date: 9th August

Director: Eli Roth

With the success of The Super Mario Bro. Movie and Five Nights At Freddy’s, the video game movie is a hot commodity in 2023. Hoping to carry that flame into 2024 is Eli Roth’s upcoming Borderlands film, a sci-fi action comedy based on the irreverent looter shooter of the same name. First announced all the way back in 2015, multiple screenwriters (including The Last Of Us’ Craig Mazin) and a pandemic or two later, the long-gestating project is finally ready to hit cinemas. With a stacked cast (Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Hart and Jack Black) and the suitably stabby-shooty Roth behind the camera, we’re cautiously optimistic for this one. It might just be the Hart and Black combo, but we’re getting Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle vibes. With more machine guns, probably. – JH

14. The Iron Claw

Release date: 9th February

Director: Sean Durkin

Sean Durkin’s filmography might be a little on the short side, but it is an impressive one. His previous feature film The Nest was a stylish and devilishly wicked thriller and the director was also in charge of some of the best episodes of Prime Video’s Dead Ringers remake. But The Iron Claw might be Durkin’s most challenging and, judging from the first reactions, most heartbreaking work yet. The film tells the story of the Von Erich family, who were influential wrestlers who found success in the ring in the 1980s, but also battled personal issues outside the ring with tragic outcomes. Zac Efron, Harris Dickinson, Jeremy Allen White and Stanley Solomons portray four of the Von Erich brothers, while Mindhunter’s Holt McCallany portrays the family patriarch Fritz. – ML

13. Bob Marley: One Love

Release date: 14th February

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green

Kingsley Ben-Adir’s star has been on the rise for a few years now, and following a delightful supporting role in Barbie this year, he’s finally got the headline gig to launch him into leading man status. This one looks like a biopic in the rock-solidly traditional sense, charting the legend’s “rise to fame up until his death in 1981”, according to the synopsis. Lashana Lynch is also here, playing Marley’s wife Rita. We love Lashana Lynch. We love Bob Marley. Musical biopics are the best biopics (they have songs in them!). What more could we ask for? – JH

12. Speak No Evil

Release date: 9th August

Director: James Watkins

Speak No Evil, one of our films of 2024 — (Image from the 2022 original) (Credit: Nordisk film)

Christian Tafdrup’s original 2022 psychological thriller is, by far, the most terrifying film I have ever seen. In the film, Bjørn and Louise make friends with another couple, Patrick and Karin, on holiday and are swiftly invited to visit them in the Netherlands. The trip quickly takes a sinister turn as Patrick and Karin begin to push the couple’s limits. The ending will give you nightmares and if this English-language remake can reproduce even a smidge of the oppressive mood that hangs over the film, we’re in for a winner. James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy have been tapped in for the new version, which is directed by Eden Lake’s James Watkins. – ML

11. The Color Purple

Release date: 26th January

Director: Blitz Bazawule

Blitz Bazawule’s film adaptation of the Broadway musical adaptation of Spielberg’s 1985 film adaptation of the 1982 novel certainly had a lot of stops on its way to the big screen. Now, though, a month after its 2023 US release, The Color Purple (we’ve been told it’s sticking with its spelling) is finally making its way to UK cinemas. With Colman Domingo and The Little Mermaid star Halle Bailey rounding out the cast, this is looking like one to look out for next awards season. – JH

10. Challengers

Release date: 26th April

Director: Luca Guadagnino

Luca Guadagnino is arguably the master of modern sensuality in cinema. Heck, the man managed to make Timothée Chalamet shagging a peach kind of hot. Guadagnino’s tennis-drama Challengers, which was set to open the Venice Film Festival before the actors’ strike forced it to move to 2024, is set to form the year’s steamiest love triangle as old friends Patrick and Art (played by Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist respectively) fight for the attention of Zendaya’s Tashi. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are in charge of music and Justin Kuritzkes has penned the script, so our tennis balls are in excellent hands. – ML

9. Alien: Romulus

Release date: 16th August

Director: Fede Alvarez

Forget about the bald humanoids, black goo and space flutes of Ridley Scott’s Alien prequels, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Evil Dead and Don’t Breathe director Fede Alvarez is here to bring us Alien: Romulus, a standalone film that, we’re guessing, will have a similarly back-to-basics approach to the well-received Predator series entry, Prey. At the time of writing, we haven’t seen a trailer or much of anything from the production beyond a few vague stills from Alvarez and a synopsis which, in essence, is about a bunch of 20-somethings versus “the most terrifying life form in the universe.” Will it be any good? Ridley Scott certainly seems to think so. If nothing else, we’re intrigued, and Alvarez certainly has form when it comes to lean, nasty shocks. – RL

8. Polaris

Release date: ~~TBC~~ (Now delayed indefinitely)

Director: Lynne Ramsay

Polaris, one of our films of 2024 — Credit: Universal

A new Lynne Ramsay film is always worth looking out for, and we have next-to nothing about this one. The IMDB synopsis helpfully reads: “Set in Alaska during the 1890s, an ice photographer meets the devil.” The ice photographer might be Joaquin Phoenix. It might also be Rooney Mara. Either of them could also be the devil. We don’t even really know the film’s name, because Ramsay said it might go out as Dark Slides instead. But whoever plays who and in what, the director of We Need To Talk About Kevin and You Were Never Really Here can usually be relied upon to make something a bit good. – JH

7. Gladiator 2

Release date: 22nd November

Director: Ridley Scott

If we’re being absolutely honest, the Gladiator sequel we really wanted to see was the Nick Cave incarnation that would have seen Russell Crowe’s Maximus dispatched from hell on a Terminator-like mission to kill Jesus, only to mess things up and end up working at the Pentagon instead. But no matter: the Gladiator 2 we’re getting – again directed by the irrepressible Ridley Scott – is about Lucius, the kid last seen ruling alongside Joaquin Phoenix’s brattish Commodus in the original Gladiator. Now played as a grown-up by actor-of-the-moment Paul Mescal, he’ll no doubt get up to all kinds of stabby, gladiatorial antics. Either that or he’ll end up working a desk job at the Pentagon. Only time will tell. – RL

6. Furiosa

Release date: 24th May

Director: George Miller

Furiosa is one of those projects that seems to have been in development forever. Since George Miller delivered a spectacular return to the franchise which made his name with Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015, we’ve been chomping at the bit for a sequel. What we’ve got instead is a prequel – the story of Charlize Theron’s butt-kicking hero from the first film before she looked like CharliZe Theron. This time, she’s played by Anya Taylor-Joy opposite Chris Hemsworth as Fury Road’s antagonist, Immortan Joe, in a story that finds the young Imperator snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers by Tom Burke’s unpleasant-sounding Warlord Dementus. It’s been far too long since we’ve seen a cultist playing a flame-spitting guitar on a mobile scrapheap; Furiosa can’t come soon enough. – JH

5. Mickey 17

Release date: ~~29th March~~ – now mysteriously delayed

Director: Bong Joon-ho

Mickey 17, one of our films of 2024 — Credit: Warner Bros

Altogether now! “But I haven’t seen the first 16 Mickeys!”

Four years after Parasite made history as the first film not in the English language to take home the Oscar for Best Picture, Bong Joon-ho is set to make a triumphant return to sci-fi with an adaptation of Edward Ashton’s similarly-named novel, Mickey7. Robert Pattinson stars as the latest iteration of a disposable employee sent to colonise a far-off icy planet, alongside Steven Yeun, Naomi Acki, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo. Sounds like classic Bong Joon-ho stuff to us. – JH

4. Nosferatu

Release date: 25th December (USA)

Director: Robert Eggers

Following his meticulously detailed (and a bit creepy) debut with The Witch in 2015, Robert Eggers has quickly made his name as one of the most unique and exciting filmmakers working today. Even so, his dream Nosferatu remake has proved harder to get over the line than most. Originally conceived as Eggers’ second film and starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Harry Styles, the revisiting of the 1922 classic now finds Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgård and Lily-Rose Depp getting their teeth into some properly gothic material. The film finished shooting in May, and is getting a suitably chilly Christmas Day release in the US – fingers crossed it comes to UK shores soon after. – JH

3. Horizon: An American Saga

Release date: 28th June; 16th August

Director: Kevin Costner

For the first time since Open Range, Kevin Costner is directing a feature film. And in the case of Horizon, the plan is to direct four of them. Had Hollywood strikes not happened, Costner would have shot all four chapters of his hugely ambitious – and partly self-funded – western saga. As it is, two of the films are filmed and ready for cinemas in 2024, with Costner taking the lead.

It’s a project that he’s been trying to get going for two decades or so, and it’s something that’s been so important to Costner he’s effectively brought his time on the hugely successful Yellowstone TV series to an end so that he can finally make the films.

No UK release date as of yet, and given the movie has been independently funded, there may be disparity of distributors – and possibly release. Hopefully not too much though. Some of us are waiting… – SB

2. Dune: Part Two

Release date: 1st March

Director: Denis Villeneuve

With Dune: Part One inevitably leaving the story dangling in mid-air, it feels like we’ve had to wait an absolute eternity to finally see the second half of Denis Villeneuve’s sweeping sci-fi opus. After repeated delays, though, we should finally get to see how Villeneuve and his team interpret the rest of Frank Herbert’s baroque story in just a few more months. Assuming it isn’t delayed yet again for some reason. Ahem. Austin Butler, Florence Pugh and Christopher Walken are among the new faces joining an already stacked cast. If Dune: Part Two is as sumptuously designed and acted as the first, then this should be a treat well worth waiting for. – RL

1. Paddington In Peru

Release date: 8th November

Director: Dougal Wilson

When the history of film is written, Paddington 2’s name will be etched in sticky, golden-orange ink. The film which definitively (if a key role in The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent is considered definitive) knocked Citizen Kane off its perch to become the greatest movie of all time has been making grown adults sob uncontrollably since its violently lovely premiere in 2017. It even won its ursine star a trip to meet the royal family. But Paddington’s third and final adventure looks to send the little bear much further away from home. Paul King might have hung up his directorial hat and duffel coat for this one, but with a number of the first two films’ creatives still behind the scenes, the promise of Ben Whishaw’s most iconic role taking a final bow has us craving a good marmalade sandwich. – JH

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