It’s been, with some noteworthy exceptions, one cruel summer at the movies. X-Men: Apocalypse. Alice Through the Looking Glass. Independence Day: Resurgence. Whatever the hell Suicide Squad was trying to accomplish. But summer is thankfully over, and now it’s time for the studios to stop force-feeding us their bloated, half-asses sequels and start with the real cinematic meat: the thinking people’s blockbusters and prestige awards contenders. And this fall season boasts everything from Oscar bait like Sundance stunner Manchester by the Sea and Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk to superhero and Pixar flicks. So without further ado, here are the most anticipated movies hitting theaters this fall.
Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast
Clint Eastwood’s last film in the director’s chair, 2014’s war saga American Sniper, was a bona fide phenomenon, grossing $547 million worldwide and earning six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Eastwood’s follow-up is less jingoistic, more traditional Oscar bait: a film about Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (played by Tom Hanks), the veteran US Airways pilot who successfully crash-landed his airliner on the Hudson River—saving all 155 souls onboard. After he’s anointed as a hero by the press, however, the brave man is forced to defend his reputation. Think of it as Flight sans the drugs, booze, and Denzel strut. The film also stars Aaron Eckhart as Sully’s first officer, Laura Linney as his wife, and Katie Couric as… herself.
Warner Bros.
This grim, accomplished debut by writer-director Justin Tipping is a hip-hop infused Bay Area saga about inner-city teen Brandon (Jahking Guillory)—a diminutive, dirt-poor high school kid dodging bullies left and right. When fate grants him a fresh pair of Air Jordans, his luck seems to change—that is, until fate snatches them away, and he’s forced to embark on a dark pilgrimage to the mean streets of Oakland to retrieve them. Tipping’s film boasts stylish lensing, a pulsing hip-hop soundtrack that divides the action up into chapters, ace performances from its young, mostly inexperienced cast, and a towering one from acclaimed character actor Mahershala Ali.
Tribeca Film Festival
Jeff Feuerzeig’s documentary Author: The JT LeRoy Story delves into one of the greatest literary hoaxes of the 20th Century: a counterculture author/novelist by the name of Jeremiah “Terminator” LeRoy, an abused, drug-addled, gender fluid teenager who channeled his chaotic life into his prose, culminating in the acclaimed 1999 collection of short stories The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. Of course, it was later revealed that there was no JT LeRoy, and that is was merely an avatar created by the writer Laura Albert, raising interesting questions about authorship, responsibility, and the lengths to which someone will go to perpetuate a lie.
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Filmmaker Oliver Stone has previously taken on General Patton, the JFK assassination, and George W. Bush. Now, he’s focusing his prying lens on the story of Edward Snowden, the securities contractor who leaked classified information from the NSA in 2013, thus exposing the government’s network of spying on American citizens—and those abroad. The film traces Snowden’s rise up the ranks of the data food chain all the way up to—and beyond—his fateful meeting with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and company in China. It stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Snowden, Shailene Woodley as girlfriend Lindsay Mills, Zachary Quinto as Greenwald, Melissa Leo as Poitras, and the inimitable Nicolas Cage.
I know what you’re thinking: Is the world really asking for a sequel to The Blair Witch Project? After all, the so-called 2000 “sequel” Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 was a total disaster. Well, this direct sequel to the original Blair Witch—let’s forget the other one ever happened, shall we?—has a talented director onboard in Adam Wingard, the man behind You’re Next and The Guest, and received critical kudos out of Comic-Con. So hey, why not follow six more people into the creepy backwoods of Maryland in search of the supernatural?
Bridget Jones’s Diary is one of the better rom-coms of the last 20 years. Its 2004 sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, was shit. That brings us to 2016. Now, Bridget (Renee Zellweger) it pushing 40, has broken up with the love of her life, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), and fallen for a dashing American in Jack (Patrick Dempsey). When she becomes pregnant, however, her life is once again thrown into chaos, as she must find out whether the child is Darcy’s or Jack’s. The film also features a stellar supporting cast, including Shirley Henderson, Jim Broadbent, Ed Sheeran (?), and the great Emma Thompson as Bridget’s gynecologist.
Universal Pictures
You might be asking yourself whether the world really needs a remake of a remake of the Kurosawa classic Seven Samurai, but then you’d be overthinking it. It’s Antoine Fuqua directing his Training Day star Denzel Washington as the leader of a gang of outlaws who band together to help a town from a deranged industrialist, played by Peter Sarsgaard. The other outlaws are played by the likes of Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, and others. So yes, there’s plenty of gunplay, Denzel being a bad motherfucker, and Chris Pratt cracking one-liners. If that isn’t worth the price of admission, I don’t know what is.
Sam Emerson
Filmmaker Mira Nair has been in a bit of a creative slump since her excellent 2006 film The Namesake, helming the mediocre Amelia Earhart biopic Amelia and the timely but disappointing The Reluctant Fundamentalist. She hopes to make a comeback with this Walt Disney biopic of Phiona Mutesi, a Ugandan girl from a poor village who strives to be a chess grandmaster. The film also stars Selma’s David Oyelowo as Robert Katende, a chess player running a program for aspiring tacticians, and Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o as Phiona’s mother, Harriet.
Edward Echwalu/Disney
On the surface, a dark drama about the antics of abusive frat boys starring pop singer Nick Jonas doesn’t seem like the most compelling sell. But Andrew Neel’s film—co-scripted by David Gordon Green—received positive marks out of Sundance, and is said to provide a searing exploration of toxic masculinity, and the depths young, impressionable men will go when confronted with it. The film also features a very memorable cameo by the ubiquitous James Franco as an aging former frat boy who just can’t let go.
Paramount
Filmmaker Peter Berg’s (Friday Night Lights) last movie was the box office hit Lone Survivor, about a failed SEALs mission in Afghanistan involving sniper Marcus Luttrell. His latest is a $156 million blockbuster re-enactment of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, tracing how and why it happened, and the blackened, environment-raping aftermath. The film reunites Berg with his Lone Survivor star Mark Wahlberg as Mike Williams, the oil rig crew’s blowout preventer supervisor, as well as Kurt Russell, Kate Hudson, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, and Dylan O’Brien.
David Lee
This heist-comedy from filmmaker Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) was supposed to hit theaters last summer—that is, before its studio, Relativity Media, went belly-up. It’s based on a real-life story about a night guard for an armored car company in the South who attempts to pull off one of the biggest heists in American history, stealing $17 million. The film boasts an all-star comedy cast, including Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, and SNL’s Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones (in other words, most of the cast of Ghostbusters).
Glen Wilson/Armored Car Productions, LLC
The British filmmaker Andrea Arnold is incredibly talented. Don’t believe me? Go see 2009’s Fish Tank, which features one of the finest performances of Michael Fassbender’s career. It’s a road movie centering on Star (newcomer Sasha Lane) who joins a wild band of hell-raising misfits as they party, fuck, and fight their way across the Midwest to an addictive soundtrack. Arnold’s film, which received raves out of Cannes, also stars Shia LaBeouf, Arielle Holmes, Riley Keough, and McCaul Lombardi.
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This Aussie coming-of-age film from director Rosemary Myers tells the tale of 14-year-old social pariah Greta Driscoll (Bethany Whitmore), who, about to turn 15, is struggling with closing the door on her childhood, which provided her with a sense of safety in an insane world. When her parents throw her a surprise 15th birthday party, she’s transported to a mystical world where she must come to terms with her own demons—and, of course, growing up. The film’s received very favorable reviews out of the U.K. and Australia prior to its U.S. release.
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This passion project from writer-director-star Nate Parker (Red Tails, Pride) sees him portray Nat Turner, the African-American slave who famously led a slave rebellion in Virginia on Aug. 21, 1831, that left 60 slaveowners (and many more slaves) dead. It’s named after the infamous 1915 silent film of the same name, and also stars Aja Naomi King, Gabrielle Union, Penelope Ann Miller, Jackie Earle Haley, and Armie Hammer as slaveowner Samuel Turner. Of course, the film has taken on a new dimension given a horrifying gang-rape allegation from Parker’s past—especially given that one of the movie’s most powerful moments depicts the rape of Turner’s wife, played by Union. The film nonetheless received raves out of Sundance, where it was acquired for a record $17.5 million by Fox Searchlight.
Fox Searchlight Pictures
I’m pretty baffled by the premise of this film, about a math whiz (Ben Affleck) who works as an accountant for dangerous criminal enterprises. With a U.S. Treasury official (J.K. Simmons) breathing down his neck, he finds himself embroiled in a huge, multimillion-dollar scandal leaving a trail of bodies a mile long. Despite its wacky premise, the film does boast a stellar cast—also including Anna Kendrick, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Tambor, and John Lithgow—and is directed by Gavin O’Connor, who helmed Miracle and the criminally underrated Warrior, one of the best sports films of the last 20 years.
This thriller from Tate Taylor (The Help) has all the trappings of being this fall’s Gone Girl. Based on the bestselling novel of the same name, it stars Emily Blunt as Rachel Watson, an alcoholic divorcee suffering from crippling blackouts who, though unemployed, continues her routine of taking the train to work every day. On one of these days, she witnesses a woman she’s been observing kiss a man other than her husband, and after a night of heavy drinking, wakes up covered in blood with no recollection of the night previous. And the woman she observed has mysteriously gone missing. The film also stars Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation’s Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Edgar Ramirez, Allison Janney, and Lisa Kudrow.
Universal
The latest from acclaimed French filmmaker André Téchiné (Wild Reeds) is this gritty French drama about a 17-year-old boy, Damien (Kacey Mottet Klein), living alone with his mother (Sandrine Kiberlain) while his military-man father is stationed abroad. Damien is constantly bullied by and fighting with Tom (Corentin Fila), a fellow student. When Tom’s mother falls ill, Damien’s mother agrees to let Tom live with them, forcing the two enemies to live together under the same roof. Téchiné’s film received excellent reviews when it made its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year.
Strand Releasing
One of the biggest left-field surprises to come out of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival was this Iranian horror flick from director Babak Anvari about a young mother (Narges Rashidi) and daughter (Avin Manshadi) who find themselves tormented by mysterious evil spirits in post-revolution Tehran. The film is at a whopping 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and was acquired by Netflix, which will release the film on the streaming service while also opening it in limited theaters.
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On the heels of the BBC recently listing his 2011 epic The Tree of Life as its No. 7 movie of the 21st Century (the list was pretty bonkers, however), comes this documentary from visionary filmmaker Terrence Malick, who’s proven so influential that the term “Malick-esque” is now attached to virtually any filmmaker who shoots close-ups of nature. Malick has been working on this documentary—narrated by Cate Blanchett in 35mm, and Brad Pitt in IMAX—for the better part of 40 years, and it is said to trace the birth of the universe all the way to its projected death. Malick has described the project as “one of my greatest dreams,” and shot footage in Hawaii, Iceland, Papua New Guinea, and Chile, among other places.
From the engrossing road movie Old Joy to the eco-thriller Night Moves, Kelly Reichardt has established herself as one of America’s finest indie filmmakers, and her latest film pairs her with three of the best actresses around: Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, and Laura Dern, who play three women whose paths cross in small-town America. Their stories intersect in small-town Montana, with Stewart playing a young lawyer teaching an adult education class; Williams as a woman whose marriage is crumbling; and Dern as a woman trapped in an intense hostage situation.
The original Jack Reacher wasn’t that big of a hit—though it did feature a deliciously villainous turn by Werner Herzog—so I’m not sure how a sequel got green-lit, but here it is. Never Go Back reunited star Tom Cruise with his Last Samurai director Edward Zwick and finds Cruise’s titular hero forced to go on the run after being accused of a years-old murder he didn’t commit. And nobody gives better action movie run than The Cruise. The film also stars Cobie Smulders, Aldis Hodge, and Robert Knepper.
This sexy, South Korean psychological thriller is the latest from acclaimed filmmaker Park Chan-wook, the man responsible for The Vengeance Trilogy—including the revenge-classic Oldboy—and producer of 2013’s gripping post-apocalyptic saga Snowpiercer. Set in 1930s Korea, the film centers on Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri), a pickpocket who’s hired by conman Count Fujiwara to serve as the handmaiden to heiress Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee) in order to fleece her. However, he doesn’t count on the handmaiden falling deeply in love with the heiress.
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When the trailer dropped for writer-director Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight, jaws dropped in turn, and it immediately became one of the year’s most anticipated films. Rave reviews out of the Telluride Film Festival only cemented its must-see status. The film tells the story of Chiron through three periods—as a child (Alex Hibbert), teen (Ashton Sanders), and young man (Trevante Rhodes)—as he struggles with coming out as gay while trying to remain faithful to his Christian beliefs. Jenkins’s film, which will surely be on many people’s lips come awards season, also stars Andre Holland as Chiron’s lover Kevin, Janelle Monae, Naomie Harris, and Mahershala Ali.
A24
The third film in Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon saga—after the disappointing Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons—is also directed by Ron Howard, also stars Tom Hanks as Langdon, and also, like Demons, seems like some sort of contractual obligation. This time, Dr. Langdon is joined by Dr. Sienna Brooks (the fetching Felicity Jones), in a film that also features Irrfan Khan, Omar Sy, Ben Foster, and a booming score by Hans Zimmer.
Sony
Otto Bell’s upcoming documentary follows Aisholpan, a 13-year-old Mongolian girl who’s training to be the first female in 12 generations of her Kazakh family to be an eagle hunter. The film, narrated and executive-produced by Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Daisy Ridley, is said to feature stunning aerial shots in service of a tale about tradition and womanhood.
Sundance
I mean, it’s a documentary by revered indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch on The Stooges, the iconic punk rock band led by Iggy Pop. What more do you need to know?
Cannes
This, the second film to be released this calendar year by American filmmaker Jeff Nichols after Midnight Special, was labeled an immediate Oscar contender following its Cannes premiere. The based-on-a-true-story movie follows the relationship of Mildred Jeter (Ruth Negga), a black woman, and Richard Loving (Joel Edgerton), a white man, in 1950s Virginia. They fall in love, get married, and then are thrown in jail in 1958 for violating anti-miscegenation laws. They subsequently decided to sue their home state of Virginia, which led to the landmark Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, that ultimately ruled laws prohibiting interracial marriage are unconstitutional.
Ben Rothstein
The latest film from the ever-fertile Marvel Cinematic Universe is directed by horror filmmaker Scott Derrickson (Sinister), and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Stephen Strange, a man who’s blessed with a series of otherworldly powers after surviving a horrific car crash. He soon falls under the tutelage of The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), seeking to master the Mystic Arts. Derrickson’s film—a fantasy epic, and in many ways a departure from other MCU entries—also stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, and Mads Mikkelsen. Oh, and of course a cameo by the real-life Ancient One: Stan Lee.
Marvel
Mel Gibson is a problematic dude who’s said some problematic things. He’s also an incredibly gifted filmmaker, having helmed the likes of Braveheart and Apocalypto. His latest—and first film as a director since 2006’s Apocalypto—is this $55 million based-on-a-true-story war epic about Desmond T. Doss (Andrew Garfield), a U.S. Army medic and Seventh-day Adventist who refused to bear arms, yet was awarded the Medal of Honor for saving 75 of his fellow troops during WWII’s Battle of Okinawa. In addition to the gifted Garfield, the film also stars Vince Vaughn, Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey, Hugo Weaving, Teresa Palmer, and Rachel Griffiths.
Mark Rogers photographer
Written and directed by Ben Younger (Boiler Room), who hasn’t helmed a feature film since 2005’s Meryl Streep rom-com Prime, this award-bait biopic focuses on former world champion boxer Vinny Paz (Miles Teller), who is gearing for a comeback following a career-threatening accident. The film, which also stars Aaron Eckhart as his trainer, Katey Sagal as his mother, and Amanda Clayton as his long-suffering wife, received strong reviews out of the Telluride Film Festival and must hold special resonance for its star Teller, who himself survived a near-death car accident in his youth.
Seacia Pavao
Without question one of the year’s most anticipated films, this 3D war drama marks the first movie in four years for filmmaker Ang Lee, who last took home the Best Director Oscar for 2012’s Life of Pi. Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) is a specialist in an elite Army unit fighting in Iraq. When they return home, they’re hailed as heroes, and embark on a victory tour that takes them to Cowboys Stadium. But the fellas soon learn that, despite their heroics, they’re being called back into duty, forcing Billy to come to terms with his hopes, fears, and a sense of betrayal. The film, which will premiere at the 2016 New York Film Festival, also stars Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, Chris Tucker, Vin Diesel, and Steve Martin.
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Ever since exploding onto the scene with his Oscar-nominated 2011 film Incendies, Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve has been churning out impressive pictures at an alarming rate: Prisoners, Enemy, and last year’s Sicario. He’s also now filming the Blade Runner sequel starring Ryan Gosling. But before that, he’ll dip his feet into the sci-fi genre with Arrival, a film about several alien spacecraft landing on planet Earth, and the team of experts that are tasked with making first contact—including linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams), math whiz Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), and U.S. Army Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker). Of course the film couldn’t be timelier, given the recent (probably bogus) news of a mysterious radio signal from a star 94 light-years from Earth.
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Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven can navigate a thriller better than most (see: Basic Instinct, Black Book), and this critically-lauded Cannes entry stars French icon Isabelle Huppert as a businesswoman who’s one day brutally raped in her apartment. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game, as she embarks on an obsessive investigation to discover the identity of her attacker in the hopes of seeking revenge.
SBS Distribution
While we’ve already caught brief glimpses of rapper Tupac Shakur in the Biggie movie Notorious and in Straight Outta Compton, he’ll finally get the biopic treatment in music video director Benny Boom’s All Eyez on Me. He’ll be played by Demetrius Shipp Jr., whose father worked with Tupac, in a film that traces his life up to the fatal Las Vegas shooting, and is joined by The Walking Dead’s Danai Gurira as his mother, Afeni Shakur; Jamal Woolard as Notorious B.I.G. (from Notorious); Kat Graham as Jada Pinkett-Smith; Lauren Cohan; and Jamie Hector.
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This fantasy-epic is a spin-off/prequel of the Harry Potter series, marks the screenwriting debut of Potter author J.K. Rowling, and is directed by the gifted David Yates, who helmed the last few Harry Potter films. Set in 1926, the film tells the tale of Newt Scamander (played by Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne), who, while attending the Magical Congress of the United States of America for an important meeting—regarding the tenuous state of magical and non-magical relations—accidentally unleashes a briefcase containing a host of dangerous not-so-mythical creatures that wreak havoc on society. The film also stars Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Ezra Miller, Carmon Ejogo, and Jon Voight.
Jaap Buitendijk
This devastating drama from writer-director Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count on Me) stars Casey Affleck as a Massachusetts man who becomes the legal guardian of his nephew (Lucas Hedges) following the death of his brother (Kyle Chandler). This forces him to return to his hometown of Manchester-by-the-Sea, and confront his ex-wife (Michelle Williams), and his dark past. As I wrote of the film at Sundance, “Another towering turn looms over Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea, and it comes courtesy of Casey Affleck, who is at his best playing a font of suffering and simmering rage. The film presents a harrowing portrait of two lost souls, young and old, trying their damnedest to overcome death and loneliness. This is Lonergan’s magnum opus.”
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Tom Ford’s creativity knows no bounds. Some rolled their eyes when the fashion designer extraordinaire announced he’d be helming his first feature film—only to be stunned when they saw 2009’s A Single Man, a beautifully tender and heartbreaking tale of a gay English professor (Colin Firth) coping with the death of his long-term partner in the 1960s. His much-anticipated follow-up is Nocturnal Animals—a tale of an art gallery owner (Amy Adams) who receives a manuscript of her ex-husband’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) novel that turns her life upside down. The film also stars Jake Gyllenhaal (again) as an embattled character from the novel, as well as Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Michael Shannon, and Isla Fisher. The film was purchased for a whopping $20 million at the Cannes Film Market—making it the largest purchase in many years.
Merrick Morton/Focus Features
Marking the feature filmmaking debut of Kelly Fremon Craig, this coming-of-age dramedy focuses on a high school junior (Hailee Steinfeld), who, when her popular jock of an older brother (Blake Jenner) begins dating her bestie (Haley Lu Richardson), finds herself on the brink of collapse. But a new friendship helps save the day. The film also stars Kyra Sedgwick as Steinfeld’s mom, and Woody Harrelson as her calm, cool, and collected history teacher/mentor.
Murray Close
Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, the man behind Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Forrest Gump, this wartime spy-romance stars the eye-catching Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard as two spies in Casablanca during World War II who fall for one another whilst on a mission to assassinate a high-ranking German official. The film, which sounds like a mix of Casablanca and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, also stars Lizzy Caplan, Matthew Goode, and Jared Harris.
Moana is the latest 3D-animated movie-musical from Walt Disney Animated Studios, and is groundbreaking in the Disney universe for its POC female protagonist. It centers on Moana (Auli’i Cravalho), a young girl in the South Pacific who descends from a long line of navigators. But she’s a girl, so isn’t afforded the same liberties as the boys. So she takes matters into her own hands, setting sail in search of a mythical island with the demi-god Maui (Dwayne Johnson) in tow. The film also features the voice talents of Temeura Morrison, Nicole Scherzinger, and Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement.
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Yes, the life of iconic director/inventor/recluse Howard Hughes was already explored in 2004’s The Aviator, but this romantic comedy is the first movie since 1998’s Bulworth to be directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Warren Beatty. It stars Beatty as Hughes, but centers more on two religious Midwestern transplants in his employ (Lily Collins, Alden Ehrenreich), who begin to fall for one another despite Hughes’s strict rules against romance among his workers. In addition to Beatty, Collins, and Ehrenreich, aka Young Han Solo, the film also stars Annette Bening, Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin, Haley Bennett, Steve Coogan, and Ed Harris.
Francois Duhamel
Directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls), this sequel to the 2003 comedy hit Bad Santa sees Billy Bob Thornton return as his criminal-asshole-drunk mall Santa. He’s joined by Tony Cox as his motor-mouthed diminutive sidekick, and the cast is rounded out by Christina Hendricks as Thornton’s love interest, Kathy Bates, and Octavia Spencer.
Jan Thijs
