2024 has already proved a bumper year for big-screen releases, with a flurry of long-delayed blockbusters and hotly anticipated sequels finally hitting theatres. Here are the films we’ve loved so far – and the ones still to come that we don’t think you should miss.
Dune: Part Two (1 March)
Director Denis Villeneuve’s desert planet blockbuster was so hyped – with the press tour to end all press tours – that it was almost a surprise that the actual movie, starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler and more, was really great. This is a sci-fi epic, mythic and self-serious, but somehow crisply paced and cool instead of ridiculous; extremely long but never boring; and packed with enough action set pieces and charismatic movie stars that you kind of can’t believe your luck. – Taylor Antrim
Civil War (12 April)
Civil War is an ultra-poised modern war movie, balanced between beauty and horror. Writer-director Alex Garland’s vision of a near-future America in battle with itself has ravishing moments, an incredible central performance from Kirsten Dunst, and a heart-stopping pace. But this is a movie built around a moral centre, and it is as excruciating as any you’re likely to see this year. There are stunningly beautiful passages (tracer fire in the night sky, a drive through a forest fire) that will stick with you and needle drops (Suicide and De La Soul) that leave marks. Civil War is unconvinced of many things: that journalism will save us, that democracy will endure, that the left or the right has any purchase on rectitude. All it knows for sure is that when we turn on each other, no one wins. – TA
Challengers (26 April)
Has any movie this year captured the internet’s attention quite like Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers? Starring a triad of extremely appealing young stars – Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist, and a career-best Zendaya – it’s a sexy and kinetic delight, propelled by satisfying performances, a thumping score by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor, and VFX tricks so wonderfully wacky it’s easy to miss just how technically impressive they are. A flat-out wonderful time at the movies. – Marley Marius
Hit Man (24 May)
In Richard Linklater’s winning action-comedy, Glen Powell plays a dweeby, jorts-wearing undercover Houston cop posing as a suave and sexy hit man. Things start to go sideways when sparks fly with a woman (Adria Arjona) who wants to hire him to kill her husband. Even more improbable than Powell being a nerd? The whole story is indeed based on real events. It’s so much fun, you won’t be able to stop yourself smiling. One much-discussed scene has left audiences applauding mid film – avoid spoilers at all costs. – Lisa Wong Macabasco
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (6 September)
Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara and Michael Keaton are reprising their roles from Tim Burton’s 1988 classic for the beloved auteur’s long-awaited sequel, which will see them joined by an all-star supporting cast which includes Jenna Ortega, Monica Bellucci and Willem Dafoe. – Radhika Seth
Joker: Folie à Deux (4 October)
Since Joker made over $1 billion and earned its barnstorming lead a Best Actor Oscar, anticipation has been sky high for Todd Phillips’s follow-up to his disturbing psychological thriller, which will be – wait for it – a musical that stars Lady Gaga as the eccentric Harley Quinn alongside Joaquin Phoenix’s beleaguered Joker. Yes, really. – RS
We Live in Time (11 October)
Under the direction of John Crowley (Brooklyn), Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield lead what Variety has described as a “decade-spanning, deeply moving romance” in which an “up-and-coming chef finds her life forever changed by a chance encounter with a recent divorcée”. Weird title aside, we are so onboard. – MM
Gladiator 2 (22 November)
Hot on the heels of Napoleon comes another soaring historical blockbuster from Ridley Scott: the tale of Lucius Verus, the nephew of Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus who was seen as a child in 2000’s Gladiator, as he reaches adulthood. As portrayed by Paul Mescal, who leads a stellar ensemble which also features Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington and Stranger Things’s Joseph Quinn, it should be a swords-and-sandals epic like no other. – RS
Wicked: Part 1 (27 November)
Due to be released in two parts – with the second film following in 2025 – this big-screen rendering of the wildly successful musical is helmed by Jon M Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights), and sees Ariana Grande play Glinda the Good Witch, with Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West; Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero; Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible; and Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard himself. – RS
Nosferatu (25 December)
For this atmospheric retelling of FW Murnau’s 1922 gothic horror, Robert Eggers has assembled a formidable line-up: Bill Skarsgård takes the lead as the vampiric Count Orlok, while Lily-Rose Depp, Emma Corrin, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe and Nicholas Hoult star as those whose lives are upturned by his arrival in a sleepy German town in the early 19th century. – RS
The Substance (TBC 2024)
It’s hard to remember when I last saw a film that went as hard as Coralie Fargeat’s fearless follow-up to the candy-coloured action thriller Revenge – the mind-bending tale of an actor (a career-best Demi Moore) deemed to be past her prime, who injects her body with a mysterious substance that promises to release a more perfect version of herself. Cue her collapsing onto her bathroom floor, her spine splitting open, and a younger alter-ego (a sweet and then devilish Margaret Qualley) emerging from inside her. What happens next inspired gasps, cheers, laughter and shrieks of horror in equal measure at the film’s recent Cannes premiere – and it, deservedly, left the festival with the Best Screenplay prize. Expect it to be the talking point of the autumn when it finally hits theatres. – RS
Anora (TBC 2024)
Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning crowdpleaser – a fleet-footed romp which follows the titular exotic dancer (a glorious Mikey Madison) who meets the goofy son of a Russian oligarch (newcomer Mark Eydelshteyn, already being dubbed “the Russian Timothée Chalamet”) and embarks on a madcap romance – seems to have secured its spot in the 2025 awards race. As with the beloved director’s previous work (Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket), this is a funny, charming, and visually dazzling delight, which goes on to surprise you with its warmth and touching vulnerability – and an ending that’ll leave you utterly devastated. – RS
