How to Watch: In theaters
Everything Everywhere All at Once, March 25
The opening night film at SXSW, A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once stars Michelle Yeoh as a Chinese American woman who sets off on a mundane task—finishing her taxes—and ends up…traversing the multiverse? The film is the product of the experimental directing duo known as Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) and follows their 2016 film, Swiss Army Man. —C.S.
How to Watch: In theaters
Nitram, March 30
A rough, depressing beauty characterizes the work of Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel, best known for his gritty, blood-soaked 2015 Macbeth with Michael Fassbender. I, for one, cannot get his 2011 true-crime film Snowtown out of my head, for its frightening vision of a sociopath in a poor suburb of Adelaide. His new film, Nitram, due to debut on AMC+, is another true-crime story set in suburban Australia and features a standout and chilling performance from Caleb Landry Jones as a disassociated young man who spirals into violence. —T.A.
Paris, 13th District, April 15
The new film from Jacques Audiard, one of France’s most fascinating auteurs, is a sexually frank black-and-white drama about young people in one of Paris’s overlooked neighborhoods. It is cowritten by Celine Sciamma and features a cast of alluring performers, including one of the stars of Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Noémie Merlant. —T.A.
The Northman, April 22
Directed by Robert Eggers, the visionary behind The Witch and The Lighthouse, Focus Features’ The Northman boasts one of the most illustrious casts of the year: Nicole Kidman, Willem Dafoe, Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Björk. But if the gripping first trailer, released last month, is anything to go by, this Viking epic and brutal revenge thriller is set to contain plenty more thrills, spills, and spear-sharpening surprises yet—and maybe a touch of something spiritual too. —Liam Hess
The Innocents, May 13
Comparisons to the creepier work of his frequent collaborator Joachim Trier have greeted Eskil Vogt’s enticing-looking Norwegian horror film The Innocents. A story about children with uncanny powers run amok in a suburban high-rise in Norway, this one garnered positive reviews in Cannes and is due to be distributed by IFC Midnight in 2022. —T.A.
Downton Abbey: A New Era, May 20
When the dowager countess (Maggie Smith) reveals that she has come into the possession of a villa in the South of France, the Crawleys take a trip in Simon Curtis’s sun-soaked, unapologetically lavish sequel. There are summer soirées as well as a spectacular wedding. —Radhika Seth
Elvis, June 24
The long-awaited musical biopic—starring Austin Butler as the king of rock and roll; Tom Hanks as his manager, Colonel Tom Parker; and Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla Presley—is on its way to theaters. With Baz Luhrmann at the helm, it’s set to be a sequin-strewn romp. —R.S.
Fire (or Both Sides of the Blade), July 8
Claire Denis’s latest centers on the fraught dynamics between a woman named Sara (Juliette Binoche); her longtime partner, Jean (Titane’s Vincent Lindon); and Jean’s old friend—and Sara’s ex-husband—François (Grégoire Colin), who re-enters both their lives after a long absence. The drama, Denis’s first film since the scintillating and strange High Life (2018), won her the Silver Bear for best director at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. —M.M.
When the Crawdads Sing, July 22
Normal People’s magnetic lead, Daisy Edgar-Jones, will take on the part of Kya, the young girl who grows up in a North Carolina marsh, in Olivia Newman’s adaptation of Delia Owens’s beloved best seller. Look out for Harris Dickinson too as an ill-fated love interest. —R.S.
Nope, July 22
With its plotline still mired in mystery, Jordan Peele’s follow-up to his genre-defining horror sensations Get Out and Us is this chiller featuring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, and Barbie Ferreira. The poster alone—which shows a dark grayish-blue cloud hovering over an unnamed metropolis and was released exactly 365 days before the film is set to open—was enough to send the internet into a tailspin. —R.S.
The Woman King, September 16
Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love and Basketball) with a cast that includes Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, John Boyega, and Thuso Mbedu, this historical saga will be worth the wait. Set in the West African kingdom of Dahomey, it centers on the general of an all-female military unit. —R.S.
Don’t Worry Darling, September 23
Eerie, stylish, and impossibly steamy, the first teaser for Olivia Wilde’s psychological hair-raiser has us counting the days until its release. In her cover story for Vogue, Wilde described the film as “The Feminine Mystique on acid.” It tracks a couple (Florence Pugh and Harry Styles) in a 1950s utopian community in California who finds their lives slowly unraveling. —R.S.
She Said, November 18
In Maria Schrader’s rousing drama, Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan will play Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, The New York Times reporters who broke the story of Harvey Weinstein’s history of sexual misconduct. It could very well be an awards-season front-runner for 2023. —R.S.
The Fabelmans, November 23
Fifty years into his hallowed career, Steven Spielberg finally turns the lens onto himself in this semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama, co-written with frequent collaborator Tony Kushner. Included in the cast are Paul Dano and Michelle Williams (as Mr. and Mrs. Fabelman), Seth Rogan (as an uncle), and the likes of Judd Hirsch, Jeannie Berlin, and David Lynch. —M.M.
I Wanna Dance With Somebody, December 21
Whitney Houston’s precipitous rise and tragic fall will be the subject of Kasi Lemmons’s emotionally charged fable, which sees Naomi Ackie embody the legendary singer, with Ashton Sanders as her former husband, Bobby Brown, and Stanley Tucci as record producer Clive Davis. —R.S.
Babylon, December 25
Damien Chazelle’s new film will explore the transition from silent films to talkies. One of the most perfect films of all time circled the same topic, but never mind—if anyone can take on Old Hollywood with affection and joie, it’s Chazelle, whose love of Hollywood glamour shone bright in the buoyant La La Land. Starring Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Tobey Maguire, and many others (is that Flea on the cast list?), the movie is packed with the megawatt stars of today as well