60. “Wildlife”
Director: Paul Dano
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Carey Mulligan, Ed Oxenbould, Zoe Margaret Colletti
Synopsis: After they move to Montana, a teenager watches his family fall apart.
What You Need To Know: He’s barely into his thirties, but Paul Dano has already worked with a who’s-who of top directors, including Paul Thomas Anderson, Ang Lee, Spike Jonze, Rian Johnson, Steve McQueen and Denis Villeneuve. So it’s perhaps not surprising that he’s moving behind the camera next. His directorial debut (adapted with his real-life partner Zoe Kazan) is an adaptation of a novel by the great Richard Ford, a writer whose outstanding work has so far resisted screen adaptation. But Dano and Kazan have great taste, the excellent Oren Moverman is on board to produce, and they’ve assembled two tremendous actors to headline, with Dano’s “Prisoners” co-star Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan playing the parents (and “The Visit” breakout Alex Oxenbould in the lead role).
Release Date: Probably at fall festivals, most likely TIFF.
59. “Rock That Body”
Director: Lucia Aniello
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, Zoe Kravitz
Synopsis: Five friends from college reunite when they rent a beach house in Miami for a wild bachelorette weekend that goes completely off the rails.
What You Need To Know: Now three seasons in, “Broad City” still stands as one of the freshest new comedy shows of recent years, and the show’s secret weapon might be Lucia Aniello, who directed and co-wrote a sizable chunk of the show. Now she’s making her feature debut with this comedy, co-written with Paul W. Downs (who plays Trey on the show) and it could be the big comedy sleeper of the summer. It sounds like a riff on “Very Bad Things,” but the script we read was closer to something like “Bridesmaids” in tone, and was really, really funny and well constructed. Aniello’s put a killer cast together, with ScarJo, who doesn’t get to do big-screen comedy enough, in the lead, and scene-stealers like McKinnon and Bell along for the ride, and it should look better than most comedies too — “Green Room” and “20th Century Women” DP Sean Porter is lensing.
Release Date: June 23rd, as welcome counter-programming to “Transformers 5”
58. “Darkest Hour”
Director: Joe Wright (“Atonement”)
Cast: Gary Oldman, Lily James, Ben Mendelsohn, John Hurt, Kristin Scott Thomas
Synopsis: Winston Churchill unexpectedly becomes Prime Minister, and must decide whether to pursue peace with Nazi Germany, or fight a war that might well be doomed.
What You Need To Know: Amazingly, until just recently, Gary Oldman had never been Oscar-nominated, let alone won one, until “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” saw him pick up a deserved nod five years ago. Could he finally take the trophy home in early 2018? He might well be the frontrunner at this point, given that he’s playing Winston Churchill under unrecognizably heavy make-up in this new drama from “Theory Of Everything” writer Anthony McCarten. It’d be easy to dismiss this as identikit Brit period drama, but Oldman’s casting, and the presence of Joe Wright in the director’s chair, definitely piques our interest — Wright shit the bed hard with “Pan,” but from his “Black Mirror” episode, looks to be back on course.
Release Date: November 24th — expect it at fall festivals first.
57. “Mektoub Is Mektoub”
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche (“Blue Is The Warmest Color”)
Cast: Unknown
Synopsis: A young screenwriter returns to his Mediterranean home town where he falls into a love triangle between a local woman and the wife of a movie producer who’s offered to finance his next film.
What You Need To Know: He was already respected among many cinephiles, but a Palme D’Or, awarded by a jury headed by Steven Spielberg, no less, for “Blue Is The Warmest Color” definitely saw Abdellatif Kechiche move up to the next level. It’s taken him four years to get his follow-up going — perhaps in part because of the complaints of his tyrannical nature by his ‘Blue’ stars — but he got underway on a shoot early in the fall on what appears to be another relationship drama. It’s based on a novel called “La Blessure, la vraie” by François Bégaudeau, a film critic for Cahiers du cinema and Playboy, but who you might know better as the co-writer and star of Laurent Cantet’s “The Class,” another Palme D’Or winner. Beyond that, not much more is known, including the cast, but we’ll be there.
Release Date: Cannes is surely the target, but it might have to be Venice given the later filming date.
56. “Red Sparrow”
Director: Francis Lawrence (“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”)
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton
Synopsis: A Russian spy forced by her superiors to become a trained seductress is pitted against, and falls in love with, a CIA officer.
What You Need To Know: Given that 2017 will see the inauguration of a president who may well have been put into office thanks in part to the machination of Russian hackers, it feels appropriate that we’re getting a big sexy studio spy movie about the relationship between the modern United States and Putin’s Russia. Based on a best-seller by former CIA agent Jason Matthews, this was considered by David Fincher and Darren Aronofsky, but in the end will reteam Jennifer Lawrence with her “Hunger Games” director Francis Lawrence, and while that might seem like a downgrade, Lawrence is pretty undervalued as a filmmaker: his “Catching Fire” was by miles the best of those movies, and the problems with the third and fourth films were more about the source material than the execution. We’re always down for a smart, sophisticated spy movie, and this could definitely hit the spot, unless Putin decides to “The Interview” it, obviously.
Release Date: November 10th
55. ‘The Current War”
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (“Me & Earl & The Dying Girl”)
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, MIchael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Katherine Waterston, Sienna Miller
Synopsis: Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse compete to create a sustainable, safe electricity system and sell it to the public.
What You Need To Know: The weirdest subjects end up being the subject of those movie brinksmanship games that seem to happen every few years. Volcanos! Snow White! Truman Capote! And the latest seems to be the battle between underdog George Westinghouse and titan Thomas Edison in the race to literally electrify America. “Imitation Game” writer and director Graham Moore and Morten Tyldum are set to reteam for “The Last Days Of Night” starring, perhaps inevitably, Eddie Redmayne (that could yet make a 2017 date if its backers are bullish), but the first into production is “The Current War,” a widely acclaimed Black List script from a few years back. It’s the follow-up to his breakout “Me & Earl & The Dying Girl” for director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, and he’s built up an enviable cast, with new Spider-Man Tom Holland joining the names above. If it’s just Cumberbatch being a genius dick again, we might pass, but hopefully there’ll be much more to this, especially with Shannon to play off him.
Release Date: None yet, but production begins next month, so expect this to be the Weinstein Company’s big awards play next year.
54. “Song To Song”
Director: Terrence Malick (“Tree Of Life”)
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale
Synopsis: Two intersecting love triangles set against the music scene in Austin, Texas
What You Need To Know: We love Terrence Malick as much as the next person twirling around in a field, but all but the most zealous Malick-ites would surely concede that the words ‘returns’ and ‘diminishing’ are starting to come to mind with his work. While his work rate has amped up no end, with three movies in five years, “To The Wonder,” “Knight Of Cups” and even “Voyage Of Time” all sort of felt like variations on a theme established with “Tree Of Life,” and while we’re longing for him to try something else, that may not happen with “Weightless.” The film’s been in the can since 2012, shooting virtually back-to-back with ‘Knight,’ and is said to be something of companion piece. More in that vein would be kind of a bummer and we’re definitely more excited for his WW2-era “Radegund,” but we still live in hope that “Song To Song” could see the master back at its best.
Release Date: March 17th
53. “Spider-Man: Homecoming”
Director: Jon Watts (“Cop Car”)
Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Michael Keaton, Donald Glover, Marisa Tomei
Synopsis: Peter Parker must navigate the threat of the villainous Vulture with something just as terrifying: surviving high school.
What You Need To Know: After the sewage-filled train wreck of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” it felt like everyone could have done with a couple of decades off the web-slinger just to get rid of the stink. But then came Sony’s deal with Marvel Studios, and a positively delightful cameo in “Captain America: Civil War” that suggested that new Spidey Tom Holland could be the best Peter Parker yet. We’re not totally reassured on his first solo headline effort — director Jon Watts is untested even by Marvel standards and the “Horrible Bosses” duo wrote the script. But there’s more MCU in its DNA than Sony execs, this can only be a step up from the Andrew Garfield films, and the idea of a Spidey movie indebted to John Hughes is highly appealing. Robert Downey Jr is set to pop up as Tony Stark, while Michael Keaton is on lead villain duties, with Bokeem Woodbine, Michael Chernus and Logan Marshall-Green on back-up.
Release Date: July 7th
52. “Mary Magdalene”
Director: Garth Davis (“Lion”)
Cast: Rooney Mara, Joaquin Phoenix, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Taharm Rahim, Hadas Yaron
Synopsis: The story of Mary Magdalene, often referred to as the thirteenth disciple, the first person to see Christ after his resurrection, and potentially a former prostitute.
What You Need To Know: Perhaps because of the backlash faced by movies like “The Last Temptation Of Christ,” or because of the opposite firestorm caused by “Passion Of The Christ,” too few serious filmmakers try to take on stories about Jesus and those around him, or other Biblical figures, despite the big bucks made by religious movies in recent years. But step in “Mary Magdalene,” a take on the most prominent woman in the gospels, and someone who’s been the focus of much debate over the years. “Lion” director Garth Davis is the man in charge here, and while we didn’t click to his breakthrough feature completely, he’s definitely a talent, and he’s brought along ace DP Greig Fraser from that film — the kind of photographer a film with a cast as superb as this deserves. Could this be the rare movie about religion and faith that has real artistry behind it too?
Release Date: Filmed in October, so look for it at the fall festivals before a likely Christmas release.
51. “The Other Side Of Hope”
Director: Aki Kaurismaki (“Le Havre”)
Cast: Sakari Kuosmanen
Synopsis: A poker-playing restauranteur and former traveling salesman befriends a group of refugees newly arrived from Finland.
What You Need To Know: Being Finland’s greatest film director might sound like a backhanded compliment — on the surface, it just means that you’re better than Renny Harlin. But because Finland’s greatest filmmaker is Aki Kaurismaki, the master of dryly funny and deeply humane cinema, it should be taken as sincere. The veteran director’s been absent since six years ago, but was meant to shoot his new film, which like the last will look at the refugee situation in Europe, this fall. Assuming everything went to plan, that’s great news — any year with a new Kaurismaki should be a good one.
Release Date: The fall shoot means Cannes might be a bit soon, even if it is the director’s usual choice of premiere, so look for it at Venice.