As Labor Day looms, the year’s big fall film festivals grind into motion. First the watery glitz of Venice, then the cozy mountain fever of Telluride, then the practical sprawl of Toronto. This year’s lineup of films is the most stacked we’ve had since pre-pandemic times, an intriguing jumble of projects ranging from nostalgia pieces from certified masters to cutting-edge comebacks to hotly anticipated star turns from global heartthrobs. It’s a lot to keep track of—and that’s before you even get to the guaranteed blockbusters and mysterious auteur projects awaiting us later in the fall. So we’ve compiled a little dossier to help guide you (and, really, ourselves) through the most exciting part of this, and any, moviegoing year—from the festivals and beyond. 

ARMAGEDDON TIME

After traveling to space (Ad Astra) and the Amazon (The Lost City of Z), James Gray returns home in more ways than one with this personal coming-of-age story based on his childhood. Featuring a stand-out cast led by Jeremy Strong, Anne Hathaway, and Anthony Hopkins, along with newcomer Banks Repeta, who plays the young version of Gray, the story follows a young man in the 1980s who befriends a Black classmate (newcomer Jaylin Webb). Gray made some changes to the film since its debut to a mixed reception at the Cannes Film Festival in May, and its New York Film Festival screening will likely be met with a warm reception on Gray’s home turf. —Rebecca Ford

Armageddon Time plays at the New York Film Festival before debuting in theaters on October 28 from Focus Features.

DECISION TO LEAVE

Decision to Leave, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and earned director Park Chan-wook the best-director prize, is a stylish film noir thriller centered on a detective (Park Hae-il), who finds himself entangled with a woman (Tang Wei) while investigating the death of her husband. The Korean filmmaker’s work—his previously films include 2003’s Oldboy, 2013’s Stoker, and 2016’s The Handmaiden—is always a feast for the eyes and full of unexpected twists and turns, and Decision to Leave, which has “a bouncy energy, full of flourishes,” features hypnotic performances from his lead actors and an ending that is satisfying as it is unexpected. Korea has already chosen the film as its submission for the Academy Awards international-feature category, but it’s possible this impressive feature could break out into other categories as so many other international films have been able to do in recent years. —RF

Decision to Leave will play at the Toronto Film Festival on September 8 and be released theatrically by MUBI on Oct. 14 in the U.S.

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

Only a handful of filmmakers have ever won the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or twice, and filmmaker Ruben Östlund joined that elite club this past year with this wild satirical tale set, primarily, on a luxury cruise that goes very, very wrong. Östlund, who helmed the outstanding 2014 film Force Majeure and the 2017 Palme d’Or winner The Square, this time turns his microscope on the nastiness (from elitism to literal vomit) of the ultrarich. Starring Harris Dickinson and Charlbi Dean as a model/influencer couple and Woody Harrelson as the yacht’s alcoholic captain, this ambitious tale is a wild ride from start to finish. —RF

Triangle of Sadness will play at the Toronto Film Festival and the New York Film Festival before it’s released in theaters on October 7 by Neon.

ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED 

Documentarian Laura Poitras, who won the Oscar for her 2015 film Citizenfour, centers her latest ambitious work on artist and activist Nan Goldin, who made it her mission to hold the Sackler family accountable for their role in creating the opioid crisis by running Purdue Pharma. The epic and urgent film, told through rare footage and photography and intimate interviews, traces Goldin’s years of dedicated and diligent work, including the creation of the activist group P.A.I.N. and the deeply personal story that she told through her art. —RF 

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed will play at the Venice Film Festival and the New York Film Festival before it is released by Neon this fall.

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

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Martin McDonagh’s first film since his Oscar-winning Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri marks a kind of homecoming for the filmmaker in multiple respects. Most obviously, it’s his first feature to be set in his native Ireland; then there’s the matter of him reuniting Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, stars of his cult-hit debut, In Bruges, as they assume the lead roles once more. But perhaps most intriguingly, this alternately hilarious and tragic character study hearkens back to McDonagh’s lauded stage work, with rich, playful dialogue driving the story of two friends whose abrupt falling out reverberates throughout their quiet island community. “This is much more difficult terrain,” McDonagh told Vanity Fair for our first-look feature, of the work Farrell and Gleeson brought to their dynamic. “The love was there, like in any broken-down relationship, but it was interesting to have them not have that ease with each other—because they love each other as actors, as people, but they cannot have that onscreen.” Watch out, too, for a breakout performance from Better Call Saul alum Kerry Condon. —David Canfield

The Banshees of Inisherin will play at the Venice Film Festival on September 4 before it is released by Searchlight on October 21.

BARDO

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu won back-to-back Oscars in the middle of the last decade (for Birdman and The Revenant) and then went quiet. Bardo, somewhat laboriously subtitled (or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths), is the filmmaker’s first feature in seven years, making it one of the most anticipated selections of the festival season—for his fans, anyway. Iñárritu has become something of a love-it-or-leave-it commodity in the film world, either beloved for his grand visions or pooh-poohed for his overwrought pretensions. With Bardo, Iñárritu follows in the footsteps of his countryman Alfonso Cuarón by returning to his native Mexico, telling the story of a renowned journalist’s fraught homecoming. Past and present are grappled with over a reported three-hour run time, sure to be full of style that is either wondrous or over-egged, depending on whom you ask. —Richard Lawson

Bardo premieres on September 1 at the Venice Film Festival before being released by Netflix sometime later this year.

BLONDE

Has any figure in the history of modern pop culture been as frequently depicted, dissected, and overanalyzed as Marilyn Monroe? Even so, we’re dying to see director Andrew Dominik’s take on the 20th century’s foremost female icon, based on Joyce Carol Oates’s eponymous novel and starring Ana de Armas as the screen siren. (She’s surrounded by a few other notable names: Bobby Cannavale plays Joe DiMaggio, Monroe’s second husband, while Adrien Brody is also on board as her third, Arthur Miller.) The 166-minute film—which was originally announced in 2010 and slated to star Naomi Watts, but then had Jessica Chastain attached before de Armas finally came on board for its final iteration—is already quasi-infamous for its NC-17 rating. But Dominik insists there’s more to it than skin: “I saw an opportunity to describe an adult life through the lens of mistaken childhood beliefs and trauma,” he recently told VF France. —Hillary Busis

Blonde premieres at the Venice Film Festival on September 8 before debuting on Netflix on September 28.

BONES & ALL

Swoony paranormal YA romance is a genre unto itself, one we’ve seen populated by not only vampires but werewolves, zombies, demons, angels, aliens, and whatever this guy was supposed to be. There hasn’t, however, been a big-screen story about two Reagan-era teenage cannibals on the lam and in love…until now. It’s a tricky proposition, the sort of tale that perhaps only Luca Guadagnino could pull off—with the moody help of Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell, a pair of uncommonly sensitive young performers. Camille DeAngelis’s original novel is primarily a bildungsroman, but Guadagnino’s version seems to be playing up the star-crossed-lovers angle—all the better for those yearning to once again feel the deep emotions that Call Me by Your Name stirred in them in 2017. As long as those same people don’t mind seeing violence that goes far beyond what Chalamet did to that poor peach. —HB

Bones & All premieres at the Venice Film Festival on September 2 before playing at the New York Film Festival and being released theatrically through United Artists on November 23.

DON’T WORRY DARLING

After some tantalizing trailers, one major question hovers around Olivia Wilde’s second directorial effort: Can Harry Styles act? We sure hope so, as this sci-fi thriller (we think!) offers the pop idol much more opportunity to perform than did his debut film, Dunkirk, though perhaps a little less than the other Styles project this season, the gay drama My Policeman. Past that most essential question, there’s a lot more mystery surrounding Don’t Worry Darling, which looks like a late-aughts Mad Men fantasy gone terribly wrong. The great Florence Pugh plays a midcentury housewife in what looks to be Palm Springs, content in her ordered life until she starts questioning her entire reality. This is a big swing away from Wilde’s stylish but modest teen film, Booksmart, which is exciting. It’s always fun to watch a sophomore director aim for the fences; only rarely do they do so with a teen idol for the ages in tow. —RL

Don’t Worry Darling premieres at the Venice Film Festival on September 5 and will open in theaters on September 23.

TÁR

His first two films, In the Bedroom and Little Children, were strong enough to guarantee that anything he made next would be hotly anticipated. But then Todd Field waited sixteen whole years to make his follow-up, which made TÁR a major film of the fall before anyone even laid eyes on it. Starring Cate Blanchett as a renowned conductor with a dark side only hinted at in this intriguing trailer, the film promises to take on the world of high art with the same ruthless eye Field had for suburbia and family dynamics in his first two films. And though Blanchett already has two Oscars to her name, the buzz is strong enough on her lead performance that a third one could be hers to lose. —KR

TÁR premieres at the Venice Film Festival on September 1, and will be released by Focus Features on October 7.

THE SON

French playwright Florian Zeller’s directorial debut The Father was a meticulous and deeply affecting drama that earned Anthony Hopkins the lead-actor Oscar and Zeller and his cowriter Christopher Hampton the best-adapted-screenplay Oscar. For his follow-up, Zeller doesn’t stray far, adapting another one of his plays for the big screen. The story is once again focused on delicate family dynamics, but this time centering on a divorced couple (Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern) whose teenage son (Zen McGrath) is suffering from a mental health crisis. Zeller reteamed with Hampton for the adaptation, which has a greater scope than The Son, but does also see the return of Hopkins in a small but memorable role. —RF

The Son will debut at the Venice Film festival on September 7 and will be released by Sony Pictures Classics on November 11.

THE WHALE

A Darren Aronofsky film tends to be an event, and this adaptation of the play by Samuel D. Hunter (who also writes the screenplay) will be no exception. The filmmaker’s first feature since Mother! centers on a 600-pound English teacher who lives in Idaho, deep in grief and regret, as he’s given a shot at redemption when his estranged daughter (Sadie Sink) resurfaces. Aronofsky’s longtime cinematographer Matthew Libatíque is back on board, and The Whale promises to feature some complex makeup and prosthetic crafts work. But the biggest point of intrigue here is the deafening buzz already around Brendan Fraser’s lead performance, in a role or project unlike anything he’s ever done. There’s ample reason to be optimistic: From Ellen Burstyn to Mickey Rourke to Natalie Portman, few are better than Aronofsky at coaxing transformative work out of their actors. —DC

The Whale premieres at the Venice Film Festival on September 4 and will be released in theaters by A24 later this year.

WHITE NOISE

Hollywood spent nearly two decades trying to adapt Don DeLillo’s landmark 1985 novel, but it turns out that the immediate aftermath of a global pandemic may wind up being the perfect moment after all. A satirical, bitingly funny novel about—among many other things—a “toxic airborne event” that upends life in a comfy college town, White Noise operates in a world familiar from many Noah Baumbach movies, with a slightly surreal twist. (Being a “professor of Hitler studies” at a place called “College-on-the-Hill” sounds like a kind of wry joke that a Baumbach character might write, but DeLillo got there first.) With his Marriage Story star Adam Driver and frequent collaborator in life and work Greta Gerwig on board, Baumbach seems as prepared as anyone could possibly be to tackle the novel that the rest of the business couldn’t crack. —KR

White Noise premieres at the Venice Film Festival on August 31 before debuting in theaters and on Netflix later this year.

THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER

Finally, we’ve got Joanna Hogg’s first non-Souvenir film in a decade, reuniting her with frequent collaborator Tilda Swinton and with an A24 distribution deal already locked in place. Hogg’s brilliant Souvenir duology gives way to more of a vehicle for Swinton, though, as her character confronts a range of painful memories while visiting an isolated old manor. Creepy and windswept, early murmurs are that this marks Hogg’s take on a ghost story, which basically means: Expect it to haunt your dreams. —DC

The Eternal Daughter premieres at the Venice Film Festival on September 6 and will be released by A24 later this year.

BROS

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The first gay rom-com ever distributed by a major studio, Bros is coming into the fall with major hopes and expectations. The latest from Nicholas Stoller (Get Him to the Greek, Neighbors) is cowritten by Billy Eichner, who stars as a podcast host unlucky in love…until he strikes an unexpected connection with a hunky estate lawyer (Luke Macfarlane). Expect the raunchy, sharp comedy you’d get out of any great Judd Apatow movie—the kingmaker is a producer here—but this time in a queer context, with an all-LGBTQ+ cast and plenty of Grindr jokes to boot. But the prickly, sexy dynamic between the two leads is what will hopefully make the Universal film stand apart. “Romantic comedies really live and die based on the chemistry of the two central characters and the main couple—no matter how good the script is, you need that chemistry there,” Eichner told Vanity Fair as part of our profile on Macfarlane. “Right off the bat, there was something special between me and Luke.” —DC

Bros premieres September 9 at the Toronto International Film Festival and will be released in theaters by Universal on September 30.

DEVOTION

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Sure, there was already been one hit fighter pilot movie this year, but Devotion is a soaring true story that’s about much more than planes flying through the sky. Jonathan Majors stars as Jesse L. Brown, who, as a Black man, broke through barriers to become a top naval aviator during the Korean War. The film, helmed by J.D. Dillard (whose father was a Black naval aviator himself), follows the pilot as he builds a friendship with naval aviator Tom Hudner (Glen Powell, also of Top Gun: Maverick as it happens). “The role of Jesse is so difficult because there’s a power, there’s a restraint, there’s a vulnerability,” Dillard told Vanity Fair for our first look, adding that Majors’s was like “a canary in the mines of honesty” when playing the iconic naval airman. —RF

Devotion debuts September 12 at the Toronto Film Festival, and will be released by Sony Pictures on November 23.

EMPIRE OF LIGHT

Is this a movie about the magic of moviegoing, the menace of it, or a little bit of both? It's a little hard to tell in the first trailer for Empire of Light, which has both a gorgeous old-movie palace photographed by the master Roger Deakins and more than a few hints of the racism and violence lurking below the surface of this 1980s English town. Each shot in the trailer of Olivia Colman’s expressive face is a reminder that she’s already been Oscar-nominated twice since her first nomination and win just three years ago. And though Micheal Ward is maybe not quite a household name in an ensemble that includes Toby Jones and Colin Firth, the BAFTA winner is already being tipped by some insiders as a major potential breakout. Making a movie about movies is usually a surefire way to awards-season attention—see the very next entry in this preview—but Sam Mendes, who very nearly won best picture with 1917, would be watched closely no matter what he did next. —KR

Empire of Light premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, and will be released in theaters by Searchlight Pictures on December 9.

THE FABELMANS

Steven Spielberg has been telling the story of fractured families from the start, with themes of fathers, mothers, and strained parent-child relationships serving as the backdrop in everything from Close Encounters of the Third Kind to War of the Worlds. With The Fabelmans, he tells the true story—or close to it—that formed this fixation, putting aside the veneer of fantasy and exploring a complicated American family that is much like the one in which he was raised. Michelle Williams and Paul Dano play the parents, and Gabriel LaBelle is the young man studying the world through his camera, with Seth Rogen playing a cherished avuncular figure in his life. While it’s bound to have playful and wistful elements of memoir, early buzz suggests this semi-autobiographical peek into Spielberg’s history is more raw than viewers might expect—a Hollywood origin story without the tidy Hollywood ending. —Anthony Breznican

The Fabelmans premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10. It opens in limited release from Universal Pictures on November 11, and goes wide on November 23.

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY

Three years after unleashing his delightful surprise hit Knives Out, writer-director Rian Johnson is back with another twisty mystery. Once again, honey-voiced detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is on the case; this time, though, he’s ditching old-money Massachusetts for a private Greek island owned by a tech bro (Edward Norton), where murder-mystery party goes deadly wrong. The premise recalls The White Lotus, as does this sequel’s overstuffed cast: Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, and Ethan Hawke are all coming on the getaway (and, presumably, are all suspects) as well. Whodunit? More importantly, who will wear an ensemble to rival Chris Evans’s iconic cable-knit sweater? All will be revealed—though knowing that Johnson was inspired by the deep-cut 1973 mystery The Last of Sheila, written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins, should clue us in to expect a lot of swerves before the puzzle is solved. —HB

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10 and debuts on Netflix December 23. It will also premiere in select theaters on a to-be-announced date.

THE GOOD NURSE

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Who wouldn’t want to see two Oscar winners—Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne—in a gripping true-crime thriller that profiles one of the world’s most prolific serial killers? Redmayne transforms to play Charles Cullen, a nurse who may have killed up to 400 patients in the New Jersey area, while Chastain plays the nurse and working mother who helps the authorities finally catch him. “When I read the book, I realized that it wasn’t just another serial-killer movie,” director Tobias Lindholm told Vanity Fair in our first look. “It was a portrayal of a system that didn’t stop the serial killer, and the nurse who did.” —RF

The Good Nurse will have its world premiere on September 11 at the Toronto Film Festival and be released by Netflix later this year.

THE GREATEST BEER RUN EVER

The last time Peter Farrelly quietly took a film inspired by a true story to Toronto, he won best picture—despite meeting mixed reviews and a healthy amount of backlash. So we shouldn’t underestimate his follow-up, The Greatest Beer Run Ever, which is taking a similar festival path before landing on Apple TV+ next month. This one stars Zac Efron as a merchant seaman circa 1967, who tries pulling off the crazy idea of sneaking into Vietnam to track people down in combat and give them messages of support from home—as well as, yes, some beer. It’s the kind of uplifting, fact-based historical tale that could win that now infamous Academy segment over once again. Bill Murray and Russell Crowe costar. —DC 

The Greatest Beer Run Ever premieres September 13 at the Toronto International Film Festival and will be released in theaters and on Apple TV+ on September 30.

THE INSPECTION

It’s relatively common for a film to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival before making its way to the much more limited, and somewhat tonier, New York Film Festival the following month. But it's a rare thing indeed for a film in Toronto’s Discovery section, devoted to the kind of up-and-coming filmmakers who may spend decades making their way into the NYFF lineup. That’s one of many reasons why anticipation is high for The Inspection, which will open TIFF’s Discovery section when the festival begins, and will close out NYFF a few weeks later. Director Elegance Bratton’s only previous feature is the documentary Pier Kids, but for this autobiographical drama he’s gathered an impressive ensemble that includes Jeremy Pope, Bokeem Woodbine, and Gabrielle Union*,* who is also a producer. Just a year after Kirsten Dunst got her long-overdue first Oscar nomination, could her former onscreen rival be next? Bring it on. —KR

The Inspection premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, and opens in theaters November 18 from A24.

THE MENU 

You may think you know where fine-dining horror-comedy The Menu is going from that description alone—or from its fittingly menacing trailer, which teases an exclusive meal for 12 high-rollers that goes terribly awry. The thing is, you don’t. The film, directed by Game of Thrones and Succession veteran Mark Mylod and written by two former bigwigs at The Onion, is as delightful and surprising as the fanciest trompe l’oeil dish at Noma or El Bulli. (Or so we peasants can assume.) It’s wickedly funny too—a satire about excess that’s just plausible enough to keep from spinning entirely off the rails, all performed by a crew of beloved actors at the top of their game. Standouts include Anya Taylor-Joy as a Doc Marten–clad Final Girl type; Nicholas Hoult as her obnoxious foodie date; Hong Chau as a sinister maître d’; John Leguizamo as a past-his-prime movie star; and Ralph Fiennes as the restaurant’s imperious chef, an unholy amalgam of Voldemort and Carmy from The Bear. —HB

The Menu premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10 and debuts in theaters November 18 from Searchlight Pictures.

MY POLICEMAN 

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Any Harry Styles fan can tell you how easy it is to fall for the music icon, and My Policeman, based on the 2012 romance novel by Bethan Roberts, embraces that level of adoration by casting Styles as the titular Tom, a policeman at the center of a love triangle. The gay love story sees Emma Corrin and David Dawson play his two lovers, as Tom is torn between his sweet girlfriend, Marion, and his secret affair with museum curator Patrick. Set at first in the restrictive 1950s, the film also jumps to 40 years later, with the characters played by Linus Roache, Gina McKee, and Rupert Everett still grappling with the choices of their past. While the sweeping story is chock full of strong performances, it’s also a new opportunity for Styles as a leading man in a much more complicated role than he’s had to do before—a task director Michael Grandage told Vanity Fair he was very much up to: “Because he hasn’t done much, he hasn’t developed the ability to work out tricks or even lie. He can only do it truthfully and as he knows it.” —RF

My Policeman debuts September 11 at the Toronto Film Festival and will be released in theaters by Prime Video on October 21 and streaming worldwide on Nov. 4.

WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY

What do you do after a job you got as a kid makes you a gazillionaire? If you’re Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, you noodle around in live theater, you make a curious collection of indies and studio horrors, and you star in a biopic of famed song-spoof artist Weird Al Yankovic. For the latter project, Radcliffe has teamed up with director Eric Appel to tell the story of Yankovic’s improbable rise to fame and riches. It’s a film that promises to be alternately sweet and quirky in equal measure—with plenty of music. Weird’s presence on the fall-festival circuit is, in some ways, as unexpected as Yankovic’s career. This is a film for a decidedly niche audience that will soon be available on, of all services, the Roku Channel. Somehow, Weird Al’s life story sitting next to the rescued victims of Quibi (much of that doomed streamer’s content now lives on Roku) makes perfect, loopy sense. —RL

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, and will be available on the Roku Channel starting on November 4.

THE WOMAN KING

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The story of the Agojie—the real-life army of women warriors who defended the powerful West African kingdom of Dahomey in present-day Benin during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries—has been appropriated before, most notably as the inspiration for Black Panther’s Dora Milaje. But Gina Prince-Bythewood’s factually based epic tells it on its own terms, anchored by a fierce Viola Davis as fearless General Nanisca. “My approach was that you don’t need to add anything to the story,” the director told Vanity Fair for our first look at the film. “These women were fascinating and didn’t need to be embellished or glossy. I wanted it to be real and visceral and raw.” Davis, a producer of the film as well as its star, was also thrilled to bring such an idiosyncratic story to life: “I’ve never had a role like this before. It’s transformative,” she said. “There’s always a vision you have for your career, but there are very few roles as an actress of color. Dark skin with a wide nose and big lips. I’m just gonna continue to say it. Those stories are extraordinarily limited.” —HB

The Woman King premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9 and debuts in theaters September 16.

WOMEN TALKING

If you’re of the mind that everything Sarah Polley touches turns to some kind of gold—as, candidly, this writer is—then you already likely have this one high on your list. Adapted from Miriam Toews’s widely acclaimed novel, this provocative ensemble piece is set in a remote Mennonite colony and imagines the aftermath of a group of women coming together to discuss the realization that the men in their lives have been brutally assaulting them—and whether, in this rigidly patriarchal and intensely devout community, they should stay and fight, or go into the unknown. Much of how Polley has chosen to adapt this dialogue-heavy book—see the title—remains shrouded in mystery, but the Oscar nominee (Away From Her) has assembled an all-star cast including Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Rooney Mara, and Frances McDormand (also a producer) to help her pull it off. —DC  

Women Talking will screen on September 13 at the Toronto International Film Festival and be released in theaters by United Artists Releasing on December 2.

THE WONDER

Bringing Emma Donoghue’s disturbing 19th-century-set novel to the screen, Oscar winner Lelio (A Fantastic Woman) examines the darkness hiding beneath a miracle in this tale of a young nurse from London (Florence Pugh) who’s sent to Ireland to investigate the case of an 11-year-old girl who claims to have not eaten for months—and yet appears perfectly healthy. Lelio is known for his collaborations with dynamic actors in complex roles, from Daniela Vega in A Fantastic Woman to Julianne Moore in Gloria Bell, so expect some fireworks from Oscar nominee Pugh (Little Women) as she gets to the root of a mystery perhaps better left unsolved. —DC

The Wonder will screen September 13 at the Toronto International Film Festival, and be released by Netflix later this year.

SHE SAID

The fall of Harvey Weinstein after decades of abuse in Hollywood began with the intrepid and tireless work of journalists, including The New York Times’ Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, who were able to reveal a series of allegations of sexual misconduct by the movie mogul in an October 2017 article that served as a catalyst for the #MeToo movement and the eventual sentencing of Weinstein to more than 20 years in prison. In She Said, a journalism thriller adapted from their book in the vein of Spotlight, Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan play Kantor and Twohey, respectively, chronicling the tangled web of reporting that went into getting the sources and evidence they needed to publish the story. —RF

She Said will premiere at the New York Film Festival and be released by Universal Pictures on November 18.

TILL

Both director Chinonye Chukwu and star Danielle Deadwyler have shared their initial hesitations about taking on Till, the story of Mamie Till-Mobley, who became a civil rights activist after the lynching of her teenage son, Emmett. But in focusing on Mamie, who channeled her maternal grief into action and made her son an enduring rallying cry, both say they found their way into a story that begins with such heartbreak. “The story I was passionate about telling was the story of the person who is responsible for us knowing who Emmett Till was,” Chukwu said in an interview this summer. “I knew the way I needed to tell this story was through the emotional journey of Mamie.” And Deadwyler, such a commanding presence in the trailer alone, emphasized in her own interview that it’s a story about more than grief. “We find joy and laughter,” she said, while also discussing her breakout role in Station Eleven. “The film is trying to do that, it wants you to know that’s there. There was a life before it, there was a life through it, and there is a life that’s after.” —KR

Till premieres at the New York Film Festival in late September and in theaters on October 14.

AMSTERDAM

A decade ago, director David O. Russell just couldn’t stop making busy, energetic Oscar hits: Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter, American Hustle. That epoch has passed, but that doesn’t mean the Russell magic is gone. Though, his new film, a 1930s-set thriller with an all-star cast, is bypassing the festivals entirely, which might mean it’s not the glittering stuff of zeitgeisty awards favor. And there’s the matter of Russell himself. A notoriously difficult on-set presence with a grim accusation in his past, Russell’s reputation may also hamper Amsterdam’s prestige prospects. And yet, Russell’s reputation certainly didn’t keep the talent away. Amsterdam boasts a cast including Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Christian Bale, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Zoe Saldaña, Mike Myers, Michael Shannon, Robert De Niro, Rami Malek, and even Taylor Swift. Will the industry, and audiences, be glamoured by all that shine? Such a thing has certainly happened many times before. —RL

Amsterdam will be released in theaters on October 7 by 20th Century Studios.

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER

Marvel’s Black Panther was much more than a superhero movie: It was a cultural phenomenon, a box office hit, and a best-picture nominee. But after the death of Chadwick Boseman in August 2020, the sequel, Wakanda Forever, had to be changed significantly. From the teaser that’s already been released, the new film, which sees the return of director Ryan Coogler and much of the original cast including Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Winston Duke, and Angela Bassett, promises to bring with it plenty of powerful action sequences, but also an emotional story that was made in honor of its fallen leader. Are we ready for a superhero movie that makes us cry our eyes out? Yes please. —RF

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will be released on theaters on November 11 by Disney.

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER

More than a decade of jokes about blue cat people and Eywa cannot change one simple fact: James Cameron knows how to make gigantic movies that absolutely everyone sees. Avatar 2 is not a hip fall blockbuster as Wakanda Forever, nor as prestigious as many of the other films on this list. But the original Avatar was a phenomenon in every way imaginable, and same goes for Cameron’s best-picture-winning film before that one. To bet against him would be foolish. Plus, The Way of Water has added all kinds of things the first one didn’t have, from new roles for Kate Winslet and Michelle Yeoh to underwater filming of entirely motion-capture characters. If that doesn’t sound exciting, well, there’s reason to believe Cameron will be able to convince you in the end. —KR

Avatar: The Way of Water will be released in theaters December 16 by 20th Century Studios.

BABYLON

Much about Damien Chazelle’s next film remains a mystery, as a trailer has yet to be released, but it is expected to be an exploration of Hollywood during the 1920s, when the movie business was in the process of changing the city of Los Angeles forever. Following a group of actors, from a hard-partying movie star (played by Brad Pitt) to a brash aspiring actor hoping to make her mark (Margot Robbie), Babylon’s main characters are inspired by some of Hollywood’s most iconic stars, from Clara Bow to John Gilbert. Chazelle has proven he’s able to deliver shiny Hollywood glitz and glamour (La La Land) but also dark and intense thrillers about the torture of ambition (Whiplash), and so we’re hopeful this one is a little bit of both. —RF

Babylon will be released in theaters on December 25 by Paramount.