Knock on Wood

Film festivals happen throughout the year, but the premieres ramp up from the end of the summer through the beginning of fall. The movies that debut at Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, Venice, and elsewhere are almost always awards favorites, and this year has one of the most interesting slates in years. I’ve chosen ten of the most exciting festival premieres so far to showcase, with many more spotlighted below.

Megalopolis

After debuting at the Cannes Film Festival, Francis Ford Coppola’s opus, four decades in the making, is finally making its way to theaters this month courtesy of Lionsgate! Megalopolis has been in various stages of development since the ’80s, and festival reactions have been…polarizing, to say the least. This feels like the sort of film that you either love or hate, an intensely metaphorical experience that resonates very personally with Coppola’s own worldview and outlook. Whether that will resonate with audiences is another question entirely. Word from festivals is that Megalopolis is indeed a messy, bizarrely interactive tale that reflects our own humanity back onto us – and such a thing should be expected from a work Coppola has obsessed over for half of his life. It’s not surprising in the slightest that a story about the complex nature of immortal genius is coming from one of the great titans of modern cinema, but whether or not Megalopolis will stand the test of time (especially compared to Coppola’s much disliked 21st-century work) remains to be seen. Stay tuned for our review after the limited theatrical debut next week.

Anora

Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner stars Mikey Madison (Scream) in the titular role of Anora, a young sex worker in Brooklyn who meets and impulsively marries Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the reckless son of a Russian oligarch. Their love story comes under threat when Ivan’s parents come from Russia to get their marriage annulled. Anora is already being labeled a Best Picture frontrunner, with Madison’s performance especially receiving high praise. Peter Debruge of Variety calls this Cinderella story “a profane kick,” and says that it reinforces writer/director Baker’s belief “that sex work is real work, that it’s more central to society than society wants to admit, and that by identifying with those we typically objectify, we can’t help but love them.” Stay tuned for our review of Anora out of Beyond Fest in October.

Conclave

Edward Berger’s adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front swept the technical Oscar categories a few years ago, but will Berger’s latest achieve a similar feat? Conclave is a physiological thriller set in the Vatican, as Cardinal Lawrence (Harry Potter’s Ralph Fiennes) is tasked with organizing the successor to the deceased Pope, but his plan is threatened when he discovers that the former Pope held a dangerous secret. Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada), John Lithgow (Interstellar), and Isabella Rossellini (Blue Velvet) co-star in what is being described as “meticulously constructed behind-closed-doors thriller where religion and politics clash and the souls of petty men are tested for a chance at supreme power.” (Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture) After raves from Telluride and TIFF, Conclave will hit US theaters on October 25.

Saturday Night

Jason Reitman’s high-octane comedy about the incredibly chaotic 90 minutes leading up to the very first airing of Saturday Night Live in 1975 is bound to be a crowd-pleaser. The cast is a “who’s who” of the youngest stars of the past decade, including Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans), Rachel Sennott (Bottoms), Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza), Dylan O’Brien (The Maze Runner), Lamore Morris (New Girl), Cory Michael Smith (May December), Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things), Kaia Gerber (Bottoms), Nicolas Braun (Succession), and many more. Matt Neglia says that the film “perfectly captures the chaotic energy, camaraderie & backstage shenanigans of putting together the first SNL in real-time. “ The consensus seems to be that even if it’s not what most might expect, it’s a fun and exciting time and an excellent showcase for its ensemble cast. After opening in New York and Los Angeles on September 27, Saturday Night will expand widely on October 11.

Emilia Pérez

A bizarro musical crime comedy hybrid, Emilia Pérez is a cultural mishmash – apart from being a co-production between Belgium, France, Mexico, and the US, its stars come to us from across the globe. Karla Sofía Gascón (who is getting Oscar buzz, and would make history as the first openly trans woman nominated in the acting categories) stars in the titular role, alongside Zoe Saldaňa (Guardians of the Galaxy), Selena Gomez (Only Murders in the Building), Adriana Paz (Spectre), and Edgar Ramírez (Zero Dark Thirty). The film follows unappreciated lawyer Rita (Saldaña), who is enlisted by cartel leader Emilia (Gascón) to help her fake her own death. The synopsis tells us that “This musical odyssey follows the journey of four remarkable women in Mexico, each pursuing their own happiness.” Netflix beat out other studios in a competitive race for distribution rights, and will release Emilia Pérez on their platform on November 13 after a limited theatrical run starting November 1.

The Life of Chuck

Mike Flanagan, primarily known for his epic Netflix miniseries including The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and Fall of the House of Usher, has also successfully adapted the work of Stephen King on multiple occasions. His latest in that line is The Life of Chuck, a decades-spanning tale based on one of King’s novellas from the collection If It Bleeds. Flanagan’s adaptation is told in reverse chronological order, as we follow the life of Chuck Krantz, played by Tom Hiddleston (best known as Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe). The Life of Chuck has been described to be more tonally in line with King adaptations like Stand By Me, The Green Mile, and The Shawshank Redemption – it’s not a horror story, the kind of which King is most known; instead, it’s a beautiful, life-affirming tale with a stellar ensemble cast at its core (including Mark Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Matthew Lillard, Carl Lumbly, and Harvey Guillén). The Life of Chuck had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and still has not been picked up for distribution (despite winning the People’s Choice Award at the aforementioned festival) – it’s possible it won’t be released until sometime next year.

Queer

Luca Guadagnino made waves this spring with Challengers, which had been initially delayed from its fall 2023 release date; thus, Guadagnino has joined the limited group of high-profile directors who have released two major motion pictures in the same year. His fall release, and a likely awards contender, is Queer, a romantic epic with no illusions about what it is; Daniel Craig stars as American expat William Lee, who meets and forms a connection with young student Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) in 1950s Mexico City. It’s about connection and emotion, and apparently does not shy away from sexuality; there are multiple explicit love scenes, many of which involve Daniel Craig, and if there’s anything I know about Guadagnino, it’s that he prefers the unvarnished truth about human nature above all else. I expect Queer to alienate some audiences but be embraced and adored by others (perhaps more in line with Bones and All than Call Me By Your Name, to compare it to Guadagnino’s other work), but it will absolutely be making a splash this fall when A24 finally brings it in theaters.

The Piano Lesson

After a successful Broadway revival of August Wilson’s seminal work, some of the stage cast has transferred to the screen adaptation of the play, chief among them John David Washington (Tenet) and Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction). Washington’s brother Malcolm Washington directed and co-wrote the film, which was also produced by their father (a lesser-known actor named Denzel). Word from the film’s premieres at Telluride and TIFF call it bold, daring, and the “most cinematic of the last three August Wilson adaptations, but also the most uneven,” according to Matt Neglia of Next Best Picture. It follows siblings Boy Willie (John David Washington) and Berniece Charles (I Saw the TV Glow’s Danielle Deadwyler) and their battle over a family heirloom piano. Eventually, their tiff brings into perspective harsh truths about legacy and the past that rock the family to its core. Ray Fisher (Justice League), Michael Potts (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), and Corey Hawkins (In the Heights) co-star. The Piano Lesson debuts in theaters with a limited run starting November 8, before premiering on Netflix on November 22.

The End

One of the more controversial films on the festival circuit is also the most fascinating to me. Director Joshua Oppenheimer is most known for Oscar-nominated documentaries The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, which examine horrific mass executions of suspected communists in Indonesia. His third film, The End, is a tonal departure from his previous work, but according to star Michael Shannon, Oppenheimer considers it a trilogy of sorts. The End is a musical, following a wealthy family who lives in an underground bunker after an apocalypse (that they may have had a part in) has ravaged the planet above. Shannon (Knives Out), Tilda Swinton (The Chronicles of Narnia), George MacKay (1917), and Moses Ingram (Obi-Wan Kenobi) all star in Oppenheimer’s two-and-a-half-hour surreal epic. Reactions out of Telluride and TIFF label it ambitious and polarizing (it has that in common with Megalopolis), but even those who don’t end up on the positive spectrum respect its big swings. Personally, I love a big swing, and I tend to enjoy a director going all-in on a passion project. These are all boxes The End seems to tick, but we’ll have to wait until it appears in theaters on December 6 to make our own judgments.

Memoir of a Snail

The second feature film from Australian animation director Adam Elliot (following 2009’s morose Mary and Max), Memoir of a Snail premiered first at France’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June before festival screenings in Australia, China, Spain, England, and the United States. It takes place in 1970s Australia, where Grace Puddle (Succession’s Sarah Snook) is forcibly separated from her twin brother Gilbert (The Power of the Dog’s Kodi Smit-McPhee) after a series of tragedies befall their family. Elliot’s film is sure to make emotional wrecks of us all, promising a beautiful, sad, heartfelt tale about love, loss, and the power of family. To top it all off, the intricate detail of stop-motion animation always makes for a spellbinding viewing experience, and Memoir of a Snail will be no different. Watch for it in US theaters on October 25.

Other Films to Note

• September 5: a dramatization of the hostage crisis at the 1972 Munich Olympics through the perspective of an American sports broadcast network reporting on the event. Peter Sarsgaard (The Man in the Iron Mask) and John Magaro (Past Lives) star. Matt Neglia of Next Best Picture writes that the film “authentically [captures] the horrors, sense of urgency and small acts of heroism (and mistakes) made by [the] media” and “asks challenging questions without giving any easy answers.” September 5 will be released in limited theaters on November 27.
• The Brutalist: a towering three-and-a-half-hour historical epic from writer/director Brady Corbet (Vox Lux). Adrien Brody stars as architect and Holocaust survivor László Toth, who flees Europe with his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) to preserve their family legacy. They meet the enigmatic Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), who makes an enticing offer that changes their lives forever. David Ehrlich of IndieWire writes that The Brutalist “draws a perfectly self-evident connection between the weight of its raw material and that of the concrete monolith Tóth creates over the course of the story, and the same could be said of its minimalistic framing, its bone-deep aversion to nostalgia, and, most of all, the movie’s efforts to reveal the soul of its subject through the geometry of its design.” Stay tuned for our review of The Brutalist out of Beyond Fest in October.
• Nickel Boys: RaMell Ross directs this adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel of the same name, chronicling the friendship of two Black teenagers during their time at reform school in Florida. Early buzz boasts of an unconventional filmic style, promising to be unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

• A Real Pain: Jesse Eisenberg directs both himself and Succession’s Kieran Culkin in this dramedy about two cousins who tour through Poland to honor their grandmother before their childhood tension reignites, set against the backdrop of their family history. Stay tuned for our review of A Real Pain out of Beyond Fest in October.
• Piece by Piece: This documentary about the life of singer/songwriter Pharrell Williams is bound to be one of the most unconventional biographies ever made – it’s rendered in LEGO, and directed by Oscar-winning documentarian Morgan Neville. Stay tuned for our review of Piece by Piece next week.
• Rumours: Vulture film critic Bilge Ebiri “couldn’t stop laughing” at this intelligent political satire, which follows the seven leaders of the world’s wealthiest liberal democracies, who get lost in the woods on the way to an annual summit and must survive on instinct alone – amidst a global crisis. Rumours will be released in limited theaters on October 18.
• The Apprentice: This highly critical Donald Trump biopic, charting his rise to financial power in the ’70s and ’80s, is the English-language feature debut for director Ali Abbasi. Sebastian Stan (Captain America) stars as Trump alongside Jeremy Strong (the third Succession cast member with a film on this list) as despicable attorney Roy Cohn, who shaped the Trump we know today. Maria Bakalova (Bodies Bodies Bodies) co-stars as Ivana Trump. The film finally got a theatrical release after being the target of a smear campaign by the Trump operation. Stay tuned for our review of The Apprentice out of Beyond Fest later this month.

• Joker: Folie á Deux: The sequel to 2019’s billion-dollar sensation, this follow-up is anything but traditional; it’s a musical, co-starring Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. It’s bound to be divisive, just like its predecessor, but there’s no doubt it will make a unique splash of its own. Stay tuned for our review of Joker: Folie á Deux in October.
• Nightbitch: A feminist fantasy horror movie about a woman (Amy Adams), stuck in her daily routine, believing she is turning into a dog. Need I say more? Stay tuned for our review of Nightbitch out of Beyond Fest in October.
• Blitz: Director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, Widows) is back with a historical drama for the ages. Taking place during the Second World War in London, the film follows nine-year-old George (Elliott Heffernan) as he attempts to return to his mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan). After premiering at the BFI London Film Festival on October 9, Blitz will land at the New York Film Festival on October 10 before settling in theaters on November 1.

• The Outrun: Saoirse Ronan is back for seconds! Here, she plays Rona, a woman hoping to connect with her troubled past on the Scottish coast. The Outrun premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in January, and buzz has been steadily building since then. It is set to make its theatrical debut in the US on October 4.
• Salem’s Lot: A long-awaited adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal vampire novel has been in development for years, but even production (which commenced in 2021) didn’t stop the film’s issues. After years of questions about whether Salem’s Lot would premiere in theaters or on Max, it was recently announced it would land on the Warner Bros. streaming service, and even though this long of a delay between development, production, and release would usually spell doom for any other movie, I’m choosing to keep the faith. Stay tuned for our review of Salem’s Lot out of Beyond Fest next week.
• Maria: A Maria Callas biopic was inevitable, and who better to take the reins than the man who has already given new life to Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana? Pablo Larraín directs Angelina Jolie in the title role, in a film that has been getting mixed reviews since its premieres at Venice and Telluride. It will most likely get a theatrical release date sometime in November or December.
• Babygirl: Nicole Kidman won the Best Actress award at Venice for her role in Babygirl, which comes to us courtesy of Bodies Bodies Bodies director Halina Reijn. Kidman plays Romy, a CEO who begins an affair with her intern Samuel (The Iron Claw’s Harris Dickinson). I wouldn’t be surprised if Oscar nominations were in the cards for both leads, and it has since received an awards-worthy release date of December 25.
• The Room Next Door: Spanish director Pedro Almadóvar’s first English-language feature reunites him with Tilda Swinton, and also brings Julianne Moore into the fold. Moore plays Ingrid, a writer who rekindles her relationship with war journalist Martha (Swinton). This film will also debut during the holiday season.

• The Seed of the Sacred Fig: Germany’s entry for the Best International Film race follows Iman (Misagh Zare), a judge in Tehran, who navigates national paranoia as political tension escalates across the country. He brings his neuroticism home, and his family feels the effects of his drastic change of mind. This nearly three-hour drama made waves at Cannes, and will debut in the US on November 27.
• Oh, Canada: This film marks two important returns to mainstream cinema – writer/director Paul Schrader, whose recent films have been underperforming and largely disliked, and star Richard Gere, who was all but blacklisted from Hollywood for his criticism of the Chinese government. Gere stars as a documentary filmmaker who tells his life story after fleeing to Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft. He co-stars alongside Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman, and Michael Imperioli. Despite not having official distribution, Schrader claims that his (hopefully triumphant) return will land in theaters on December 6.