2024 movie preview: fantastic movies to look out for this year

Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up to the biggest sci-fi flick of 2021 had its initial late 2023 launch window pushed back due to the writer’s strike. Dune: Part Two promises to be far more intense than the necessarily slow-burn original, as world-building takes a back seat and the war for the resource-rich desert planet Arrakis takes centre stage. The likes of Florence Pugh, Léa Seydoux, Austin Butler, and Christopher Walken join an already stacked cast, while there should be way more Zendaya this time around.

Release date: March 1

Alex Garland lays out another slice of serious speculative fiction to accompany Ex Machina and Annihilation. The setting this time is a dystopian near-future America, which is once again at war with itself following the secession of 19 states. Kirsten Dunst plays a journalist struggling to make her way across an embattled country, while Nick Offerman plays the authoritarian President enacting a clamp down on rebel forces. This one’s going to invite some online conversation, to put it mildly.

Release date: April 26

Director Robert Eggers has made quite the name for himself already, having created a trio of disturbing horror-tinged period pieces in The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman. He seems perfectly suited to reimagine Nosferatu, F. W. Murnau’s hugely influential 1922 German silent film, which itself was an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel. Bill Skarsgård (IT) seems ideal casting as Count Orlok, the titular vampire, while Lily-Rose Depp plays Ellen Hutter, the subject of his obsession.

Release date: December 25

South Korean superstar director Bong Joon-ho follows up his Oscar-winning smash hit Parasite by returning to English-language dystopian sci-fi, which he previously tackled in Okja and Snowpiercer. Mickey 17 stars Robert Pattinson as a so-called ‘expendable’ – a disposable human sent on a colonial expedition to an icy planet. Every time this character dies, a new clone is spawned with the same memories. Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo also feature in what should be a thought-provokingly bleak movie.

Release date: March 29

Here’s an intriguing proposition: a film co-written, produced and directed by only one of the Coen Brothers. Can Ethan distil the duo’s peerless blend of whimsy and brutality without any official consultation from brother Joel? Judging from the Drive-Away Dolls trailer, it looks like he might just pull it off. The movie stars Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan as a pair of lesbian friends on a road trip to Tallahassee. They cross paths with a band of clueless criminals. Which is just about the most Coen Brothers premise you could imagine.

Release date: February 23

By the time Beetlejuice 2 cackles its way into cinemas in September, it will have been more than 36 years since the original. Hollywood will always return to milk beloved IP eventually, but what’s encouraging here is several of the main players involved with the original fantasy-horror-comedy oddity are back for the sequel. That includes director Tim Burton and stars Michael Keaton (as the titular mischievous spirit) and Winona Ryder. Elsewhere fresh blood is being injected by the casting of Jenna Ortega, Monica Bellucci, and Willem Dafoe.

Release date: September 6

Yes, we know we gave a whole spiel about this not being the year of superhero movies in the intro. But (pedantry alert) Todd Phillips’s original Joker movie was technically a supervillain movie, and one that owed more of a debt to Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy than anything in print. This sequel sees Joaquin Phoenix reprising his role as the newly empowered psychotic funnyman, while Lady Gaga joins as his would-be accomplice Harley Quinn. Reports suggest it’ll be a musical, so count us intrigued.

Release date: October 4

This spin-off from, and prequel to, Mad Max: Fury Road casts Anya Taylor-Joy as a younger version of the grizzled warrior played so memorably by Charlize Theron in the 2015 original. Chris Hemsworth gets the rare opportunity to show his villainous side as Dementus, the leader of the Biker gang that kidnaps Furiosa from her home. If it offers half the level of automotive carnage that the original film managed, it’ll be one of the most spectacular action movies of the year.

Release date: May 24

Kingsman director Matthew Vaughn is taking another stab at subverting the spy genre with Argylle. Bryce Dallas Howard plays an oblivious novelist whose tales of international espionage coincidentally align with the real world machinations of a criminal organisation. Henry Cavill plays the lantern-jawed James Bond-referencing spy of her imagination, while Sam Rockwell plays the oddball undercover spy actually assigned to help her. An all-star cast also includes Dua Lipa, Bryan Cranston, John Cena, Sofia Boutella, and Samuel L. Jackson.

Release date: February 2

Almost a quarter of a century after his original swords and sandals epic, and hot on the heels of a successful run with Napoleon, Ridley Scott returns to the world of Roman arena combat in Gladiator 2. Paul Mescal (Aftersun, All of Us Strangers) takes his first crack at the Hollywood big time as Lucius, who was last seen cowering in fear as a child from his deranged uncle Commodus in the first Gladiator film. Denzel Washington, Connie Nielsen, and Pedro Pascal provide the heavyweight backup.

Release date: November 22