Lily Gladstone, left, and Leonardo DiCaprio in a scene from “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Apple TV+ via AP
The dog days of summer will soon give way to crisp falling leaves, as well as a pile of colorful new movies.
Still hanging from the branches, but about to drop, are works by such Oscar-nominated directors as Kenneth Branagh, Sofia Coppola, Errol Morris and Martin Scorsese (the latter two of whom actually won statuettes for “The Fog of War” and “The Departed,” respectively). But it’s not all about dusty awards. Also in the mix of forthcoming films is an old-school whodunit, a sci-fi thriller, Marvel’s next chapter of its sprawling superhero saga, an underdog sports comedy and a dark prequel to the Hunger Games series.
Read on for more of the season’s most anticipated films. Opening dates are subject to change.
A Haunting in Venice
Opens Sept. 15
They don’t make ’em like this anymore: an old-school murder mystery, based on the 1969 novel “Hallowe’en Party” by the maestra of the genre, Agatha Christie, and featuring a stellar cast, including Michelle Yeoh, Tina Fey, Jamie Dornan, Camille Cottin and Kenneth Branagh. Well, Branagh still makes ’em like this. Set in post-World War II Venice, this is the director’s third Christie adaptation, after “Murder on the Orient Express” in 2017 and last year’s “Death on the Nile.” Once again, Branagh plays Christie’s famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, all extravagant mustache and Sherlockian powers of deduction, who comes out of retirement to solve the murder of a guest at a seance he’s reluctantly attending. In an age of Knives Out mysteries and “See How They Run,” which cheekily tweak the conventions of the genre, Branagh’s films are sterling examples of an increasingly obsolete form of straight-faced whodunit. The director hasn’t said whether he’ll make more, but he has plenty of material: Poirot appears in 33 novels by Christie, as well as two plays and 51 short stories.
The Creator
Opens Sept. 29
With its mother of all weapons – a powerful machine-learning program known as the Entity – “Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One” tapped into the anti-AI zeitgeist that has been brewing ever since “2001: A Space Odyssey” pitted astronaut Dave Bowman against the HAL 9000 computer. That same techno-paranoia animates this dystopian action thriller set in a future when artificial intelligence has detonated a nuclear weapon and mankind is fighting for its survival. The story by director Gareth Edwards (“Godzilla”) and Chris Weitz (“About a Boy”) follows Joshua (John David Washington), an ex-Special Forces agent who leads an elite squad that has been tasked with hunting down the AI’s creator, only to discover that it’s a childlike android named Alphie, played by newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles.
Killers of the Flower Moon
Opens Oct. 6
Martin Scorsese directs this fact-based Apple TV Plus original drama from a script he wrote with Eric Roth, a seven-time Oscar-nominated screenwriter (and winner for “Forrest Gump”). Starring Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Jesse Plemons, the film is based on David Grann’s bestselling 2017 nonfiction book by the same name, about the FBI’s investigation into a series of early-20th-century killings of Osage people, whose oil-rich lands in Oklahoma led to acts of violence by white interlopers. After an emotional screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the director was given a 10-minute standing ovation.
The Pigeon Tunnel
Opens Oct. 20
Documentarian Errol Morris’s latest film may have the most intriguing title on this list. Borrowing its name from best-selling spy novelist John le Carré’s 2016 memoir – a reference to the author’s childhood memory of a seaside shooting range that used real pigeons as targets – the film is structured around a conversation between le Carré, who died in 2020, and the director, interspersed with archival footage and dramatized vignettes that illuminate the life and career of the former MI5 officer born David Cornwell. (Available on Apple TV Plus.)
Priscilla
Opens Oct. 27
Based on the 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me” by Priscilla Presley and Sandra Harmon, Sofia Coppola’s biopic stars Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla Beaulieu, who met Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) at age 14 and became his bride at 21. From the director of “Marie Antoinette,” this counterpoint to Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” offers another look at rock-and-roll royalty – from the perspective of the King’s queen.
Rustin
Opens Nov. 3
Actor Colman Domingo reunites with George C. Wolfe, his director on the double-Oscar-winning “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” to tell the story of Bayard Rustin, the gay Black socialist pacifist best known as the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. Written by Dustin Lance Black (“Under the Banner of Heaven”) and Julian Breece (“When They See Us”), the film – which premieres at this month’s Toronto Film Festival – focuses on how Rustin was pushed out of the limelight of a civil rights movement because of his sexuality. (Available on Netflix on Nov. 17.)
The Marvels
Opens Nov. 10
In this next chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the powers of Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers, aka superhero Captain Marvel, become intertwined with those of two other characters from comics lore: Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) – who became the comics’ first female Captain Marvel in 1982, before even Danvers – and Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan, appearing as Ms. Marvel, Marvel’s first Muslim superhero, on Disney Plus. Yes, it’s all very complicated and metaverse-y, but if you’ve come this far without throwing up your hands in frustration, why quit now?
Next Goal Wins
Opens Nov. 17
After making two muscle-bound Thor movies for Marvel – “Ragnarok” and “Love and Thunder” – not to mention the prestige Holocaust dramedy “Jojo Rabbit,” for which he won a screenwriting Oscar, Taika Waititi returns to his roots in quirky indie filmmaking. This modest film is based on the true story of Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender), the soccer coach who took the American Samoa national football team, one of the lousiest teams in the world, and tried to get them into shape to qualify for the 2014 World Cup. Based on the 2014 documentary by the same name, “Next Goal Wins” has a bit of an underdog backstory of its own: The movie, completed in early 2020, first encountered release delays because of COVID and then had to be recast in 2021 with Will Arnett in a supporting role after Armie Hammer was accused of sexual abuse.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Opens Nov. 17
This fifth installment of the Hunger Games saga is set 64 years before the action of the first film. It centers on teenage Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), well before that character would grow up to become the tyrannical president of Panem, played by Donald Sutherland, who would preside over the torment of Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen. The fifth film in the series is based on a 2020 book by franchise creator Suzanne Collins – a prequel that The Washington Post described as dark yet offering satisfying answers to fans’ questions. “One of the delicious qualities of a prequel is that it fills in the blanks,” Karin Tanabe wrote. “For those who lapped up the trilogy and have been waiting 10 long years for answers – to questions like ‘Which unhinged savage came up with kids killing kids?’ or ‘What’s the meaning behind the song “The Hanging Tree”?’ – Collins has them.”
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