10 films you should be excited to watch this year

The casting announcement for Sam Mendes’s quadruple whammy Beatles biopics was by far the biggest film news of the week. The director who brought us 1917 and American Beauty has chosen his Fab Four: Paul Mescal will be Macca, Barry Keoghan will be Ringo Starr, Harris Dickinson will be John Lennon and Joseph Quinn will be George Harrison.

Some people online have gotten quite agitated about this casting decision, which I think is unwarranted given these films won’t be released for another three years. Apparently Barry’s already getting drumming lessons, which is reassuring.

What we don’t know is what order the films will be released in. At CinemaCon, which took place in Vegas this week, Mendes said they would ​“intersect in different ways, sometimes overlapping, sometimes not”, which could really mean anything. What I am most interested in is this so-called ​“bingeable theatrical experience” we’re being promised off the back of the quadrilogy. Recent cinematic ​“events” included The Brutalist, which had a built-in intermission. Barbie had Oppenheimer and vice-versa. What could Mendes possibly have up his sleeve to keep us in our seats for what I assume will be many hours?

Speaking of CinemaCon, which is basically a massive Hollywood trade show, there are so many good films coming out this year, and I haven’t been this excited for ages. So in the spirit of looking forward to things (and while I eagerly, fearfully, trepidatiously await news of who will be cast in the Britney Spears biopic), here is a list of films whose release dates and casts have actually been confirmed. Consider it a written version of watching trailers at the cinema, and a welcome distraction from the word ​“tariff”.

A brilliant drama about a young novelist (played by Ruaridh Mollica, as seen in the new print issue of THE FACE) who moonlights as a sex worker – a role that he mines as a way of making his own fiction more authentic and interesting. This one was written and directed by Mikko Mäkelä; our Consultant Editor, Craig McLean, spoke to them both for this feature in October.

Based on Françoise Sagan’s classic 1954 novella, in Bonjour Tristesse, Durga Chew-Bose’s debut, Lily McInerny plays Cécile, an 18-year-old holidaying with her dad (Claes Bang) and his girlfriend in the south of France. Things take a turn for the strange when Anne (Chloë Sevigny), a friend of Cécile’s deceased mum, joins the party. What plays out is a tale of deathly deceit and lust. Sounds like the next season of The White Lotus.

Chloë Sevigny strikes again in this satirical comedy from It girl writer/​director Amalia Ulman. Inspired by Ulman’s own roots, Magic Farm pokes fun at hipster journalists travelling to foreign countries with nothing but a camera and an insatiable appetite for a story that’ll get clicks. Here, the gonzo film crew (which includes Hereditary​’s Alex Wolff) travels to Argentina to interview a local musician, but there’s a bit of a spanner in the works: their incompetence lands them in a different country altogether. What could possibly go wrong?

The third instalment in Danny Boyle’s era-defining horror trilogy needs little introduction. 28 Years Later, as the title would suggest, picks up 28 years after the OG rage virus outbreak, as a group of survivors who are minding their own business on an island are dragged back to a zombie-infested mainland. Cillian Murphy has handed the leading man baton over to Alfie Williams here, a 14 year old (literally) fighting for his life alongside his parents, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jodie Comer.

Darren Aronofsky is back in his first film since 2022’s The Whale. Here’s the story: Austin Butler plays a burnt out ex-baseball player who finds himself ​“embroiled in a struggle for survival in the underbelly of ​’90s New York”. Sounds like a likely place for him to be. There’s no trailer yet, but Zoë Kravitz and Bad Bunny are in it, and so is Matt Smith, with a huge colourful mohawk. ​“I wanted to do something that was simply put, a lot of fun,” Aronofsky said. Given his back catalogue, it’s about time.

Continuing the sports theme, Him is a horror produced by Jordan Peele and directed by Justin Tipping. Newcomer Tyriq Withers plays a promising young footballer who’s invited to brush up on his game, albeit in a dodgy situation: alongside an ageing quarterback in a menacingly isolated compound. That’s all we know so far, but you can imagine things don’t end there, or well. In the role of said quarterback is thee Marlon Wayans, whose recent responses to Soulja Boy’s transphobic tweets about his son make for a good Sunday scroll.

Yorgos Lanthimos has been on a relentless run since releasing Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness back to back over the last couple of years. He shows no sign of stopping, either: next up is Bugonia, which is based on Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 film Save the Green Planet!. Emma Stone, who shaved her head for the film, plays a hot-shot CEO kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists who have decided she’s an alien who wants to destroy the planet. A fitting story for our times, eh?

Maybe Luca Guadagnino has been on the most relentless directing run of them all, come to think of it. Post-Challengers and Queer comes After the Hunt, a flick about a college professor whose star pupil accuses her colleague of *something dark*, which then leads to the threat of *something darker* from her own past being uncovered. Big Tár vibes. Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield and Julia Roberts lead what is being billed as an intense thriller (oh, I’m sure) and I can’t stop watching this video of Ayo and Andrew singing Luca’s praises, which he seems to be thoroughly enjoying. I would, too.

Timmy x Josh Safdie is bound to make for a truly great cinematic link-up. Now firmly free of Bob Dylan, Timothée has been busy stepping into another legend’s shoes: Marty Mauser, ​“a young man with a dream no one respects, who goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness”. Sounds about right. The titular Marty was inspired by professional table tennis player Marty Reisman, but Marty Supreme isn’t a straight biopic, it blends fiction with real life. In the absence of a trailer, we’ll have to make do with this BTS image of Gwyneth Paltrow courting Timmy’s character on set. We’ll take that.