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| Cate Blanchett, in Todd Field's TAR. |
There are a few basic truths when compiling a list of the most anticipated movies of the fall. Chief among these is that the director rules. Nothing is more exciting than a new feature from a brilliant filmmaker, and this year offers an embarrassment of riches. Next: All buzz is good buzz. Most of the films below have debuted at one film festival or another, and the first round of critical notices is in – some good, some bad. The good reviews just make me more excited, and the bad ones just make me curious. The anticipation remains.
Nevertheless, great filmmakers sometimes make terrible films or, worse, middling, unmemorable films. Looking back over my previous “Most Anticipated” lists, the movies run the gamut from my personal top 10 and Best Picture winners to pure trash and everywhere in between. That is what is so exciting about anticipation. Before the film starts rolling, it could be anything. There is virtually no chance the following 10 films will end up as my top 10 of the year and a similarly slim chance that all 10 will even be good. But, right now, we don’t know. There is only hope.
This year, more than most, my hopes are high for the final four months of the year to deliver great cinema. This is primarily due to the fact that the first eight months have been mostly disappointing, with just one or two movies I would consider truly great. We need greatness back on screen, and though not all of these movies are likely to deliver that, they are the best chance we’ve got.
Before we get to the list, five more films I am excited to see in the rest of 2022: Laura Poitras’ Golden Bear-winning documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed; Andrew Dominik’s already-controversial Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde; Sam Mendes’ Olivia Colman-starring ode to movie theaters Empire of Light; Steven Spielberg’s memoir on film The Fablemans; and Rian Johnson’s whodunnit sequel Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
Now, the 10 movies I cannot wait to be front row, center for this fall:
10. The Woman King, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood
Release date: September 16
Viola Davis is such a tremendous actress, able to lose herself completely in characters, that I think we sometimes forget what a badass she can be on screen. But, if you look at her filmography, it is not short on action movies, thrillers, and good old-fashioned shoot-’em-ups. Steve McQueen’s excellent heist thriller Widows has probably been the shining example of this – until now.
With The Woman King, Prince-Bythewood appears to be unlocking the final level of Viola Davis Action Star. Based on the true story of a fierce band of women warriors in 1800s coastal Africa, Davis’ ascendance to the action throne is just one reason to be excited for this film. Beyond that, Prince-Bythewood seems to be telling a story of empowerment, determinism, and the eternal struggle to preserve one’s homeland, and there is never a bad time for this type of story.
9. White Noise, directed by Noah Baumbach
Release date: November 25
For someone of his stature, Baumbach’s resumé is quite a bit more uneven than it might seem at first. For every masterpiece like Frances Ha and The Squid and the Whale, there is a misfire or mediocrity like The Meyerowitz Stories or Mr. Jealousy. However, when he is on his A-game, there are few outside of Alexander Payne who can match his acerbic wit and dry, cutting observations on modern life. That said, White Noise is one heck of a curveball for the writer-director.
Starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, both on their fourth collaborations with the director, this is Baumbach’s first adaptation, and he has picked a doozy. The film is based on Don DeLillo’s novel of the same name, which sees a college professor and his family facing down a potentially cataclysmic event. For a director who has always focused on smaller stories of human foibles and the like, it will be fascinating to see what Baumbach does with a story this grand and this strange.
8. Avatar: The Way of Water, directed by James Cameron
Release date: December 16
What is there to say? We have waited 13 years for this, the sequel to the biggest movie of all time. Cameron is the king of spectacle, and of course, the first trailers are awe-inspiring, introducing audiences to previously unexplored parts of Pandora. There is no reason to believe the director of The Terminator, Titanic, and Aliens will not pull off something truly special here, and yet, that is what many people seem to believe right now.
Cameron faced similar doubt before he launched Titanic, formerly the biggest movie of all time before he topped it with Avatar, which faced even greater doubt. He works on scales few filmmakers could even imagine, both from a budgetary and a story standpoint. He is synonymous with success, innovation, and entertainment. To doubt him is to risk being made the fool, and that is a risk I am unwilling to take. Give me my popcorn, show me to my seat, and bring it on.
7. Decision to Leave, directed by Park Chan-wook
Release date: October 14
Admittedly, I had been a bit of a Park novice until last year. Of course, I had seen Oldboy many years prior, and I loved The Handmaiden when I saw it in theaters, and I enjoyed his section of the Korean horror omnibus Three … Extremes. But, I had only scratched the surface. Last summer, I finally caught up with the first two parts of his vengeance trilogy – Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance – as well as his unique take on the vampire mythos, Thirst.
Each film was impressive, surprising, and invigorating. I look forward to diving further into his filmography and that includes my excitement for his latest feature, which has already been submitted as the Korean entry for Best International Feature at this year’s Academy Awards. It received widespread acclaim when it premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and Park won his first best director award at the festival.
6. Women Talking, directed by Sarah Polley
Release date: December 2
Polley’s last film was the excellent experimental documentary Stories We Tell, in which she examined the ways we alter and obscure our personal histories to suit the narratives we need to believe about our lives. It was raw, it was honest, and it was uncompromising. It seems likely all three of those words will be used to describe her newest feature, about a group of women in a religious colony who must reconcile their beliefs with the reality of their existence.
The subject matter is likely to be a major talking about around this film, which deals heavily with sexual assault, and it will almost certainly be a difficult sit for most audiences. But in her three previous features, Polley has proven herself uniquely attuned to the tone and purpose of her message, and there may be no working filmmaker more likely to treat the material with the care and consideration it deserves. All of this is not to mention a ludicrously stacked cast that includes Frances McDormand, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, and Ben Whishaw.
5. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, directed by Ryan Coogler
Release date: November 11
The original Black Panther film was a cultural force almost without equal. It became one of the highest grossing films of all time, it breathed fresh life into a stale genre of films, and it spoke to and for a massive and massively underserved filmgoing audience. It would be asking too much to expect the sequel to reach those heights, but if anyone can make it happen, it would be Coogler.
I do hope he gets away from the superhero genre sooner rather than later, and his historic Best Picture Oscar nomination last year for Judas and the Black Messiah suggests he has his eyes firmly set on the kind of stories he wants to tell. I hope Wrong Answer, his long gestating film about the Atlanta test score scandal, comes to pass. And, I hope he has a blank check to make whatever he wants forever on the back of his MCU success. But for now, superheroes or not, whatever Coogler makes, I am 100 percent in.
4. Bardo (False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths), directed Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Release date: November 18
Iñárritu’s past two films (Birdman and The Revenant) topped this list in their respective years, and there is good reason for that. No one is making films as interesting or as inventive on the same kind of grand scale Iñárritu does. Early reports suggest this is no less grand and no less inventive. And, honestly, it is evidence of the special fall ahead of us that this film clocks in at just No. 4 on this list.
It should be mentioned that those early reports out of multiple film festivals have been scathing, at least on the critical side of things. Critics have labeled it a mess, a slog, and a self-important, self-indulgent disaster. However, Iñárritu’s fellow filmmakers have sung his praises, with luminaries such as Chloé Zhao, Barry Jenkins, and Lulu Wang declaring it a masterpiece. There was a similar split between artists and critics on the receptions for Birdman and The Revenant, which likely explains why Iñárritu won Best Director for both films despite critical misgivings. For me, Iñárritu has earned the benefit of the doubt.
3. The Banshees of Inisherin, directed by Martin McDonagh
Release date: October 21
McDonagh took a lot of flack for his last feature, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, and its handling of race in America. And though I liked that film immensely, it probably was ambitious for an Irish filmmaker, no matter how intelligent and talented, to try to tackle such thorny topics as police brutality and systemic racism in the rural US. With The Banshees of Inisherin, McDonagh is firmly in his own milieu.
Reuniting with In Bruges stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, McDonagh’s latest has received glowing notices out of the festivals, with some hailing it as the writer-director’s finest achievement yet. Considering In Bruges remains one of my favorite films of all time and the first trailer suggests something altogether strange and unexpected, it would be hard to imagine being more excited for a film.
And yet, there are two more features to speak of:
2. Triangle of Sadness, directed by Ruben Östlund
Release date: October 7
Only 10 filmmakers in history have multiple Palmes d’Or. Just three of those filmmakers won for consecutive films. Billie August won for Pelle the Conqueror in 1988 and The Best Intentions in 1992. Michel Haneke won for The White Ribbon in 2009 and Amour in 2012. And now, Östlund has won his second in a row, following up 2017’s The Square with this year’s similarly geometrically concerned Triangle of Sadness. Including his 2014 international breakthrough Force Majeure, it is safe to say Östlund makes event movies for the arthouse crowd.
Taking aim directly at the moneyed elite and the implicit contradictions and hypocrisies of the modern economic system, Östlund’s film takes places on a doomed luxury cruiseliner. The setting and story are ripe with possibilities for skewering the upper classes, and Östlund is a filmmaker who has never shied away from that kind of skewering, whether it be with a scalpel or a broadsword and often both at the same time.
1. TÁR, directed by Todd Field
Release date: October 7
The man. The myth. The legend.
By coincidence, many of the filmmakers on this list are returning from extended absences. Neither Östlund nor McDonagh has made a film in five years. It has been seven years for Iñárritu between The Revenant and Bardo. Polley had not made a feature for 10 years before Women Talking, and of course, Cameron has been working for 13 years on his Avatar sequel. But, none has been gone as long as Todd Field.
An actor best known for a supporting role in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, Field made his feature filmmaking debut in 2001 with the Best Picture-nominated In the Bedroom. He followed that up in 2006 with Little Children, to my mind, and without caveat or reservation, one of the finest films of the 21st century. In the 16 years since, he has not directed a single film, nor has he helmed an episode of television. He has simply been gone.
Sure, he has been attached to any number of intriguing projects over the years with big names such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonathan Franzen, Cormac McCarthy, and the like, but none has come to fruition. His explanation to the New York Times in an interview earlier this year: He often sets his sights on productions that are, by their very nature, difficult to get made.
On paper, TÁR would also seem to be an inherently difficult-to-make project, yet here we are, less than a month away from the long-awaited return of one of my favorite filmmakers in the game. It does not hurt anticipation that the early reviews out of the festival circuit are raves or that star Cate Blanchett reportedly delivers the finest performance of a career filled with fine performances or that the exquisite trailer promises a psychological drama of the highest order. It all adds up to my most anticipated movie of the year – hell, of any year in a long time.
