Fall 2023 film preview: The season's 26 most anticipated films

Cast: Mckenna Grace, Taraji P. Henson, Marsai Martin, Christian Convery, James Marsden, Kristen BellDirector: Cal BrunkerPAW Patrol: The Movie was a lovely little outlier in the superhero clogged summer of 2021; a sweet children’s film that kept parents awake while their kids thrilled to a story about problem solving and friendship. Well, it was fun while it lasted. sees Skye, Chase, Liberty, Marshall, Rubble, Rocky, and Zuma turn into superheroes thanks to a meteor that crashes into Adventure City. Together the Mighty Pups must defeat the villain with their newfound superpowers while also doing cute things because they’re doggies. The voice cast includes Mckenna Grace, Taraji P. Henson, Kristen Bell, James Marsden, and, because we’re all going to Hell, Kim Kardashian. Cal Brunker, who directed and co-wrote the first PAW Patrol film returns for the sequel, so look for more lightly delivered, kid-friendly messaging, high-energy action, and adorable anthropomorphic humor. [Mark Keizer]

Cast: Tobin Bell, Synnøve Macody Lund, Shawnee Smith, Michael Beach, Steven BrandDirector: Kevin GreutertSpiral didn’t turn out to be the exciting reboot we were all hoping for (how the filmmakers screwed up a detective thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson and Chris Rock, we still have no idea), so the Saw franchise is trying another tack for its 10th installment. is a direct sequel to the original film and sees Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) travel to Mexico for an experimental cancer treatment. Of course, it turns out to be a scam, so Jigsaw does his Jigsaw thing and tortures the grifters with a series of elaborate traps. This time, he’s got an entire medical facility at his disposal, which means he can do things like force his victims to perform brain surgery on themselves. It’s nice to see Saw finally getting back to its roots. [Jen Lennon]

Cast: Leslie Odom Jr., Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Ellen BurstynDirector: David Gordon GreenDirector William Friedkin’s 1973 masterpiece The Exorcist basically invented the modern concept of the blockbuster—sorry, Jaws— and it definitely turned horror into a respectable genre. So when the time came for a direct sequel—not the series of lame follow-ups that cluttered multiplexes for years—you wait 50 years and then hand the directing and co-writing reigns to … the guys who rebooted Halloween? If is going to honor a groundbreaking original that was nominated for 10 Oscars, director David Gordon Green and co-writer Danny McBride had better up their game considerably, especially since the horror genre is now overflowing with sophisticated, clever, and scary content. The Exorcist: Believer’s ace in the hole is Ellen Burstyn, returning to the franchise for the first time since the OG Exorcist. She once again plays Chris MacNeil, the mother of Regan (Linda Blair), the first film’s 12-year-old, vomit spewing child. In the new one, Leslie Odom Jr. stars as a widower trying to save his possessed daughter (Lidya Jewett) with the help of Burstyn and Anne Dowd. We’re definitely intrigued by The Exorcist: Believer, mostly because we’re deathly curious as to whether Green and company can pull off a sequel worthy of an undisputed classic. [Mark Keizer]

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, Brendan FraserDirector: Martin ScorseseDavid Grann’s meticulously researched 2017 novel Killers Of The Flower Moon shed long-overdue light on one of the darkest and most troubling chapters in American history. Now the story is about to get an even harsher spotlight in director Martin Scorsese’s epic film adaptation, also titled . In the book and the film, members of the Osage Indian Nation are murdered after oil is found underneath their Oklahoma land, which makes them some of the richest people on the planet. Coincidence? We think not. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, the husband of an Osage woman (played by Lily Gladstone), and Robert De Niro plays William Hale, a local cattleman with designs on the Osage’s oil-rich land. Jesse Plemons is a lawman with the BOI (the precursor to the FBI) entrusted with discovering who’s doing the killing. The film was well received when it premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, which should get the ball rolling for an awards season run. Scorsese, having presumably closed the book on his gangster obsession with The Irishman, looks to tackle another form of American organized crime, one that deprived Native Americans of their land, their wealth, and sometimes, their lives. [Mark Keizer]

Cast: Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Andy García, Catherine O’Hara, Jay Duplass, Brian d’Arcy JamesDirector: David YatesContemporary thrillers about pharmaceutical companies are pretty rare (Steven Soderbergh’s is the first that comes to mind), so score one for , directed by David Yates, who gave us four Harry Potter films and three Fantastic Beasts epics. Emily Blunt plays a high school dropout and single mom who gets caught up in a conspiracy after she’s hired to work at a floundering pharmaceutical start-up. The film is based on Evan Hughes’ New York Times Magazine article, The Pain Hustlers, and his subsequent novel, The Hard Sell. Figure on thrills mixed with a takedown of Big Pharma and harsh commentary on the opioid crisis. [Mark Keizer]

Cast: Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy RandolphDirector: Alexander PayneAlexander Payne reunites with his Sideways star Paul Giamatti in , an intimate comedy set at a New England boarding school during winter break in 1970. Given the delightfully retro feel of the trailer, we’re expecting the film to be a throwback tribute to filmmakers of the era like Hal Ashby and Robert Altman, who mixed wry comedy and heartfelt drama with a humanist sensibility. Giamatti plays a curmudgeonly teacher who stays behind at the school over the holidays because he has nowhere to go. His solitude is disrupted by the two other holdovers, a troubled student (Dominic Sessa) and the school’s cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). Together, the three of them find unlikely common ground within the walls of the empty academy. [Cindy White]

Cast: Josh Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard, Mary Stuart Masterson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper RubioDirector: Emma TammiChuck E. Cheese has always been some sort of horror show, whether you find subpar pizza and dubious children’s play equipment frightening, or simply find the idea of having a rodent as a mascot for a food establishment objectionable. So it’s not much of a surprise that someone (in this case, game developer Scott Cawthon) would take that idea and twist it to its logical extreme, i.e., imagining a world in which the animatronics at a kids’ pizza joint come to life at night and kill people. That’s the basic idea behind, the 2014 video game that exploded into a giant cross-media franchise. The film adaptation has been in the works since 2015, which is not a great sign—and neither is its simultaneous theatrical and Peacock release. Still, with Jason Blum and his horror hit factory Blumhouse attached as producers and a massive built-in fanbase, FNAF might just surprise us. Kind of like a homicidal animatronic bear lurking in the shadows of a dark restaurant, waiting to stab the nearest security guard. [Jen Lennon]

Cast: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Dagmara Domińczyk, Raine Monroe Boland, Emily Mitchell, Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll, Luke Humphrey, Jorja CadenceDirector: Sofia CoppolaLeave it to Sofia Coppola to offer us deliverance from the tiresome conversation around Austin Butler’s performance in Elvis—which, more than a year later, —by turning her camera to the love of The King’s life instead. focuses on Priscilla Presley’s life between the ages of 15 and 27, from the time she first met Elvis in West Germany to (presumably) their divorce in 1973. It’s got Priscilla Presley’s stamp of approval, too. Speaking to , she said of Coppola, “I just got who she was and I felt that she could get me.” [Jen Lennon]

Cast: Sylvester StalloneDirector: Thom ZimnyBeginning in the late ’70s, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger were bitter box office rivals and they often pushed each other’s buttons in the press. Their rivalry cooled as their stars cooled, but Arnold definitely won when it came to getting the Netflix documentary treatment. The well-received, Arnold, dropped in June 2023 and now, hot on its tail comes a Stallone doc called Sly. Director Thom Zimny is mostly known for his excellent musical documentaries, (The Gift: The Journey Of Johnny Cash and the Bruce Springsteen docs Western Stars and Letter To You) but here he’s been entrusted with telling the life story of the Hell’s Kitchen-born icon, one that includes a childhood stint in foster care and a rough start to his career. Stallone’s life is one of hardscrabble beginnings, incredible success, and high-profile personal and professional failures. So there’s a lot to cover and one hopes Stallone is as honest and forthcoming as this possibly semi-autographical line from 2006’s shockingly not-bad Rocky Balboa, “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” [Mark Keizer]

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Charles Parnell, Arliss Howard, Sophie CharlotteDirector: David FincherDavid Fincher reunites with screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker for , based on the French graphic novel of the same name. In the film, Michael Fassbender plays a conflicted assassin who goes on an international murder spree while hunting down his employers. Little else is known about the movie; Netflix is keeping most of the details close to the vest ahead of The Killer’s premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on September 3. But what else do you need besides the promise of Fincher and Walker finally working together again? At that point, even Fassbender is just a bonus. [Jen Lennon]

Cast: Brie Larson, Iman Vellani, Teyonah Parris, Samuel L. Jackson, Zaw Ashton, Park Seo-joon, Mckenna GraceDirector: Nia DaCostaEver since the season finale of , when Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) burst through Kamala Khan’s (Iman Vellani) closet door and found herself in the bedroom of her number one fan, we’ve been looking forward to seeing the two of them meeting face to face. Throw in Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), who got a light-based power-up of her own in , Nicholas J. Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), and our favorite ginger-furred flerken Goose, and you’ve got a pretty solid crew heading into . It’s been a minute since we’ve gotten a solid MCU team up, and thanks to Marvel’s schedule shuffling we’ve had to wait a lot longer for this one than we anticipated, so here’s hoping it’ll be worth the wait. [Cindy White]

Cast: Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth, Peter Dinklage, Viola Davis, Hunter Schafer, Jason SchwartzmanDirector: Francis LawrenceAfter author Suzanne Collins released a prequel to the original Hunger Games trilogy in 2020, it was only a matter of time before became the next installment in the popular film franchise. Set 64 years before the original Hunger Games film, this is the story of young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), who will one day transform into the authoritarian president portrayed by Donald Sutherland in the trilogy (we’re counting Mockingjay as one film). But he’s not quite there yet. He’s assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from District 12 in the 10th annual Hunger Games. Fans can expect the usual romantic liaisons, plotting, and political maneuvering of the other installments, but if the trailer is any indication, Jason Schwartzman’s performance channeling Stanley Tucci as the host of the first televised Hunger Games will be a bonus treat. [Cindy White]

Cast: Addison Rae, Patrick Dempsey, Gina GershonDirector: Eli RothWe don’t know much about the upcoming horror thriller and yet, at the same time, we kinda do. Thanksgiving is director Eli Roth’s long-awaited feature length movie based on the fake trailer contained in Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse, his 2007 homage to the violent low-budget exploitation films of the 1960s and ’70s. Talk of a full-length version of Thanksgiving began the moment audiences saw the trailer but it took years for Roth to land on a script he liked (Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts even took a crack at it). What gets us excited is not necessarily the cast—a fine if unspectacular collection that features Addison Rae, Patrick Dempsey, and Gina Gershon—but our firm belief that Roth is gonna bring the horrific hammer down big time, sparing no severed head or fountain of blood. We’ve waited over 15 years for this movie and we expect some serious exploitation-era violence! [Mark Keizer]

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Elisabeth Moss, Will Arnett, Oscar Kightley, Amgus Sampson, Rhys Darby, Beulah KoaleDirector: Taika WaititiWe have no doubt that the general contours of the inspirational, based on a true story will follow those of every other underdog sports movie; ragtag team signs new coach, new coach hates assignment, team hates coach, they eventually learn to love each other, and overcome a major obstacle. We also have no doubt the film is going to be a blast because it’s directed by the mischievous and creatively peripatetic Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit). The movie is based on the of the same name, which charts the fortunes of an American Samoa football team so bad they once lost a World Cup qualifying match 31-0. In Waititi’s fictionalized take, Michael Fassbender stars as the Dutch-American coach who reluctantly decamps to Oceania to turn around his new squad of no-talent misfits. The Oscar-winning Waititi excels at subverting genre material and making it feel fresh and unexpected. Look for Next Goal Wins to do the same for the underdog sports movie. [Mark Keizer]

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Zooey Deschanel, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Anderson .Paak, Ron Funches, Kenan Thompson, Eric André, Kid Cudi, Daveed Diggs, Camila Cabello, Amy Schumer, RuPaul, Zosia MametDirector: Walt DohrnBecause Universal is no fool, in 2020’s Trolls World Tour Poppy and Branch discovered six troll kingdoms each dedicated to one genre of music—country, techno, funk, classical, pop, and rock—allowing for every possible ticket buyer in every corner of the world to find a song to purchase via download. In case you thought that musical well had run dry for , fear not. In the new film, Poppy discovers that Branch has a secret past as part of a boy band. One cringes at the BTS, New Kids on the Block, and Big Time Rush-style songs that will lay siege to our brains in Dolby Atmos. But one also rejoices because the Trolls series is surprisingly warm, funny, and infectiously optimistic. Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake return for the threequel and they’re joined by Kenan Thompson, Eric André, Kid Cudi, Daveed Diggs, Camila Cabello, and Amy Schumer, amongst others. Since the release of Trolls World Tour was compromised by the pandemic, we owe it to the Movie Gods to see Trolls Band Together in a big-ass movie palace. [Mark Keizer]

Release Date: November 22 (in theaters), Apple TV+ (to be announced)Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, and Tahar RahimDirector: Ridley ScottAny new filmic take on the life of military leader and French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte will inevitably be compared to the version that the late director Stanley Kubrick spent years preparing in the 1960s (with Jack Nicholson reportedly onboard as Napoleon), only to abandon it due to cost concerns and the box office failure of director Sergei Bondarchuk’s 1970 biopic, . Now it’s to tell the Emperor’s story, and even though Scott’s recent output has been spotty, we’re still excited about it. Joaquin Phoenix feels like the perfect choice to play Napoleon (he’s kinda the perfect choice to play anyone, actually) and, as Napoleon’s wife, Josephine, Vanessa Kirby is a great replacement for the terrific Jodie Comer, Scott’s original choice who left the project when Covid messed with her schedule. Just the thought of huge battle scenes with hundreds of (hopefully non-CGI) soldiers and a story that combines French history with Napoleon and Josephine’s relationship, has us ready to enlist when it’s released in late November. [Mark Keizer]

Cast: Ariana DeBose, Chris Pine, Alan TudykDirector: Chris Buck and Fawn VeerasunthornWish’s opening day of November 22, 2023 has the distinction of almost coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the very day that Walt Disney and his brother Roy founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio (for the record, that would be October 16, 1923). So maybe it’s no coincidence that for this centennial birthday release, features Asha, a plucky 17-year-old girl who wishes upon a star (sound familiar, Pinocchio fans?) and is then visited by an actual star or, according to Disney, “a little ball of boundless energy called Star.” Oscar winner Ariana DeBose stars as Asha, while Chris Pine provides the voice of the villainous King Magnifico. The trailer doesn’t necessarily get our Disney juices flowing, especially since the Mouse House formula is starting to look a bit dated given the success of TMNT: Mutant Mayhem and the Spider-Verse films. But with its exalted release date, we’re hoping that Wish harkens back to Disney’s timeless classics while also appealing to modern sensibilities. Is that really too much to wish for? [Mark Keizer]