
Every preview of upcoming movies comes with an invisible disclaimer: “These release dates are subject to change.” But that’s especially true at our current moment, when the ongoing rise and fall of infection rates has turned the coming-attractions calendar into a perpetual rough draft, as studios move their major titles to later dates, often with just a few weeks’ notice. All of which makes the following list of our most anticipated movies of 2022 fundamentally tentative and even optimistic; it would be something of a miracle if all of these films came out when their distributors are currently saying they will.
Still, if only some of the 25 pictures we’ve singled out see the light of day before the dawn of 2023, it will still be an exciting year for cinema. And that’s without accounting for the films that will premiere on the festival circuit sometime over the next 12 months, or the ones that haven’t yet been issued a spot on the calendar, even a premature one. In making our selections, we stuck to movies that currently do have a release date, however likely it is to change—a choice that makes this list heavier on studio fare than indies. But we also made room at the end for a bunch of exciting projects currently expected to open sometime before the ball drops next December. Right now, we all need something to look forward to. The following movies provide it and then some.