The holidays are in the rearview, and love is in the air. It must almost be February, meaning we’ve survived another Gerard Butler January. Our persistence will be rewarded with a great month of movies for lovers and lonely hearts alike. Valentine’s Day is stacked next month, not only with the romance of Wuthering Heights and Pillion, but also the bromance of Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie. Hungry for more? Zombie movies rise from the dead with a new sci-fi whatsit from Gore Verbinski, his first in nearly a decade, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. That title is good advice for Ghostface’s latest crop of teen- and middle-aged victims in Scream 7, which rounds out the month. Don’t let the Seasonal Affective Disorder get you down; there’s a seat waiting at all the films covered in our February film preview.
Pillion (February 6)
Opposites attract in Pillion, which sees meek Colin (Harry Melling) break away from barbershop quartet rehearsal to get tied up in a BDSM relationship with the handsome, assertive biker Ray (Alexander Skarsgård). As enjoyable as being Ray’s boytoy is, Colin gets more than he bargained for as the affair grows out of its leatherbound beginnings and into a more emotionally dominant relationship.
Hamlet gets a time-traveling bent in Scarlet, the latest anime epic from Belle director Mamoru Hosoda. In her quest to avenge her father’s death, Scarlet (Mana Ashida) dies and meets a man from the present-day in the underworld. After learning what it means to be and not to be, Scarlet must decide whether to carry out her revenge.
Cold Storage (February 13)
Joe Keery is keeping things a little upside-down for the time being. In the horror-comedy Cold Storage, penned by David Koepp, Keery and Barbarian‘s Georgina Campbell work the graveyard shift at a self-storage facility, which is built atop a decommissioned military base home to a flesh-eating, mind-controlling parasite. When the virus breaks containment, a grizzled Liam Neeson swoops in to save the world from a Slithery apocalypse.
Goat (February 13)
Sony Pictures Animation brings Space Jam to Zootopia with Goat. This animated basketball comedy from Steph Curry and the studio behind Kpop Demon Hunters follows a young kid named Will (Stranger Things‘ Caleb McLaughlin) who dreams of being a pro baller. But can he hang with the fiercest animals on the court?
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (February 13)
After nearly a decade, Gore Verbinski returns to the big screen with an original sci-fi, kitchen-sink action-comedy. Sam Rockwell stars as a time traveler from a future “totally and completely fucked” by digital distractions. To change the future and fix his world, he returns to present-day L.A. and holds a local diner hostage, looking to recruit for the war against a consumer-grade A.I. that turns the human race into brain-rotted zombies.
Wuthering Heights (February 13)
Director Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is already tearing BookTok apart, but the film’s romance novel look, Charli xcx soundtrack, and lead turns from Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi make it an easy target for Cupid’s arrow this Valentine’s Day. It’s a tale as old as time: Catherine (Robbie) loves Heathcliff (Elordi), but her family doesn’t approve. After the two are separated and she marries another, Heathcliff returns, richer, meaner, and more vengeful.
The most improbable revival of the year, Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie continues the late-2000s webseries that became a late-2010s streaming series. Nirvanna catches up with Matt (Blackberry‘s Matt Johnson) and Jay (Jay McCarrol) as they take a time-traveling RV back to 2008 so they can finally score a gig at famed Toronto performance space The Rivoli. Along the way, they perform some Jackass-style man-on-street stunts to the delight and horror of all the poor Canadians involved.
Crime 101 (February 13)
In a role closer to Blackhat than Thor, Chris Hemsworth stars in Crime 101 as an ace jewel thief in a sun-bleached L.A. crime thriller. It’s a cat-and-mouse game between Hemsworth and an obsessive detective (Mark Ruffalo), who thinks he’s finally found a weakness in Hemsworth’s heist game. Based on Don Winslow’s 2020 novella, the plan goes sideways when Hemsworth gets involved with an insurance broker (Halle Berry).
EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert (February 27)
After the whirlwind musical experience of Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 Elvis, the director returns to the King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll with the genuine article. Luhrmann’s concert film, EPiC, features unseen concert and behind-the-scenes footage from the King’s Las Vegas residency, tours, and more. See Elvis the way God intended: In full IMAX.
Scream 7 (February 27)
No matter how many times you unhook the phone, you just can’t get rid of the guy. After Scream 7 lost much of its young cast, its senior players return for yet another game with Ghostface, with Sidney (Neve Campbell) and Gale (Courtney Cox) protecting Sidney’s daughter (Isabel May) from a Stab in-person experience. Directed by franchise founder Kevin Williamson, his first since 1999’s Teaching Mrs. Tingle, and co-written by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac), Scream 7 brings quite the pedigree to the sixth sequel in the 30-year-old franchise.
The Napa Boys (February 27)
The fake fourth film in a fake comedy franchise, The Napa Boys spoofs the American Pie series with a heavy pour of Sideways. Miles Jr. (co-writer Armen Weitzman) and Jack Jr. (director and co-writer Nick Corirossi) cram into the Napa Boy Wine Wagon and head to wine country in search of a mysterious sommelier for an adventure drunk on goofiness.
Man On The Run (February 27)
There’s always room for another Beatles documentary, right? Hot off the rerelease of The Beatles Anthology on Disney+, Prime Video fires back with Band On The Run. Directed by Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor), the film tracks McCartney’s second act, collaborating with his late wife Linda on Wings in the ’70s.
In The Blink Of An Eye (February 27)
Over a decade after helming John Carter, Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton is taking his second swing at live-action before going back in the toybox for Toy Story 5. In The Blink Of An Eye stars Kate McKinnon, Rashida Jones, and Daveed Diggs in a sci-fi drama that interconnects three stories to explore the history of the world.
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