The most anticipated movies coming out in 2024

Going early on the whole ‘breaking all our hearts’ thing, Andrew Haigh’s ghostly, tear-stained exploration of love in all its guises lands in January, but if there’s a more emotional viewing experience by December, we’ll eat our box of Kleenex. Andrew Scott is a lonely screenwriter, holed up in a London tower block, who returns not just to his childhood home, but to his childhood itself, embodied by his parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy). Paul Mescal is the mysterious neighbour who comes knocking in the night and sets his world alight.

Out in the UK Jan 26

Juliette Binoche and her old flame Benoît Magimel reunite on screen for the first time since 1999 to add an extra level of frisson to Tran Anh Hung’s gorgeous, headily gastronomic romance. He’s a 19th century restaurateur and she’s the gifted, loyal cook who has brought his dreams to life in the kitchen (and eventually, the bedroom) for many years in the rural chateau they share. A gentle love story of the kind so rarely made these days, it’s an absolute charmer. Warning: watching it on an empty stomach is a form of torture.

Out in the US Feb 9 and the UK Feb 14

A decade after Jennifer’s Body failed to find the audience it deserved, writer Diablo Cody returns to the horror-comedy in this flesh-eating romance, directed by first-timer Zelda ‘Daughter of Robin’ Williams. Triangulating Tim Burton, Natural Born Killers and Warm Bodies, Lisa Frankenstein stars Kathryn Newton as a young, lonely goth girl who finds true love in the form of a reanimated corpse from the Victorian era. It looks, sounds and is set in the ’80s, with a visual style sure to poke the nostalgic heart of any Cure fan who spent the decade having impure thoughts about Edgar Allan Poe. 

Out in the US Feb 9 and the UK Mar 22

If any musician’s life lends itself to a cradle-to-grave structure, it’s Bob Marley’s. The reggae icon’s journey from impoverished mixed-race outcast to global superstar encompasses the entire political and musical history of his home country of Jamaica, and while it seems impossible to fit even a fraction of that in an average-length movie, if One Love – directed by King Richard’s Reinaldo Marcus Green and produced by Bob’s son Ziggy – can show him for the complex person he was, it could be a winner. Let’s also hope Kingsley Ben-Adir’s lead performance doesn’t devolve into a bad impression.   

Out worldwide Feb 14

2023 was a bad year for the MCU, and box office returns suggest superhero fatigue may finally be settling in across the moviegoing populace. But if there’s juice left in any franchise, it’s probably Spider-Man. If this, ahem, spin-off can stall the downward trend, it’ll probably do it in spite of its widely mocked trailer. Dakota Johnson portrays the titular hero, a clairvoyant with the ability to peer into the ‘spider world’. Sydney Sweeney, Ghostbusters: Afterlife’s Celeste O’Connor, and the always-welcome Adam Scott are also part of the cast. 

Out worldwide Feb 14

Denis Villeneuve is promising that his second Dune movie will be bigger and more spectacular than the first – which is going some considering the sheer scale of Part One and its plethora of Ornithopters, crawlers and sandworms. Timothée Chalamet returns as heir-turned-revolutionary Paul Atrides, fomenting an uprising against the tyrannical House Harkonnen with Zendaya’s Chani and her fellow Freman warriors. Fans of Frank Herbert’s epic novel will already be counting sleeps. 

Out worldwide Mar 1.

The Coen brothers’ solo careers appear to be following a similar pattern of stylistic zigzags. Whereas his brother Joel went heavy, with a black-and-white adaptation of Macbeth, Ethan Coen makes his feature debut with something closer to the zany vein of Raising Arizona, a madcap road comedy about two friends (Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan) who rent a car and inadvertently wind up in the crosshairs of a criminal gang. Pedro Pascal, Beanie Feldstein and Matt Damon show up along the way.     

Out worldwide Mar 15

An animation fuelled by the soulful effervescence of Chaplin’s The Kid, the rich invention of Jacques Tati, and a crate of disco classics, Robot Dreams is a charming, bittersweet ode to friendship with not a single line of dialogue in it. It follows Dog, a lonely canine in an anthropomorphic 1980s New York, who orders a mailout A.I. companion to keep him company. Spanish director Pablo Berger’s (Blancanieves) adaptation of Sara Varon’s comic will fill your heart and empty your tear ducts. 

In UK cinemas Mar 22

Sure, the first reboot of the beloved ’80s horror-comedy franchise was fairly middling, bogged down by backstory, with not enough jokes and one too many Harold Ramis holograms. But with all the exposition out of the way, now we arrive the proverbial fireworks factory, as the next-gen ’busters – Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace and Paul Rudd – return to New York to link up with the original crew to stop a malevolent force plunging the earth into a new Ice Age. 

Out worldwide Mar 29

With a confusing title to rival Rambo: First Blood Part II, The First Omen is a prequel to the actual first Omen, uncovering the dark forces within the Roman Catholic Church that allowed for the birth (and subsequent adoption) of the antichrist. Nell Tiger Free stars as an American woman in Rome who uncovers the conspiracy that presumably leads directly into the events of the first film. Ralph Ineson assumes the role of Father Brennan, the priest who blows the whistle on Damien’s true provenance before falling victim to an unfortunate falling-church-spire accident.

Out worldwide Apr 5