33 Movies We Can’t Wait to See This Fall

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This year’s Fall Preview consists of all the entertainment — from TV to video games to classical music — that Vulture writers and editors are excited to consume this season. Below, our movies list:

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Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

September 12

Release: Theatrical
Director: Simon Curtis
Stars: Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Michelle Dockery, Paul Giamatti, Elizabeth McGovern

The Crawley family and their servants have seen a lot over six television seasons and two previous films — the Titanic, World War I, the Roaring ’20s — but can they navigate the scandal of Lady Mary’s divorce? The 1930s are here, and, if the title is to be believed, the end of an era for Julian Fellowes’s period drama.

The Long Walk

September 12

Release: Theatrical
Director: Francis Lawrence
Stars: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Judy Greer, Mark Hamill

Decades of various filmmakers — George A. Romero, Frank Darabont, and André Øvredal — have signed on and then left the adaptation of this 1979 Stephen King horror novel. Hunger Games franchise director Lawrence will be the one to finally bring the dystopian tale, about a walking competition with deadly consequences for the losers, to the big screen.

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues

September 12

Release: Theatrical
Director: Rob Reiner
Stars: Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, Fran Drescher

Rockumentarian Marty DiBergi (played by mockumentary director Reiner) revisits his loudest subject, metal band Spinal Tap (Guest, McKean, and Shearer). Who knows how many ill-fated drummers they’ve gone through in the four decades since we last saw them perform “Stonehenge”?

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

September 19

Release: Theatrical
Director: Kogonada
Stars: Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell

Fate brings Farrell’s and Robbie’s characters together for a sweeping, fantastical romance. As they each take turns opening doors, the pair step into pivotal moments from their pasts and share their most personal memories.

One Battle After Another

September 26

Release: Theatrical
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Chase Infiniti

Eleven years after Inherent Vice, Anderson turns to another Thomas Pynchon novel for inspiration. In the loosely based on Vineland film, DiCaprio plays an ex-activist who teams up with his former revolutionary pals when a militarized adversary (Penn) makes trouble for his family.

The Smashing Machine

October 3

Release: Theatrical
Director: Benny Safdie
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader

Taking its name from the 2002 HBO documentary about mixed-martial artist Mark Kerr, this film stars Johnson as the two-time UFC Heavyweight Tournament Champion. Safdie focuses on both Kerr’s legendary career and personal struggles in his first solo feature-length directing project.

Anemone

October 3

Release: Limited theatrical (October 3); wide (October 10)
Director: Ronan Day-Lewis
Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Bean, Samuel Bottomley

Daniel Day-Lewis steps out of retirement (his last film was 2017’s Phantom Thread) to star in his son Ronan’s directorial debut. Co-written by the Day-Lewis duo, Anemone is about the complex relationships between male family members. Hmmm!

Tron: Ares

October 10

Release: Theatrical
Director: Joachim Rønning
Stars: Jared Leto, Jeff Bridges, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Hasan Minhaj, Jodie Turner-Smith

The first two Tron movies saw real people entering a digital world, but this time the computers are coming to (and for) us.

Kiss of the Spider Woman

October 10

Release: Theatrical
Director: Bill Condon
Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Diego Luna, Tonatiuh

The Tony Award–winning 1993 musical — itself based on the 1976 Argentine novel — gets another big-screen adaptation, this time from Condon (Chicago, Dreamgirls). In their bleak prison cell, Luis (Tonatiuh) brightens Valentín’s (Luna) days with memories of a splendid movie musical starring a larger-than-life diva named Ingrid Luna (Lopez).

Black Phone 2

October 17

Release: Theatrical
Director: Scott Derrickson
Stars: Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw

If you thought The Grabber (Hawke) was dead at the end of Black Phone, then you don’t know horror villains. The serial killer is back for revenge on Finney (Thames) and his psychic sister (McGraw). Hopefully the phone that allows Finney to speak to the ghosts of past victims will prove helpful again.

Blue Moon

October 17

Release: Limited theatrical (October 17), wide (October 24)
Director: Richard Linklater
Stars: Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott

It’s 1943 and famed Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart (Hawke) is trying to drink away his troubles at Theater District mainstay Sardi’s. He has just left the triumphant opening night of Oklahoma!, written by his ex-songwriting partner Richard Rodgers (Scott) and Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney).

Frankenstein

October 17

Release: Limited theatrical (October 17), Netflix (November 7)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Stars: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen, David Bradley, Charles Dance, Christoph Waltz

No stranger to monster films, Oscar-winner del Toro brings to life perhaps the most famous of all for his version of Mary Shelley’s gothic tale. Isaac stars as Dr. Victor Frankenstein while tall hunk Elordi plays his eternally damned creation.

Good Fortune

October 17

Release: Theatrical
Director: Aziz Ansari
Stars: Keanu Reeves, Ansari, Seth Rogen, Sandra Oh, and Keke Palmer

In Ansari’s cinematic directorial debut, a low-ranking guardian angel (Reeves) decides to stretch his wings with a It’s a Wonderful Life–style lesson. Unfortunately, when he swaps the lives of struggling odd-job guy Arj (Ansari) and rich tech bro Jeff (Rogen), they both agree that money is everything.

Hedda

October 22

Release: Limited theatrical (October 22), Prime Video (October 29)
Director: Nia DaCosta
Stars: Tessa Thompson, Imogen Poots, Tom Bateman

In this film based on Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, Thompson stars as the titular newlywed, who is already unhappy in her marriage to George (Bateman). She wants a life of refinement and is ready to scheme to get it.

Bugonia

October 24

Release: Limited theatrical (October 24), wide (October 31)
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Stars: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis

Lanthimos brings his Kinds of Kindness stars Stone and Plemons together for this remake of South Korean film Save the Green Planet! Here, a CEO is kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists who believe her to be an alien.

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Regretting You

October 24

Release: Theatrical
Director: Josh Boone
Stars: Mckenna Grace, Allison Williams, Mason Thames

Since this story about a mother (Williams) struggling to connect with her teen daughter (Grace) is an adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel, be prepared for dark family secrets and unresolved trauma.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

October 24

Release: Theatrical
Director: Scott Cooper
Stars: Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham

Hot off the commercial success of his double album The River, Bruce Springsteen (White) makes Nebraska, a personal, stripped-down album full of stories of struggling Americans, recorded in his New Jersey bedroom.

A House of Dynamite

October 24

Release: Netflix
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Stars: Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso

In Bigelow’s new political thriller for Netflix, a missile is launched at the United States from an unknown origin. White House officials must work fast to figure out who is behind the attack and how to respond.

Nuremberg

November 7

Release: Theatrical
Director: James Vanderbilt
Stars: Rami Malek, Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon

Based on Jack El-Hai’s The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley (Malek) is the U.S. Army psychiatrist tasked with evaluating the Nazi prisoners destined for the Nuremberg Trials, including Hermann Göring (Crowe).

Predator: Badlands

November 7

Release: Theatrical
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Stars: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi

Trachtenberg seems to have a lock on Predator. His 2022 prequel Prey won over critics and fans alike, and earlier this year Predator: Killer of Killers was an animated delight. In Badlands we follow an outcast Predator (Schuster-Koloamatangi) and his unlikely android friend (Fanning) on a quest.

Die My Love

November 7

Release: Theatrical
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek

A young couple (Lawrence and Pattinson) trade life in New York for a quieter setting in Montana to start a family. But when feelings of isolation start affecting the new mother postpartum, things take an unsettling turn.

Train Dreams

November 7

Release: Limited theatrical (November 7), Netflix (November 21)
Director: Clint Bentley
Stars: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Clifton Collins Jr.

Based on Denis Johnson’s award-winning novella, this artful, elliptical tale of one ordinary man’s life (Edgerton) in the early 20th century has already received rave reviews out of the Sundance Film Festival.

The Running Man

November 14

Release: Theatrical
Director: Edgar Wright
Stars: Glen Powell, Josh Brolin, William H. Macy, Lee Pace, Emilia Jones, Michael Cera

Nearly 40 years after the 1987 adaptation of Stephen King’s dystopian thriller, Powell takes on the Arnold Schwarzenegger role as a contestant in The Running Man, a gameshow in which he wins money for every hour he stays alive while assassins attempt to hunt him down.

Jay Kelly

November 14

Release: Limited theatrical (November 14), Netflix (December 5)
Director: Noah Baumbach
Stars: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup

In this film, co-written by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer, who also appears in the film, Clooney is tasked with asking us to suspend our collective disbelief by playing a famous actor traveling through Europe. Sandler co-stars as his manager.

Keeper

November 14

Release: Theatrical
Director: Osgood Perkins
Stars: Tatiana Maslany, Rossif Sutherland

Perkins, who began his acting career playing a young Norman Bates (a role originated by his father in Psycho), continues his ascent as one of the most in-demand horror directors (Longlegs, The Monkey). Here, Maslany and Sutherland play a couple on a romantic getaway in a cabin in the woods, where nothing ever goes wrong in horror movies.

Wicked: For Good

November 21

Release: Theatrical
Director: Jon M. Chu
Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey

After a year’s long intermission, the curtain rises again on Oz where Elphaba (Erivo) has become known as the Wicked Witch of the West, Glinda has gotten “the good” added to her name, and a certain young lady has blown in from Kansas.

Zootopia 2

November 26

Release: Theatrical
Directors: Jared Bush and Byron Howard
Stars: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, Ke Huy Quan

A pit viper (Quan) is on the loose in Zootopia, and buddy cops Judy Hopps (Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Bateman), back for the Disney animated sequel, are in hot pursuit of your family’s Thanksgiving dollars — ahem, the snake.

Hamnet

November 27

Release: Limited theatrical (November 27), wide (December 12)
Director: Chloé Zhao
Stars: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn

William Shakespeare (Mescal) and his wife (Buckley) lose their only son when he’s just 11 years old in this adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling novel fictionalizing the couple’s grief and its effects on the playwright’s career.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

December 12

Release: Netflix
Director: Rian Johnson
Stars: Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott

The third installment of Johnson’s mystery series will find world-famous, scene-chewing detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) solving another whodunit with a list of suspects populated almost entirely by big-name stars.

Avatar: Fire and Ash

December 19

Release: Theatrical
Director: James Cameron
Stars: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver

After meeting the Oceanic Metkayina clan of Na’vi in 2022’s The Way of Water, Jake Sully (Worthington) and Neytiri (Saldaña) encounter “the Ash People,” a fiery tribe with connections to series villain Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang). Will an air-based Na’vi people show up next?

The Housemaid

December 19

Release: Theatrical
Director: Paul Feig
Stars: Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar

In this film adaptation of Freida McFadden’s best-selling psychological thriller, Sweeney plays a down-on-her-luck woman with a spotty past who lands a job as a live-in housemaid for a married couple (Seyfried and Sklenar), who have some secrets of their own.

Marty Supreme

December 25

Release: Theatrical
Director: Josh Safdie
Stars: Timothée Chalamet; Gwyneth Paltrow; Tyler, the Creator

Chalamet (and his little mustache) stars as a gifted, young ping-pong player in Safdie’s mid-20th-century-set sports drama that has also lured Paltrow out of semi-retirement.

Song Sung Blue

December 25

Release: Theatrical
Director: Craig Brewer
Stars: Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson, Michael Imperioli

Based on the true story of Lighting & Thunder, a husband-and-wife Neil Diamond tribute band, Jackman and Hudson play the musicians who overcome struggles, including a freak accident, to win over Milwaukee audiences with their Vegas-style impersonations.

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