This sunny season of big-screen entertainment begins and ends with two Timothée Chalamet roles that couldn’t be more different—and in between Wonka and Dune 2, there’s a fab new blockbuster to entertain every kind of film fan.
Here’s 20 of the season’s most tantalising cinema releases, along with when to expect them to arrive at your favourite cinema Down Under.
Wonka
The whimsical origin story of a slave-driving, child-torturing chocolate genius. Our critic Rory Doherty already gave Paul King’s Willy Wonka prequel a bittersweet review (“If you can suppress your class-conscious queries about Wonkanian ethics, Wonka is a perfectly pleasant adventure”). But we’re still hungry to see Timmy sing, dance, and speak as much Roald Dahl gibberish as he can manage.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
2018’s Aquaman earned a stunning $1.5 billion, but this long-awaited sequel has been trapped in murky waters. After multiple rounds of reshoots, that pesky controversy surrounding star Amber Heard, and massive canonical shake-ups in James Gunn’s DCEU, it remains to be seen whether audiences are keen to dive back in with Jason Momoa’s underwater hero once more.
Anyone But You
Wildly attractive celebs Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell “only look like the perfect couple”, as the poster for this new rom-com warns us. It’s got an eye-rollingly conventional plot—two one-time lovers who now loathe each other must pretend to be partnered up to make their crushes jealous—but the IRL relationship rumours between Sweeney and Powell should add intrigue and sex appeal.
Poor Things
She’s alive!!! Emma Stone is currently in her artsy, unconventional era, and this second collaboration with her The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthimos sees her play a female Frankenstein’s monster. Reborn into a wacky Victorian world, Stone will rebel against the stuffy men around her—played by Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef and more. Read Katie Smith-Wong’s review right here.
Wish
To celebrate the studio’s 100th anniversary, Disney breathes life into, um, the “wishing star” that Jiminy Cricket sings about in the company’s production logo. A musical fantasy in self-reverential, romantic style, Wish tells the story of a sorcerer’s apprentice (Ariana DeBose) who should be more careful what she wishes for, when an adorable lil anthropomorphised star she summons causes magic and chaos. Chris Pine voices the moustachioed bad guy.
Dream Scenario
Have you ever had a dream about Nicolas Cage? We can’t blame you, and we also can’t wait to see Nic play an eerie dream invader in A24’s surreal new comedy. Rory Doherty gave the Kaufman-esque movie a strong review recently: “In one of his strongest performances ever, Nicolas Cage emboldens not just Dream Scenario’s heightened, surreal edge, but its deeply distressing drama too.”
Ferrari
Adam Driver lives up to his surname as Enzo Ferrari, in Michael Mann’s racing biopic. We’ve published two different takes on the film here at Flicks: Cat Woods found Ferrari a “a riveting portrait of a man who is hyper vigilant about his career, his cars, and his public persona”, whilst a more cynical Luke Buckmaster feels that the film’s pacing is a problem (“like being stuck in a car driven by a geriatric in a school zone”).
Night Swim
Fear lurks just below the surface in Blumhouse’s latest scary movie, all about a suburban family’s haunted swimming pool. For such a basic concept, Bryce McGuire’s debut film has a pretty solid cast (Wyatt Russell and Banshees of Inisherin star Kerry Condon). Hopefully it adds a new level of terror to your summer ‘Marco Polo’ games.
Mean Girls
Somehow, it’s already been 20 years since Tina Fey introduced us to the world of Plastics, fetch, and burn books with 2004’s Mean Girls. Fey again pens the script for this Gen Z update, based on the hit broadway adaptation. Pop princess Reneé Rapp looks like an especial standout as villainous teen queen Regina, and Aussie talent Angourie Rice is our naive heroine Cady.
The Beekeeper
Jason Statham just wishes bad guys would mind their own beeswax in this new action-thriller from director David Ayer. Joined by Josh Hutcherson, Minnie Driver, and Jeremy Irons, the Stath is a “beekeeper” (read: a member of a secret ass-kicking organisation) seeking revenge for his kindly neighbour’s death. We hope this movie earns some positive buzz.
The Holdovers
Nobody plays a loveable curmudgeon quite like Paul Giamatti, and his reunion here with his Sideways director Alexander Payne couldn’t be more welcome either. In this 70s-set dramedy, Giamatti plays a history teacher forced to take care of boarding school students who have nowhere to go over the Christmas holidays. Da’Vine Joy Randolph brings some joy as his colleague, the cafeteria admin Mary.
All of Us Strangers
In a casting move that piqued the attention of horny girls and gays everywhere, internet boyfriends Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott play neighbours caught in a romantic chance encounter in this new film from British director Andrew Haigh. It’s an adaptation of a yearning, beloved Japanese novel, co-starring Jamie Bell and Claire Foy as our protagonist Scott’s late parents. Something hot, stirring, and profound to experience over this sultry season.
Priscilla
Sofia Coppola’s Presley biopic is so much more than just a feminist response to last year’s bombastic Elvis movie: it’s an incisive portrait of girlhood, of marriage, of standing just shy of the spotlight. Starring Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi as Priscilla Presley and her wildly famous husband, the film earned a rave review from our writer Rory Doherty: “Priscilla is intimate, revealing, and devastates with the lightest touch.”
The Iron Claw
We reckon you shouldn’t check out the true story of the Von Erich wrestling dynasty before going into Sean Durkin’s new film—leap into the ring blind, and emerge cheering and weeping. Zac Efron, Harris Dickinson, and Jeremy Allen White don the mullets and incredibly tiny shorts of the 1980s wrestling bros, grappling with fame, their father’s cruel expectations, and the devastation of loss.
The Color Purple
Much like Mean Girls, this is a new movie based on a musical that was based on a movie that was based on a book—but the similarities probably end there. Following the struggles of southern Black woman Celie during the early 1900s, this fresh adaptation has an absolutely stacked cast of Black acting and musical talent, from American Idol star Fantasia Barrino to Halle Bailey, H.E.R., Colman Domingo and Taraji P. Henson.
Argylle
A killer cast flesh out the latest action flick from Kingsman: The Secret Service director Matthew Vaughn, including everyone from Henry Cavill as a badass spy to pop star Dua Lipa. The stars, though, are Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell, as a nervous author and the spy she’s forced to team up with when her fictional plots turn out to not be so fictional after all.
Force of Nature: The Dry 2
Back in 2020, The Dry broke a COVID-era dry spell for Aussie cinema, quickly becoming one of the country’s most profitable films of all time. And despite some Actors’ Strike delays, this hotly-anticipated sequel could do just as well. Eric Bana returns as gruff cop Aaron Falk, with Anna Torv, Debora-Lee Furness, and Robin McLeavy leading the female-dominated cast.
Bob Marley: One Love
It’s kinda surprising that the revolutionary king of Reggae hasn’t been given the biopic treatment yet, and we don’t expect this one to be particularly hard-hitting—it’s being produced with the full permission of the late legend’s estate. Kingsley Ben-Adir dons the dreads.
Madame Web
“He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died”, Dakota Johnson leadenly recites in the trailer for this Spider-Man side-character origin story. Weaving its own sinister web months before we get Sony’s Kraven the Hunter, this confusing franchise entry also features Sydney Sweeney as Spider-Woman. Don’t count out any appearances of Venom or, fingers facetiously crossed, Morbius.
Dune: Part Two
Like spice through the hourglass, so are the days of Denis Villeneuve’s epic space opera adaptation. We can’t wait for more mega worms, more of Zendaya’s mysterious love interest, and bonkers new characters played by Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, and our emperor Christopher Walken.
