Though the Fall movie season was never going to be too impacted by the strikes (so many films had already been in production that the schedule would still be full), the nearing end of the WGA picket and the hopeful domino-fall of SAG-AFTRA may just mean that the end of the year will be as flush with incredible art as always. Looking forward to our most anticipated movies of the Fall, we revisit many of the films we caught at festivals all over the world in 2023. These range from Killers of the Flower Moon at Cannes to Hit Man at Venice to All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt way back at this year’s Sundance. Many more are just movies that look awesome, spanning all genres and forms.
With movies on the way that’ve gotten international acclaim and new releases from such legends as Martin Scorsese and Hayao Miyazaki, the Fall remains the best time for movies. We’ve powered through the summer tentpoles and we’re in the meat of things before the January-February slump where bad horror movies go to die. Many of these movies will hit both theaters and streaming, some in quick succession, especially as streamers up their acquisition game and invest heavily in the upcoming awards season. Some of the dates below will shift, and a few are yet to be solidified, but they’ll all be coming by year’s end (hopefully).
Here are the best movies to look forward to this Fall:
Premiere Date: November 3
Raven Jackson’s debut feature, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, has a southern sense of memory that I adore. It’s not that the coming-of-age film—which ambles around Mississippi, dipping its fingers into the sun-warmed river of time—is full of particulars. At least, not like that usually means. There aren’t any Whataburgers or Ward’s, no recognizable football teams or radio-favorite needledrops. In fact, the movie is so poetic as to be nearly faceless, which means it could apply to so many of us. But it’s all specific to its central force. An opening moment sees young Mack (Kaylee Nicole Johnson) fishing with her father. It’s quiet, simple. Slow enough to allow memories of my own dad taking me fishing to bubble to the surface of my consciousness. The delicacy and patience, the youthful aggravation tainting the natural sensations all around. The film encourages this kind of dual awareness, where you hold both this movie’s memories and your own in your mind, and asks for the same kind of patience and quiet dedication as a parent on a fishing trip. If you assent, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is endlessly rewarding, a tactile sense-memory tapestry of all the things that matter. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt announces a confident, arresting new artist who’s willing to lean on more experimental techniques and structures to arrive at the honesty she seeks. Raven Jackson’s created a beautifully specific ode to a life fully lived, which helps make it an elegant instrument of subjectivity. Like the water from which it draws so much thematic meaning, its fluid motion and form can contort to fit whatever experiences you’ve encountered, whatever events you dread, whatever hopes you still nurture. And it’s all so closely observed you can almost reach out and touch it.–Jacob Oller
Anatomy of a Fall
Premiere Date: November 10
This year’s winner of the Palme d’Or, Anatomy of the Fall offers a potent, gripping murder trial with deeply dramatic family elements intertwined with the proceedings. Toni Erdmann‘s Sandra Hüller leads the way (making this season a double whammy for the actress, who also stars in the similarly acclaimed The Zone of Interest) as a woman accused of killing her husband. Their blind son is the only witness to his father’s snowy, unseemly death — and the ensuing cerebral dissection (of a household, of a woman, of an event) will certainly leave us questioning more than the final verdict.
The Boy and the Heron
Premiere Date: December 8
The Boy and the Heron is Miyazaki’s first movie in a decade, since the game-changing The Wind Rises marked the last time the anime master threatened to retire from filmmaking. The Boy and the Heron has been even more enticing as a swan song because of the mystery surrounding the film. With no conventional press materials released in the years of development, we’ve been left to speculate what kind of narrative would befit Miyazaki’s (alleged) farewell. Now, after releasing in Japanese theaters in July, Studio Ghibli and GKIDS are bringing the movie stateside. Featuring the familiar, glorious hand-drawn house style of Ghibli alongside some innovate, nightmarish animation, The Boy and the Heron naturally deals with mortality, war, magic, history, lines between reality and fantasy, and human connection. Also, a heron. Though the movie’s Japanese title (How Do You Live?) references a 1937 Genzaburō Yoshino novel, Miyazaki is known for his liberal adaptation style, sometimes discarding everything but a single element of a source, so don’t look too hard for clues. Rather, it seems more illuminating to look to the themes and subject matter that has preoccupied Miyazaki’s later career, especially as the 82-year-old gets more and more comfortable explicitly addressing his age in his work.
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
Premiere Date: December 15 (Netflix)
The sequel over two decades in the making to one of the finest stop-motion comedies ever made, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is another reminder that, for all of Netflix’s streaming sins, they’ve been investing in animation like few other companies. While it’s lost a few of its key participants (for the best, Mel Gibson; for purposes that have to do with voice actors being replaced by A-listers, Julia Sawalha), the Aardman Animations follow-up tacks on familiar legacy-quel elements: A returning foe, a new generation of heroes (or, in this case, chickens) and a script-flip that turns the original plot on its head. Yes, this time the endearingly bulbous poultry are breaking into a farm, leaving their peaceful sanctuary. The ensuing action promises to be silly, sweet and filled with handcrafted artistry.
Premiere Date: September 29 (theaters); October 13 (Netflix)
Some people want to tough things out no matter what, come hell or high finance. For the Gordon Gekkos of the world, it’s not just that greed is good, it’s that greed is omnipresent. They can’t imagine life defined by anything else. Two of those Wall Streeters, Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich), have to hide their love because they work at the same investment firm. It’s a sexy little problem to have, a lot of running around and taking different routes to work, that’s snowballed. Naturally, they’ve got their cake and they’ve already saved room. But now, they’re in so deep that they live together and, at the beginning of the thrumming, damning relationship thriller that is writer/director Chloe Domont’s Fair Play, have gotten engaged. What were they thinking? Obviously this is only going to make their “get up at 4 AM to be verbally abused by an Ivy League asshole by 6 AM” lifestyles harder. But they’re the same kind of cutthroat, power-hungry strivers as the rest of their coworkers—as Emily asks her notoriously ruthless boss (Eddie Marsan), “Who wants it easy?” But, as Emily should know by now, half a decade out of Harvard and deep in the big firms’ weeds, the magnifying lens of the Financial District makes everything more intense—the money, the stress, the drug use, the sexism. It becomes unbearable. People burn out. That long fuse doesn’t seem dangerous to our couple (Just look how long it is! Plenty of time to deal with it) until Emily gets promoted over Luke.–Jacob Oller
Premiere Date: TBD (Netflix)
Armed with the kind of star wattage capable of outshining his co-stars, Glen Powell has cemented himself as a leading man. With the raucous comedy Hit Man (which he co-wrote with director Richard Linklater), Powell crafts a character that can ground its delightful and relentless series of plot twists. While Linklater and Powell’s last collaboration worked under the guise of an ensemble in Everybody Wants Some!!, Powell is the definitive protagonist of Hit Man. Gary (Powell) is a bumbling, lovable philosophy professor who works part-time with the undercover division of the New Orleans police department. He loves his cats, has a good relationship with his ex-wife and drives a sturdy, practical Honda Civic. When fellow detective Jasper (Austin Amelio), undercover as a hitman, is pulled from a case for misbehavior, Gary steps in, relishing the chance to immerse himself in another life, free from moral reasoning and the trappings of normality. Once he encounters the sweet and desperate Madison (Adria Arjona), who wants to rid herself of an abusive, domineering husband, his life spins into chaos. While the film weaves together colorful, tonally specific threads with relative ease, it is dominated by its romantic and comic impulses, following Madison and Gary’s relationship with unwavering focus. This requires unbidden chemistry between the two leads, a multi-hyphenate source of energy that both insulates them and propels the story forward. Powell and Arjona are up to the task, gravitating towards each other and leaning into every suggestive conversation with startling ease. Gary’s lessons in philosophy slowly coalesce with his personal experiences in Carrie Bradshaw-esque fashion. It is here that Hit Man feels somewhat shallow and underdeveloped, trying to shoehorn grander life lessons into a relatively simple relational set-up. While the ambition of such a storytelling move isn’t totally unwelcome, it does take the audience on an unnecessarily bumpy ride, forcing them to ascribe deeper meaning to a purely physical, chemistry-riddled expression of cinema. Arjona and Powell leave as the victors of this light excursion, following in the footsteps of Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, with shades of Cary Grant coloring Powell’s playful physicality. He is spry and breezy, thriving in the informality of the silly premise he and Linklater rip from real life (Hit Man is based on a Texas Monthly article by the same man who covered Bernie’s real-life inspiration). With such charming old-school performances, Hit Man peels back the layers of genre to reveal something alive–lovely in its full-bodied animation.—Anna McKibbin
The Holdovers
Premiere Date: October 27
Alexander Payne takes us back to school in order to satirize the larger American political landscape in The Holdovers, but his once-acidic tone has undoubtedly taken a shift toward the sincere since newcomer Reese Witherspoon first hit our screens as know-it-all Tracy Flick in Election nearly 25 years ago. Now, with the early 1970s-set holiday drama The Holdovers, his indictment of the American Dream may burn more slowly, but the gut punch Payne packs is no less severe, so long as you aren’t put off by a healthy dose of nostalgia. Stinky, sweaty, disgruntled Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti with a lazy eye), a hardass Ancient Civilizations professor who makes no attempt to hide how much he despises his “vulgar” students, is put in charge of babysitting the students whose parents don’t want to deal with them over the Christmas holiday break. “And I thought all the Nazis had left for Argentina,” quips the smartass leader of the gang, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), when Paul harshly disciplines the boys for fighting. Angus and Paul are not alone, as they are joined by Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the head of the school cafeteria, who recently lost her beloved son Curtis, himself a Barton alum, in the Vietnam war. If this sounds like the trappings of an “unlikely family of outsiders finds understanding during the holidays” kind of movie, it’s because that’s exactly what The Holdovers is. Neither Payne nor screenwriter David Hemingson are afraid to lean into the romantic notion that three disparate people with vastly different circumstances can briefly come together as a family, especially during Christmastime, for Christ’s sake. All three of the protagonists are hiding deeply held secrets and desires that are slowly revealed over the course of their time together, to the point that they truly come to rely on each other for trustworthy companionship. All of this is only plausible thanks to Hemingson’s well-developed screenplay, strong performances from all three leads and The Holdovers’ refined, cozy vibe. The syrupy soundtrack and softly glowing photography set the snug tone. If Election is a shot of tequila, The Holdovers is a slow succession of sips of bourbon that you don’t realize have affected your spatial awareness until you get out of your armchair.—Katarina Docalovich
Killers of the Flower Moon
Premiere Date: October 20
Martin Scorsese has made a career telling stories that tackle issues of justice, retribution and betrayal. From his overt and poetic crime films, through to his dark comedies, religious parables and character pieces, he has long been drawn to stories where the ambiguities of life collide with the complexities of survival, and where day-to-day choices result in consequences sometimes obvious, and sometimes far more subtle and insidious. With Killers of the Flower Moon, he crafts an ambitious historical drama that’s tragedies echo to this day, an observation of a criminal case that transformed the U.S. justice system and, perhaps too subtly, an allusion to the ongoing epidemic of murders targeting Indigenous women—acts of unsolved violence that are left to languish, continuing to afflict both my country of Canada and Scorsese’s native land. The displaced Nation of the Osage—kicked from their lands back East and forced to travel West, their population decimated—found themselves at the heart of a financial miracle. By coincidence or providence, the land that they called their own in Oklahoma proved to be a rich oil deposit, and the boon resulted in what was then extraordinary wealth for the Native population—but also enormous opportunities for exploitation and violence from those set to extract the oil. The Osage were granted certain economic benefits, but the very withdrawal of their funds was tightly monitored, a paternalistic system that did little to protect from those nefarious in their intentions. One way the system could be subverted was through marriage, and it’s here that the film takes its central story, landing somewhere between love and larceny. Lily Gladstone plays Mollie Burkhart, a beautiful young woman who is helping care for her elderly mother (legendary Cree/Métis actress Tantoo Cardinal). At the behest of his powerful cattle rancher uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro), returning soldier Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) is encouraged to flame the sparks of affection with Mollie both for personal benefit and to potentially secure a line into this lucre. Scorsese elicits terrific performances and provides a canvas for a remarkable story. The way he illustrates the ease in which lies are told and promises betrayed is deeply affecting, as is the way in which individual characters are given space to be complex, with flaws and contradictory feelings intact.–Jason Gorber
Maestro
Premiere Date: November 22 (theaters); December 20 (Netflix)
Bradley Cooper has already drawn attention (or disdain, depending on your propensity for internet discourse) regarding the visual decisions which make up his sophomore directorial effort Maestro. While his prosthetic nose has fueled endless thinkpieces, there is a more meaningful creative decision that the biopic coils around, revealing its outlook with emboldening confidence. As Felicia (Carey Mulligan) watches her husband, renowned composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein (Cooper), accept a post-concert round of applause, the camera holds on her back, rigidly observant and loosely balancing a cigarette. Suddenly the film lurches forward in time, but the camera is once again behind her, capturing the same raised shoulders, posture tipped forward towards the streetlamps. This marks the moment when Maestro switches from stark black-and-white to full color. No doubt such a decision will be dismissed as unnecessarily flashy (a critique that could undoubtedly be leveled at Cooper in other instances, particularly the more emotionally manipulative flashbacks intercut through both of his feature films), but it actually draws attention to Maestro’s gentle and lovely musings on the nature of marriage, celebrating the different stages that constitute a long-term relationship. Maestro is about this famous couple, the way their passions and careers braid into something knotty and beautiful. When Maestro revels in their relationship, playing with the facets of Mulligan and Cooper’s endearing chemistry, it sings. Cooper’s skill lies in crafting these momentous highs, blocking his actors to expose something novel and true. He positions his cast to deliberately disguise certain responses, spotlighting another’s expression; at a party, anonymous figures close in on an emotional Felicia, cleverly unmooring her. Cooper’s struggle to structure his stories and reign in his melodramatic tendencies flattens its successes, but if you are willing to embrace the film’s slower sensibilities, you’ll be rewarded with a careful portrait of a couple who redefine the scope of a successful marriage.–Anna McKibbin
May December
Premiere Date: November 17 (theaters); December 1 (Netflix)
Partway through Todd Haynes’ May December, actor Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) is asked how she chooses her roles by a group of high school drama students. Elizabeth is in town to research her upcoming lead role in a ripped-from-the-tabloids independent movie, a part she hopes will be statement enough to eclipse the work she’s currently recognized for (playing a veterinarian on a show called Norah’s Ark, just one of screenwriter Samy Burch’s winky little jokes about the biz). Her next part is decidedly not as family friendly: Elizabeth is set to play Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), a former teacher who made the news 20 years ago for having a sexual relationship with and subsequently marrying one of her seventh-grade students, Joe (Charles Melton). May December offers up a tantalizingly ambiguous answer to the question posed during that drama class visit. As she insinuates herself into the Atherton-Yoos’ life—tagging along with Gracie and her daughter Mary (Elizabeth Yu) as they shop for prom dresses, taking notes on the makeup brands Gracie uses, shadowing Joe at work—we begin to wonder whether Elizabeth’s devotion to the role comes only from a desperate desire to be taken seriously as an actor, or if there’s something deeper and darker lurking within. Burch’s script—and Portman’s brilliantly cryptic performance—keep these possibilities balanced on a fine edge. We’re never completely sure if Elizabeth is just going ultra-Method when, for example, she complains that the boys auditioning for the part of young Joe aren’t “sexy enough,” or when she visits the pet shop stockroom where the couple were first discovered and simulates the sexual encounter that led to Gracie’s arrest. The disturbing possibility that the two women are secretly more alike than Elizabeth lets on only grows when she talks to the drama students about sex scenes—telling them that, sometimes, the acting is in pretending she’s not enjoying them. That smudging of the line between Gracie and Elizabeth physically manifests in the gradual converging of their appearances in cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt’s inspired Bergman-esque images. May December is a film of great tonal delicacy, as Haynes, Burch and their actors delicately modulate the film between high camp and twisted psychological drama. Pulling off such a seemingly incongruous blend of sensationalism and sincere thoughtfulness is no easy task, but writer and director miraculously find a way to ease the tension between style and substance—and, what’s more, manage to deliver wry commentary on the way we consume scandals at the same time.–Farah Cheded
Napoleon
Premiere Date: November 22
Twenty-three years after working together on Gladiator, Ridley Scott has once again recruited Joaquin Phoenix as he veers back into historical epic mode with Napoleon. The film comes off the back of his 2021 double-release schedule, where he gave us the historical drama The Last Duel and the soapy family/true-crime saga of House of Gucci, highlighting the varied career of one of our most preeminent directors. As you may guess, the film is an account of the rise of the first emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, as viewed through Scott’s sweeping sense of craft. The official synopsis suggests a unique perspective as well: “The film is an original and personal look at Napoleon Bonaparte’s origins and his swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine.” The trailer offers an introduction to the French setting and foreboding tone before giving us a reminder that Scott has directed a whole bunch of the best movies ever made—sometimes you just forget that this guy made Alien and Blade Runner and, well, American Gangster, I guess. The film’s battle sequences are given their share of screen time as well, looking predictably excellent and vicious, and the costuming and production design seem staggering. The film is penned by David Scarpa, whose prior work is slight, most notably writing the screenplay for the 2008 The Day The Earth Stood Still remake, but Scott seems to have made him his right-hand man as of late, as he’s also written All The Money In The World and is working on the upcoming Gladiator 2.
The Pigeon Tunnel
Premiere Date: October 20
Three years after the death of spy-turned-spy-novelist John le Carré (real name David Cornwell), one of the greatest living nonfiction filmmakers dives into his life. Errol Morris’ The Pigeon Tunnel boasts the last, largest interview with the writer, with the filmmaker’s self-inserted style supplementing suitably tricky imagery (mirrors in a forest) and reenactments. Those looking to learn more about the author of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy couldn’t ask for a better captain through the liminal space between lived spycraft, imagined spycraft and the real life that lived in both worlds.
Poor Things
Premiere Date: December 8
Yorgos Lanthimos’ off-kilter, pastel-drenched Poor Things opens with static shots of silken embroidery. It is hard to ascertain the images themselves, threaded so neatly in a near-identical gray. But the slippery, elusive texture is integral to the film, which weaves together something thick and rich with detail. What follows is narrow in its focus and big and engulfing in its scale: The story of a young woman who must overcome the experiments enacted against her while embracing her changing body and irrepressible urges. As such, this adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s book of the same name is difficult to summarize, loosely following Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) as she grows to embrace adulthood despite the overbearing tutelage of her de facto father God (Willem Dafoe). Once introduced to the dashing and cocky Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), Bella recognizes the pitfalls of her sheltered life and endeavors to travel around the world, experiencing life anew before marrying her father’s sweet and bumbling assistant Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef). It picks up on many of the themes the director has concerned himself with, digging into the ways in which people will torture one another rather than accept the pain that lies dormant in their past, unwittingly exacting an interpersonal cost. Lying in the genre gulf between science fiction and straightforward drama, Poor Things also finds time to unleash Stone’s ability as a physical comedian, building a sticky, entrancing bodily language that lives somewhere between twitchy, childlike enthusiasm and mystical knowingness. She wanders through their eclectic family home with an unsteady gait, crashing into delicately hung porcelain displays and cackling rather than cowering at the destruction which follows. It is a deliciously amoral journey, the kind that has already secured Lanthimos ample praise over the course of his career. But this is perhaps the filmmaker’s most garish and confident endeavor, using Bella’s naïve perspective to design a world so heightened that it exists somewhere between a nightmare and a dream. It will satisfy fans of Lanthimos’ previous work and perhaps win over new viewers who are desperate to engage in the kind of coming-of-age stories that propel the genre forward.–Anna McKibbin
Priscilla
Premiere Date: November 3
Baz Luhrmann who? The year after Austin Butler rocked the world with his version of Elvis (and Tom Hanks played a silly little cartoon racist as Colonel Tom Parker), Sofia Coppola adapts Priscilla Presley’s memoir Elvis and Me for a decidedly different take on The King. Starring Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla and Jacob Elordi as Elvis, Priscilla fits squarely into Coppola’s filmography of women lost in worlds that seem built for someone else. Those looking for garish musical numbers and more edits than sequins should look elsewhere – this Elvis tale will be decidedly low-key and understated.
Silver Dollar Road
Premiere Date: October 13
After a trip to TV with the docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes, filmmaker Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) is back on the big screen with another potent documentary. Silver Dollar Road, referring to the at-risk property at the heart of Lizzie Presser’s ProPublica/New Yorker article “Kicked Off The Land,” explores the intense, racist greed that defines our nation — one hungry for money, yes, but mostly for land. This is nothing new, but using the plight of the Reels family as a case study allows Peck to dig into how the legal system (and every other system that makes up the United States) is designed to consume, steal, and profit a very select group of people.