2024 is set to be a bumper year for big-screen releases, with a flurry of long-delayed blockbusters finally hitting cinemas, along with some hotly-anticipated sequels and new offerings from Oscar-winning auteurs, including Bong Joon-ho’s star-studded follow-up to Parasite. These are the 10 films you just can’t miss.
Madame Web (14 February)
Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney web-sling their way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in spectacular fashion in SJ Clarkson’s explosive action movie, which sees the former transform into the titular clairvoyant and the latter her promising protégé.
Dune: Part Two (1 March)
Timothée Chalamet riding a sandworm into battle, Zendaya beating her enemies to a pulp, Florence Pugh donning an extravagant chainmail headdress to play a politically-minded princess, Austin Butler taking the part of the brutish villain – the next instalment of Denis Villeneuve’s sweeping sci-fi saga is set to be a scorcher.
Mickey 17 (29 March)
Marking three-time Oscar winner Bong Joon-ho’s return to the director’s chair for the first time since Parasite, this mind-bending thriller sees Robert Pattinson embody a space traveller on a deadly mission, with support from the likes of Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo.
Challengers (26 April)
The other Zendaya-fronted release poised to set the box office alight this spring? This slippery romance from Luca Guadagnino, which casts her as a ruthless tennis coach opposite Mike Faist as her Grand Slam champion husband and Josh O’Connor as his latest opponent, someone with whom the pair share a complicated history.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (24 May)
Almost a decade on from his combustible, post-apocalyptic Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller is back with its nerve-jangling prequel, centred on Anya Taylor-Joy as a younger iteration of the future war captain previously played to perfection by a pixie-cropped, monosyllabic Charlize Theron.
Beetlejuice 2 (6 September)
Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara and Michael Keaton are reprising their roles from Tim Burton’s 1988 classic for the beloved auteur’s long-awaited sequel, which will see them joined by an all-star supporting cast which includes Jenna Ortega, Monica Bellucci and Willem Dafoe.
Joker: Folie à Deux (4 October)
After its predecessor made over $1 billion and earned its barnstorming lead a Best Actor Oscar, anticipation is sky high for Todd Phillips’s follow-up to his disturbing psychological thriller, which will be—wait for it—a musical that stars Lady Gaga as the eccentric Harley Quinn alongside Joaquin Phoenix’s beleaguered Joker. Yes, really.
Gladiator 2 (22 November)
Hot on the heels of Napoleon comes another soaring historical blockbuster from Ridley Scott: the tale of Lucius Verus, the nephew of Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus who was seen as a child in 2000’s Gladiator, as he reaches adulthood. As portrayed by Paul Mescal, who leads a stellar ensemble which also features Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington and Stranger Things’s Joseph Quinn, it should be a swords-and-sandals epic like no other.
Wicked: Part 1 (27 November)
Due to be released in two parts—with the second film following on 26 November 2025 – this big-screen rendering of the wildly successful musical is helmed by Jon M Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights), and sees Ariana Grande play Glinda the Good Witch, with Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West; Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero; Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible; and Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard himself.
Nosferatu (25 December)
For this atmospheric retelling of FW Murnau’s 1922 gothic horror, Robert Eggers has assembled a formidable line-up: Bill Skarsgård takes the lead as the vampiric Count Orlok, while Lily-Rose Depp, Emma Corrin, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe and Nicholas Hoult star as those whose lives are upturned by his arrival in a sleepy German town in the early 19th century.
This article was originally published on British Vogue.
