32 Movies We Can't Wait to See This Year

Here are the best, most anticipated 32 films coming to theatres, which includes a blockbuster where Robert Downey Jr. can talk to animals, two Vin Diesel movies, including Jet Li and Donnie Yen acting in the same movie and a Matthew McConaughey film.

Underwater

Release date: January 10
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassell, Jessica Henwick
Director: William Eubank (The Signal)
Why we're excited: It's been a while since we've had a good claustrophobic submarine movie, and Underwater looks like it won't disappoint. When a subterranean earthquake damages their research deep below the surface of the ocean, a group of researchers discovers that they may have awakened something else down there.

Like a Boss

Release date: January 10
Cast: Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne, Billy Porter, Salma Hayek
Director: Miguel Arteta (Beatriz at Dinner)
Why we're excited: If the plot -- two friends, with very different styles of doing business, start a beauty company together and have to deal with a thieving investor -- wasn't enough to get us excited about this movie, the cast of insanely great comedians will. It's about time Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne starred opposite each other.

Dolittle

Release date: January 17
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Harry Collett, Antonio Banderas, Michael Sheen 
Director: Stephen Gaghan (Syriana) 
Why we're excited: There's a possibility that Dolittle, the latest big screen version of Hugh Lofting's story of a doctor who can chat with animals, will be an expensive, Cats-esque disaster. The behind-the-scenes stories about the film's production are packed with ridiculous anecdotes. Can Robert Downey Jr. steer this leaky, critter-filled ship on charm alone? 

Bad Boys For Life

Release date: January 17
Cast: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig
Directors: Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (Black)
Why we're excited: Over a decade since 2003's Bad Boys II, the original bad boy cops of '90s action movie excess are back. This long-gestating threequel will feature Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reprising their roles again, which means they'll be doing lots of shouting, gun-pointing, and blowing stuff up in the streets of Miami.

The Turning 

Release date: January 24

Cast: Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard, Brooklynn Prince
Director: Floria Sigismondi (The Runaways)
Why we're excited: This modern day adaptation of Henry James' classic creeper The Turn of the Screw stars Mackenzie Davis, star of our favorite show of the 2010s, Halt and Catch Fire. She plays nanny to two children (Wolfhard and Prince) with some secrets in their vast, spooky mansion. Director Floria Sigismondi is an underrated stylist who has helmed episodes of shows like American Gods, Daredevil, and The Handmaid's Tale, along with a number of memorable music videos, so expect this one to have some unnerving visual flair to it. 

The Gentlemen

Release date: January 24
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery
Director: Guy Ritchie (Aladdin)
Why we're excited: The Gentlemen looks like a movie that's not actually a real movie, but a dream you might have after looking at a bunch of tweets about movies that people wished were real movies. (It also has nothing to do with similarly dapper, hyper-violent Kingsman series.) If anything, it looks like Guy Ritchie, who first established himself with talky gangster movies like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch before helming giant Hollywood blockbusters like Sherlock Holmes, is back to his old tricks. Ditching the big-budget spectacle of his recent work, he's assembled an ensemble cast of growly British gents -- plus the very Southern gent Matthew McConaughey 

Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn

Release date: February 7
Cast:  Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ewan McGregor, Rosie Perez
Director: Cathy Yan (Dead Pigs)
Why we're excited: It's commonly accepted knowledge that the best thing in the otherwise disastrous Suicide Squad was Margot Robbie's baseball-bat-wielding villain Harley Quinn. Well, now Harley gets her own star vehicle, produced by Robbie herself. Our anti-heroine has freed herself from both Jared Leto's creepy Joker and the leering male gaze of director David Ayer. Cathy Yan directs this team-up between the lady badasses of DC Comics, which will hopefully give Robbie's character her due.

The Lodge

Release date: February 7
Cast: Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh, Alicia Silverstone
Directors: Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (Goodnight Mommy)
Why we're excited: After premiering at last year's Sundance Film Festival, this chilly, snowbound horror film, which charts the psychological breakdown of a young woman (Keough) attempting to care for her stepchildren in a remote cabin, finally makes it to theaters in time for winter. If you were a fan of the filmmaker's previous film, 2014's unsettling Austrian parental nightmare Goodnight Mommy, you won't want to miss this similarly tense fable of family strife.

Sonic the Hedgehog 

Release date: February 14
Cast: Ben Schwartz, James Marsden, Jim Carrey, Tika Sumpter
Director: Jeff Fowler
Why we're excited: For a movie that didn't even come out that year, Sonic the Hedgehog, an attempt to bring the speedy blue Sega video game hero to the big screen, pretty much dominated a lot of film conversations on social media in 2019 -- mostly teeth-related conversations. If you haven't heard yet about the hedgehog-human teeth debacle, please educate yourselves, cringe at the appropriate moments, and find solace in the relief that the teeth will not look like that anymore. Which means the movie will be great, obviously.

Fantasy Island

Release date: February 14
Cast: Michael Peña, Maggie Q, Lucy Hale, Austin Stowell
Director: Jeff Wadlow (Truth or Dare)
Why we're excited: Adapting a cheesy '70s television series can be a hit or miss endeavor -- for every Charlie's Angels (2000) there's a Charlie's Angels (2019) -- but this Blumhouse produced reboot looks like it will emphasize the more sinister aspects of the show's high-concept premise about a mystical island where dreams come true. For the vacationers who arrive at the destination paradise looking for a little therapeutic rest and relaxation, the fantasies can quickly turn into nightmares.  

Downhill

Release date: February 14
Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Will Ferrell, Zach Woods, Kristofer Hivju
Director: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (The Way Way Back)
Why we're excited: There is good reason to be wary of Downhill, a remake of an already near perfect movie, Ruben Östlund's Force Majeure, which follows a family in crisis when the husband ditches his wife and children upon seeing an avalanche rushing toward them during a skiing vacation. On the other hand: There's also the promise of comedy legends Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell playing a married couple on the brink of implosion.

Bloodshot

Release date: February 21
Cast: Vin Diesel, Eiza González, Guy Pearce, Talulah Riley 
Director: David Wilson 
Why we're excited: It's worth checking out any movie where Vin Diesel, making another attempt at non-Fast franchise fare, mumbles "I've got unfinished business" in the trailer. This superhero thriller, which is based on a character from a long-running Valiant Comics title, follows a buff Marine (Diesel) who gets brought back from the dead by some super-scientists after the murder of his wife and child. As you'd imagine he's got revenge on his mind, hence all the "unfinished business" talk, but the shady folks who resurrected him as a self-healing, unkillable super-soldier have other more nefarious plans. 

The Call of the Wild

Release date: February 21
Cast: Harrison Ford, Karen Gillan, Cara Gee, Terry Notary
Director: Chris Sanders (The Croods)
Why we're excited: Just as every generation is riveted and traumatized anew by reading Jack London's canine classic, we each get to see new versions of it on the big screen. It's dog and man (Harrison Ford) against the cruel wilderness of the world's last northern frontier -- what's not to love? And let's not forget: filmmaker Chris Sanders also directed Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon, both of which are great. 

The Invisible Man

Release date: February 28
Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid
Director: Leigh Whannell (Upgrade)
Why we're excited: No, sadly, it's not a continuation of Universal Studios' ill fated Dark Universe series (RIP), but this version of H.G. Wells' terrifying classic The Invisible Man, which follows a woman convinced her abusive ex is torturing her from beyond the grave, looks like it'll do just fine on its own, thank you. Plus, we'll get to see plenty of Elisabeth Moss's patented Crazy Face as the main character doing battle with the unseeable foe. 

Wendy

Release date: February 28
Cast: Tommie Lynn Milazzo, Shay Walker
Director: Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Why we're excited: If you vibed with the combination of quasi-realism and fairytale aesthetics of Zeitlin's previous movie Beasts of the Southern Wild, you're gonna be head over heels for his update of J.M. Barrie's classic Peter Pan narrative, which has gotten its fair share of re-imaginings over the years. This version arrives complete with volcanic islands, railway trains to nowhere, and mysterious glowing underwater creatures. 

The Way Back

Release date: March 6
Cast: Ben Affleck, Al Madrigal, Michaela Watkins, Janina Gavankar
Director: Gavin O'Connor (The Accountant)
Why we're excited: With the Olympic hockey weepie Miracle and the mixed martial arts melodrama Warrior, director Gavin O'Connor proved he knows his way around the soulful, rough-hewn conventions of the sports movie genre. This gruff-looking tale of an alcoholic tasked with coaching a high school basketball team re-teams the filmmaker with Ben Affleck, the star of his bizarrely re-watchable thriller The Accountant, so expect lots of macho emoting and lesson-learning.

First Cow 

Release date: March 6
Cast: John Magaro, Orion Lee, René Auberjonois, Alia Shawkat
Director: Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women)
Why we're excited: Kelly Reichardt is one of the great underrated directors of this era, and her film about fur trapping in the 19th Century already received plenty of plaudits when it debuted at fall festivals in 2019. The movie, which was adapted from a novel by Reichardt's frequent collaborator Jonathan Raymond, tells a story of unlikely friendship against the often brutal backdrop of the Pacific Northwest, a territory she's explored in most of her other films. Plus, it features one of the final performances of the late great character actor René Auberjonois, who Star Trek fans will remember as Odo from Deep Space Nine.

A Quiet Place Part II 

Release date: March 20
Cast: Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cillian Murphy
Director: John Krasinski (A Quiet Place)
Why we're excited: 2018's sound-averse invasion parable A Quiet Place was the type of slick, efficient horror movie with a satisfying ending that doesn't really demand a sequel. The bare-bones "mythology" of the premise could be summed up in the goofy "What is the weakness?" question scrawled on a whiteboard in the background of the first movie. Still, unnecessary horror sequels can surprise you, and Blunt, the star of the original, is returning along with director John Krasinski.

Mulan

Release date: March 27 
Cast: Liu Yifei, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Gong Li
Director: Niki Caro (The Zookeeper's Wife)
Why we're excited: Okay, so the Disney live action remakes have burned us before. But something about this one looks different. Niki Caro's adaptation isn't a strict, beat for beat, retelling of the animated musical. (This new version isn't even a musical.) Instead, Caro appears to have made an epic action movie that (seems at least) to be respectful to the actual legend of Hua Mulan and features a cast consisting of luminaries like Jet Li, Donnie Yen, and Gong Li.

Saint Maud 

Release date: March 27 
Cast: Morfydd Clark, Jennifer Ehle, Lily Frazer 
Director: Rose Glass 
Why we're excited: To some movie fans, A24 horror has become a genre unto itself, and we are ready for the body horror of this new entry from first time feature filmmaker Rose Glass about a nurse (Clark) who is a little too preoccupied with her own saintliness. The trailer comes packed with striking, shadow-filled images of ominous sink drains, a floating body, and a very uncomfortable pair of shoes. Pray for some solid scares. 

The New Mutants

Release date: April 3
Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Maisie Williams, Charlie Heaton, Henry Zaga 
Director: Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) 
Why we're excited: After multiple delays and rescheduled release dates, this horror-tinged X-Men spin-off starring Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch) and Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) as young mutants figuring out their new abilities looks like it will finally hit theaters. It was originally supposed to come out in 2018, with the likely goal of launching a new set of young X-Men movies, but it got caught up in corporate limbo following the sale of 20th Century Fox to Disney.

No Time to Die

Release date: April 8
Cast: Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Ana de Armas
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga (Beats of No Nation)
Why we're excited: It's been a rough road to Daniel Craig's final outing as James Bond. First Danny Boyle left the project, and then production had to be shut down midway through after Craig suffered an injury. But director Cary Joji Fukunaga, best known for the first season of True Detective, is an inspired choice of a director, and the franchise is adding some necessary new blood like Lashana Lynch as a fellow super spy and foil for the main man. If Craig really is determined to leave the franchise, hopefully he'll go out in style. 

Antlers

Release date: April17
Cast: Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons, Jeremy T. Thomas, Graham Greene
Director: Scott Cooper (Hostiles) 
Why we're excited: As a region, the Pacific Northwest lends itself to the moody, fog-filled atmospherics of horror. What's going on in those woods? This spooky-looking Oregon-set tale, an adaptation of a short story by Channel Zero creator Nick Antosca, presumably answers that question in some detail, telling the story of a teacher (Russell) dealing with a mysterious young student harboring a dark secret. It's also produced by creature-feature-fan Guillermo Del Toro, so expect to see some actual antlers.

Promising Young Woman

Release date: April 17
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Laverne Cox, Molly Shannon
Director: Emerald Fennell 
Why we're excited: Writer and actress Emerald Fennell, best known for running the second season of Killing Eve, makes her film directorial debut with this cheeky-looking revenge tale. It features Carey Mulligan as a woman who pretends to be drunk at bars to entrap men who are looking to take advantage of members of the opposite sex. A trailer set to a violin cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic" only served to pique our interest further.

Bad Trip

Release date: April 24
Cast: Eric Andre, Lil Rel Howery, Tiffany Haddish
Director: Kitao Sakurai 
Why we're excited: Adult Swim's The Eric Andre Show, an absurd parody of the late night talk show format, remains one of the funniest comedy series of the last decade. This prank-film, which looks like Andre's anarchic version of a Jackass-like stunt spectacular with a road-trip narrative conceit, should be just as odd, alienating, and unrelenting as the show that helped make him a beloved cult figure in certain corners of the internet.

Black Widow

Release date: May 1
Cast: Scarlett Johanssen, Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz, David Harbour
Director: Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome)
Why we're excited: Nearly ten years after the Internet began clamoring for a standalone film featuring the MCU's first female Avenger, we're finally getting one, and it looks like a lot of shooty, kicky, punchy, Russian spy fun. Not to mention the story takes place between Civil War and Infinity War, so you might want to watch out for a familiar face or two you may not expect.

The Woman in the Window

Release date: May 15
Cast: Amy Adams, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore
Director: Joe Wright (Darkest Hour)
Why we're excited: Amy Adams seems to have found her niche playing women with mental health issues who are constantly unsure if what they're seeing is real or imagined. Don't get it twisted: we love this for her, and The Woman in the Window, an adaptation of a bestselling novel with a truly bizarre backstory, looks like a fast-paced thriller with a really nasty streak. How many knives do you count in that trailer? At least five.

Fast & Furious 9 

Release date: May 22
Cast: Vin Diesel, Charlize Theron, Helen Mirren, John Cena
Director: Justin Lin (Fast & Furious 6)
Why we're excited: After taking a break from the series for a few movies, the Fast and Furious franchise's best director (it's not even a contest) Justin Lin is finally back in the driver's seat (sorry), taking the Fast fam on a new, exciting adventure. We don't know a whole lot about what this movie will be about, other than Charlize Theron's evil computer hacker Cipher will return and John Cena will be joining the cast, but it's basically a given that this will have a ton of cool cars in it. 

Artemis Fowl

Release date: May 29
Cast: Ferdia Shaw, Judi Dench, Nonso Anozie, Hong Chau, Josh Gad
Director: Kenneth Branagh (Murder on the Orient Express)
Why we're excited: Artemis Fowl is one of those young adult fantasy book series that basically demanded a film adaptation as soon as the first one was published. That was back in 2001, so you can imagine how rabid the fans' anticipation has become since then. The good news is, the movie, which is based on Eoin Colfer's first novel in the series about a boy genius (Shaw) searching for his father, looks great, and modern CGI has evolved enough to give the fantastical bits the spiffy visual effects they deserve.

Wonder Woman 1984

Release date: June 5
Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal
Director: Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman)
Why we're excited: We loved Wonder Woman, one of the best films to come out of the modern day superhero onslaught, which means we're extra jazzed to see its pleasingly retro-looking follow up. Director Patty Jenkins returns and throws Diana Prince into 1984 where she visits malls and wears power suits. Somehow Chris Pine's Steve Trevor is also there, as are some new villains played by Pedro Pascal and Kristen Wiig.

Top Gun: Maverick

Release date: June 26
Cast: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, John Hamm
Director: Joseph Kosinski (Oblivion)
Why we're excited: Daredevil movie star Tom Cruise returns to the cockpit of a fighter jet for this long-rumored sequel to his 1986 Tony Scott flight school adventure. Miles Teller will play Lieutenant Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, the son of Anthony Edwards' Goose from the original, so expect lots of life lessons, barroom sing-alongs, and, yes, some beach volleyball. Take us back to the danger zone, ASAP.

In the Heights

Release date: June 26
Cast: Anthony Ramos, Melissa Barrera, Corey Hawkins, Lin-Manuel Miranda
Director: Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians)
Why we're excited: Lin-Manuel Miranda made his mark before Hamilton with this musical ode to the neighborhood where he was raised. Now it comes to the screen with rising star Anthony Ramos as protagonist Usnavi, the character Miranda played on Broadway. We're most excited to see what Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu does now that he's back in Step Up mode, filming intricately choreographed, massive dance sequences on New York City streets.

Check out our 2020 release calendar below and drop a like if there are movies that you can't wait to see.

To watch the trailers of this upcoming new movies, please click Read more.

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