There’s been an upset at the box office in the waning days of September. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice edged out Transformers One, with the latter in danger of losing a lot of money even with a modest budget. That’s because The Wild Robot, DreamWorks Animation’s critically acclaimed film, is arriving this weekend just in time to tame the Autobots and the Decepticons. Meanwhile, we expect Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis to be a “Megaflopolis” with box office receipts of only $5 million to $7 million in its opening weekend. That movie is going to be remembered for all of the wrong reasons.
Heading into October, we can expect Joker: Folie à Deux to deliver some big numbers as more prominent films start to hit the big screen. There are still a lot of films to look forward to this year, and this list is where you can find all of the best new movies coming to theaters in 2024. Keep scrolling down for your guide to the rest of this year’s films.
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September 2024
The Wild Robot
Release date: September 27
This year’s big DreamWorks Animation movie is based on Peter Brown’s The Wild Robot, and features Lupita Nyong’o in the title role. Nyong’o voices Roz, a robot who is trapped on a remote island without any signs of civilization. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of life. As Roz adjusts to life in the wild, she befriends a fox named Fink (The Last of Us 2 star Pedro Pascal), and she adopts a goose named Brightbill (Kit Connor).
The rest of the voice cast includes Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy, and Stephanie Hsu. The script was written by director Chris Sanders.
Megalopolis
Release date: September 27
Francis Ford Coppola has wanted to make Megalopolis for nearly five decades. When none of the Hollywood studios got behind him, Coppola raised the $120 million he needed to fund Megalopolis on his own. Even then, the major studios still didn’t bite. Only Lionsgate came forward to give this movie an actual theatrical release.
The story takes place in an alternate world where a city called New Rome has been nearly destroyed by an accident. Cesar Catilina (Ferrari‘s Adam Driver), an architect who can control time, wants to rebuild the city as a utopia for all of its residents. Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) is against that because Cesar’s ideal city threatens the mayor’s ability to control it. Nathalie Emmanuel plays Franklyn’s daughter, Julia Cicero, who has romantic feelings for Cesar. Julia’s connection to both men may turn the fate of their city toward one or the other.
October 2024
Joker: Folie à Deux
Release date: October 4
If Joker hadn’t cleared $1 billion worldwide, it would have been hard to argue for a sequel considering that the young Bruce Wayne in the first film was at least 15 years away from becoming Batman. And Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) isn’t a very menacing Joker compared to the previous incarnations played by Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger. But that didn’t stop the Academy Awards from giving Phoenix the Oscar for Best Actor for his leading role.
Joker: Folie à Deux is introducing Lady Gaga as Harleen Quinzel, the woman who is destined to fall for the Joker and become his Harley Quinn. Their shared descent into madness and love is going to turn the Joker sequel into a musical. So it’s a good thing that Gaga can sing. We’re pretty sure that’s why she was cast in the first place.
White Bird
Release date: October 4
White Bird is a long-delayed sequel to Wonder that strangely enough, works as both a prequel and a sequel to the earlier film without too many links between them. For the present day sequences, Bryce Gheisar is reprising his role as Julian Albans, the bully from Wonder who is paying the price for his cruelty. To help Julian become a better person, his grandmother, Grandmère (Helen Mirren), shares the story of her life during World War II in occupied France.
That’s where the bulk of the movie takes place, as young Grandmère goes by her real name, Sara Blum (Ariella Glaser). As a Jewish girl, Sara’s life is in danger. And the only one who can save her is Julien Beaumier (Orlando Schwerdt), a teenager stricken with polio who was mercilessly bullied by her peers. Together, Sara and Julien may find a love that’s stronger than hate.
Piece by Piece
Release date: October 11
When is a Lego movie not a Lego movie? In this case, the answer is when it’s actually a music biopic for Pharrell Williams. Piece by Piece could probably have been told as a conventional film, but turning Williams’ life story into a Lego-style animated experience might bring in a much larger crowd. Especially if Joker: Folie à Deux is monopolizing the R-rated audience at the same time.
Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg are also lending their voices and Lego likenesses to this flick, but it’s Williams’ story. We’re intrigued to see if this experiment works.
Terrifier 3
Release date: October 11
It’s Christmas in October with Terrifier 3, but more in a Black Christmas way than a Bing Crosby White Christmas. There won’t be much Christmas joy in Miles County this year because Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) is playing Santa … and you aren’t going to like what he leaves under the Christmas tree.
Every horror slasher flick needs a final girl, and in this case, Lauren LaVera reprises her role as Sienna Shaw from Terrifier 2. Sienna managed to defeat and slay Art the Clown the last time he went on a rampage. Can Sienna pull off a Christmas miracle and do it again? Because it’s not just her life on the line. Every minute that Art is still on the loose, another victim may fall.
Flight Risk
Release date: October 18
Mel Gibson has been partially let out of mainstream movie jail for his next thriller, Flight Risk, which is getting a full theatrical release from Lionsgate. Except Gibson is only directing this film, which gives Mark Wahlberg to go the full Colin Farrell as an assassin named Daryl Booth. Daryl has been hired to dispatch a criminal informant, Winston (That ’90s Show‘s Topher Grace), and the FBI agent who is escorting him, Madelyn Harris (Michelle Dockery).
While the trailer reveals that Madelyn and Winston survive their initial fight with Daryl, it leaves them in a bad spot on a plane that neither of them knows how to fly. They can’t trust Daryl to set the plane down safely, and he’s not the only one out to kill them.
Smile 2
Release date: October 18
When you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you… except in the Smile franchise. The first Smile was a massive hit, especially for a horror film. That film established that there’s a curse that causes its victims to die with creepy smiles on their faces. And if you’re unfortunate enough to witness it, then you’re the next one on the curse’s hit list.
Naomi Scott headlines the sequel as Skye Riley, a very Taylor Swift-like pop star whose life is already cracking under the strain of fame. It’s only going to get worse for Skye when she becomes the curse’s next victim, and she witnesses unnerving smiles on the faces of people around her as something evil moves in for the kill.
Venom: The Last Dance
Release date: October 25
Venom: The Last Dance will supposedly be the “final” Venom movie featuring Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and his alien symbiote. Plot details have yet to be released, but from the trailer, we know that Chiwetel Ejiofor is playing a soldier who is trying to track down and capture Venom. Juno Temple plays a scientist with similar goals. Beyond that, we have no idea what’s going to happen, or if this film can stave off the inevitable collapse of Sony’s weak sauce Spider-Man-adjacent movies.
Your Monster
Release date: October 25
There aren’t a lot of horror rom-coms, but it’s not completely unheard of in Hollywood. Caroline Lindy wrote and directed Your Monster, which features Scream 5 and Abigail star Melissa Barrera as Laura Franco, a young woman who is dealing with a bad breakup and a potentially fatal cancer diagnosis.
Laura’s life takes a turn for the strange when she finds a literal monster in her closet, as played by Tommy Dewey. This monster may be the best man that Laura has ever met, and they start a romance together. But whether their love can survive their respective natures — and Laura’s prognosis — remains to be seen.
November 2024
Here
Release date: November 1
Robert Zemeckis has made some big swings before, and not all of them have been home runs. But he’s still trying something new with Here, a film that reunites him with Forest Gump stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. It’s based on a single-page comic, with a story expanded to cover 100 years in a single room, where the camera angle never changes in all of that time.
Hanks and Wright will be de-aged with CGI, and aged up as the story calls for it, as we see snapshots from their life together. Some of those effects look a little suspect in the trailer, but it’s possible the final film will be more convincing. It’s too soon to say how Here will be received, but it will be interesting to see if Zemeckis can make it work.
My Dead Friend Zoe
Release date: November 1
There isn’t a trailer yet for My Dead Friend Zoe, but it’s got a cast that may get some attention when the film arrives in November. Star Trek: Discovery‘s Sonequa Martin-Green stars as Merit, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who is haunted by an apparition of Zoe (Natalie Morales), who was her best friend in the army.
This doesn’t appear to be a horror movie, so the haunting is likely just in Merit’s mind. The brief description of the film says that Merit will go “head-to-head with her Vietnam vet grandfather at the family’s ancestral lake house.” We’re not sure if her grandfather is played by Ed Harris or Morgan Freeman, but both actors have significant roles in this movie as well.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Release date: November 8
Christmas comes early this year with The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, an adaptation of Barbara Robinson’s children’s novel. Grace (Judy Greer) and her husband, Bob Bradley (Pete Holmes), are among the townspeople putting on the annual Christmas pageant about the Nativity story. This year’s performance has been hijacked by the Herdman children: Imogene (Beatrice Schneider), Ralph (Mason D. Nelligan), Claude (Matthew Lamb), Leroy (Ewan Wood), Ollie (Essek Moore), and Gladys (Kynlee Heiman).
These kids are the troublemakers in town, and they’re not exactly familiar with the roles they’re supposed to be playing. Through their willingness to learn more, the Christmas pageant might take on new significance for both the children and the town that wrote them off as bad kids.
Conclave
Release date: November 8
The Vatican becomes the scene of a religious thriller in Conclave. The Pope is dead, and ordinarily, the process of selecting his successor would be straightforward. However, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) has stumbled upon a secret that could disqualify several of the candidates to be the next Pope, and it might even be big enough to unleash a scandal in the church itself.
With time running out, Cardinal Lawrence must discover the truth before a new Pope is elected. The film has a very impressive supporting cast, including Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, and Lucian Msamati, which may help its chances during next year’s awards season.
Red One
Release date: November 15
Can Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson save Christmas? Not by himself, he can’t! Red One teams the former wrestler with ex-Captain America actor Chris Evans to rescue Santa Claus (J. K. Simmons). Who has the magic or technology needed to capture Santa in the first place? That’s what North Pole’s security chief, Callum Drift (Johnson), needs to discover.
Bounty hunter Jack O’Malley (Evans) gets pulled into this Christmas insanity because he’s supposedly the best tracker in the world. Those skills will be put to the test, as he and Callum reluctantly team up to face down the threat to the holiday season. Ho, ho, ho.
Ghost Cat Anzu
Release date: November 15
Never underestimate the appeal of Japanese anime in theaters, especially a family-friendly pic like Ghost Cat Anzu, which embraces a retro style of 2-D animation that includes rotoscoped performances. That’s a very old-school animation technique. The story is about a young girl named Karin, who has been abandoned by her father in rural Japan. Now, only Karin’s grandfather is left to look after her until she meets Anzu, the titular ghost cat.
Karin doesn’t particularly like or trust Anzu, but they’re stuck together on this bizarre adventure that will determine both of their fates and whether they will remain together.
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