Fall Movie Preview 2020

While the words “uncertain” and “uncharted waters” all seem like melancholic cliches at this point, the 2020 fall moviegoing season in how we watch new movies will be just as interesting as the new films scheduled to be released this fall season. While the season has always been known for offering high quality movies that paves the road for the Oscars, the fall movie going season is certainly to be a lot more unconventional than previous years. While many high profile films have set some release dates, many other studios and distributors are still holding back, while others will be opening in theaters by regions outside COVID-19 epidemic hot spots, while other distributors will be releasing their films on demand or even virtually. Many of the fall film festivals such as Toronto and New York will also be going virtual this year.

Regardless of the unpredictability in how we watch movies in the coming months, there are plenty of movies to look forward to. This year’s slated films will have new films by Sofia Coppola, Charlie Kaufman, Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, Chloe Zhao, Miranda July, Julie Taymor, Denis Villeneuve, and Niki Caro. Of course the big delayed summer blockbusters are now slated into the fall season (for now) with “Black Widow,” “Mulan,” and “Wonder Woman 1984” all hopes to give much needed escapism in such peril times, but for now, here are 16 films that I am most anticipated for this fall season.

1. On the Rocks (d. Sofia Coppola)

(October)

Oscar-winning filmmaker Sofia Coppola reunites with Bill Murray for their first theatrical release together since the 2003 masterpiece Lost in Translation, in which Coppola won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the film received numerous other nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Murray.

The trailer looks very amusing and equally poignant as it appears to be about Laura, (Rashida Jones), a New York mother who goes incognito with Felix (Bill Murray), her estranged playboy father (Bill Murray) to spy on her overly busy husband (Marlon Wayans) as they venture out in New York City searching for answers in the dysfunction and suspicions that arise in modern marriage.

Drawing in the father-daughter relationship angle that we once saw explored in Coppola’s 2010 overlooked Somewhere, this appears to be Coppola’s most accessible work to date, but I am sure her artful sensibilities and meticulous attention to detail will still reign supreme.

2. Dune (d. Denis Villeneuve)

(December 18th)

Denis Villeneuve easily made a mark for himself in the previous decade, both with thrillers with films like Prisoners and Sicario, and he made a splash in the sci-fi genre with such films as Enemy, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049, and now he takes on perhaps the challenging science fiction story of all time: Frank Herbert’s Dune. Source material that is so bold and visionary that even David Lynch failed at his adaptation of it, and Alejandro Jodrowsky could never get his vision truly off the ground. It’s like the Don Quixote of sci-fi. Villeneuve has a first-rate cast that consists of Timothee Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Charlotte Rampling, and Stellan Skarsgard.

The film will certainly be bold as it will hold such high expectations. Villeneuve is coming fresh off Blade Runner 2049, which was that rare studio movie that also felt like a mature art-house film. If Villeneuve can carry through his visual and conceptual momentum that was on full display in “Blade Runner 2049,” this will no doubt be a sci-fi movie for the ages.

3. “Nomadland” (d. Chloé Zhao)

(December 4)

Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland will certainly be an awards worthy film, it’s already officially selected in all the major fall film festivals. Adapted from Jessica Bruder’s novel, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, starring two-time Oscar winner Frances McDormand (Fargo, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri) plays a woman who ventures out and experiences life outside the mundane following after her town goes into an economic collapse.

Zhao, who made a splash a few years ago with The Rider, who also has Marvel’s The Eternals being released next year, is certainly a great talent who holds so much potential.

4. Tenet (d. Christopher Nolan)

(September 3)

Christopher Nolan is right up there with Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron as being one of the most well-known and respected filmmakers of all time. Everyone who goes to film school has Nolan on their mind just as he will always be on the mind of film reviewers and audiences alike. Nolan is the current people’s champ of filmmaking and Tenet hopes to be one that big blockbuster that gives us that great cinematic escapism we have all been waiting and yearning for.

The film stars John David Washington and Robert Pattinson as agents who use quantum psychics to stop a Russian oligarch (Kenneth Branagh) from carrying out his master plan of starting World War III. While the film was originally supposed to be the most anticipated summer blockbuster, it has now become a fall movie due to the release date push backs. It is Nolan’s most expensive movie yet (Over $200 million) and was shot over seven nations. The film is supposed to be Nolan’s most grandiose and ambitious film to date, which is challenging to say because Nolan is one of the most ambitious filmmakers around today. Hopefully the film lives up to its potential.

5. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (d. Charlie Kaufman)

(September 4)

This film appears to be a far creeper, and every bit as surreal from the brilliant mind of Oscar-winning writer turned filmmaker Charlie Kaufman. Pulling from Lain Reid’s horror novel, the film appears to use horror tropes and off-kilter surrealism as it explores routine Kaufman themes about loneliness, relationships, loss of love, and soul-searching. Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons play a recent couple who go on a trip to meet his parents (Toni Collette and David Thewlis), in which they are kept trapped inside from a severe blizzard. Just like Synecdoche, New York and Kaufman’s 2015 animated masterpiece Anomalisa, the film appears to be very internal and psychological as the imagery reflects psychological deterioration. While being an adaptation, this film looks to be highly inventive, wholly original, and dizzying.

6. The Devil All the Time (d. Antonio Campos)

(September 16)

Acclaimed filmmaker Antonio Campos’ new film The Devil All the Time is his first film since the exceptional and distressing Christine and the cast looks stellar, including Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgard, Jason Clarke, Riley Keough, Mia Wasikowska, and Robert Pattinson. Adapted from the novel by Donald Ray Pollock and set in Appalachian mountains, the film appears to be a cautionary exploration of a religious community taking their convictions to horrifying and extreme depths. I anticipate a brooding and gripping film.

7. Kajillionaire (d. Miranda July)

(September 18)

Miranda July’s (Me and You and Everyone We Know, The Future) first movie in almost a decade stars Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins, and Debra Winger as a family of grifters who’s life begins to collapse around them. They live in a bubble factory and they con and grift their way throughout Los Angeles. As anticipated, July looks to merge the quirkiness with the pathos, and from the concept it appears it be an Americanized version of Shoplifters or even Parasite.

8. The Nest (d. Sean Durkin)

(September 18)

Director Sean Durkin made a huge splash back in 2011 with his feature film debut Martha Marcy May Marlene that paved the way for Elizabeth Olson before the days she would generate Marvel fame. It took 9 years for Surkin to return to a follow-up and the film became a huge hit at this year’s Sundance.

The story explores a controlling husband (Jude Law) who suddenly moves his wife (Carrie Coon) and kids into a confined mansion is supposed to be one of the most immersive and stylized films of the year. Arcade Fire’s Reed Perry wrote the original score and hopefully Durkin can recapture the distinctive style he hinted at 9 years ago.

9. Deep Water (d. Adrian Lyne)

(November 13)

Adrian Lyne has a huge reputation of the erotic thriller (see Fatal Attraction, 9 1/2 Weeks, and Unfaithful), his newest film will join the erotic thriller array with “Deep Water,” working with writers Zach Helm (Stranger Than Fiction) and Sam Levinson (HBO’s Euphoria) who adapted the screenplay from Patricia Highsmith (Carol).

Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas (fresh off her acclaim in “Knives Out”) star as a married couple Vic and Melinda, who have open marriages in which dark secrets from Melinda’s past begin to resurface that lead them down a dangerous journey of deception and cat-and-mouse games. The erotic thriller hasn’t really been popular genre in sometime, but if anyone can audiences back into that genre, Lynne is the filmmaker to do it.

10. West Side Story (d. Steven Spielberg)

(December 18)

One of the most anticipated films of the year is Steven Spielberg’s modern adaptation of the classic 1957 Broadway musical that was adapted into a Oscar-winning film in 1961 that was directed by Robert Wise and Jermone Robbins. Spielberg will be in collaboration again with Lincoln screenwriter Tony Kushner, and many might think it’s useless for Spielberg to even attempt to touch such a classic, but there is no doubt a lot of curiosity hangs over the material.