What new movies are coming out of Hollywood in 2024? Studios are still catching up after last year’s strikes ground production and deal-making to a halt, and a number of new films hitting theaters this year had their release dates pushed back due to the strikes, including Dune: Part Two (February 28th on IMAX, March 1st in all theaters), Challengers (April 26th), (July 26th), Venom 3 (November 8th), Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (May 24th), and others.
2024’s slate started the year slowly, with no single film cracking the $100 million mark in the domestic box office in January, according to Gower Street Analytics. Only Wonka and Mean Girls were able to crack $50 million.
Movies that could bring more people to theaters this year include big-name sequels like Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (May 24th), Inside Out 2 (June 14th), Despicable Me 4 (July 3rd), Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (September 6th), The Karate Kid (December 13th), and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Mufasa: The Lion King (both December 20th).
Here are the biggest movie release dates and trailers set for 2024 and beyond:
Nov 24
Wes Davis
Trailers of the week: Minecraft, Elio, and Alien: Earth
This week, I went to a theater to watch a showing of the black-and-white version of Johnny Mnemonic, starring Keanu Reeves. Old-heads like me may recall it as a bad mid-90s cyberpunk film (written by William Gibson!) about a data courier whose brain is the storage medium, but who had to have his childhood memories erased to make space for the work.
I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid, and you know what? It’s still not a good movie. But if you ignore the plot holes, mostly awful acting, and terrible pacing, it’s at least very cool to look at. Also, I had totally forgotten about Ice T’s turn as J-Bone, leader of the Lo-Tek underground. It was fun enough, but it was weird to hear the theater audience erupt with applause at the end, though, knowing how it was received almost three decades ago.
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Nov 2
Wes Davis
Trailers of the week: Squid Game, Presence, and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
With all the noise from the lead-up to the 2024 US Presidential election next week, you’d be forgiven for having missed some of the trailers that came out over the last few days. Not to worry; I’ve got you covered for some of the best ones.
This week’s trailers included a teaser for Netflix’s second season of Squid Game, a new haunted house horror film from Steven Soderbergh, and a look at Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. Daniel Craig showed up in a trailer for a new A24 movie called Queer.
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Oct 6
Wes Davis
Trailers of the week: Nosferatu, The Franchise, and Squid Game 2
Can you feel it? There’s a slight chill in the air, the Sun is retiring earlier, and the leaves are beginning to change (at least in my Midwestern city). We’re wading right into the time of year when everyone starts posting the vampire Kermit the Frog meme to show how ready they are for Halloween. I’m even starting to eye that Shudder re-subscribe button.
October has its own vibe at the cinema, and theatrical releases this month include Operation Blood Hunt, a movie about 1944 special forces fighting werewolves in the Pacific theater, and Seven Cemeteries, a Danny Trejo-starring film about a guy who hires a witch to resurrect his posse to save a woman’s ranch. And let’s not forget Rumours, which I’m very excited for.
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Sep 28
Wes Davis
Trailers of the week: Thunderbolts, Rumors, and Disclaimer
This week, I’ve been slowly catching up on Dark Matter; I’m about 20 hours into Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on the Switch; and I’m still trying to work a trip to the movie theater into my schedule to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
I’m behind, in other words! And this week’s trailers shoveled so much more onto my need-to-watch pile, from the next Marvel MCU film, Thunderbolts, to the amusingly bizarre black comedy Rumours, to Disclaimer, Alfonso Cuarón’s new Apple TV Plus series. That’s to say nothing of all the game trailers from Sony’s State of Play event this week.
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Aug 31
Wes Davis
Trailers of the week: Sonic 3, Napoleon, and Agatha All Along
This week brought a few noteworthy movie and TV trailers — the big one being Sonic the Hedgehog 3. And while I won’t include them here, you should check out some of the trailers included with our coverage of the most recent Nintendo Direct (shoutout to the Nintendo DS Castlevania games collection).
It’s clear that summer is winding down, and so are the big blockbusters. Things will liven up a bit with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice next week, but things are looking quiet for a little bit after that.
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The biggest trailers of the week: June 23rd to June 29th
I’m stuck in a weird spot when it comes to movies and TV, these days. On one hand, the constant churn of remakes, reboots, franchise movies, and sequels often feels like it comes at the expense of original storytelling. But on the other, I am unabashedly looking forward to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, I’m really enjoying The Acolyte, and I’m sorry, but I’m the reason Nintendo just keeps remaking games, and I will continue to be. (Also, I feel I must apologize to my friends and family in advance for my absence when Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is released.)
Thankfully, the trailers that showed up this week look as promising as any of the best of those.
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Jun 25
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Do you have a moment to talk about A24’s missionary horror?
Hugh Grant was fantastic in HBO’s The Regime as the imprisoned former lover of a deranged dictator who locked him away in a dungeon beneath her castle. And it looks like he’s also going to turn it out in in Heretic, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods new horror about a man with a penchant for imprisoning (and torturing) Mormon missionaries. Movie’s out November 15th.
Jun 17
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Megalopolis LIVES (in theaters this September.)
This year’s Cannes Film Festival belonged to the madness of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, and now that Lionsgate has secured the film’s distribution rights, we can expect to see it in theaters on September 27th.
Jun 8
Wes Davis
There’s virtually no indication in the trailers for so far that Wolverine feels anything but disgust and irritation at Deadpool as they get down to whatever fourth wall-breaking multiverse shenanigans the film holds in store. That’s made all the more apparent by a Hugh Jackman whose increasingly craggy face only seems to be more fit to represent Logan as time goes on.
The new trailer leans way more into bits and one-liners than the previous two. Maybe that’s because Marvel and Disney have already set up the movie’s emotional stakes, first for Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and then for Wolverine. This one is all dick jokes and a cranky Jackman scowling and raging and glaring with everything he has.
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Jun 8
Wes Davis
The biggest movie trailers for the first week of June
Two of my favorite trailers for this week share a common theme: parasitic aliens. The trope has given us some of the finest moments in cinema history; consider the whole Alien franchise, the horrifying dog transformation in The Thing, or that scene from Spaceballs. You could make a convincing argument that Star Trek’s Borg race are parasites of a kind, too.
It’s a versatile premise that lets a movie be as heady or grotesque or action-packed as its creators want. And two of sci-fi’s most beloved fictional freeloaders are showing up this week.
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May 14
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Megalopolis’ first teaser makes it look like everything Coppola dreamt it would be
After gestating in the mind of writer / director Francis Ford Coppola for the better part of the last century, Megalopolis is finally making its way to the big screen at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. And from the looks of the sci-fi epic’s first teaser trailer, it might be just about everything Coppola always dreamt it would be.
Set in a sprawling metropolis that’s been devastated by a cataclysmic natural disaster, Megalopolis tells the story of how architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) tries to rebuild the city using his unusual ability to control time. There seems to be no stopping or reversing the shower of flaming meteors that descend upon the city in the new trailer as Cesar and other citizens watch in horror. But as imperiled as the city may be, Cesar appears to be dead set on trying to convince people how it could be remade as a utopia if only they would understand his visions for a better future.
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Here’s the first Mufasa teaser. I’m not lion.
Given the success of Disney’s “live-action” remake of The Lion King, a prequel seemed inevitable, so here we are with Mufasa. It looks a lot like the original, only this time they added an ice level and a villain voiced by Mads Mikkelsen. It hits theaters on December 20th.
Apr 28
Wes Davis
The best movie trailers for the week of April 21st
I’ve been making more of an effort to keep up with movies lately and even managed the rare feat of seeing one in an actual movie theater. I saw Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which stars Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Elza González, Babs Olusanmokun, and others in what I interpreted as a goofy spaghetti western / spy / heist film.
I suppose it’s also a war movie, being based (very loosely) on a true story about a collection of unstoppable guys set on an unsanctioned secret mission to destroy a German U-boat resupply ship during World War II. It doesn’t try to ruminate on the weight of the mission, which was to clear the way for American ships to cross the Atlantic and join the war effort. Ministry is all vibes and style. You know, a Guy Ritchie movie.
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Apr 24
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Ron Howard’s Jim Henson documentary looks like a tearjerker.
Jim Henson Idea Man, Ron Howard’s new Disney Plus documentary about the man who dreamt up the Muppets, is obviously going to have its lighthearted moments. But the doc’s first trailer makes it feel like a sentimental tearjerker that will have people putting on their favorite Henson productions after it debuts on May 31st.
Apr 23
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Zoë Kravitz’s Blink Twice has all the telltale signs of being a good time.
Blink Twice, director co-writer Zoë Kravitz’s new psychological thriller about two women (Naomi Ackie and Alia Shawkat) trapped on an eccentric billionaire’s (Channing Tatum) island, sounds like a cross between Glass Onion and The Menu.
And the movie’s first trailer makes it seem like those two flavors are going to go pretty well together Blink Twice hits theaters on August 23rd.
Apr 23
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Netflix’s Atlas is looking more and more like a buddy cop movie about working with AI
At first glance, Netflix’s upcoming action thriller Atlas, starring Jennifer Lopez, seemed like it was going to be a rather serious movie about a mech pilot fighting to survive on an inhospitable planet. That could still be the case, but the movie’s latest trailer makes it out to be a bit more of a sci-fi buddy cop affair with an emphasis on human / robot alliances.
Though a maniacal machine (Simu Liu) dead-set on eradicating humanity presents the biggest threat in Atlas, the movie’s new trailer puts a spotlight on how an AI-powered battle armor will join Atlas Shepherd (Lopez) in her fight to save the world. With so many killer robots on the loose and doing a bang-up job of destroying cities, it makes sense that Atlas would be distrustful of thinking machines, regardless of how good-natured they appear to be. It makes a bit less sense that Atlas, someone who doesn’t know how to fully operate a piece of intelligent battle armor, would be sent on a mission requiring her to use one in order to stay safe.
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Apr 13
Wes Davis
This week’s trailers offered twists on familiar genres
This week saw some fun trailers tapping into heady science fiction, comic book movies, and taboo horror, each with a fun mixed genre twist. Joker: Folie à Deux is a comic book movie about the love affair of The Joker and Harley Quinn that’s also a musical, and Apple TV Plus’ new Dark Matter series is a kidnapping thriller with an interesting alternate reality twist. Then there’s MaXXXine, a horror slasher that looks to also be a whodunit crime mystery.
Joker: Folie à Deux takes a crack at the origin of The Joker and Harley Quinn’s romance, which has been explored in some of the best episodes of Batman: The Animated Series and lightly featured in 2016’s Suicide Squad. This movie is supposed to be a “jukebox musical” — you know, like Moulin Rouge, except it’s about a murderous pair of lovers with unconventional ideas about jokes. It will be out on October 4th.
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Apr 8
Wes Davis
Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum faked the Moon landing.
Or they will, in a new movie called Fly Me to the Moon, from Apple Original Films (and distributed by Sony Pictures). The movie imagines Johansson and Tatum as Kelly Jones and Cole Davis, who are given the directive to film a fake Apollo landing just in case the real one goes sideways.
It hits theaters July 12th.
Apr 8
Andrew Webster
A24’s horror trilogy heads to the ’80s in first MaXXXine trailer
It’s shaping up to be a promising summer of horror. Last week, we got a first glimpse at Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo, which comes out in August, and this week is starting off with the first trailer for Ti West’s MaXXXine. The movie will round out a trilogy that kicked off in 2022 with the release of both X and its prequel Pearl; it hits theaters on July 5th.
As the title implies, the new movie follows aspiring actress Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) as she attempts to make it big in Hollywood in 1985 following the gruesome events of X. Much like Pearl before her (also played by Goth), she seems willing to do anything to make it happen. But bad news: a mysterious killer known as the “night stalker” is on the loose, complicating those plans.
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Apr 4
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Megan shimmied so Abigail could grand jeté.
Abigail, Universal’s new horror about a vampire posing as a young girl, seems to have all the makings of a classic killer child movie. But watching the film’s new trailer, you can absolutely see Megan’s influence as Abigail prances around while murdering folks she just wants to have fun with.
Abigail hits theaters on April 19th.
Apr 3
Andrew Webster
Cuckoo is clocking in.
The new trailer for Tilman Singer’s horror film — which stars Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens — doesn’t give a lot away, but it sure does look scary. You can find out for yourself when it hits theaters on August 9th.
Apr 1
Andrew Webster
Ape escape.
The new trailer for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has what all good action movies need: an overhead shot of people being hunted in tall grass. (See Prey, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and X-Files: Fight the Future for more on this subject.) The latest Apes hits theaters on May 10th.
Mar 31
Wes Davis
“Space babies!”
Commenters on the second Doctor Who trailer really love Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor saying, “I will shatter this silly little battlefield into dust.”
I’m sure they’re right and that’s a better line, but I love the exuberance of “space babies!” (even if talking babies still look terrible in the year of our lord 2024). The new season hits Disney Plus on May 10th (or BBC iPlayer in the UK on May 11th).
Mar 27
Andrew Webster
Fresh off some big wins at the Oscars,
Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos is already back with his next film, Kinds of Kindness. The first teaser trailer doesn’t reveal much — aside from a stacked cast — but the movie is described as a “triptych fable” that hits theaters on June 21st.
Mar 26
Kevin Nguyen
Evil does not exist, but a new trailer does.
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s follow-up to Drive My Car was one of my favorites out of last year’s New York Film Festival. Fellow Hamaguchi-heads can see it when it comes to theaters May 3rd.