11. Toy Story 4
Pixar’s original and best just keeps rolling along: this fourth chunk has been in the works since 2014 at least. A few major details have emerged: there’s a new character – a fork – called, you guessed it, Forky, voiced by Arrested Development’s Tony Hale, and there’s the usual mad trip outside, this time to rescue Bo Peep.
12. Untitled Noah Baumbach film
While We’re Young’s standout Adam Driver reunites with its director for this comedy about a long-distance divorce co-starring Scarlett Johansson. Ray Liotta and Laura Dern co-star.
13. Misbehaviour
Keira Knightley is a women’s libber who invaded the stage with 50 others when the Albert Hall hosted Miss World in 1970. Greg Kinnear is Bob Hope, the host upset by their football rattles and flour bombs, Gugu M’batha Raw plays Miss Grenada, the first ever black winner of the competition.
14. Frozen 2
Historically, Disney has tended to avoid sequels to its animated hits, preferring to dump follow-ups on straight-to-DVD and similar. But the advent of Pixar has changed all that, and the siren call of another Frozen film was too much to resist. Expect a second dose of inspirational girl-power stylings.
15. Star Wars: Episode IX
As yet untitled, this follow-up to The Last Jedi (and the third in the sequel-trilogy begun with The Force Awakens) sees JJ Abrams step back into the director’s chair, after Colin Trevorrow left the project. Plot details are scarce as ever, but we know that unused footage from episodes seven and eight will be used to give Princess Leia a purchase in the storyline, despite the death of Carrie Fisher in 2016.
16. Benedetta
Paul Verhoeven is now very much back in the game after the success of Elle; here he is courting controversy once again with a thigh-slapper about lesbian nuns in renaissance-era Italy. Virginie Efira plays real life sister and mystic Benedetta Carlini, tormented by erotic visions and having an affair with another woman. Charlotte Rampling puts in an inevitable appearance.
17. The Laundromat
“Laundromat” as in money laundering. Steven Soderbergh’s new one is a return to the ripped-from-the-headlines thriller he did so well with Traffic and Erin Brockovich. This time it’s about the journalism surrounding the Panama papers data dump, which revealed the tax avoidance strategy of a host of influential figures.
18. The Dead Don’t Die
A second foray into the realm of the undead (after the brilliantly deadpan rocker-vampire mashup Only Lovers Left Alive) by former indie-auteur god Jim Jarmusch. Major names – Adam Driver, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton – are back for a Jarmusch zombie comedy; sadly Daniel Craig appears to have dropped out.
19. Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
Richard Linklater’s latest is a larky looking mystery based on Maria Semple’s novel and starring Cate Blanchett as a cynical but loving mother who disappears suddenly on the eve of a family trip to Antarctica with her husband (Billy Crudup) and 13-year-old daughter. Kristen Wiig and Judy Greer are among her much-loathed local parents.
20. Captain Marvel
The much-heralded first female superhero film from Marvel (shamefully nearly two years after DC’s Wonder Woman) sees Brie Larson, Oscar winner for Room, take on the role of Carol Danvers, a fighter pilot endowed with humongous alien powers after an accident. A “de-aged” Samuel L Jackson pops up as a young(ish), pre-eyepatch Nick Fury.
