The biggest new movie releases coming out in 2024, like Dune 2, Godzilla and Kong, the Borderlands movie, new Mad Max, and so much more to look forward to.
Followers of the movie release calendar just can’t get a moment’s peace: As soon as COVID-19-era disruptions were smoothed out and production pipelines mostly restored in 2023, a lengthy two-guild strike threw everything out of whack again. Delays, shifts, and cancellations galore added to the usual mix of theatrical releases and (fewer, but still notable) direct-to-streaming productions.
Then again, it wouldn’t be a look at the movie year that lies ahead without a bunch of unpredictable shifts, no matter the cause. Even if the first quarter of 2024 looks more barren than usual and a few superheroes may have flown straight out of the summer skies, the year still has plenty of titles worth anticipating — as this list of 50 particularly exciting-sounding movies proves. This year has ghosts, apes, pandas, sentient emotions, killer ballerinas, gladiators, vampires, sandworms, bioexorcists, and no fewer than three Spider-Man movies that do not feature Spider-Man. As always, these dates are subject to change, but here’s how 2024 is shaping up right now.The Book of Clarence
Release date: In theaters Jan. 12
Director: Jeymes Samuel
Cast: LaKeith Stanfield, Omar Sy, Teyana Taylor
Jeymes Samuel, who previously directed Netflix’s visually arresting all-star Western The Harder They Fall, turns his sights on a Biblical adventure with a comic twist. There’s definitely something rather Life of Brian about the idea of Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield), the twin brother of the apostle Thomas, positioning himself as a new messiah to better his station in life. Mean Girls
Release date: In theaters Jan. 12
Directors: Samantha Jayne, Arturo Perez Jr.
Cast: Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, Tina Fey
The unusual movie-to-stage-musical-to-movie-musical pipeline has one all-time-great success (Little Shop of Horrors) and a bunch more failed curiosities, like the 2005 version of The Producers. What Mean Girls has going for it is the constant presence of screenwriter/co-star Tina Fey, who wrote both movies as well as the Broadway musical that bridges them. There’s something appealing about the idea of a comedy writer allowed to revise and update such trendy-yet-timeless material over the course of 20 years.Role Play
Release date: On Prime Video Jan. 12
Director: Thomas Vincent
Cast: Kaley Cuoco, David Oyelowo, Bill Nighy
Emma (Kaley Cuoco) is a normal New Jersey suburbanite, married to the mild-mannered Dave (David Oyelowo), who has no idea that she’s also a contract killer. After learning the truth, he winds up on a wild, violent adventure with his ass-kicking spouse. In other words, they’re going to tell each other some True Lies? Argylle
Release date: In theaters Feb. 2
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill
Matthew Vaughn has directed movies for 20 years now, and Argylle is actually the first one since his debut that doesn’t have some kind of connection to the world of comics and graphic novels. That said, it sure looks closer to Kingsman than Layer Cake, with a shy author (Bryce Dallas Howard) of outlandish espionage novels teaming up with an actual spy (Sam Rockwell) when her books start hewing eerily close to reality — or so some shadowy figures claim. The exact plot line remains a mystery, but the stacked ensemble is clear as day, conspicuously CG cat and all. Lisa Frankenstein
Release date: In theaters Feb. 9
Director: Zelda Williams
Cast: Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Carla Gugino
What a difference 15 years makes; back in 2009, Jennifer’s Body was a notorious flop for screenwriter Diablo Cody, not long after winning an Oscar for Juno. Now, it’s her reclaimed feminist-horror comedy that gets namechecked in the trailer for her latest project, the 1989-set Lisa Frankenstein. Yes, it does involve reanimation: Lisa (Kathryn Newton) brings a handsome Victorian corpse back to life, and murderous gothic romance appears to ensue, under the direction of Zelda Williams (daughter of Robin). If this is Cody’s Frankenstein and Jennifer’s Body is her de facto Dracula, maybe she can work her way through all of the classic Universal Monsters. Madame Web
Release date: In theaters Feb. 14
Director: S.J. Clarkson
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Adam Scott
Undeterred by the relatively unsuccessful Morbius, the delay of Kraven the Hunter to 2024 (more on that soon), and widespread internet derision for any of these movies that aren’t a Venom sequel, Sony continues their SSWSFNU (Sony Spider-Man Without Spider-Man For Now Universe) series with Madame Web. The best chance these movies have is to go nuttier than the MCU will allow, and that certainly seems to be the case here, as Dakota Johnson gains the short-term prediction superpowers of Nicolas Cage in Next and Sydney Sweeney becomes Spider-Woman at some point.Drive-Away Dolls
Release date: In theaters Feb. 23
Director: Ethan Coen
Cast: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein
Left to his own devices apart from his brother, Joel Coen made an expressive black-and-white version of Macbeth. Ethan, meanwhile, opted to team up with his wife Tricia Cooke for a raucous-looking crime comedy. Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan play a pair of young lesbians whose road trip to Florida is scrambled by a group of criminals. Dune: Part Two
Release date: In theaters March 1
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh
Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi adaptation looked like an expensive risk back in 2021, when it premiered simultaneously on theaters and HBO Max — and then it made a bunch of money and garnered a ton of Oscar nominations. Don’t necessarily expect awards bait from the second half of the story; per Villeneuve himself, it’s less reflective and more action-packed than its predecessor. Chalamet returns as the exiled Paul Atreides, who teams up with revolutionaries (including Zendaya’s Chani, only glimpsed in the first film) to prevent catastrophe from befalling the spice-rich planet of Arrakis. Kung Fu Panda 4
Release date: In theaters March 8
Directors: Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger
Cast: Jack Black, Awkwafina, Viola Davis
It’s a good thing DreamWorks doesn’t demand exclusivity deals from its voiceover talent: Kung Fu Panda 4 teams Jack Black, returning to DreamWorks after jumping over to Illumination to sing “Peaches” as Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, with Awkwafina, a Bad Guys alum who has also done voices for Illumination and Disney. Here, Awkwafina voices Zhen, a fox who helps Po (Black) fend off a new, shapeshifting foe called The Chameleon (Viola Davis). Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Release date: In theaters March 29
Director: Gil Kenan
Cast: Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd
Sony finally got its Ghostbusters franchise with the slavishly reverent (and not especially funny!) Ghostbusters: Afterlife. This follow-up moves characters from that film to New York City, presumably for opportunities to interact with surviving cast members from the 1984 original; Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson all appear in the trailer, where some kind of fear-based supernatural entity freezes the city in the middle of summer.Mickey 17
Release date: In theaters March 29
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette
Following his multiple Oscar wins for Parasite, filmmaker Bong Joon-ho took one of the longest breaks of his career; now he’s back with a primarily English-language sci-fi picture (his first since Snowpiercer), another spring release without any footage release so far. It’s about an “expendable,” but not the kind who used to star in 1980s action movies; this one is a lowly employee named Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) who has the ability to regenerate after death. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Release date: In theaters April 12
Director: Adam Wingard
Cast: Dan Stevens, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry
Godzilla is so hot right now! He’s been on the big screen in the critically acclaimed hit Godzilla Minus One, made some rare TV appearances via Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and appears to venture into the Hollow Earth for this sequel to 2021’s zestily goofy Godzilla vs. Kong. No longer instinctive enemies but gigantic frenemies, Kong and Godzilla face a new foe in the form of a newly discovered Titan — seemingly another huge ape who’s coming for Kong’s crown. Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver
Release date: On Netflix April 19
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Sofia Boutella, Charlie Hunnam, Ed Skrein
Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon may not be the most blatantly split-in-half two-part movie ever made, but the first part wasn’t exactly a complete and satisfying story, either. Then again, what’s most fun about the movie is its frequent and weird bursts of visual imagination, which suggests that The Scargiver doesn’t even necessarily need to stick the landing to provide plenty of ridiculous fun in the vein of Jupiter Ascending or The Chronicles of Riddick.Challengers
Release date: In theaters April 26
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Zendaya, Mike Faist, Josh O’Connor
The sex-scene discourse will get another workout with Challengers, an athletic spin on the love triangle starring Zendaya, Mike Faist (West Side Story), and Josh O’Connor as tennis pros facing off in the bedroom and on the court. The presence of earthy, sometimes button-pushing director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) virtually guarantees that this won’t be just a Netflix-ready rom-com.The Fall Guy
Release date: In theaters May 3
Director: David Leitch
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson
For the first time since 2006, the May-through-August summer movie season kicks off with a non-Marvel character. (The MCU in particular has kept a stranglehold on this date since 2015.) What’s more, The Fall Guy isn’t even a superhero story — it’s that very ‘90s form of event movie, the big-budget, big-star adaptation of an old TV show. In for Lee Majors is Ryan Gosling, playing a stuntman turned amateur detective trying to locate the star of his latest project — which happens to be directed by his ex (Emily Blunt). Gosling looks like he’s back in The Nice Guys mode, and if the trailer’s quips aren’t all up to Shane Black’s level, it’s awfully nice to think of a (relatively) old-fashioned star vehicle at the head of the big summer-kickoff hype train for a change.If
Release date: In theaters May 17
Director: John Krasinski
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Cailey Fleming, Steve Carell
John Krasinski’s directorial follow-up to his A Quiet Place movies approaches a kid in a fantastical situation from a slightly less terrifying angle: In If, a young girl (Cailey Fleming, who played a young Rey in The Force Awakens) discovers she can see the discarded imaginary friends of other children. Ryan Reynolds plays some kind of imaginary-friend emissary — though the film’s Paramount release precludes a Bing Bong cameo. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Release date: In theaters May 24
Director: George Miller
Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Nathan Jones
George Miller took 30 years to bring back post-apocalyptic road warrior Mad Max via 2015’s Fury Road. The spinoff Furiosa, by contrast, arrives just eight years after that Oscar-winning blockbuster, though it takes more than a few pages from the Fury Road playbook. Most noticeably, it recasts its central character, with Anya Taylor-Joy playing a younger version of Charlize Theron’s one-armed commander/driver/warrior from the earlier film.
