20 ‘Wild Horse Nine’ (Nov. 6)
Diego Araya Corvalán/Searchlight Pictures
A veteran CIA operative (John Malkovich) and his younger counterpart (Sam Rockwell) take a trip to Easter Island together. The nature of their assignment may or may not involve inter-organization skullduggery surrounding the fact that one of them is writing a book about all the dirty tricks they’ve pulled in the name of American diplomacy over the years — something the agency tends to frown upon. Expect the new film from Martin McDonagh to have everything you’d imagine from the man who gave us Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Banshees of Inisherin: whip-crack dialogue, incredible performances, a lot of profanity, father-figure relationships with fraught psychological baggage, pitch-black humor, and even more profanity. Plus: Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, and Parker Posey.
19 ‘Madden’ (Nov. 11)
Chuck Zlotnik/Amazon Studios
Who better to play the larger-than-life Oakland Raiders coach, NFL personality, and face of the greatest console sports videogame ever made (no offense, Tony Hawk) than Nicolas Cage? His Cageness steps on to the gridiron to portray the football icon for director David O. Russell’s biopic. Christian Bale plays Raiders owner Al Davis (!); Kathryn Hahn is John’s wife, Virginia; John Mulaney is Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins; Sienna Miller and Shane Ellis take the field as well. (This will begin streaming on Amazon on Nov. 18.)
18 ‘How to Rob a Bank’ (Nov. 13)
Megan Schoenbachler/Amazon Studios
It’s one thing to liberate banks of their greenback stacks — and a whole other thing to post videos online detailing exactly how to do it and get away with it, all in the name of class revolt. Director David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train) adds a heavy dose of populist rage to this heist movie, with Nicolas Hoult’s mask-loving mastermind becoming a YouTube folk hero thanks to his instructional robbery primers. Pete Davidson and Shōgun‘s Anna Sawai are his literal partners in crime; John C. Reilly is the federal agent doggedly pursuing the righteous crook; Zoë Kravitz is a hacker recruited to help find the gang.
17 ‘Paper Tiger’ (Nov. 13)
It’s 1986, and Irwin Pearl (Miles Teller) wants more for his wife (Scarlett Johansson) and kids than just a comfortable middle-class life in Queens. Enter his cocky ex-cop brother, Gary (Adam Driver), who thinks he has the solution: a lucrative opportunity involving the Russian Mob, the Gowanus Canal, and a loose sense of what constitutes legal business practices. Soon, things fall apart, the center cannot hold, etc. It’s the sort of gritty, moody, character-driven thriller that writer-director James Gray cut his teeth on back in the day, as well as a highly personal look at what happens when you chase the American Dream and instead wake up in a capitalistic nightmare.
16 ‘Victorian Psycho’ (Nov. 13)
Helen Sloan/Bleecker Street
The year is 1853. The setting is Ensor House, a remote manor filled with properly dark hallways and shadowy corners. The latest addition to the estate’s staff is one Winifred Notty (Longlegs‘ Maika Monroe), a governess. Strange things are afoot shortly after her arrival, which may or may not be a coincidence. Given our knowledge of Gothic thrillers and the evocative title of director Zachary Wigon’s addition to the subgenre, we’re gonna opt for “totally not a coincidence.” Also skulking around in various states of 19th-century gloom: Thomasin Mckenzie, Jason Isaacs, Ruth Wilson, and Hamnet‘s Jacobi Jupe.
15 ‘Elsinore’ (Nov. 20)
Focus Features
British theatergoers knew Ian Charleson as one of the most accomplished actors to ever tread the boards. Filmgoers around the world primarily knew him as one of the Olympic runners in the Oscar winner Chariots of Fire. In the winter of 1989, Charleson would play the lead role in Hamlet for the National Theatre, and give what many feel remains the definitive 20th-century take on the melancholy Dane. The actor would be dead from AIDS-related complications a few months later. Andrew Scott steps into some mighty big shoes to play Charleson in the final year of his life, as he prepares to for one last go at the Shakespeare play and wrestles with notions of more things on heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in most folks’ philosophies. Olivia Colman, Billie Piper, Peter Mullan, Juliet Stevenson, and Agatha All Along‘s Joe Locke round out the cast.
14 ‘Josephine’ (Nov. 20)
Greta Zozula
Every Sunday, a jock-ish dad (Channing Tatum) and his eight-year-old daughter, Josephine (Mason Reeves), go running in the park near their apartment in San Francisco. One morning, the girl strays off their usual path, and happens to witness an assault. The child is then forced to grow up way too quickly when the case goes to trial, while her dad and mom (Gemma Chan) try to manage the collateral damage. The near-consensus pick for the best film to come out of this year’s Sundance, writer-director Beth de Araújo’s sophomore film confirms she’s a major next-generation talent; even if you shuddered appreciatively at her debut, the 2022 neo-Nazi Karen parable Soft & Quiet, you simply won’t be prepared for the emotional wallop this packs.
13 ‘The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping’ (Nov. 20)
Murray Close/Lionsgate
Ah yes, another Hunger Games prequel! This one takes place roughly a quarter century before the original movie, with a handsome young Haymitch Abernathy (played by handsome young Australian actor Joseph Zada) competing in the games — but there’s a catch. Because of some obscure rule, this particular competition requires not one but two tributes from each district. This means Haymitch has to go toe to toe with one of his neighbors as well as his fellow citizens, in the form of District 12 resident Maysilee Donner (McKenna Grace). Also dropping by the dystopian nation of Panem: Elle Fanning, Kieran Culkin, Glenn Close, Ralph Fiennes, Jesse Plemons, Maya Hawke, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Billy Porter, Iris Apatow, and Lily Taylor. The franchise’s resident auteur Francis Lawrence directs.
12 ‘The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth’ (Nov. 25)
Karwai Tang/WireImage
If you’ve read Quentin Tarantino’s novelization of Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, then you know there’s a vast, untapped reservoir of stories revolving around Brad Pitt’s stuntman/personal assistant/Manson family hater Cliff Booth. The good news: Tarantino decided to turn one of these “mis-adventures” into a script, which allegedly catches up with Booth close to a decade after the events of the first movie. The even better news: Pitt is back to reprise his Oscar-winning role, with Timothy Olyphant, Elizabeth Debicki, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Carla Gugino, Peter Weller, Holt McCallany, and Scott Caan joining in the fun. The best news: David Fincher (!!!) directs.
11 ‘All of a Sudden’ (Nov. 25)
NEON
Drive My Car director Ryusuke Hamaguchi sets his sights on this equally delicate, emotionally resonant tale of a French health-care manager (Virginie Efira) who befriends a Japanese playwright (Tao Okamoto) dying of terminal cancer. That one-sentence synopsis can’t begin to do justice to what lies in store for moviegoers. Let’s just say that Hamaguchi’s breakthrough Oscar winner wasn’t a fluke; there are few contemporary world-cinema heavy hitters with the ability to go big and small as gracefully as he does; both actors deserve every award on the planet for what they’re doing here; and you won’t believe how compelling a near-20-minute sequence involving a person explaining capitalism’s effect on medical practices can be in the right hands. Simply stunning.
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