The most exciting movies of 2020 – dramas
GreyhoundTom Hanks stars in – and, more intriguingly, scripts – this second world war gangbuster about a naval commander crossing the Atlantic pursued by a fleet of U-boats. The film’s release has been pushed back more than a year already, but that’s presumably to maximise Hanks’s awards chances for this and the Mister Rogers biopic, A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood. Elisabeth Shue plays his wife; Stephen Graham co-stars.
News of the World
Except that Hanks also has this coming up. Six months separate the scheduled releases, but this looks, in many ways, the more obvious silverware shoo-in. Hanks plays Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a travelling newspaper reader who must take an orphaned girl (newcomer Helena Zengel) across the country to live with her remaining living relatives in the aftermath of the US civil war. A fictional period cross-generational road movie isn’t obvious Paul Greengrass fodder, which makes this all the more appealing.
Wendy
A strikingly belated second film from Benh Zeitlin, whose Beasts of the Southern Wild was Oscar nominated eight years ago, this is a magic-realist spin on Peter Pan, about a young girl “lost on a mysterious island where time and ageing have become unglued”. Shot on Monserrat, this was co-scripted by Zeitlin’s sister, Eliza.
Wendy official trailer
Untitled Lila Neugebauer project
Following standout support in Widows and If Beale Street Could Talk (plus an unsplashy cameo in Joker), Brian Tyree Henry finally gets a key lead. Jennifer Lawrence co-stars. This is the story of a soldier who suffers a traumatic brain injury in Afghanistan, then struggles to readjust to life back home. The director has worked, until now, exclusively in theatre.
The Boys in the Band
Mart Crowley’s iconic birthday-party play is brought back to the big screen, this time with the (all-gay) cast of a 2018 Broadway revival, headed by Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto and Matt Bomer.
Supernova
Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci play a long-term couple touring the north of England in an RV in Harry Macqueen’s second film following his 2014 debut Hinterland. Tucci’s character has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s two years prior to the action, so we’re stockpiling tissues for this one. James Dreyfus makes a welcome return to the screen in the supporting cast.
Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth in Supernova. Photograph: Courtesy Bureau Sales
Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson project
This likely won’t be ready in time, as it only shoots this spring, but at a push you could be looking at a Christmas 2020 premiere for Paul Thomas Anderson’s first film since The Phantom Thread. No cast has yet been attached, but we’re getting big Boogie Nights energy from the premise, about a high school student, who is also a successful child actor, in 1970s San Fernando Valley.
The Souvenir: Part 2
The relationship of Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) and her ghastly, charming lover (Tom Burke) is over. What happens next in the life of Joanna Hogg’s alter ego? And will Tilda Swinton play herself (she knew Hogg at the time, in the early 80s) as well as Julie’s mum? The Souvenir was one of 2019’s cinematic highlights; this looks set to repeat the trick in 2020.
Downhill
Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus star as a couple whose marriage falters after a misstep on his part during their family skiing holiday. Anyone who has seen Force Majeure, on which this is based, might be slightly alarmed by the prospect of Ferrell in that key scene, but this is still a tempting prospect. Jesse Armstrong has co-scripted alongside directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (the men behind the underrated The Way Way Back, also about a nightmarish vacation).
Downhill official trailer
The Father
Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman make repeat Oscar bids as an ailing patriarch felled by dementia and his struggling daughter in the big-screen transfer for Florian Zeller’s multi-award-winning play. Four very capable hands in front of the camera; the only alarm bell is that Zeller also directs, in his cinematic debut.
Four Good Days
Colman’s shock runner-up at last year’s Oscars, Glenn Close, stars in this gruelling drama about a daughter (Mila Kunis) helping her mother through substance abuse recovery. Rodrigo Garcia (Albert Nobbs) directs.
Make Up
Claire Oakley’s buzzy, low-budget debut is set on a remote Cornish holiday park; a young woman develops a dangerous obsession after suspecting her boyfriend has been unfaithful.
Molly Windsor in Make Up, directed by Claire Oakley. Photograph: Courtesy IFFR
The Last Thing He Wanted
Mudbound director Dee Rees tackles the Joan Didion memoir about a Washington Post reporter (Anne Hathaway) who quits her job to care for her father (Willem Dafoe) and inherits his position as an arms dealer for the US government in Central America. Ben Affleck co-stars.
Rocks
Sarah Gavron’s docudrama set on a London estate has already earned rave reviews from Toronto and London film festivals; it finally winds up getting a release in April.
Bukky Bakray and Kosar Ali head the cast in Sarah Gavron’s Rocks. Photograph: © Courtesy of TIFF
Falling
Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut (he also wrote and starsin the film) is about a conservative father (Lance Henriksen) who moves from his rural farm to live with his gay son (Mortensen) and his family in LA. Laura Linney co-stars and David Cronenberg plays a proctologist, naturally.
Herself
The Iron Lady and Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd takes two of the stars of the Donmar’s all-female Shakespeare trilogy she helped direct – Harriet Walter and Clare Dunne – and puts them in the story of a young mother who escapes her abusive boyfriend and takes on a broken housing system.