25 Movies to Look Forward to in 2020

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (September 25)

Aaron Sorkin’s newest film dramatizes the arrest of the “Chicago Seven,” who were charged with conspiracy and incitement to riot after protesting the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic convention. Sorkin will surely mine that historical event for some present-day parallels, and he’s assembled an exciting cast that includes Eddie Redmayne, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Mark Rylance, Jeremy Strong, Michael Keaton, and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Respect (October 9)

No Oscar race is complete without a few big biopics, and one of the biggest is Respect, Liesl Tommy’s dramatization of the life of Aretha Franklin (Jennifer Hudson). Hudson is sure to belt out a bunch of the legendary singer’s famous numbers, but will the film feel like a greatest-hits concert or will it dig into something deeper? Either way, this is a surefire awards contender, featuring Forest Whitaker, Tituss Burgess, and Mary J. Blige as Dinah Washington.

The Witches (October 9)

Every child scarred by Nicolas Roeg’s incredible adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel The Witches still shudders in fear at the very mention of its title. The scariest part of Robert Zemeckis’s updated version will most likely come from whatever CGI effects he uses (the glassy-eyed horrors of The Polar Express and Welcome to Marwen await). Anne Hathaway will play the villainous Grand High Witch in this spooky children’s saga, starring alongside Chris Rock, Stanley Tucci, and Octavia Spencer.

Stillwater (November 6)

Tom McCarthy hasn’t directed a film since winning Best Picture for his superbly methodical 2015 film Spotlight, concentrating instead on writing and working in television. His new movie, Stillwater, stars Matt Damon as an oil-rig roughneck working to exonerate his estranged daughter (Abigail Breslin) of a murder she didn’t commit. Damon still lacks an acting Oscar despite a storied career, but this will be the first of two bites at the awards-season apple for him in 2020.

King Richard (November 25)

Will Smith has largely focused on blockbuster fare such as Suicide Squad and Aladdin in recent years, but this project should pose a serious acting challenge. A biopic about the life of Richard Williams, the hard-charging tennis coach and father of Serena and Venus Williams, King Richard is from a first-time screenwriter (Zach Baylin) and a promising young director (Reinaldo Marcus Green, whose debut was 2018’s Monsters and Men). A more grounded project like this could be an exciting development for Smith, who hasn’t taken on a weighty Oscar-season movie in years.

Dune (December 18)

Frank Herbert’s totemic piece of science fiction has long been thought unfilmable. Alejandro Jodorowsky famously failed to mount his adaptation in the ’70s, and David Lynch’s 1984 version was a spectacular fiasco that tried to cram all of the novel’s dense plotting into one movie. A new adaptation from Denis Villeneuve (Arrival) is instead tackling just the first half of the book, tracking the rise of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) on the fabled planet Arrakis, where his father, Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac), locks horns with the villainous Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, and more fill out a splendid cast, and the Christmas release date indicates confidence from Warner Bros.