To be honest, 2023 really started with M3GAN. But now that she’s introduced herself to the world, it’s time to look at all the other genre films—the ones without murderous dancing AI dolls—that will be in theaters this year, and it’s an impressive list.
Superheroes are a big deal once again with both DC and Marvel having impressive showings. Franchises from days of old return, including Indiana Jones, The Exorcist, Evil Dead, and Hunger Games. And super cool, fun, weird original ideas are coming too, from bears doing cocaine, to space samurai, and R-rated animated dogs. Truly, 2023 is shaping up to be the biggest year at the movies since the pre-covid era, so here are all the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy movies we’re looking forward to the most.
2 / 15
With a movie like this, you know what you’re gonna get. There are kids. There are aliens. The kids fight the aliens. But, thanks to Hobo With a Shotgun and Dark Side of the Ring director Jason Eisener at the helm, you also get lots of cool, nostalgic, wrestling-infused energy.
A standalone sequel to the 2018 film Searching, this one’s about a young woman (Storm Reid) attempting to find her mother, who went missing on vacation. The whole thing happens on computer and phone screens.
Shot in a mere 17 days during the pandemic, Fear amplifies the horror of quarantining against covid by pitting a small group of people who fled to a countryside cabin against a serial killer.
Brandon Cronenberg (Possessor) directs Mia Goth (Pearl) and Alexander Skarsgård (The Northman) in this horror movie about a couple who stumbles upon some very sinister goings-on just beyond the borders of their elite vacation resort.
3 / 15
M. Night Shyamalan is back with this adaptation of a book by Paul G. Tremblay in which a family must decide if they believe the people holding them hostage. Believe what, you ask? Well, the people claim if one of the family members doesn’t sacrifice themselves, the entire world will end.
A woman (Jena Malone) sets out to find out what happened to her priest brother after he plunged to his death at a remote Scottish convent. Once she arrives, she realizes nothing is what it seems and evil is lurking in the holy place.
God bless public domain. Public domain makes it possible for a film like this, that turns everyone’s favorite honey-eating bear into an axe-wielding murderer.
Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicks off with the third Ant-Man film, which brings back the stars of the original films and puts them on a new adventure in a world we’ve only seen for a few moments: the Quantum Realm. And who is down there? None other than Kang, played by Jonathan Majors.
Cocaine Bear is another film where the title is pretty much all you need to know. It’s loosely based on a true story about a bag of drugs that fell from a plane, the bear that ate them, and the wild, hilarious aftermath.
Starring David Harbour and featuring the talents of Tig Notaro, Jennifer Coolidge, and Anthony Mackie, We Have a Ghost looks like a horror comedy for the social media age—and the at-home conspiracy theorist who regularly talks to the government agents tapping their phone. In this murder mystery, a ghost comes back to help solve his own murder, but the CIA keeps trying to muscle in.
4 / 15
Even without Dewey (RIP) or Sidney (pay Neve Campbell!!), Ghostface is back once again and this time he’s chasing the survivors from the last film to New York City. So, for the first time, we’re gonna see Ghostface in an urban setting. Let the mystery and mayhem begin.
Two sibling soldiers in the Teddy Bear army vie for the love of their mother in an endless war against their sworn enemy: environmentalist unicorns.
For months Sony had this movie called “65" on its schedule. It was described as a sci-fi movie with Adam Driver. Very vague. And then, the trailer came out, and it’s Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs from 65 million years ago. Why Sony would hide that perfection is beyond us.
The long-awaited follow-up to the hit 2019 DC film will almost certainly be a lot of fun. Kids turning into heroes and battling gods played by Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu—what’s not to like? And all eyes will be on it behind the scenes too, as it’s the first DC universe released with the new executives (James Gunn and Peter Safran, the latter of whom produced this) now in charge.
The bullets will be flying as Keanu Reeves returns to the role that, slowly but surely, has become maybe his most famous. What’s in store for the world’s most deadly and most-wanted assassin? We’ll find out soon.
Anything going on in the world of Dungeons and Dragons lately? Oh yeah? Well, there’s also this massive undertaking, a movie with an all-star cast that everyone hopes will kick off a new brand-name franchise. But will those hardcore fans turn out after, you know, everything?
Now that Bruce Willis has retired from acting due to health reasons, this looks to be one of your last chances to see him in a new movie—though maybe revisiting one of his older classics might be just as good a choice as tale about a former black-ops soldier on a sci-fi infused revenge mission.
5 / 15
Can’t you already hear the music in your head? For only the second time ever, and the first time in animation, arguably the world’s most famous video game franchise gets the big screen treatment. Expectations could not be higher even with that half-cool, half-questionable voice cast.
Russel Crowe plays Father Gabriele Amourth, a real-life Catholic priest who’s said to have performed 100,000 exorcisms for the Vatican. Amourth wrote two autobiographies before he passed away in 2019, so this may end up being a horror/biopic hybrid of sorts.
Universal has finally started to dust off its amazing catalog of monsters for some big-time movies and the latest is this Dracula spinoff about his servant, Renfield, who no longer likes his job. Nicholas Hoult as Renfield is cool, Nicolas Cage as Dracula is God-tier.
Mamoru Hosoda’s latest sees a young girl swept up in a mysterious man’s attempts to stop a series of supernatural disasters all over Japan. Also, it’s the one where the love interest gets turned into a chair.
The Evil Dead franchise comes back to the big screen for the first time in a decade with Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell merely producing a new story with new characters in a new setting, but still with that trademark mix of gore and absurd.
After Hereditary and Midsommer, we’ll watch anything Ari Aster makes. Apparently, he knows that, because his third film, Beau Is Afraid, looks like his wildest film yet as an unhinged Joaquin Phoenix experiences a surrealist quest on the way to see his mother. Or something like that.
6 / 15
James Gunn’s final film in the MCU will also be the final film for this version of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Who survives? Who doesn’t? And how do Rocket Raccoon’s past and Adam Warlock play into it all? Whatever the answers, this is gonna be one of the biggest films of the year.
We’re still a month out from the first trailer for the next Fast and Furious movie so we don’t know what it’s about. All we know is that a week into production director Justin Lin left and handed the reins to Louis Leterrier. That seems ominous but, it’s Fast, so it shouldn’t really matter. We hope.
They’ve done Beauty and the Beast. They’ve done Aladdin. Heck, they’ve even done The Lion King. But all of those live-action remakes of classic Disney animated films from the 1990s led to this: seeing a mermaid turn into a real girl with her talking, singing, fish friends.
7 / 15
It can’t actually happen, right? Sequels are almost always inferior to the originals, especially when the original was a film sent down from the heavens and presented to the world as a stone-cold superhero masterpiece. But Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse could actually live up to the impossible expectations of following up one of the best superhero movies ever.
When you think “adult animation” you usually think “anime.” You don’t think “major studio release with A-list cast.” But that’s Strays, a (probably) R-rated comedy about a dog (voiced by Will Ferrell) who teams up with other pets to get back at the owner who abandoned him.
The first Transformers? Solid. Parts two through five? Increasingly terrible. So it was no wonder nobody showed up for the sixth film, Bumblebee, which was arguably even better than the original. Which category this one will fall into is the big question as the seventh film brings back all your favorite Autobots but also introduces all the various species from Beast Wars.
The Flash has been delayed more times than you probably remember. But for now, this looks like the summer we’ll finally see what Ezra Miller’s super fast hero has in store. Originally, this was the film poised to kick off a DC multiverse. Now, it could just be a curious afterthought. All will (probably) be answered this June.
Pixar’s latest is another one of those simple, perfect ideas. What if a man made of water fell in love with a woman made of fire? This one looks beautiful.
Tim Story (Barbershop) directs this comedy skewering well-worn tropes about Black characters in horror movies, set—where else?—at a cabin deep in the woods.
Despite its title, the latest film from Wes Anderson isn’t about space. It does, however, take place at a space convention as all manner of characters meet up there, giving the filmmaker the opportunity to tell another one of his trademark weird, wonderful stories. And the cast? Bigger than any Anderson fil Source: Gizmodo