It is almost midway through November and thoughts have already turned towards the festive season which is always the biggest for movie releases after the summer. It’s also considered ‘awards season’ when studios and distributors release their features so that they are eligible to compete for the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Oscars in the months that follow. With just a matter of weeks to go until 2025, here are five of our most anticipated movies coming to screens in the dying days of 2024.
Gladiator II
Our first film on the list is one of the year’s biggest and, so far, one of the best reviewed. Expect Gladiator II to follow in the footsteps of the first movie by gaining at least some awards attention come 2024. There are already betting markets out there like this one showing odds on who could walk away with what award come Oscar time. We’re hearing good things about Denzel Washington’s performance in the film and the sheer scale of themovie would get it at least a nomination in the Best Picture category. Ridley Scott returns to direct the opus which picks up the story many years on from the events of the first Gladiator. Paul Mescal (Aftersun) leads the cast as Lucius who must enter the battlefield of the legendary Coliseum in ancient Rome after his home succumbs to the time’s tyrannical Emperors. Gladiator II is on screens from 15th November.
Joy
We turn to Netflix for our next movie on the list and this British film based on a true story. Joy will have a limited run in cinemas first, from 15th November, before moving to Netflix a week later on 22nd November. The movie is set in the late 1970s and tells the story of the conception and arrival of the world’s first test tube baby, Louise Joy Brown. Directed by Ben Taylor and written by the acclaimed Jack Thorne, Joy stars Thomasin McKenzie, James Norton and Bill Nighy. It looks like an absolute gem of a film looking at its trailer. Joy had its world premiere at the 68th BFI London Film Festival back in October and word coming out of that festival was also very good so we’ll be intrigued to see what’s delivered later this month.
Blitz
Another film to have premiered at this year’s London Film Festival was Blitz, a World War II drama set in England in the 1940s. The acclaimed Steve McQueen wrote and directed the movie with Saoirse Ronan, Harris Dickinson, Kathy Burke, Paul Weller, and the great Stephen Graham lining up among the main cast. The story revolves around a 9-year-old boy named George (Elliott Heffernan) who is extracted from London due to the bombings by the Germans at the height of the war. His mother, Rita (Ronan), is the one who has had him sent to safety but, after leaving the city and heading north to Norfolk, George manages to escape and takes it upon himself to head straight back to East London and into the arms of his mother and grandfather (Weller). With extreme peril in his path, the young boy’s journey isn’t one that is going to be easy. With McQueen at the helm, the filmmaker behind such gems as Hunger, Shame and the Oscar-winning 12 Years A Slave, we expect this to be an absolute winner. Again, you’ll first be able to catch this one in cinemas from 8th November, and then on Apple TV+ from 22nd November.
Conclave
Another Oscar-baited drama is Vatican-set Conclave. Hot off his Oscar-winning All Quiet On The Western Front, another WWII drama released on Netflix a couple of years ago, director Edward Berger returns with a very different follow up with a film that depicts the events that happen when one Pope passes away and another is selected. Ralph Fiennes’ Cardinal Lawrence is the individual given the unenviable task and, as he deals with the powerful people involved in the top tiers of hierarchy within the Catholic Church, he unveils a trail of secrets in his late leader’s wake following his sudden death. We like the look of this because the cast also includes the likes of Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Italian icon Isabella Rossellini. After playing at various film festivals this autumn, Conclave opens to audiences in the UK and Ireland from 22nd November.
Queer
Our final movie on the list is Queer, Luca Guadagnino’s latest film and one which has been gaining some brilliant awards whispers since it debuted at the Venice Film Festival a couple of months back. It is based on the J.G. Ballard book of the same name and follows Daniel Craig’s William Lee, an ExPat living in Mexico City in the 1950s. There, he lives a fairly isolated, solitary life, until he meets Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) who he becomes infatuated with. We’ve heard great things about this one as well, especially about the performance of Daniel Craig who could be in line for some awards gold come early 2025. The film is made by the fine folks at A24 and the feature will be released by Mubi in the UK, in cinemas first on 13th December, and then presumably on their streaming service in the first part of 2025.
