Summer Preview – 2024

Written by Tom Augustine.

With the coming of Christmas and the New Year, there’s plenty of gold to be found on the big screen. Here’s your guide on what to watch when beating the summer heat at the multiplex.

Traditionally, the summer period at the movies can be easily divided into a few comfortable categories. There’s your big festive blockbusters, whether that be Christmas-themed or otherwise, the ones to drag your kids to, oftentimes as much to enjoy the air conditioning  as to experience what is on the big screen. There’s the string of Oscar hopefuls: the big, meaningful films that aim to claim trophies come March 2025. Then there’s the ‘January’ films – a term often wielded derogatorily, belying the deep pleasure of seeing some good, high-calorie trash. This year, January gave us The Beekeeper, one of my quiet favourites of 2024. There are riches everywhere you look – knowing what to prioritise is the hard part. Thankfully, I’m here to help. Here’s what I’d pick – my highest recommendations will be underlined.

Oscar Hopefuls:

Boy, oh boy are there a lot of these this year. Some have already been seen on our shores care of Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival. Others have been long awaited or relentlessly hyped in the preceding months. Payal Kapadia’s already-beloved All We Imagine As Light (December 26) arrives on Boxing Day, a gentle Indian drama with moments of quiet rapturousness; French provocateur Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez (January 16) arrives to us on a wave of controversy and debate; while Sing Sing (January 16) looks set to tug heartstrings care of its prison setting and the rich performance of Colman Domingo at its heart. Elsewhere, all eyes will be on Timothée Chalamet as he attempts to capture the voice of that most elusive of music greats, Bob Dylan, in A Complete Unknown (January 23), while Angelina Jolie makes a bid for Best Actress as opera singer Maria Callas in the final part of Pablo Larraín’s ‘20th Century women’ trilogy, Maria (January 30). On the same day, Rialto Cinema’s Coming Soon page tells me we’re also set to get Babygirl (January 30), the much buzzed-about May-December BDSM drama starring Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson. There’s awards buzz around Kidman’s turn here – is it warranted? We’ll see. Then there’s the British dramedy We Live in Time (January 23), which bowed at the British and Irish Festival earlier this year. Word is split on whether this film, which stars hot young things Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, is too hefty a slice of treacle or just right (I liked it well enough). One of the more intriguing outliers, meanwhile, is Better Man (December 26), a Robbie Williams biopic with a daring twist – Williams is rendered throughout the film as an ape, utilising Planet of the Apes-style motion capture technology. Why? It seemingly comes from an assertion that Williams feels like a ‘trained monkey’ when he performs. Fair enough, I suppose. The film comes to us from The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey, which should either turn you off completely or fill you with curiosity. Personally, I’m leaning toward the former.

As far as I’m aware, the award-hopeful must-watches are A͟n͟o͟r͟a͟ (December 26) and T͟h͟e͟ B͟r͟u͟t͟a͟l͟i͟s͟t͟. (January 23). These ultimately come down to my personal taste – Anora looks like a wonderful, energetic working class epic from a fine chronicler of the same, Sean Baker. His last, the hugely underrated Red Rocket, was his best up until that point. Anora may be his shot at Oscar – though it seems the spotlight has been claimed by Wicked, that may just ride to glory on a wave of anti-Trump foment. The likelihood of a film as artistically-minded as Anora winning Oscar in this era was probably always a pipe dream. That said, the film, which stars Mikey Madison as a young sex worker who gets a shotgun wedding to a Russian oligarch’s son, has been likened to Pretty Woman AND Uncut Gems. That sounds pretty good to me.

The Brutalist, meanwhile, comes from filmmaker Brady Corbet, whose last film Vox Lux I vehemently loathed. This film, however, has drawn comparisons to The Godfather in sweep and scale – even though it was made for only $10 million. The story of a Hungarian architect moving to America, played by Adrien Brody, it is a four-hour epic with an intermission, shot on an ancient, massive film stock called VistaVision. That sounds like a cinephile’s paradise, no? I’m also intrigued by A͟ R͟e͟a͟l͟ P͟a͟i͟n͟ (December 26), which has been earning raves for co-star Kieran Culkin and star/director Jesse Eisenberg. The film, about a pair of cousins reconnecting with their Jewish roots on a European road trip, looks to pack a hell of a wallop. Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the more under-the-radar works from certified masters. Pedro Almodóvar’s end-of-life drama T͟h͟e͟ R͟o͟o͟m͟ N͟e͟x͟t͟ D͟o͟o͟r͟ (January 1) is not getting the kind of love other films he’s made have, perhaps because he’s directing in English this go-round; but even lesser work from this auteur bests most others’ heartiest attempts. Chinese great Jia Zhangke, meanwhile, comes back to us with C͟a͟u͟g͟h͟t͟ B͟y͟ T͟h͟e͟ T͟i͟d͟e͟s͟ (January 16), a Cannes competition offering that I’ve heard is one of the best of the year. Two I personally know to be among the best of the year are the sublime E͟v͟i͟l͟ D͟o͟e͟s͟ N͟o͟t͟ E͟x͟i͟s͟t͟ (December 12) by Drive My Car visionary Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, and D͟a͟h͟o͟m͟e͟y͟ (January 23) by the great Mati Diop. It is best to go into these elliptical, dreamlike, brilliant films as blind as possible. Seek them out.

Summer Thrills and Chills:

If you’re looking for genuine, A-grade January trash, this 2025 offers a prime cut of beef in D͟e͟n͟ o͟f͟ T͟h͟i͟e͟v͟e͟s͟ 2͟:͟ P͟a͟n͟t͟e͟r͟a͟ (January 9). If you haven’t seen the original Den of Thieves, it features Gerard Butler at his sweatiest and hoariest in a dirtbag iteration of Heat that is genuinely thrilling in its execution. The trailers to Pantera offer more of the same, with an increased focus on O’Shea Jackson Jr.’s master heistman and a heel turn from Butler’s one-time super-cop. I will be seated, Day One. It’s also a surprisingly strong time for intriguing horror titles. All eyes will be on N͟o͟s͟f͟e͟r͟a͟t͟u͟ (January 1), the long-awaited update of the classic horror from The Witch and The Lighthouse’s Robert Eggers. I’m an Eggers agnostic, but the trailers have been atmospheric and spooky, and advance word is good (including smatterings of Oscar buzz for Lily Rose Depp in a supporting role). It’s been a while since the king of all vampires graced our screens – that’s reason enough for a ticket in my book. Slightly later in January we have another intriguing proposition – a new Wolf Man (January 16), care of The Invisible Man’s Leigh Whannell. This one has the special distinction of being filmed right here in Aotearoa, and features a solid pair of leads in Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner. The trailer is solid, and The Invisible Man was far better than it needed to be, so there’s reason for hope here. Right at the end of January we have the arrival of two intriguing horrors. Little is known about either – there’s Companion, which purports to be a horror love story, starring Heretic’s Sophie Thatcher. This one comes to us from the makers of the buzzy horror flick Barbarian, which was solid enough. What I’m more interested in, though, is the new film from the great Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Eleven, Erin Brockovich). P͟r͟e͟s͟e͟n͟c͟e͟ (January 30) is another of Soderbergh’s iPhone dalliances, but word is that this one is his most successful yet, a haunted house horror whose trailers and promotional material have been deeply creepy. Soderbergh rarely dips his toe into this genre – I’m thrilled to see what he makes of it. 

The Blockbusters:

Listen, the blockbusters don’t look great as a collective this year. We’ve already had Gladiator II and Wicked, two massive juggernauts that will siphon cash all summer long, but were ultimately quite disappointing (albeit in entirely different ways). One of the first big December releases we’ll be receiving is Kraven the Hunter (December 12), yet another Spiderman villain spinoff in the mould of Venom, Madame Web and Morbius. It’s enough to send a shiver down your spine. The trailers for this, which boast a South African-accented Russell Crowe as a big bad, actually look quite fun – and it has good pedigree in director J.C. Chandor (Margin Call, All is Lost, A Most Violent Year). Star Aaron Taylor-Johnson is one of the more underrated Hollywood hunks of the present-day, too, so I’ll give this the benefit of the doubt, for now. On the same day we’ll be able to clap our eyes on L͟o͟r͟d͟ o͟f͟ t͟h͟e͟ R͟i͟n͟g͟s͟:͟ T͟h͟e͟ W͟a͟r͟ o͟f͟ t͟h͟e͟ R͟o͟h͟i͟r͟r͟i͟m͟ (December 12), an anime telling the origin story of Helm Hammerhand, the king who led his people to Helm’s Deep during wartime. As someone whose family has been known to ‘skip to the Rohan bits’ in The Two Towers and The Return of the King, this is right up my alley, and the anime approach to this material is fascinating, a canny nod to the changing interests of the geek-adjacent landscape. 

Mufasa: The Lion King (December 19) is the sequel to the dreadful, so-called ‘live action’ The Lion King of 2019. This one sees a significant step-up in directorial talent – where Jon Favreau helmed that film, this one is directed by none other than the great Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Street Can Talk) in one of the more dispiriting one-for-them, one-for-mes I’ve ever seen. Can Jenkins wrangle something of worth from the chasm of these emotionless, ghoulishly rendered live action animals? All signs point to no. There are other family offerings on the rack, however, that are far more deserving of your well-earned coins (and I’m not talking about Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (December 26). Those who missed Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis’ Flow (January 9) at NZIFF, do yourself a favour and catch it in January when it releases – it is a shoo-in for an Oscar nom in the Animated category, and with good reason. Paddington in Peru (January 1) follows on from the excellent Paddington 2 sans mastermind Paul King. Paddington is never not-delightful, so there’s reason to hope for something a cut above the average, despite the lack of said helmsman. Most thrilling, though, is the return of Wallace and Gromit in W͟a͟l͟l͟a͟c͟e͟ &͟ G͟r͟o͟m͟i͟t͟:͟ V͟e͟n͟g͟e͟a͟n͟c͟e͟ M͟o͟s͟t͟ F͟o͟w͟l͟ (December 19). The film revives all-time villain Feathers McGraw (of rubber glove chicken costume fame) in a new feature-length claymation adventure. In doubt about how good this has the potential to be? Go back and watch Curse of the Were-Rabbit again.