I think it’s fair to say that Miles Teller needs a break. I don’t honestly like the guy, but he’s a gifted actor who could be Robert De Niro in the ’70s. Alas, something’s not working for him. People respect Teller, I think, for being a grade-A talent who chooses well and always pushes himself to the limit or beyond, but in the four years since Whiplash none of Teller’s films have combusted critically or commercially. He was happening in the immediate wake of The Spectacular Now and Whiplash, but not lately.

The reviews of Teller’s latest film, Thank You For Your Service, are mixed so far, but Variety‘s Owen Glieberman is a fan, and so is The Village Voice‘s Alan Scherstuhl.

Teller to HE on Hollywood-Highland escalator: “Don’t be a pervert, man.” That alienating April ’15 Esquire interview. Not getting the La La Land lead role that went to Ryan Gosling, allegedly for being “too demanding.” Hiring “no” publicist Susan Patricola to represent him. (Patricola isn’t exactly a crisis publicist but she seems to be popular with clients who want the press kept away.)

2013’s The Spectacular Now (alcoholic teen) plus Whiplash (great drumming, his best performance yet) started things off well, but then came a trio of paycheck fantasy films that weren’t so hot — Divergent, Divergent: Insurgent, Fantastic Four. Then a trio of respectable, hard-driving performances in films that made the grade in my book but which didn’t connect with reviewers or at the box-office — War Dogs, Bleed For This and Only The Brave. Thank You For Your Service, which I won’t see until Thursday evening, probably isn’t going to make any money either.

Review-wise Teller has done himself proud in the last four, as noted, but that’s still seven tanks in a row if you count TYFYS.

Critic friend: “He was not only in one bomb after another, but seemed like one of those flaky young-fuck narcissists on a star trip who was destined to flame out. But the dude is fucking talented. I don’t have much commercial expectation for Thank You For Your Service, because no one — no one! — wants to see a movie about Iraq War vets. It just sounds like medicine. But I think his very strong and heartfelt performance (the opposite of flaky/narcissistic, etc.) will help bend the curve back his way.”

Minutes after arriving at the Park Regency, Coming Soon‘s Ed Douglas (who’s sharing the pad for three nights) gifted me with an official “Yo, Whiplash!” hat. For the uninitiated, this was the original title of the story that was changed to “Miles Teller ‘Pervert’ Story,” which I posted on 10.24.14.

After Thursday night’s Interstellar screening I was heading down the escalator inside the Chinese/Dolby complex, heading for the orange level in the parking garage. On the up escalator I noticed this shapely ginger-haired girl with really tight jeans, maybe 23 or 24, with some big-shouldered, dark-haired guy standing behind her. There was another girl with them, I think. Then I realized the guy, who was wearing a powder-blue shirt of some kind, was Miles Teller….”yo, Whiplash!” I naturally started eyeballing him instead of ginger girl. Then ginger girl dropped something and bent over to pick it up just as she and Teller were passing me, and I couldn’t resist checking out the cheeks. Hey, anybody would have…c’mon. She wasn’t looking so what the hell…right? Except Teller was looking at me. And then the humiliation: “Don’t be a pervert, man.” And he kind of bellowed it. Shamed, I tried a little “oh, no, no, man…I was just…you know, you and Damien Chazelle, man…I’m on the team!” But he kept looking at me like I was scum. The irony is that I never gape at women shamelessly. I’ll sneak looks, sure, but covertly. But Teller, man…he wouldn’t back off. Typical guy thing: “Hey man, she might be hot but I’m with her so avert your fucking eyes, and keep them averted!”

Miles Teller has been staying at the Marshall House since Sunday, and will take bows after tonight’s Savannah Film Festival screening of Bleed For This (Open Road, 11.4), which I saw and favorably reviewed at Telluride. Director-writer Ben Younger along with former world-champion boxer Vinny Paz, whom Teller portrays, will attend also.

I saw Teller a couple of days ago in front of the Marshall House. Shooting shit with fans, posing for selfies, etc. He was wearing shorts and a pair of flaming turquoise-blue cross-training shoes. He no longer has the blonde hair he was wearing last August for his role in Joseph Kosinski‘s Granite Mountain, so I guess that’s done. Yesterday he sat down for a Master Class (i.e., a sit-down discussion) with SCAD students.

This morning I tried to arrange a fast interview wth Teller (we’re both in town, our hotels only six blocks apart), but the word came back that Teller is “too busy.” Too busy posing for selfies, they meant. Or too pissed off about my “don’t be a pervert, man” posts. But that’s okay. He’s a live-wire actor who never bores. He just needs to keep being that.

Three or four days ago an Esquire profiler called Miles Teller a “dick” and now Josh Trank‘s Fantastic Four, in which Teller is one of the four leads, opened yesterday to a “breathtakingly bad” $2,829 per screen, according to Boxofficemojo.com, for a likely $27 million by Sunday night. No question about it — Teller’s nose is bloodied right now. He’ll rebound, of course, but that cock-of-the-walk vibe he had last year during the Whiplash hoo-hah…let’s just say these things go in cycles. You get clocked, you’re on the canvas and then you’re up again. Did anyone pay to see Fantastic Four?

Not that this means squat, but Anna Peele’s Esquire profile of Miles Teller mentions that (a) he’s “kind of a dick” and (b) during a luncheon interview Teller was wearing “a pool-blue V-neck that shows off the Roman-numeral tattoo on his arm,” which sounds like what he was wearing when he and I had our “don’t be a pervert, man” encounter last October. (I described it as “a powder-blue shirt of some kind.”) I don’t know if the woman in the black-and-white Esquire photos is Teller’s girlfriend Keleigh Sperry, but Keleigh was the one I was subtly eyeballing. (Not subtly enough, I mean.) Peele describes her as “a twenty-two-year-old model/aspiring swimsuit designer/professional girlfriend who thinks Teller is attractive enough to have permanently monogrammed her perfect ass with his initials.” Oh, and by the way? Josh Trank‘s Fantastic Four, the reason why Teller’s puss is on the cover in the first place, is currently rocking a 17% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Don’t make shitty movies, man.

Here once again is HE’s best spitball roster of 2025’s strongest, most distinctive films…40 in all.

This is not about the likelihood of big box-office but about films that people may feel riveted, disturbed, challenged, gobsmacked or turned on by, or might even feel compelled to nominate for awards.

HE readers went to sleep on my previous list of 32 or thereabouts, so I’m giving it another shot.

If I’ve left any seemingly important films out, please advise.

3.10, 9 am update: Having just added Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague and Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza‘s Warfare (A24, 4.25), yesterday’s list of 38 titles is now 40.

Please consider the 40 and select ten films that you suspect will most likely emerge as the year’s hottest (i.e., well-reviewed, award-calibre, most talked about).

And just for fun, identify the film that seems (emphasis on the “s” word) most likely to win the Best Picture Oscar in early ’26.

1. Kathryn Bigelow‘s Untitled White House Thriller (Netflix), about coping with an incoming missile. Written by Noah Oppenheim, pic has been in post since last December. Willa Fitzgerald, Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Greta Lee, Tracy Letts, Moses Ingram, Anthony Ramos, Brian Tee, Jonah Hauer-King, Kyle Allen, Jason Clarke.

2. Noah Baumbach‘s Jay Kelly (Netflix), a coming-of-age comedy-drama, directed and co-written by Baumbach with Emily Mortimer. Costarring George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Riley Keough, Billy Crudup, Jim Broadbent, Isla Fisher, Greta Gerwig, Eve Hewson, Stacy Keach, Mortimer, Charlie Rowe, Patrick Wilson, Lars Eidinger.

3. David Mackenzie‘s Fuze, a British heist film that sounds extra-good. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Sam Worthington, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Saffron Hocking, Elham Ehsas, Honor Swinton Byrne.

4. Joachim Trier‘s Sentimental Value, a comedy-drama directed by Joachim Trier, who co-wrote the screenplay with Eskil Vogt. Costarring Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Stellan Skarsgård, Elle Fanning, Cory Michael Smith.

5. John Carney‘s Power Ballad (Lionsgate), about a conflict between a rock star and a wedding singer. Paul Rudd, Nick Jonas, Jack Reynor, Havana Rose Liu, Sophie Vavasseur.

6. Darren Aronofsky‘s Caught Stealing (Sony, 8.29). “Burned-out ex-baseball player Hank Thompson (Austin Butler), forced to navigate a treacherous underworld he never imagined”…too wordy. Costarring Zoë Kravitz, Regina King, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Will Brill, Bad Bunny, Griffin Dunne, Vincent D’Onofrio.

7. Scott Cooper‘s Deliver Me from Nowhere (20th Century, sometime in the fall). Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in another boomer nostalgia pic, focusing on the recording of Nebraska (’82). Costarring Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Paul Walter Hauser, Gaby Hoffmann, Johnny Cannizzaro, Harrison Gilbertson, Marc Maron.

8. Edward Berger‘s The Ballad of a Small Player (Netflix). Synopsis: When his past and debts start to catch up, a high-stakes gambler laying low in Macau encounters a kindred spirit who might hold the key to his salvation,” blah blah. Colin Farrell, Tilda Swinton, Fala Chen

9. Tom Cruise and Chris McQuarrie‘s Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning (Paramount, 5.23).

10. Joseph Kosinski‘s F1 (Warner Bros., 6.27). Brad Pitt, Damson Idris (black dudes can’t die!), Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Javier Bardem, Kim Bodnia, Shea Whigham.

11. Antoine Fuqua‘s Michael (Universal. 10.3.25). Reportedly sanitized life of the late Michael Jackson. Jaafar Jackson, Juliano Krue Valdi, Colman Domingo, Nia Long, Miles Teller, Laura Harrier.

12. Paul Thomas Anderson‘s One Battle After Another (Warner Bros., 8.25). Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Sean Penn, Alana Haim, Teyana Taylor, Wood Harris, Benicio del Toro.

13. Luca Guadagnino‘s After The Hunt (Amazon MGM, 10.10.25). An academic setting obviously indicates some kind of anti-wokester, anti-Zoomer drama…right? Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny.

14. Josh Safdie‘s Marty Supreme (A24, 12.25) — a ‘50s period drama about a ping-pong champ. Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler the Creator, Odessa A’zion, Penn Jillette, Kevin O’Leary, Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher, Sandra Bernhard.

15. Spike Lee‘s Highest 2 Lowest (remake of Akira Kurosawa‘s High and Low, a kidnapping-ransom drama that I’ve never liked). (No date, A24 / Apple TV+)Denzel Washington, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jeffrey Wright, Ice Spice, ASAP Rocky.

16. Ari Aster‘s Eddington (A24). A “contemporary western with a darkly comedic attitude.” Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Clifton Collins Jr.

17. Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein (Netflix, November)….again? Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen.

18. I’m not including James Cameron‘s Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th Century, 12.19) as it’s just another episode in the Avatar series, and is solely about selling tickets.

19. Will Nia DaCosta‘s Hedda, a “reimagining” of Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 stage play, be shot as a Victorian period drama or as a contemporary thing? Tessa Thompson, Imogen Poots, Tom Bateman, Nina Hoss, Nicholas Pinnock, Finbar Lynch.

20. Kenneth Branagh‘s The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde…as an ardent non-fan of Branagh’s Belfast, I feel very concerned about any film that he’s directed and written. Jodie Comer, Patricia Arquette, Michael Sheen, Tom Bateman, Vicky McClure, Michael Balogun.

21. Celine Song‘s Materialists (A24, no date). “A Manhattan matchmaker’s lucrative business is complicated when she falls into a toxic love triangle that threatens her clients,” blah blah. Beware!!! Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal, Zoe Winters, Dasha Nekrasova, Louisa Jacobson.

22. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Sony, 5.9) appears to be a serving of guaranteed agony. The words “American romantic fantasy” are death to me. Directed by Kogonada from a screenplay by Seth Reiss. Starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, w/ Lily Rabe, Jodie Turner-Smith, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Billy Magnussen, Sarah Gadon.

23. Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Bugonia (Focus Features, 11.7)….aaaggghhh! “Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company (Emma Stone), convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying the earth. Costarring Jesse Plemons, Alicia Silverstone.

24. Paul Greengrass‘s The Lost Bus (Apple TV+). “A bus driver has to navigate a bus carrying children and their teacher to safety through the 2018 Camp Fire, which became the deadliest fire in California history,” etc. Matthew McConaughey, America Ferrera, Yul Vazquez, Ashlie Atkinson, Spencer Watson, Danny McCarthy.

25. Wes Anderson‘s The Phoenician Scheme (Focus Features, 5.30). “Dark tale of espionage following a strained father-daughter relationship within a family business beset by morally gray choices”…that’s a mouthful!. Benicio del Toro, Michael Cera, Bill Murray, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Benedict Cumberbatch, Scarlett Johansson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Rupert Friend, Willem Dafoe, Bryan Cranston.

26. Bong Joon-ho‘s Mickey 17 (Warner Bros., 3.7.25). HE has long had a problem with Bong Joon-ho, and we’ve all heard about the prolonged release-date delays — originally slated for 3.29.24. Critics will cream over it, no matter how problematic it may or may not be. 3.10 update: It stinks!

27. John M. Chu‘s Wicked: For Good (Universal, 11.21.25). Same crew as before — Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, etc.

28. Andre Gaines‘ The Dutchman (no distrib — debuting at SXSW on 3.8). Sexual intrigue between harried black businessman (Andre Holland) and whitey-white chick (Kara Mara). Co-adapted by Gaines and Qasim Basir, based on same-titled 1964 play by Amiri Baraka.

29. Mimi Cave‘s Holland (no distrib — opened at SXSW on 3.9) Small town Michigan woman (Nicole Kidman) suspects husband (Matthew Macfadyen) may be living a double life. Costarring Gael García Bernal, Jude Hill, Rachel Sennott.

30. Julian Schnabel‘s In The Hand of Dante. Synopsis of Nick Tosches‘ same-titled 2002 book: “An interweaving of two separate stories, one set in the 14th century in Italy and Sicily and featuring Dante Alighieri, and another set in the autumn of 2001 and featuring a fictionalized version of Tosches as the protagonist. The historical and modern stories alternate as Dante tries to finish writing his magnum opus and goes on a journey for mystical knowledge in Sicily.” Oscar Isaac as Nick Tosches / Dante Alighieri, w/ Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, Gal Gadot, Sabrina Impacciatore, Franco Nero, Martin Scorsese.

31. Jonathan Kent‘s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Ed Harris, Jessica Lange, Ben Foster, Colin Morgan, Ericka Roe.

32. Jonah Hill‘s Outcome (Apple TV+). Black comic satire about social-media harpooning of big movie star (Keanu Reeves). Costarring Jonah Hill, Cameron Diaz, Matt Bomer, Susan Lucci, David Spade, Laverne Cox.

33. Steven Soderbergh‘s Black Bag (Focus Features, 3.14). London-shot cloak and dagger with dry Soderbergh attitude….right?

34. Michel Franco‘s Dreams. Rich Anerican socialite Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) blows off, fucks over her younger Mexican ballet dancer boyfriend (Isaac Hernández)

35. Richard Linklater‘s Blue Moon (Sony Classics, May ’25) — The last few months in the life of composer Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke). Depression, alcoholism, closeted sexuality. Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale. Opened in Berlin on 2.18.

36. Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, a period drama about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (‘60). Linklater will no doubt attempt to replicate the mood and spirit of Godard’s playful zeitgeist–shifter, a relationship piece about a small-time, Humphrey Bogart-emulating felon (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and his American-born, pixie-cut girlfriend (Jean Seberg). Linklater’s costars include Zooey Deutch, Guillaume Marbeck, Aubry Dullin.

37. Chloe Zhao‘s Hamnet (Focus Features, no date) — Fictional tale about Mr. and Mrs. William Shakespeare coping with the death of their son. Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Joe Alwyn, Emily Watson.

38. Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s The Bride! (Warner Bros., 9.26). Feminist take on James Whale‘s The Bride of Frankenstein. All men are scheming, wounding pigs! Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening.

39. Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s Warfare (A24, 4.11). Based on Mendoza’s Navy SEAL experience during the Iraq War in 2006 and shot in real time. Only 94 minutes!

40. Ethan Coen‘s Honey Don’t (Focus Features, May ’25). Another lesbian caper flick a la Drive Away Dolls. Set in Bakersfield, pic focuses on a private investigator (Margaret Qualley), a cult leader (Chris Evans), and a “mystery woman” (Aubrey Plaza).

Last-minute 3.10 additions:

(41) Derek Cianfrance’s Roofman (Paramount, 10.3). Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dubst, Ben Mendelsohn.

(42) Jim Jarmusch’s Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, an anthology film with Cate Blanchett, Vicky Kreips, Adam Driver.

(43) Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine (A24), a biopic of former MMA fighter and wrestler Mark Kerr.

I don’t know where to begin a loose-shoe study of the likeliest 2025 hotties (critically approved, Oscar-nominated), but you have to start somewhere…anywhere.

Right now this is a very half-assed rundown, but I’ll build it as the comments come in and things move along. Call this HE’s first half-assed stab. I’ll begin to fix it up tonight. Step by step.

I’ve no interest in likely 2025 money-makers. This is strictly about the films that people may feel riveted, disturbed, challenged, gobsmacked or turned on by, or might even feel compelled to give awards to.

Which films appear to be the weak sisters, and which are the serious heavyweights? Which should be highlighted and which should be wait-and-see’d?

Darren Aronofsky‘s Caught Stealing (Sony, 8.29). “Burned-out ex-baseball player Hank Thompson (Austin Butler), forced to navigate a treacherous underworld he never imagined”…too wordy. Costarring Zoë Kravitz, Regina King, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Will Brill, Bad Bunny, Griffin Dunne, Vincent D’Onofrio.

Scott Cooper‘s Deliver Me from Nowhere (20th Century, sometime in the fall). Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in another boomer nostalgia pic, focusing on the recording of Nebraska (’82). Costarring Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Paul Walter Hauser, Gaby Hoffmann, Johnny Cannizzaro, Harrison Gilbertson, Marc Maron.

Edward Berger‘s The Ballad of a Small Player (Netflix). Synopsis: When his past and debts start to catch up, a high-stakes gambler laying low in Macau encounters a kindred spirit who might hold the key to his salvation,” blah blah. Colin Farrell, Tilda Swinton, Fala Chen

Tom Cruise and Chris McQuarrie‘s Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning (Paramount, 5.23).

Joseph Kosinski‘s F1 (Warner Bros., 6.27). Brad Pitt, Damson Idris (black dudes can’t die!), Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Javier Bardem, Kim Bodnia, Shea Whigham.

Antoine Fuqua‘s Michael (Universal. 10.3.25). Reportedly sanitized life of the late Michael Jackson. Jaafar Jackson, Juliano Krue Valdi, Colman Domingo, Nia Long, Miles Teller, Laura Harrier.

Paul Thomas Anderson‘s One Battle After Another (Warner Bros., 8.25). Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Sean Penn, Alana Haim, Teyana Taylor, Wood Harris, Benicio del Toro.

Luca Guadagnino‘s After The Hunt (Amazon MGM, 10.10.25). An academic setting obviously indicates some kind of anti-wokester, anti-Zoomer drama…right? Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny.

Josh Safdie‘s Marty Supreme (A24, 12.25). Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler the Creator, Odessa A’zion, Penn Jillette, Kevin O’Leary, Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher, Sandra Bernhard.

Spike Lee‘s Highest 2 Lowest (remake of Akira Kurosawa‘s High and Low, a kidnapping-ransom drama that I’ve never liked). (No date, A24 / Apple TV+)Denzel Washington, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jeffrey Wright, Ice Spice, ASAP Rocky.

Ari Aster‘s Eddington (A24). A “contemporary western with a darkly comedic attitude.” Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Clifton Collins Jr.

Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein (Netflix, November)….again? Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen.

I’m not including James Cameron‘s Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th Century, 12.19) as it’s just another episode in the Avatar series, and is solely about selling tickets.

Will Nia DaCosta‘s Hedda, a “reimagining” of Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 stage play, be shot as a Victorian period drama or as a contemporary thing? Tessa Thompson, Imogen Poots, Tom Bateman, Nina Hoss, Nicholas Pinnock, Finbar Lynch.

Kenneth Branagh‘s The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde…as an ardent non-fan of Branagh’s Belfast, I feel very concerned about any film that he’s directed and written. Jodie Comer, Patricia Arquette, Michael Sheen, Tom Bateman, Vicky McClure, Michael Balogun.

Celine Song‘s Materialists (A24, no date). “A Manhattan matchmaker’s lucrative business is complicated when she falls into a toxic love triangle that threatens her clients,” blah blah. Beware!!! Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal, Zoe Winters, Dasha Nekrasova, Louisa Jacobson.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Sony, 5.9) appears to be a serving of guaranteed agony. The words “American romantic fantasy” are death to me. Directed by Kogonada from a screenplay by Seth Reiss. Starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, w/ Lily Rabe, Jodie Turner-Smith, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Billy Magnussen, Sarah Gadon.

Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Bugonia (Focus Features, 11.7)….aaaggghhh! “Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company (Emma Stone), convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying the earth. Costarring Jesse Plemons, Alicia Silverstone.

Paul Greengrass‘s The Lost Bus (Apple TV+). “A bus driver has to navigate a bus carrying children and their teacher to safety through the 2018 Camp Fire, which became the deadliest fire in California history,” etc. Matthew McConaughey, America Ferrera, Yul Vazquez, Ashlie Atkinson, Spencer Watson, Danny McCarthy.

Wes Anderson‘s The Phoenician Scheme (Focus Features, 5.30). “Dark tale of espionage following a strained father-daughter relationship within a family business beset by morally gray choices”…that’s a mouthful!. Benicio del Toro, Michael Cera, Bill Murray, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Benedict Cumberbatch, Scarlett Johansson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Rupert Friend, Willem Dafoe, Bryan Cranston.

Bong Joon-ho‘s Mickey 17 (Warner Bros., 3.7.25). HE has long had a problem with Bong Joon-ho, and we’ve all heard about the prolonged release-date delays — originally slated for 3.29.24. Critics will cream over it, no matter how problematic it may or might not be.

John M. Chu‘s Wicked: For Good (Universal, 11.21.25). Same crew as before — Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, etc.

Andre Gaines‘ The Dutchman (no distrib — debuting at SXSW on 3.8). Sexual intrigue between harried black businessman (Andre Holland) and whitey-white chick (Kara Mara). Co-adapted by Gaines and Qasim Basir, based on same-titled 1964 play by Amiri Baraka.

Mimi Cave‘s Holland (no distrib — opened at SXSW on 3.9) Small town Michigan woman (Nicole Kidman) suspects husband (Matthew Macfadyen) may be living a double life. Costarring Gael García Bernal, Jude Hill, Rachel Sennott.

Julian Schnabel‘s In The Hand of Dante. Synopsis of Nick Tosches‘ same-titled 2002 book: “An interweaving of two separate stories, one set in the 14th century in Italy and Sicily and featuring Dante Alighieri, and another set in the autumn of 2001 and featuring a fictionalized version of Tosches as the protagonist. The historical and modern stories alternate as Dante tries to finish writing his magnum opus and goes on a journey for mystical knowledge in Sicily.” Oscar Isaac as Nick Tosches / Dante Alighieri, w/ Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, Gal Gadot, Sabrina Impacciatore, Franco Nero, Martin Scorsese.

Jonathan Kent‘s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Ed Harris, Jessica Lange, Ben Foster, Colin Morgan, Ericka Roe.

Jonah Hill‘s Outcome (Apple TV+). Black comic satire about social-media harpooning of big movie star (Keanu Reeves). Costarring Jonah Hill, Cameron Diaz, Matt Bomer, Susan Lucci, David Spade, Laverne Cox.

Steven Soderbergh‘s Black Bag (Focus Features, 3.14). London-shot cloak and dagger with dry Soderbergh attitude….right?

Michel Franco‘s Dreams. Rich Anerican socialite Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) blows off, fucks over her younger Mexican ballet dancer boyfriend (Isaac Hernández)

Richard Linklater‘s Blue Moon (Sony Classics, May ’25) — The last few months in the life of composer Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke). Depression, alcoholism, closeted sexuality. Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale. Debuting in Berlin on 2.18.

Chloe Zhao‘s Hamnet (Focus Features, no date) — Fictional tale about Mr. and Mrs. William Shakespeare coping with the death of their son. Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Joe Alwyn, Emily Watson.

Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s The Bride! (Warner Bros., 9.26). Feminist take on James Whale‘s The Bride of Frankenstein. All men are scheming, wounding pigs! Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening.

Ethan Coen‘s Honey Don’t (Focus Features, May ’25). Another lesbian caper flick a la Drive Away Dolls. Set in Bakersfield, pic focuses on a private investigator (Margaret Qualley), a cult leader (Chris Evans), and a “mystery woman” (Aubrey Plaza).

…had the cast-iron balls to go with a Bridges at Toko-Ri ending, rather than the triumphant one they chose. I’m talking about Tom Cruise‘s titular character and Miles Teller‘s “Rooster” Bradshaw suffering the same fate that William Holden and Mickey Rooney did 68 years ago. I’m talking about Cruise and Teller being surrounded by enemy troops after crash landing and putting up a good Wild Bunch-level fight before being outflanked and shot to death.

Dying together would have added poignance to the brotherly bond that Maverick had with Rooster’s dad, “Goose”, back in the ’80s, not to mention ending the contentious vibe that exists between Rooster and Maverick from the beginning.

A death ending would also have said “oh and by the way? War isn’t a fucking video game….it’s real, and sometimes the mission doesn’t go perfectly and sometimes good pilots buy the farm.”

A Cruise-and-Teller Toko Ri ending would probably translate into a slightly diminished box-office, agreed, but maybe not. A major character dying at the end of Titanic didn’t hurt the returns any. Not to mention Daniel Craig getting killed at the close of the highly successful No Time To Die.