Studios and indie distributors are seemingly taking a machine gun approach to theatrical releases for the upcoming film season, rat-a-tat-tatting a barrage of movies at audiences every week of the early spring and late summer. Then, notably, on the lucrative deep-summer dates, fresh choices at the cinema dry up to one or two new wide releases per weekend. That could be the time to catch up with the overflowing buffet of must-see movies on the menu — from Sinners and The Wedding Banquet to Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, plus whatever’s made it to your favorite streaming service by then.

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MARCH

The Woman in the Yard — Fresh off the streaming success of Netflix thriller Carry-On, director Jaume Collet-Serra re-ups the dynamite Danielle Deadwyler to star in this horror as a mom whose family is unsettled, to say the least, by a mysterious black-veiled stranger who shows up in a chair on their front lawn. Once the woman starts making ominous pronouncements like, “Today’s the day,” it’s only a matter of time before all hell breaks loose in the household, maybe in a literal sense. Deadwyler never misses, so save us a seat in the yard. (Now playing)

A Working Man — Jason Statham goes full Charles Bronson as a quiet construction worker who jumps in with his black-ops military training to rescue boss Michael Peña’s daughter from human traffickers. Based on Chuck Dixon’s book Levon’s Trade, and directed by Beekeeper‘s David Ayer, who co-wrote the adaptation with Sylvester Stallone, the film gives off ’80s macho action-movie vibes which might offer some minuscule variation in the usual knuckle-cracking Statham formula. (Now playing)

Death of a Unicorn — Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega appear well-matched as a father and daughter who accidentally run over a unicorn while driving through a very unusual nature reserve in this wild horror satire. Co-starring Téa Leoni, Will Poulter, and Richard E. Grant. (Now playing)

The Penguin Lessons — In 1976 Argentina to teach English at a boys’ school, in the looming shadow of a military coup, Englishman Tom Michell (Steve Coogan) is befriended by a wayward penguin while on vacation at the beach. Penguins make everything cuter, even cranky Englishmen, if we’re to believe this dramedy — based on the book by Michell, the teacher who lived it — from The Full Monty director Peter Cattaneo. (Now playing)

The Ballad of Wallis Island — An eccentric music fan ambushes his favorite broken-up folk-rock duo with a reunion at his home on the titular remote isle. Celebrities probably shouldn’t encourage such behavior, but that doesn’t stop Carey Mulligan (that’s Mrs. Mumford, son) from starring with Tom Basden as the ex-lover rock stars, and Tim Key as the lottery winner who brings them back together in this comedy, written by Basden and Key, directed by James Griffiths, and well-received in its premiere earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. (Now playing)

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APRIL

A Nice Indian Boy — Madhuri Shekar’s excellent play, about gay guy Naveen bringing his white boyfriend Jay home to meet his very traditional Indian parents, opens up on the big screen with Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff as the happy couple, and Soni’s real-life partner Roshan Sethi directing. (4/4)

The Friend — Serving heartwarming melodrama with a side of puppy chow, The Deep End filmmakers Scott McGehee and David Siegel adapt the National Book Award-winning novel by Sigrid Nunez (whose What Are You Going Through became Pedro Almodóvar’s 2024 drama The Room Next Door). Naomi Watts stars as a busy New Yorker who discovers a dog can be a woman’s best friend, too, after she inherits a gargantuan Great Dane from a friend and neighbor played by Bill Murray. Watts likely shares more screen time with the dog than with Murray, but we’re hoping to see the two actors rekindle the compelling chemistry they had in the under-seen 2014 dramedy St. Vincent. (4/4)

A Minecraft Movie — The lone big-budget video game adaptation of the season, from Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre director Jared Hess, calls upon Nacho himself, Jack Black, to lead a crew of misfits — Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks, Emma Meyers, and Sebastian Hansen — through an adventure in the game’s mine-crazy, cubed fantasy world. (4/4)

Hell of a Summer — It’s looking like Fred Hechinger’s terrific run of roles, from The White Lotus to Thelma, Gladiator II, and Nickel Boys, continues with this twisted slasher horror-comedy set at summer camp, co-starring and co-written and directed by Billy Bryk and Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard. (4/4)

Warfare — Civil War filmmaker Alex Garland returns to the battlefield, collaborating with former U.S. Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza on this brutally intense take on Mendoza’s experiences in combat during the Iraq War, featuring a choice ensemble of hot young talent, including Will Poulter, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor, Charles Melton, Noah Centineo, and Michael Gandolfini. (4/11)

Sinners — Michael B. Jordan x 2 should equal one exciting vampire movie, especially with award-winning Creed and Black Panther filmmaker Ryan Coogler writing and directing this Depression-era supernatural horror tale shot with IMAX cameras. All the better to be able to catch every nuance of Jordan’s dual performance as twin brothers Smoke and Stack band together to save their rural town from unspeakable evil. (4/18)

Sneaks — We’re including this animated fantasy about a pair of precious sneakers (voiced by Anthony Mackie and Chloe Bailey) searching for each other after being separated in the big city just to ask, “Seriously?” (4/18)

The Wedding Banquet — Ang Lee’s classic queer romance gets a modern reimagining that actually makes sense, with Fire Island filmmaker Andrew Ahn directing Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, Han Gi-chan, and Joan Chen in the still-valid story of a gay and a lesbian, both with same-sex partners, who fake a wedding to each other in order to appease the guy’s conservative grandma, played by Minari Oscar-winner Youn Yoh-Jung, whose presence assures us this won’t suck. (4/18)

The Accountant 2 — Ben, the two of us need look no more. We both found the sequel you’ve been looking for: a part deux to the star’s 2016 action-thriller, directed by Gavin O’Connor, about gun-toting underworld accountant Christian Wolff. O’Connor’s back at the helm — after also directing Affleck in the heartfelt sports drama The Way Back — and so is Jon Bernthal, as Wolff’s roguish brother Brax. The first film was a mid-range hit, and word is, this one improves on the original. (4/25)

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MAY

The Surfer — Nicolas Cage uncaged, as a dad who just wants to ride the waves with his son on a stretch of Australian beach ruled by a bully gang of surfers. Those blokes don’t know what they’re in for, but Cage fans have an idea of what to expect in this hard-hitting revenge story, and hopefully director Lorcan Finnegan delivers. (5/2)

Thunderbolts* — Marvel’s rough-and-tumble team of antiheroes and outright villains assemble for an action-comedy caper fronted by a mostly charismatic cast, including Florence Pugh as lethal Black Widow assassin Yelena, David Harbour as her super-soldier “dad” Red Guardian, and freshly-minted Oscar nominee Sebastian Stan reprising his role as former Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes. Following up the modest-by-Marvel’s-standards box office success of Captain America: Brave New World, there’s plenty of room for this 36th feature in the franchise to surprise us, pleasantly or otherwise. (5/2)

Friendship — A Chuck & Buck for this millennium, this dark comedy stars I Think You Should Leave comedian Tim Robinson as shy guy Craig, who develops a bro-crush on new bud Austin (Paul Rudd). But when Austin decides he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, Craig doesn’t take it well at all. A whole lot of cringe-worthy comedy ensues, we presume, and we’ll be watching. (5/9)

Final Destination: Bloodlines — Thanks to this beloved horror franchise, where death stalks the living with intricately creative kills, there are certain things we all avoid doing, like driving more than five seconds behind a log truck. So, let’s see what activities this sixth installment, from directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, comes up with for us to swear off forever. (5/16)

Lilo & Stitch — Stitch bounces into the real world, as basically still an animated character, in Disney’s latest live-action animated remake of an animated hit — in this case, the buddy sci-fi comedy pairing orphan Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and the Koala-like alien sprite Stitch, voiced here, as in the original, by Chris Sanders. (5/23)

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning — After seven films in one of the most reliably thrilling Hollywood film franchises of the past 30 years, Tom Cruise and company mask up for a final mission, directed by Christopher McQuarrie (Rogue Nation, Fallout, Dead Reckoning). Gawk in awe as Tom Cruise stunts his way out of Ethan’s hunts one last time — that is, unless the rush, the fans, or the IP’s corporate overlords someday pull him back in for another escapade. We wouldn’t bet against it. (5/23)

Bring Her Back — The Shape of Water star Sally Hawkins headlines this gruesome ghostly horror story by Talk to Me director brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, who proved with that feature they know how to creep out an audience. (5/30)

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JUNE

Dangerous Animals — A serial killer (Jai Courtney) likes to boat out to sea to feed his victims to the sharks in this gnarly thriller, featuring Yellowstone‘s Hassie Harrison as his latest victim, a badass surfer who’ll fight like hell to escape the jaws of death. (6/6)

How to Train Your Dragon — Dreamworks enters the “live-action” remake hustle with the studio’s first re-do of any of its hits. We’re surprised it took this long, considering the money Disney’s been minting by gulping at that well. Based on the trailer, which looks as if the live actors playing Hiccup (Mason Thames) and Astrid (Nico Parker) were merely inserted into a cartoon, Dreamworks hasn’t strayed far from the Disney remake formula. (6/13)

Materialists — Past Lives filmmaker Celia Song plots another love triangle with Dakota Johnson starring as a New York City matchmaker caught between actor/waiter ex Chris Evans and millionaire Pedro Pascal. An enviable rom-com dilemma that begs the question, Why not both, Celia Song? Didn’t you see Challengers? (6/13)

28 Years Later — Boasting hands-down the most frightening trailer of any offering this season, Danny Boyle’s timely sequel to post-apocalyptic zombie thrillers 28 Days Later (2002), and 28 Weeks Later (2007) finds uninfected humans Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jodie Comer surviving with their son in an isolated island community. But a mission to the mainland means diving back into a sea of the fleet-footed undead, in just part-one of a double-bill with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which was shot at the same time by Candyman director Nia DaCosta, and is scheduled for release in January 2026. (6/20)

M3GAN 2.0 — She’s back, but this time to fight for her roboticist creator Gemma (Allison Williams) instead of trying to massacre her family, as the dancing A.I. companion gets a software update in order to battle somebody else’s evil A.I. companion, created using stolen M3GAN technology. (6/27)

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JULY

Jurassic World Rebirth — Somebody in the trailer for this umpteenth sequel in the dinosaur franchise intones that the monster island where the action takes place is home to “the worst of the worst” of experimental predator species originally created for the ill-fated park. Now, why would you leave all of the worst of the worst to hang out together, and why in the world, when we can send bots to dig up rocks on Mars, would you send actual people — played by Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and the internet’s boyfriend Jonathan Bailey — to this place instead of drones? The trip will be treacherous, but, thankfully, it will be raptor whisperer-free. (7/2)

Superman (2025) — Based on footage we’ve seen so far of James Gunn’s superhero reboot, DC and Warner Bros. have a Superman movie on their hands apparently made by someone who knows what the people want in a Superman movie: to see the Kryptonian (David Corenswet) be a good guy who saves lives, including his lady love Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), and face off against foe Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). And he brought super-dog Krypto this time. James Gunn gets it. (7/11)

Smurfs — Puss in Boots director Chris Miller reboots the tiny blue characters, with Rihanna now voicing Smurfette (and new songs, people!) in a live-action musical adventure into the real world to rescue Papa Smurf (John Goodman) from — who else — Gargamel, and brother wizard, Razamel (both voiced by J.P. Karliak). (7/18)

I Know What You Did Last Summer — Do you? Because we don’t remember asking for this reboot-quel of the ’90s teen-horror franchise. But since they lured Jennifer Love Hewitt back to reprise her role as OG final girl Julie James, we might at least look for this when it hits streaming. (7/18)

Happy Gilmore 2 — Adam Sandler’s Netflix deal has kept the Sandman extremely productive with streaming originals and sequels to his theatrical releases. The built-in audience for this genuinely long-awaited (by somebody) sequel to his 1996 golf comedy should make this a hole-in-one. (7/25, Netflix)

The Fantastic Four: First Steps — Marvel does retro-futuristic in the style of The Jetsons, or The Incredibles, which basically was a version of the Fantastic Four, the original superstar super-group of Marvel Comics. The foursome of Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) — known to their world as Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and the Thing — at last join the MCU, with wondrous effects and impressive action, taking on world-eater Galactus. (7/25)

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AUGUST

The Naked Gun — A reboot of the crime spoof with no Leslie Nielsen, obviously, and without the Zucker Abrams Zucker team pulling the wacky strings, raises alarms. But with Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin, Jr., the similarly common sense-challenged son of Nielsen’s bumbling detective, and America’s favorite Showgirl, Pamela Anderson, playing the female lead, maybe this out-of-the-blue sequel will hit its target. (8/1)

The Toxic Avenger — Welcome back, Toxie! They’re calling it a reboot, not a remake. However, with Peter Dinklage taking on the title role, this could be more than just a toxic movie dump. (8/29)

Caught Stealing — Mother maestro Darren Aronofsky is never boring, and the eclectic all-star cast list alone for this adaptation of Charlie Huston’s crime thriller novel — starring Austin Butler, Zoë Kravitz, Regina King, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Bad Bunny — has us more than intrigued. (8/29)

Read André Hereford’s film reviews in Metro Weekly magazine. Subscribe for free at www.metroweekly.com/subscribe.

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