We've made it through the summer movie season, and while the dearth of movies opening at the end of August gives us a bit of a reprieve (sorry, Tulip Fever fans), there's not much time to breathe before we jump right back in with more movies we can't wait to see. The fall movie season not only offers the starting point for most of the films we'll see in the Oscar race; it also offers up some surprising diverse features from scary clowns to superheroes to replicants and much more.

We don't know if all of these movies will deliver on their promise, but we're eager to find out.

IT (September 8th)

mother! (September 15th)

Writer/Director: Darren Aronofsky

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer

I’m a pretty die-hard Darren Aronofsky fan, and while it’s only been a few years since his last feature, it looks like he’s lost none of his bite with his latest feature, mother! The movie is sending out a heavy Rosemary’s Baby vibe in its marketing, but they’re also going to great lengths to keep the plot details under wraps. I’m not exactly sure what kind of movie this is going to be beyond psychological-horror-that-gives-me-nightmares. But as we’ve seen from Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, Aronofsky never pulls his punches, and so I expect mother! to be thoroughly disturbing. – Matt Goldberg

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (September 22nd)

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Writers: Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn

Cast: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Halle Berry, Sir Elton John, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges

The first Kingsman was a blast, and buzz on the upcoming sequel has been incredibly positive. Matthew Vaughn knows how to have fun with the spy genre, and if the sequel can just cut out some of the ickier aspects of the original (the massacre at the church that’s supposed to be fun, the sex reward at the end), it should be one of Vaughn’s finer features. He certainly already has a top-notch cast in place, and I’m eager to see Taron Egerton once again steal the movie as the lovable Eggsy. – Matt Goldberg

The LEGO Ninjago Movie (September 22nd)

Director: Charlie Bean

Writers: Bob Logan, Paul Fisher, Kevin Hageman, Dan Hageman, Hilary Winston

Cast: Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, Fred Armisen, Abbi Jacobson, Olivia Munn, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Peña, Zach Woods, Jackie Chan

I’m just a sucker for these LEGO movies at this point. Part of that is I genuinely enjoy LEGO, but The LEGO Movie and The LEGO Batman Movie are both wonderful. Now the biggest challenge arrives in the form of Ninjago, a property that’s familiar to younger fans of LEGO (there was an animated series on Cartoon Network), but doesn’t have the fresh start of something like the first LEGO Movie or LEGO Batman. That being said, the trailers have been cute and funny, so hopefully this latest spinoff is up to par with the previous entries. – Matt Goldberg

American Made (September 29th)

Director: Doug Liman

Writer: Gary Spinelli

Cast: Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons, Caleb Landry Jones, Lola Kirke

The last time director Doug Liman and star Tom Cruise teamed up we got Edge of Tomorrow, so that’s certainly one big reason to be excited for American Made. But beyond that, this looks to be a change of course for Cruise in that he’s tackling material that’s a drama first, action film second. Cruise is one of the best living actors in Hollywood history, and while he’s certainly carved out a tremendous niche as an action hero, it’s nice to see him back playing a complex character in a complicated drama again. The film itself is based on true events and takes place in the 1980s, during which a pilot pulls double duty working for the CIA and as a drug runner for the Medellin Cartel. Throw in a truly dizzying/chaotic aesthetic from Liman and cinematographer César Charlone, and it looks like we’re in for a feature film version of the cocaine scene from Goodfellas. Yes please. – Adam Chitwood

Blade Runner 2049 (October 6th)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Writers: Michael Green and Hampton Fancher

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Jared Leto, Dave Bautista, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Sylvia Hoeks

While the concept of revisiting the Blade Runner universe 30 years later is intriguing enough, the talent involved in Blade Runner 2049 is what really sells it. Director Denis Villeneuve has shown a knack for crafting films that are thrilling and thoughtful in equal measure with movies like Sicario and Arrival, the cast here is stacked, and legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins (The Assassination of Jesse James, No Country for Old Men, Skyfall) is shooting his first sci-fi film in over 30 years. The story itself—which finds Ryan Gosling’s LAPD detective tracking down Harrison Ford’s lost Rick Deckard—is indeed compelling, but the individual pieces of 2049 are really what sell it as a must-see. – Adam Chitwood

The Mountain Between Us (October 6th)

Director: Hany Abu-Assad

Writers: Chris Weitz, J. Mills Goodloe

Cast: Kate Winslet, Idris Elba, Beau Bridges, Dermot Mulroney

I’m not an outdoorsman in any sense of the word, and yet I can’t seem to get enough of survival dramas. Give me people versus the wilderness and I am in, and I’m especially on board when your entire movie needs to be carried by Kate Winslet and Idris Elba. The two play survivors of a plane crash in the mountains who must work together in order to make it back to civilization. That may seem like a spare premise, but in the hands of a director who knows how to capture the majesty and fearsomeness of the wild, it can be absolutely riveting. – Matt Goldberg

Marshall (October 13th)

Director: Reginald Hudlin

Writers: Jake Koskoff, Michael Koskoff

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad, Kate Hudson, Dan Stevens, Sterling K. Brown, James Cromwell

I don’t think Marshall is going to turn the biopic or the courtroom drama on its head, and I don’t really care. The story of Thurgood Marshall deserves to be told, and I’m all for giving Chadwick Boseman roles to flex his acting muscles. While the movie will be about Marshall’s days as a lawyer rather than the Supreme Court’s first African-American justice, I’m still excited to see what Hudlin does with this biopic. – Matt Goldberg

Wonderstruck (October 20th)

Director: Todd Haynes

Writer: Brian Selznick

Cast: Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, Oakes Fegley, Tom Noonan, Millie Simmonds

Because a new Todd Haynes film is always a cause for celebration. That he’s making a childhood adventure story from the author of Hugo amps our excitement. But nothing can be more exciting than Moore reuniting with Haynes for a third time after he lens two of her career bests in Safe and Far From Heaven. I’m on record everywhere saying that Haynes’ last film, Carol, is a masterpiece and one of the best examples of pure cinema that’s existed this century. So hell yeah, whatever his follow up is, I’m there, hoping to be “wonderstruck.” — Brian Formo

The Snowman (October 20th)

Director: Tomas Alfredson

Writers: Hossein Amini, Peter Straughan

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, James D’Arcy, Chloë Sevigny, Val Kilmer, J.K. Simmons, Jamie Clayton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, and David Dencik

Tomas Alfredson has been missing. In 2011, the Swedish filmmaker made a world-class spy masterpiece with his re-envisioning of John le Carre’s beloved Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, starring Gary Oldman as the masterful George Smiley in one of his best performances to date. Following the critical acclaim and cult status of Let the Right One In, his exquisite, chilling tale of adolescent vampires, the warm reception to Tinker should have secured him a major title. His first plan was to adapt the famed Swedish children’s story The Brothers Lionheart, but that ultimately fell through. There was also talk of him starting to set up Smiley’s People, le Carre’s sequel to Tinker, but then he got the chance to take over directing The Snowman, an adaptation of Jo Nesbø’s bestseller, for Martin Scorsese.

From the looks of the trailer, he’s done a mighty fine job of bringing the eeriness of the grim serial-killer hunt at the center of the novel to frigid life. As with Tinker, he’s working with a hell of a cast: Michael Fassbender, James D’Arcy, Rebecca Ferguson, Chloe Sevigny, J.K. Simmons, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, and Val Kilmer. What will ultimately elevate this movie above the bloody thriller fray is Alfredson, a brilliant, measured composer of shots and sequences and a diabolical builder of tension. Working alongside DP Dion Beebe, a former collaborator with Michael Mann and Jane Campion, Alfredson looks to be making morbid art out of mayhem with this one. - Chris Cabin

Geostorm (October 20th)

Director: Dean Devlin

 

Writer: Dean Devlin, Paul Guyot

 

Cast: Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, Daniel Wu, Ed Harris, Andy Garcia

 

This movie looks so freaking dumb and yet I can’t look away. It looks like the fake movie inside of a real movie. The plot basically involved weaponized weather, and it looks like Devlin is trying to pull from his 90s disaster movie playbook to see if it can still work in 2017. I don’t know if it can, but there’s a place for blockbuster trash, and if Geostorm turns out to be ridiculously fun, then I’m all for it. – Matt Goldberg

Suburbicon (October 27th)

Anytime you say "script by the Coen Brothers" the ears perk up. However, no one has truly nailed the harsh but human comedic tones of the Coens when the Coens aren't directing (in my opinion). The intrigue here lies in the cast and the fact that George Clooney has worked with the Brothers Coen enough to perhaps have a little bit of their magic rub off on him from the director's chair. — Brian Formo

Jigsaw (October 27th)

Directors: Peter Spierig, Michael Spierig

Writers: Josh Stolberg, Peter Goldfinger

Cast: Matt Passmore, Callum Keith Rennie, Clé Bennett, Hannah Emily Anderson, Laura Vandervoort, Mandela Van Peebles, Paul Braunstein, Brittany Allen, Josiah Black

Do audiences want more Saw? We'll find out this October. The gimmicky, torturery death-trap franchise feels a bit like an artifact from a very different time in horror history at this point, so I'm curious to see if audiences are still interested in the murderous machinations of Jigsaw and his cult of followers. For the reboot, Predestination and Daybreakers directors Michael and Peter Spierig take the mantle, and from their conversations about the film, it sounds like they're aiming for something decidedly more and crowd-pleasing than the mercilessly cruel parade of carnage the Saw franchise ultimately devolved into. That sounds like something I could get behind, especially with a pair of underrated genre directors like the Spierig brothers at the wheel, and I'm fascinated to see how they handle the mythology of Jigsaw's bungled apprentices, if at all. I may be a bit wary of a return to nihilistic nastiness in the climate of 2017, but if the creative team manages to nail the tone, Jigsaw could prove a triumphant return for one of horror's juggernaut franchises.   -- Haleigh Foutch

Thank You For Your Service (October 27th)

Writer/Director: Jason Hall

Cast: Miles Teller, Haley Bennett, Joe Cole, Amy Schumer, Beulah Koale, Scott Haze, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Brad Beyer, Omar J. Dorsey, Jayson Warner Smith

This kind of a movie continues to be a heavy lift for filmmakers. Stories of soldiers dealing with PTSD is worth telling, but too often, these kind of movies become mawkish and overbearing (e.g. In the Valley of Elah, Stop-Loss). Hopefully, Jason Hall can break that streak with Thank You For Your Service, which has a firm focus on life-after-combat and soldiers trying to reintegrate into society. Again, these kinds of movies are difficult to do, but I’m eager to see if Hall can pull it off. – Matt Goldberg

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (October 27th)

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Writers: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou

Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Alicia Silverstone, Barry Keoghan, Raffey Cassidy, Sunny Suljic, and Bill Camp

If last year’s The Lobster served as Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos’ breakout English-language film, The Killing of a Sacred Deer will either snag him a big-studio deal or send him back to the lower depths. Pivoting on the relationship between an American surgeon (Colin Farrell) and the son of a man who died on his table (Barry Keoghan), the film is a bleak bromide made of guilt and anger, hopelessness and madness. Lanthimos turns this unpredictable and pitch-black medical drama into a forceful reckoning with the pain that we cause others without knowing it, and the potency of unresolved fury when funneled toward even the most atrocious causes. The timeliness of its many psychological torments and overwhelming sense of helplessness against a largely unrecognizable force should not be lost on anyone. - Chris Cabin

Thor: Ragnarok (November 3rd)

Director: Taika Waititi

Writers: Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Stephany Folsom, Eric Pearson

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins

It's Taika Waititi directing a Marvel film. I really shouldn't have to say anything more. But I wrote a whole freaking article exploring how excited I am about that Idea, so of course I will. Waititi has proven himself a filmmaker that is both elastic, in the way he weaves through genres, and fixed, in the sense that his films always feel as if they could have come from him alone. They're singular and unique, and that makes him a thrilling candidate to take on Marvel's blandest franchise and finally give it the jolt of playful energy the likes of Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston deserve. Bonus -- now with added Mark Ruffalo and Cate Blanchett. It's a good deal all around, and Waititi's candid confidence in his fit for the material has never wavered, and as the picture comes clearer into focus with new trailers and promo material, it seems clear why. Taika Waititi has made a Taika Waititi film, working with the extraordinary tools of the Marvel universe at his disposal. Get hype. -- Haleigh Foutch

Roman J. Israel, Esq. (November 3rd)

Director/Writer: Dan Gilroy

Cast: Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo

Screenwriter Dan Gilroy made a tremendous splash with his directorial debut Nightcrawler in 2014, where he showed off his talents both for crafting a cohesive and engaging film as well as directing terrific performances, so we’ve been anticipating his sophomore effort ever since. That it happens to be a legal thriller starring Denzel Washington and Colin Farrell just makes Roman J. Israel, Esq. that much more enticing. The story takes place in the underbelly of the overburdened Los Angeles criminal court system, and Washington plays a driven and idealistic defense attorney whose life is upended by a series of events that challenge his activism. Nightcrawler was a dark character-study-like descent into madness, and it sounds like Roman J. Israel, Esq. may be a showcase once again for a long, dark fall. – Adam Chitwood

A Bad Moms Christmas (November 3rd)

Writers/Directors: Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

Cast: Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Jay Hernandez, Cheryl Hines, Peter Gallagher, Justin Hartley, David Walton, Christine Baranski, Susan Sarandon

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed 2016’s Bad Moms. Not only did you get incredibly funny performances from Kunis, Bell, and Hahn, it felt surprisingly honest and sympathetic rather than devolving into a series of “Moms are overworked” jokes (they are, but the movie avoids clichés). Comedy sequels are tough, but I want to see more of these characters, and putting them in a holiday setting is a good way to find fresh material and new laughs. I didn’t catch the first Bad Moms until it hit DVD. I won’t be making that mistake with A Bad Moms Christmas. – Matt Goldberg

Last Flag Flying (November 3rd)

Director: Richard Linklater

Writers: Richard Linklater and Darryl Ponicsan

Cast: Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, Laurence Fishburne, and J. Quinton Johnson

Billed as a sequel to Hal Ashby’s seminal The Last Detail, Richard Linklater’s latest film deals with the aftermath of war in ways both grave and ebullient. A trio of former Marines, played by Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, and Laurence Fishburne, reunite and journey across America to attend the funeral of a young soldier, the son of Carell’s character.

Early reactions peg it as the latest Linklater masterwork that will nab him a long overdue Oscar for direction or picture but its possible accolades would only be truly useful if they helped him secure a next gig. He’s already flush with those. Following Everybody Wants Some!, Boyhood, and Before Midnight, Linklater’s upcoming films are in themselves events in the same way Wes Anderson, P.T. Anderson, and Christopher Nolan command audiences by name alone. That being said, it’s especially exciting to see Linklater tangle with more immediate subject matter than love, time, or familial strife and attempting to reckon with the trauma and transformative force of the military and war. - Chris Cabin

Murder on the Orient Express (November 10th)

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Writer: Michael Green

Cast: Tom Bateman, Kenneth Branagh, Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odom Jr., Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Marwan Kenzari, Olivia Colman, Lucy Boynton, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Sergei Poluni

Even if you put aside the absolutely insane cast, you’ve still got one of Agatha Christie’s best yarns at the center of this murder mystery. Branagh has always excelled with period pieces, and in an age where everything seems to be about set pieces and big moments, I’m very curious to see how he tells a murder mystery on a large canvas. – Matt Goldberg