I hope you're ready for a big year at the movies (or big but more comfortably dress year on your couch, if you're a streaming devotee.) With a new decade upon us, 2020 is shaping up to be a fascinating and jam-packed year in cinema. With more premium streamers on the market than ever, Disney wiping Fox out of existence, the conclusion of the MCU's industry-dominating Infinity Saga behind us, and a golden age in horror still going strong, there's a welcome sense of unpredictability in the lineup of 2020 movies.

In fact, even the IP plays are a bit more oddball than usual this year. Chris Rock is making a Saw movie, Fantasy Island is a potential slasher franchise now, and Richard Stanley is launching a Lovecraft trilogy. There's a lot of WTFery in there and that's just the horror content. We're also getting new films from David FincherDenis VilleneuveChristopher NolanStephen SpielbergWes Anderson, and Charlie Kaufman, most of which we know next to nothing about. And in the realm of sequels, we've got a real oddball bunch with Top GunComing to AmericaLegally Blonde, and Bill and Ted all heading back to the big screen decades after we last saw their characters. 

And that's just scratching the surface of all the movies headed to theaters this year, so to help you prepare for the year ahead, we've put together a rather lengthy list of our most anticipated upcoming movies of 2020, from the box office juggernauts to the hidden gems, and everything in between. Check out our picks below, and if you're looking for more to put on your watchlist (how much time to you have, man?), be sure to check out our 40 Most Anticipated TV Shows of 2020 and the Upcoming Animated Movies to put on your radar.

The Gentlemen

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Image via STXfilms

Release Date: January 24

Guy Ritchie’s back, baby! Granted, Guy Ritchie has not technically gone anywhere -- he’s consistently been making big-budget movies like the Sherlock Holmes franchise and 2019’s bonkers Aladdin remake. But the OG brand of “Guy Ritchie,” the kind of tough-talking, quick-witted crime comedy-thriller promised by instantly iconic flicks like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, hasn’t been seen in a theatre since 2008’s RocknRolla. But based on early footage and critical response, The Gentlemen looks to rocket “Guy Ritchie” back into the cultural consciousness with delightfully brash energy.

Matthew McConaughey leads a delightful ensemble as an American marijuana kingpin living in England, looking to step away from his business. When word of his pseudo-retirement gets around the British crime community (goodness, what a fun phrase to write! Guy Ritchie’s back, baby!), all kinds of shady characters and, ahem, “gentlemen” do whatever it takes to get their slice of the green pie. The actors involved, all clearly relishing the chance to muck around in Ritchie’s underworld, include Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Eddie Marsan, Colin Farrell, Hugh Grant, and my personal MVP, Henry Golding doing a downright daft Cockney accent and sneering and preening all over the damn place like some kind of dumb crime rock star. STXfilms seems to be very content with “letting great filmmakers take great casts and deliver great original mid-budget pictures,” and honey, I’m very content as well. -- Gregory Lawrence

Color Out of Space

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Image via RLJE Films

Release Date: January 24

Listen. Listen. Nicolas Cage starring in an H.P. Lovecraft adaptation directed by Richard Stanley? No self-respecting fan of trippy-as-balls cosmic horror can afford to miss out on this movie. From the producers of the vibrantly hallucinogenic slasher film Mandy, Color Out of Space is about a meteorite that crashes into a farm near Arkham, Massachusetts and begins to spread a sinister infection.

Cage going space-crazy is an irresistible draw on its own, but the real standout here is Stanley, who directed the acclaimed Hardware and Dust Devil before being famously fired from the set of the 1996 debacle The Island of Dr. Moreau as depicted in the documentary Lost Soul. Stanley’s unique visual style is perfectly suited for Lovecraft’s tale of an intergalactic plague unleashed on an unsuspecting Earth, and producers Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah are already so pleased with his work that they’re planning an entire Lovecraft cinematic universe with Stanley at the helm. I do not have the words to fully express how pumped I am for this film, so just picture a Nic Cage howl in your mind’s ear and that will adequately represent my feelings. -- Thomas Reimann

Come to Daddy

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Image via Saban Films

Release Date: February 7

One of the wildest and crowd-pleasing movies I caught on the festival circuit last year was Come to Daddy. The bonkers new comedy-thriller from filmmaker Ant Timpson stars Elijah Wood as a sensitive and snobby artboi who receives a letter from his long-lost father and heads to a remote cabin for a bit of long-overdue father-son bonding. Trouble is, once he gets there all he gets is an earful of insults and thinly veiled mutual dislike, delivered by a deliciously on-fire Stephen McHattie, who makes every moment a barbed blow of assholery. And that’s just the start — from the launching pad of their bleak and awkward reunion, Come to Daddy spins out one hell of an insane and entertaining thriller. See this one with a crowd, if you can, because I've rarely heard a theater go as bonkers as the Fantasia Fest crowd did during a moment of just outrageous violence, and this is a film that definitely has that Midnight Movie crowd vibe. -- Haleigh Foutch

Birds of Prey

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Image via Warner Bros.

Release Date: February 7

Harley Quinn is a bonafide superstar of the DC‌ universe. A relatively new character who shot up the ranks of popularity in a jiffy, bounces between villainy and heroism with ease, and seems to blend well with just about any other DC character you put in her path, Harley is the best kind of agent of chaos, a wild card that’s welcome in just about any team. Which is why it kind of makes sense that Warner Bros. decided to team her up with the Birds of Prey despite the lack of comic history.‌ It’s Harley, why the heck not?

Margot Robbie’s take on the character was the one unequivocal highlight of Suicide Squad and as both star and producer, Robbie decided to throw her weight behind an R-rated ensemble pic rather than pushing herself fully in the spotlight with a Harley solo film. And she decided to team herself up with some real intriguing characters, including Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell’s Canary, and an absolutely decadent Ewan McGregor as the villainous Black Mask.‌‌ Heck, they even got Rosie effin’ Perez in this thing.  I’m a Harley die-hard so I would have always been excited for this one, but after witnessing the aesthetic (those costumes, my goodness) and energy Robbie &‌ Co. are bringing to the table first-hand on set,‌‌ I became a full-blown convert. – Haleigh Foutch

The Lodge

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Image via Neon

Premiere Date: February 7

Directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, the duo responsible for Goodnight Mommy, The Lodge looks to continue the Austrian filmmakers’ streak of truly disturbing takes on single-parent family dynamics. Riley Keough plays a new stepmom stuck in a cabin with her two stepchildren during a snowstorm when seriously creepy bullshit begins happening. The film premiered earlier this year at Sundance to overwhelmingly positive reviews. (Collider’s review called it “a chilling family drama with The Shining vibes.”) It’s been a long road to a wide release, but The Lodge will finally find its way to theaters and streaming services next February. While I only mostly enjoyed Goodnight Mommy (the film’s execution was brutal perfection but its twist was shockingly predictable), I’m vibrating with anticipation to see what this talented directing team with do with the frontier horror setting of The Lodge. Expect plenty of spooky-ass children. -- Thomas Reimann

Downhill

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Image via Fox Searchlight

Release Date: February 14

The world is a strange place where all kinds of wonder occur – for example, the idea that Disney is releasing an English-language remake of the pitch-black European comedy Force Majeure. I literally never, ever would have seen that coming. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell star as a married couple who find their marital happiness thrown into disarray when an avalanche strikes their ski resort and the husband absolutely punks out on his family. The original film took home the Jury prize at Cannes for its scathing sense of humor and breakdown of domestic facades, and with Jim Rash and Nat Faxon directing, here’s hoping the remake manages to capture all the absurdity and sly satire of the original.‌If nothing else, this one will have an asterisk next to it’s name in the history books as the first film released with the “Fox” brand scrubbed from the production company. – Haleigh Foutch

Fantasy Island

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Image via Sony Pictures Entertainment

Release Date: February 14

Now this is how you do IP for audiences that are obviously growing tired of the reboot/remake/legasequel barrage (just ask Terminator and Doctor Sleep and Men in Black and Charlie’s Angels and… well, you get it.) Blumhouse went and turned Fantasy Island into a slasher and that, my friends, is exactly the kind of “wait, what?!” innovation I want to see in 2020’s reboots. The trailer was energetic and engaging, promising a breezy but spooky time at the theaters, and you just can’t argue with a cast that includes Michael Pena, Michael‌ Rooker, and Maggie Q. – Haleigh Foutch

The Invisible Man

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Image via Universal Pictures

Release Date: February 28

Hey, remember when Universal announced their Dark Universe, and debuted a fancy logo at the beginning of 2017’s The Mummy, Tom Cruise’s worst film since Rock of Ages? Well, they cancelled plans to move forward with their shared universe of monster movies (for the second time) and decided to hand over The Invisible Man to writer/director Leigh Whannell, and that might be the best decision they’ve made re: the classic monsters since giving Stephen Sommers The Mummy back in 1999.

Whannell, the co-creator of Saw and Insidious and frequent collaborator of James Wan, released the surprisingly excellent sci-fi / horror gem Upgrade in 2018, and his take on the Invisible Man looks like it will be an equally refreshing breath of bone-chilling air. From the trailers, it looks like Whannell has taken a subject that’s already terrifying (an abusive ex-boyfriend that refuses to leave you alone) and added the extra layer of making the sonofabitch invisible. Pile that on top of what looks to be a top-tier performance from Elisabeth Moss as the terrorized woman and you’ve got a movie I could not be more excited to see when it finally hits theaters in February. Seriously, go watch the trailer and witness how creepy Moss can make an empty chair seem. -- Thomass Reimann

Swallow

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Image via IFC Films

Release Date: March 6

Swallow is one of those festival favorites that’s been tormenting me for almost a year now – no matter how many Festivals I cover, on the ground or remote, I just keep missing it. Which really sucks because everyone just keeps telling me how damn good it is. Fortunately, the lwait is almost over. Haley Bennett stars in the thriller from filmmaker Carlo Mirabella-Davis about a woman who seems to have it all but once she finds out she’s pregnant, she can’t stop swallowing dangerous – sometimes life-threatening – objects. Compulsion or control? Swallow is poised to offer a challenging investigation into bodily autonomy with a healthy dose of social satire. – Haleigh Foutch

Onward

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Image via Pixar

Release Date: March 6

Bring a tissue (actually, play it safe and bring the whole pack)‌ because Pixar is back on their bullshit with another fantastical act of emotional warfare in Onward. Written and directed by Monsters University helmer Dan Scanlon, Onward is a deeply personal project for the filmmaker, who was inspired by the fact that he never met his own father – only getting to hear his voice on a brief audio recording as a child. Take that heartfelt undercurrent, mix it up with some playful spins on the tropes of fantasy gaming, and throw Tom Holland and Chris Pine in the leads, and you’ve got Onward, the story of two elf brothers living in a suburban fantasy world when a quest to meet their long-lost father gives them a chance to bring magic back to their land. – Haleigh Foutch

A Quiet Place Part II

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Image via Paramount Pictures

Release Date: March 20

A Quiet Place was one of my favorite films of 2018, not just because of the premise (which was brilliant), but because of the filmmaking of it all. John Krasinski’s balance of tension, heart, and character was spot-on, and despite the fact that his character is not in the sequel, he’s still behind the camera and writing the script, and that is a very, very good thing. The story picks up pretty immediately where the first film left off, as Emily Blunt is now forced to lead her family through the new world, navigating dangers both alien and human. – Adam Chitwood

Mulan

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Image via Disney

Release Date: March 27

Disney's live-action remakes of their animated classics have varied from excellent (looking at you, Cinderella, you beautiful bastard) to abysmal (that's you, Alice Through the Looking Glass) to not live-action at all (ahem, The Lion King), but I've always favored the films that take bigger swings rather than sticking beat-for-beat to the original. In that regard, Mulan looks to be one of the most ambitious live-action remakes yet, stripping away the songs and fantastical elements (RIP Mushu) that made the animated version such a hit with kids and delivering a period piece war epic instead. With Whale Rider director Niki Caro at the helm and a cast that includes freaking Donnie Yen, you better believe I'm hyped as heck to see what Disney's live-action remakes can do when they veer just a little off the very beaten path. -- Haleigh Foutch

Saint Maud

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Image via A24

Release Date: March 27

I caught Saint Maud at Fantastic Fest last year and was absolutely blown away by this commanding directorial debut from writer/director Rose Glass. Morfydd Clark stars as Maud, a devout nurse dodging a dark past through piousness. We only get glimpses at the trauma, but we know it’s ugly – almost as ugly as the future threatens to be when Maud becomes obsessed with saving the soul of her latest patient; an artist and intellectual on death’s door (played by the entrancing Jennifer Ehle,) who also happens to be a staunch non-believer. The dance of wills, battle of spirits, and unexpected camaraderie that springs up between the two is alternately hypnotic and jarring, punctuated by moments of cruelty from both that are only matched by the quiet, surprising moments of kindness they share. The characters are so richly drawn you feel they could put both feet on the ground and walk out into your life, but thank heavens they can’t, because Glass imbues the whole film with such dread and heartache, you’ll be breathless and grateful to return to the relative calm of the real world by the time the credits roll. – Haleigh Foutch

The New Mutants

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Image via 20th Century Studios

Release Date: April 3

You simply cannot tell me you’re not a little curious about what we’re going to get when The New Mutants finally, finally hits the screen in 2020. The saga of director Josh Boone’s long-delayed X-Men project—originally shot in 2017!—is a strange, sordid one, filled with release date pushbacks, reshoots, and studio merger messes. But! At long last, New Mutants is set to premiere, and by the looks of its second trailer (which just so happened to have debuted 15 months after its first trailer), this thing actually looks pretty darn intriguing.

Set in the world established by Fox’s X-Men movies, the horror-tinged film follows a rag-tag crew of teenage mutants staying at a secret facility as they discover their powers. The young cast is wonderful, including Maise Williams (Game of Thrones), Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch), and Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things), and the film itself comes with its own interesting question: Is this an odd-ball one-and-done for Disney, or could it mark the first signs of mutants making their way into the MCU? --Vinnie Mancuso

No Time to Die

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Image via Nicola Dove © 2019 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM

Release Date: April 8

I’m almost more excited for No Time to Die as a new Cary Fukunaga movie rather than a new Bond movie, but hey, why not be excited for both? This is Daniel Craig’s last go-around as the iconic character so it’ll be interesting to see how that pans out, but my excitement for No Time to Die has a lot to do with the behind-the-scenes team. Fukunaga is a brilliant visual storyteller and I’m eager to see him painting on a much larger canvas, but he also has a co-writing credit on the film with none other than Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. That’s huge! Then you’ve got Oscar-winning La La Land and First Man cinematographer Linus Sandgren as the DP, an ensemble that includes Ana de Armas and Lashana Lynch, and baby you’ve got yourself a stew goin’. – Adam Chitwood

Antlers

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Image via Searchlight

Release Date: April 17

Nick Antosca's screenwriting career is really something else. The creator of Syfy's exceptional horror anthology Channel Zero, also created Hulu's The Act, wrote for NBC's Hannibal, and next up he's teaming with Don Mancini on the new Chucky series. Which is all to say, that when his name's on something, the project immediately has my attention. Antosca co-wrote the new horror film Antlers based on his original short story, and while I have no idea what's happening in the trailers, I'm extremely curious about this creature-feature that finds Crazy Heart and Hostiles director Scott Cooper going genre. The film also has renowned monster-lover Guillermo Del Toro on board as producer and a cast led by Keri Russell and Jesse Plemmons, so yep, slap this one on the hype list. -- Haleigh Foutch

Antebellum

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Release Date: April 24

Genre cinema has a history of embedding provocative social commentary into its thrills, blood spills, and inventive kills. Often times, the political subtexts of these films stay allegorical, bubbling just under the surface like the consumerist skeletons in John Carpenter’s They Live while not subsuming the superficial genre pleasures you can get from watching Keith David and Rowdy Roddy Piper beat the shit out of each other for 19 minutes. But lately, in part unfortunately because of our being condemned to live in interesting times, we’ve been seeing an influx of genre films that tackle social issues head-on, interwoven explicitly into their texts and narrative constructions. Jordan Peele’s seminal works Get Out and Us proved that these types of original films can crush at the box office, work like gangbusters in front of their audiences, and earn tons of critical acclaim and awards.

Now, in the wake of this vanguard of explicitly dissecting genre films, comes Antebellum, a debut horror feature from filmmakers Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz. The duo has previously helmed striking, provocative music videos for folks like Jay-Z, and the early footage for this film looks just as shocking, lyrical, and eye-grabbing. Janelle Monáe stars as a successful author who finds herself trapped in some kind of surreal, nightmarish alternate reality (alongside an eclectic cast like Gabourey Sidibe and Jena Malone). While the released trailer is purposefully obfuscating any real read on the plot details (which I mean as a compliment!), it sure seems like, based on the footage we do see (not to mention the film’s title), she’s stuck in a kind of neo-Southern slave state, where all of America’s past traumas are agonizingly playing on loop in the present. I cannot wait for this nerve-jangling piece of genre exploration, and I hope enough people see it to keep movies like this coming.-- Gregory Lawrence

Black Widow

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Image via Marvel Studios

Release Date: May 1

It may have taken forever and a day, but Scarlett Johanson's Black Widow is finally getting a solo movie (cue Hamilton track: and all she had to do was die...) and so far, everything we've seen looks pretty darn fun. I caught the first footage debut at SDCC and the subsequent reveal at CCXP, and Black Widow looks surprisingly funny (especially David Harbour, who looks to be downright yucking it up) and not-so-surprisingly action-packed. Throw in Florence Pugh and Rachel Weisz and the promise of finally getting some damned answers about Budapest, and hopefully, Natasha's finally gonna get the triumphant moment in the spotlight she's long-deserved. -- Haleigh Foutch

Legally Blonde 3

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Image via MGM Distribution Co.

Release Date: May 8

It’s been one heck of a wait, but Reese Witherspoon is finally suiting up as Elle Woods once again for Legally‌ Blonde 3nearly two decades after we last saw the character in action. And the last time we saw her, she was lobbying in DC, which should make a fascinating location for the character in the context of today’s political climate. But the power of Elle Woods is her ability to find empowerment (and a closet full of monochromatic pink clothes) under any circumstances. The real draw here, of course, is Witherspoon, who’s made a career of playing passionate-to-manic over-achievers, and her outstanding work on Big Little Lies was a great reminder that she can flick on that energetic switch better than anyone in the biz. – Haleigh Foutch

Untitled Saw Movie

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Image via FX

Release Date: May 15

Chris Rock is making a Saw movie and that’s really all you had to say to have my curiosity and my attention. Rock’s not only starring, he’s co-writing and executive producing the damn thing, which gives the whole production an irresistible and unpredictable chaotic energy. On top of the root appeal of a Saw movie co-starring Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, the new take sees the return of Darren Lynn Bousman, the director who helmed Saw II through Saw IV and arguably defined the tone and grotesqueries of violence the franchise would ultimately become known for. Franchise creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell are also back in the saddle as executive producers, and across the board, this one’s just shaping up to be a potent combination of WTF‌ meets fuck-yeah. – Haleigh Foutch