November’s post-Halloween cinema line-up carries a diverse array of big-screen experiences for all ages, tastes, and sensibilities. You can blast through all of the month’s big titles with the video above or the list below.
Whether you’re aching for a certain blockbuster sequel or yearning for something original, seeking a potential Oscar nominee or a future horror classic, or in desperate need of that third Now You See Me movie, November’s got you covered.
Oh, and a soft reminder: Flicks members (sign up here if you’re not one) can add any or all of these to their watchlist and get notified when they’re due out in cinemas.
The Carpenter’s Son
This isn’t your typical faith-based film. If you clocked the names Nicolas Cage and FKA Twigs on the poster, you probably figured that out already.
The Cagester plays a carpenter, known only as The Carpenter, who is the guardian of a growing boy with otherworldly abilities. As The Boy (A Quiet Place‘s Noah Jupe) starts to demonstrate these seemingly divine powers, another elusive child seeks to torment and plant seeds of doubt inside the young lad’s head, setting off a chain of events that could lead to horrific, faith-crushing consequences.
Die, My Love
Adapting the novel by Ariana Harwicz, BAFTA-winning filmmaker Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here) places Jennifer Lawrence inside the head of a woman trying to embrace love, freedom, and motherhood while battling psychosis. Co-stars Robert Pattinson as her other half.
Nominated for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes, Vanity Fair was particularly taken by Lawrence’s performance: “It’s quite something to behold: a comedic performance that manages convincing notes of devastation, or a dramatic turn that is also screamingly funny. What a thrill to see Lawrence expanding her artistry like this, a movie star reclaiming the talent that her celebrity once nearly obscured.”
Keeper
Longlegs director Osgood Perkins has had a pretty good couple of years. Same with his The Monkey star Tatiana Maslany who stars in the filmmaker’s latest scare-fest, a cabin-in-the-woods horror that’s keeping plot details close to its chest.
What do we know? The remote cabin is housing a couple’s romantic anniversary getaway. The official synopsis mentions a ‘sinister presence’ of some sort. And this excitingly obtuse trailer hints at a multi-perspective narrative that we haven’t seen in a horror film since… well, Weapons I guess.
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t
Let’s address the elephant in the room: they should have called the second film in this hero magicians series Now You See Me: Now You Don’t. You’ve been thinking it. I’ve been thinking it. Let’s move on.
Jesse Eisenberg gets the ol’ Horsemen back together again (that’s Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Isla Fisher, no Lizzy Caplan) and recruits a new generation of vigilante illusionists (I Saw the TV Glow‘s Justice Smith, Borderlands‘ Ariana Greenblatt and The Holdovers‘ Dominic Sessa). This time, they’re taking on Rosamund Pike’s powerful money-laundering diamond mogul inside galleries, on the streets, and all over some MC Escher-like buildings.
Nuremberg
Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon and One Day‘s Leo Woodall star in this heavy WWII courtroom thriller from the director of 2015’s Truth. Crowe embodies Nazi leader Hermann Göring facing trial for war crimes after the fall of the fascist regime, entering a battle of wits with the American psychiatrist (Malek) tasked with assessing him.
“Crowe is certainly the standout,” Collider praised. “It’s the kind of larger dramatic role that we haven’t seen from Crowe since Boy Erased and True History of the Kelly Gang at the end of the 2010s… Quite frankly, it never hurts for a film to preach the dangers of Nazis and how they can be anywhere and everywhere…”
Predator: Badlands
I don’t think it’s controversial to say that there have been more good Predator sequels than bad ones (I’m not counting the Alien V Predator films and neither should you). 1990’s Predator 2 was bold enough to take the franchise in a Arnie-less and jungle-free direction while Predators went completely off-Earth for a novel take on the idea. Let’s just scooch past 2018’s The Predator…
…and hail filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg for finding even more novel approaches to the sci-fi horror series by dropping the intergalactic hunters in different spots of history with 2022’s Prey and animated anthology Killer of Killers. Now we’re gifted another fresh take with Badlands, starring The Panthers‘ Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as a young predator thrown onto a deadly planet to prove his worth to his clan. Co-stars Elle Fanning as half a robot he wears like a backpack.
The Running Man
It’s been quite the year for Stephen King adaptations with splatter comedy The Monkey, uplifting genre-bender The Life of Chuck, sci-fi prison series The Institute, alt-history thriller The Long Walk, and upcoming horror prequel It: Welcome to Derry.
Now we’ve got Edgar Wright’s dystopian action flick about a man (Glen Powell) desperate to provide for his family who agrees to be the target of an insane, televised game show where he must survive for 30 days from anyone willing to kill him. How can it improve on the 1987 original starring Arnold Schwarzenegger? Luke Buckmaster listed a whole bunch.
Train Dreams
Submit yourself to the ebbs and flows of life as a railroad worker in this sumptuously shot experience set in early 20th Century America. Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones join forces with filmmaker Clint Bentley, whose screenplay for the excellent Sing Sing earned him an Oscar nomination, to deliver this screen adaptation of Denis Johnson’s beloved novella.
“At times, Train Dreams feels almost quilt-like in the way its pieces fit together,” Variety writes, “with certain sounds and images flickering briefly, almost subliminally, across our consciousness, often to echo further on.”
Wake Up Dead Man
Daniel Craig returns as honky-tonk detective Benoit Blanc in Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out Mystery. We trust that, like us, you’d rather hear about the stacked cast in this film than a detailed plot summary. So here we go: Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Thomas Haden Church, Jeffrey Wright, Alien: Romulus star Cailee Spaeny and Daryl “Leo Grande” McCormack.
As with the previous two films, this one’s already proving to be a critical hit. Exhibit A: The Times, who confessed that the film “delivers first giggles, then twists and gasp-inducing rug-pulls, courtesy of standout performances…”
Wicked: For Good
Get another taste of the Academy Award-winning production and costume designs with Part Two of director Jon M Chu’s screen adaptation of the Broadway sensation. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande return as Elphaba and Glinda, feuding sister roles that earned both of them Oscar nominations.
Elphaba’s now been smeared as The Wicked Witch while Glinda’s popularity soars. Looking to close this distance between her and her sister, Glinda looks to broker a conciliation between Elphaba and The Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). But all plans get knocked to the side when a certain girl from Kansas crashes into Oz.
Zootopia 2
It’s been almost a decade since audiences first visited the animal-diverse city of Zootopia in Disney’s Oscar-winning bunny-cop movie. Perhaps we’re in need for another family-friendly tale about friendship, inclusion, and how political power structures shape the foundations of civilisation and social discourse.
This one has a snake in it—and that’s freaking everyone out since reptiles are banned from Zootopia for being a danger to society. But crime-fighting partners Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde suspect something isn’t quite right with that assumption and join this slithery serpent in finding the truth.
