As the year comes to a close, it’s easy to get caught up in the impending awards season and debating whose performances were the best of 2013 while losing sight of the many exciting projects coming to the big screen in the year ahead. There really is nothing like the thrill of anxiously anticipating a new movie, and this New Year offers plenty to look forward to.
Sequels will abound, of course. There’s more Hunger Games, The Hobbit, Captain America, X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man adventures coming down the pike. Fantasy lit fans will anxiously await the March 21 arrival of Divergent, a novel adaptation that is poised to be the next Hunger Games/Twilight-level young adult phenomenon. Also of note, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, the long-awaited sequel to Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s comic noir epic from way back in 2005, arrives on August 22.
Barring those sequels—and any ultra-indie films still off the grid till festival season—here are my top 10 most anticipated films for 2014.
10. The Monuments Men (Feb. 7)
George Clooney directs this humorous, heart-felt mission movie that follows a rag-tag group of academics into a war zone to save precious works of art during the destruction of WWII. Matt Damon, Bill Murray and John Goodman co-star, so I am expecting a lot of laughs. Plus, any time Clooney sports a mustache, look out.
9. Transcendence (April 18)
Christopher Nolan’s long-time cinematographer Wally Pfister (The Dark Knight, Inception) makes his feature film directorial debut with this futuristic psychological thriller about a scientist, played by a curiously un-costumed Johnny Depp, obsessed with merging humans with computers to extend and evolve life. When a technology resistance group targets Depp, he becomes the first experimental subject of his own controversial theories. Hopefully, it’s not just a better-looking Lawnmower Man.
8. Maleficent (May 30)
This twisted update of the Sleeping Beauty mythos tells the tale from the perspective of the frightening villain, played by Angelina Jolie. I’m always curious when Disney goes dark. Elle Fanning co-stars.
7. Magic in the Moonlight (July 26)
Set in the south of France, Woody Allen’s upcoming dramedy stars Emma Stone, who’s basically the modern Diane Keaton, so my expectations are through the roof. Colin Firth co-stars.
Emma Stone teams up with Woody Allen in 2014.
6. Exodus (Dec. 12)
I bet breakfast with Ridley Scott is epic. The director (Gladiator, Blade Runner) can’t help but dream big. And what’s a more gargantuan task than producing a new film about the life of Moses when Charlton Heston’s The Ten Commandments remains an Easter tradition for so many? Christian Bale steps into the role of the adopted Egyptian royal who leaves his lofty perch to lead his enslaved Israelite people to a new land promised to them by God. Ben Kingsley and Aaron Paul co-star.
Christian Bale in Exodus.
5. Gone Girl (Oct. 3)
Director David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Seven) creates another mystery with this Gillian Flynn adaptation staring Ben Affleck as a husband who becomes the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance. Of course, with Fincher, nothing is ever as it seems, and this nail-biter should keep audiences on the edge of their seats.
Ben Affleck in Gone Girl.
4. Inherent Vice (release date TBD)
Thomas Pynchon’s popular novel comes to the screen thanks to P.T. Anderson (There Will Be Blood). Anderson’s The Master star Joaquin Phoenix plays a drug-addicted L.A. detective investigating the disappearance of an old flame. Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Benicio del Toro and Martin Short co-star, in what looks on paper to be the oddest and most intriguing cast of the year.
Phoenix filming Inherent Vice.
3. The Grand Budapest Hotel (March 7)
Ralph Fiennes is a hilariously flawed hotel manager caught up in a family war for a valuable painting and all the shenanigans that ensue in this screwball comedy from writer-director Wes Anderson. This looks like the quirky auteur is truly at play, with so many of his regulars (Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, et al) popping in to take part in the antics.
2. Noah (March 28)
Another Bible-based epic for 2014 is this flood-induced drama from former indie director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem For a Dream) who is working with a big budget for the first time. Russell Crowe (pictured above) plays the titular clan leader who gets a message from above to build an ark and save his people from the wrath God is about to pour out on the Earth’s wicked populace who have turned away from Him. Emma Watson and Anthony Hopkins co-star.
1. Interstellar (Nov. 7)
Cloaked in mystery and a sense of wonder for space travel, Christopher Nolan’s upcoming adventure stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and others as near-future pioneers who reach for the edges of the cosmos in a dangerous mission of discovery. Those who like to compare Nolan to the great Stanley Kubrick will have their chance as this film is sure to have echoes of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
