Some of the biggest filmmakers in the world are now focused on creating movies and TV shows for the endless streaming companies, but there will still be plenty of reasons to get out and visit your local cinema in 2020. RNZ offers up 60 options to consider, coming soon to a theatre near you.
Photo: RNZ
Starting the cinematic year
Fresh from its success as this week's Golden Globes ceremony, 1917 (out 9 January) is cut together to resemble one long unbroken tracking shot, creating a sense of increasing tension, while still getting in a few shots at the pointlessness and horror of armed conflict.
If that way sounds too stressful to start the year with, there is a large variety of different films coming out in the next few weeks, such as family-friendly efforts like Robert Downey Jr's revival of Dolittle (16 January) and Tom Hanks - the objectively nicest man ever to work in movies - playing Mr Rogers - the nicest man to ever work in US television - in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (23 Jan).
Meanwhile, Margot Robbie, Charlize Theron and Nicole Kidman take on the head of Fox News and institutionalised sexism in Bombshell (16 Jan); Kristen Stewart is trapped in an underwater lab after an earthquake in Underwater (23 Jan); Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne find out if friends can be business partners in Like A Boss (23 Jan); and the Jane Austen's classic Emma (13 Feb) is back in a screenplay by New Zealand author Eleanor Catton.
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Sequels, prequels and revivals
Most of the biggest blockbusters of the year are, as usual, based on an earlier film or series, and 2020 has a number of long-awaited sequels coming years after the original. These include Bad Boys For Life (16 Jan), Top Gun: Maverick (25 June), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2 July) and Bill and Ted Face The Music (sometime in 2020).
Even after the climactic Avengers: Endgame, Marvel movies continue to roll on, with Scarlett Johansson finally getting a lead role as the Black Widow (30 April) and a new race of super-gods unveiled in The Eternals (5 November). X-Men spin-off The New Mutants (2 April) has another released date, after being delayed for almost two years. Other superheroes to hit the multiplex in the coming months include Margot Robbie shrugging off the Suicide Squad to star in Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (6 Feb), and Wonder Woman taking a 70-year leap into the 1980s in Wonder Woman 1984 (4 June).
There is also a new Fast and Furious (21 May), a Kingsman prequel - The King's Man (17 Sept) - and Godzilla v Kong (26 Nov). James Bond is also making a return to the big screen with No Time To Die (9 April), as Daniel Craig plays 007 for the last time.
And as much as Hollywood likes sequels, they also like remakes. Mulan (26 March) is Disney's latest movie in its strategy of remaking its own animated efforts, with Kiwi director Niki Caro behind the camera, and the NZ landscape in front of it. Later in the year, Denis Villeneuve directs an all-star cast in the latest version of sci-fi epic Dune (26 Sept), while Steven Spielberg will end the year with a remake of original musical blockbuster West Side Story (26 Dec).
Action!
There are a few action films this year which do have an original idea or two. Christopher Nolan brings a time-bending twist to another film full of handsome people in sharp suits with Tenet (16 July), while Ryan Reynolds gets a taste for ultra-violence as a video game character becomes self-aware in Free Guy (2 July).
In Guns Akimbo (5 March), carnage ensues after Daniel Radcliffe wakes up with guns stuck to his hands, while in Bloodshot (12 March), Vin Diesel is a resurrected marine enhanced with biotech that allows him to survive little things like getting shot in the face. For slightly less bloodshed and Dame Judi Dench in fairy ears, there is always Kenneth Branagh's adaption of Artemis Fowl (28 May)
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Family fun
While adults are largely content to Netflix and chill, a younger audience is still a major target for movie studios. The
year's line-up of family friendly fun begins with two similar tough adults and cute kids films - Playing With Fire (9 Jan), with a group of rugged firefighters taking on three kids, while Dave Bautista plays a CIA agent taking on a 9 -year-old girl in My Spy (16 Jan).
After some digital rejigging of the title character, Sonic The Hedgehog (13 Feb) will be bouncing across the screen soon, and there are also new films for Shaun The Sheep (9 Jan), Peter Rabbit (2 April), and the immortal Spongebob Squarepants (2 July).
Pixar is moving into mystical and magical realms with its two computer animated films coming out in 2020 - in Onward (9 April) two elf brothers' attempt to bring their father back to life does not go well, while Soul (18 June) gets metaphysical with its story of a jazz-loving man finding himself in a place where souls are being prepared for newborn children.
For more classic thrills, Harrison Ford heads into the wilderness with a CGI canine in a new adaption of Call of the Wild (20 Feb).
True stories and other histories
Reality continues to be a major inspiration for the movies, and while there is another heavy slate of historical and 'based on true stories' films for 2020, they cover a huge array of subjects.
These subjects include the efforts to save a man from death row in Just Mercy (23 Jan); a pivotal Pacific battle in WW2 in Midway (30 Jan); an iconic '60s screen star in Seberg (30 Jan); and the drama behind the controversial 1970 Miss World competition in Misbehaviour (23 April).
In Richard Jewell (13 Feb), director Clint Eastwood tells the story of a security guard who saved people from a bomb at the 1996 Olympics, while Dark Waters (5 March) - from director Todd Haynes and star Mark Ruffalo - looks at the court case against the DuPont chemical company for polluting a town's water supply. Christoph Waltz makes his directorial debut in Georgetown (7 May), with a true crime story about an ambitious social climber.
Two documentaries also give a taste of history that has been happening in recent headlines - For Sama (6 Feb) was shot over five years and tells the story of a young woman living through events in Aleppo, while Citizen K (Feb) asks questions about Vladimir Putin's Russian reign through the story of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Horror in the theatre
If reality isn't terrifying enough, 2020 has a number of horror films to scare the pants of audiences.
A Quiet Place Part II (19 Mar) returns to the silent world of the original hit, while The Grudge (30 Jan) is reborn for a new generation. Fantasy Island (13 Feb) takes the premise of the 1970s TV show to some gory lengths and perennial horror film favourites The Invisible Man (27 Feb) and Candyman (11 June) are back to lurk around your nightmares.
Not all monsters are so familiar - in The Lodge (20 Feb) two siblings are snowed in with their new stepmother, while Antebellum (7 May) sees a successful author trapped in a nightmarish reality. Incredibly Strange Film Festival and 48-Hour Festival creator Ant Timpson's feature film debut Come To Daddy (20 Feb) has Elijah Wood confronting some series father issues and British director Edgar Wright takes a turn to the dark side with Last Night in Soho (17 Sept), starring kiwi Thomasin McKenzie.
Outside the usual
Some of the best films are those that don't fit into an easy genre or category, and 2020 has a few of those to choose from.
These include A Hidden Life (30 Jan), the latest film from Terrence Malick about a conscientious objector in Nazi-era Germany; The Lighthouse (20 Feb), an intense psychological battle in black and white between Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson; and Savage (11 June), a NZ crime drama following a gangster's transformation into a brutal enforcer.
Bait (20 Feb) tells the story of a struggling Cornish fisherman with an extremely idiosyncratic style, while Rams (28 May) has national treasure Sam Neill playing an Australian sheep-farmer who gets into a feud with his brother. And The Personal History of David Copperfield (26 March), the new film from satirist Armando Iannucci, gives the Charles Dickens classic some modern twists.
2020 will bring more surprises at the cinema, with some that are still being shot and edited now still to have release dates later in the year. You also can't blame many movie lovers for staying home, when Netflix alone has a lot of original movies from some great filmmakers and actors - including David Fincher, Charlize Theron, Ben Wheatley, Gary Oldman, Spike Lee, Charlie Kaufman and Meryl Streep - coming out in the next 12 months.
But there is something for everybody in the films, and that can be worth getting off the sofa for.
* Release dates correct as at 7 January
