A Different Man, Blink Twice

Variety’s Peter Debruge named “A Different Man” the sixth best movie of 2024. The film, which won the Gotham Award for best feature, stars Sebastian Stan as a struggling actor who finds success after undergoing a procedure to correct a facial deformity. His life is upended by the arrival of a beloved actor who has the same condition. Debruge writes: “The lesser-seen of two radical sci-fi fables this year, both confronting issues of body image in the film industry, Aaron Schimberg’s grungy dark comedy shares a ‘be careful what you wish for’ message with ‘The Substance,’ but pushed all kinds of buttons about representation, identity and casting.”

A gorgeous computer-generated cartoon with a human heart beating beneath its sleek, state-of-the-art surface, DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot” is widely expected to land an Oscar nomination for best animated feature. Lupita Nyong’o voices the title character, a lonely android shipwrecked on an uninhabited island who must adapt to her surroundings to survive. The voice cast also includes Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, Catherine O’Hara, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames. From Variety’s review: “There’s never been an animated movie that reflects the world in quite this way…the expressionistic environments can take one’s breath away.”

Zoë Kravitz’s feature directorial debut “Blink Twice” centers on a waitress (Naomi Ackie) who gets invited to a tech billionaire’s private island, where days of never-ending parties soon turns into patriarchal hell. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman praised the thriller as “the work of a born filmmaker” in his review, adding: “‘Blink Twice’ may remind you, at times, of ‘Midsommar,’ Ari Aster’s sun-dappled white-cotton-dress bad-dream fantasia about a vacation taken by an American couple at a Swedish commune that turns out to be a cult. That movie had the dark pull of a forbidden fantasy. But ‘Blink Twice’ though it takes some very high-flying twists, is rooted in the sexual menace of the real world.”

“Unstoppable” tells the true story of Anthony Robles (Jharrel Jerome), who was born with one leg but fought through adversity to earn a spot on the Arizona State Wrestling team. Robles’ dreams were fulfilled with help from the unwavering love and support of his devoted mother Judy (Jennifer Lopez) and the encouragement of his coaches. Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña and Don Cheadle also star. Variety’s review hailed the movie as “the rare sports crowd-pleaser you can believe in” and praised Jerome’s “quietly compelling” lead performance.

After an 11-year hiatus from acting, Cameron Diaz officially returns this month in Netflix‘s spy action comedy “Back in Action” alongside her “Annie” co-star Jamie Foxx. The movie stars Diaz and Foxx as a couple of retired CIA agents who find themselves out of the suburbs and back on the field when their cover is suddenly exposed. The star-studded cast includes Kyle Chandler, Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, Jamie Demetriou, McKenna Roberts and Rylan Jackson. The movie is directed by Seth Gordon, who previously helmed the comedies “Horrible Bosses” and “Baywatch.”

Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell go head to head in Prime Video’s original comedy “You’re Cordially Invited.” The synopsis reads: “A woman (Witherspoon) planning her sister’s (Meredith Hagner) perfect wedding and the father (Ferrell) of a young bride-to-be (Geraldine Viswanathan) find out that they are double booked for their destination wedding at a remote resort on an island off the Georgia coast. When both parties decide to share the small venue, chaos ensues and disaster awaits.”

Pascal Plante’s terrifying psychological thriller “Red Rooms” centers on two women who become courtroom “groupies” for a heinous serial killer accused of murdering abducted teenage girls. From Variety’s review: “This coolly-controlled film unsettles with a kind of diseased psychological atmosphere — hewing not from the mindset of the accused so much as the parasitical sickness that makes spectators obsess over his kind. In contrast to most movies about serial killers, this one offers nary a glimpse of violence, let alone any wallowing in sadism. Yet somehow that makes it all the more icky — at times the squirm factor is such that you may think no shower could wash a viewer’s taint-by-association away.”

Based on the short story of the same name by Susan Hill, A24’s horror movie “The Front Room” tells the story of a young, newly pregnant couple who is forced to take in an ailing estranged stepmother. Not everything is at it seems, of course. The film’s cast includes Brandy Norwood, Kathryn Hunter, Neal Huff and Andrew Burnap. The movie marks the feature directorial debut of Sam and Max Eggers, the younger brothers of “Nosferatu” filmmaker Robert Eggers. Max was a co-writer with Robert on “The Lighthouse” while Sam was a production assistant on “The Witch.” 

Lana Wilson’s documentary “Look Into My Eyes” centers on a group of New York City psychics as they conduct deeply intimate readings for their clients. From Variety’s review: “The film, an A24 production launched at Sundance, walks a deft line between the ironic and the honestly receptive: Hardline skeptics will be entertained, others peculiarly affected. A gentle strain of humor, meanwhile, spans the divide. You needn’t have a firm stance on the afterlife and its accessibility to be tickled by a pet medium bragging that she could diagnose a cat’s urinary tract infection through sheer telepathy”

Netflix’s “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” marks the first “Wallace & Gromit” feature since 2005’s “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” which took home the Oscar for best animated feature. The new film marks the return of Feathers McGraw, that diamond-thieving master of disguise last seen in 1993’s Oscar-winning short “The Wrong Trousers,” who seizes on another of Wallace’s inventions to engineer his escape from the local zoo From Variety’s review: “Although less ambitious than ‘The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,’ Aardman’s adorable new feature gives fans what they want: the return of a cold-hearted penguin and more puns than you can count.”

With the Sundance Film Festival launching later this month, now is the perfect time to revisit Ari Aster’s chilling debut “Hereditary.” The A24 horror movie electrified Sundance in 2018 and made Aster one of the festival’s biggest breakouts. Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman wrote in his review, “Aster’s disturbing spook show, featuring a bravura Toni Collette, is a domestic thriller about the scariest ghosts of all: the spirits within… It’s a freaky trance-out of a supernatural thriller, all about a family that’s being torn apart by ghosts, and it’s full of things that would look right at home in the megaplex horror-film-of-the-week (except, in this case, for how artfully done they are).”

Another recent Sundance favorite is Nicole Holofcener’s delightful “You Hurt My Feelings,” which charmed Park City in 2023. Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars as an author who spirals after overhearing her husband disparage her work. From Variety’s review: “‘You Hurt My Feelings’ stays true to the droll casualness of its title. It’s not a major Holofcener movie; it’s closer to a lively and digressive short story. Yet it’s compelling to see Holofcener merge the fates of all her characters through a grand tweak of the piety of positivity…’You Hurt My Feelings’ is small-scale, but it may just have a lesson for us all.”

And yet another Sundance favorite back on streaming this month is Boots Riley’s bonkers “Sorry to Bother You,” which was one of the buzziest titles at the 2018 fest. Lakeith Stanfield plays an up-and-coming telemarketer who is pressured to use a “white voice” over the phone to excel at his job. As he moves up the corporate ladder, the world around him crumbles into a kind of dystopian hellscape. After this wildly imaginative and unpredictable experience, you might never look at a horse the same way again.

The Brad Anderson-directed thriller “The Silent Hour” stars Joel Kinnaman as a Boston police detective who suffers an on-the-job accident that leaves him hearing impaired. Sixteen months later, he and his friend and partner (Mark Strong) must battle Lynch (Mekhi Phifer) and a team of corrupt cops attempting to eliminate a deaf murder witness (Sandra Mae Frank) in the apartment building where she lives.

Director Gonzalo López-Gallego patiently reveals the heart of a cold-blooded killer in “American Star,” starring Ian McShane as an assassin whose final assignment to kill a man he’s never met turns far more reflective as he waits for his target to arrive. From Variety’s review: “The director’s most rewarding decision: simply trusting McShane to summon the mood. Now 81 years old, the decorated English actor conveys a wealth of character with his delicate but steady gait, playing a hitman of few words.”

Filmmaker Benjamin Brewer’s action horror film “Arcadian” stars Nicolas Cage as the father of two teenage boys (Jaeden Martell and Maxwell Jenkins) who must protect his family in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by predatory bug creatures. Brewer, who served as a lead visual effects designer on “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” brings to the table some novel design ideas for the movie’s giant bug-like beasts, which suggest a cross between praying mantises and apocalypse-resistant cockroaches, with multiple mandibles and other sharp surprises that unfold like the blades of a Swiss Army knife.

Directed by Caitlin Cronenberg, daughter of body horror master David Cronenberg, “Humane” is dystopian satire set after a global ecological collapse. A euthanasia program has been introduced to reduce the earth’s population, which attracts the attention of a recently-retired newsman and his children. Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire and Peter Gallagher star. Variety called the movie a “searing domestic thriller” in its review: “The movie, which takes the form of a dinner party from hell, is Cronenberg’s own thing, but it’s all about crimes of the future.”

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt’s action romance “The Fall Guy” becomes available on Prime Video this month at no extra cost to subscribers after debuting on Peacock last year. Gosling stars as a stunt man who agrees to search for the missing lead of a new Hollywood blockbuster being directed by his former flame (Blunt). The two stars’ chemistry earned rave reviews, with Variety critic Peter Debruge adding in his review: “Gosling serves up one of his most appealing characters yet, blending the dedicated action hero of ‘Drive’ with the charismatic ladies’ man of ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love.’”

Universal Pictures and Blumhouse are putting a new spin on the classic movie monster this month with the release of “Wolf Man,” starring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner as a couple whose family is terrorized in the woods after a car crash. The movie is directed by Leigh Whannell, who earned acclaim for updating “The Invisible Man” in 2020. Can he make lightning strike twice? Universal is getting horror fans prepared by making the original “Wolf Man” movie from 1941 available to stream on Peacock. The gothic horror classic stars Lon Chaney Jr. in the title role.

Universal is also bringing 2010’s “The Wolfman” to streaming via Peacock ahead of the release of “Wolf Man” on Jan. 17. This adaptation of the classic story stars Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving. The film centers on an actor who travels to his ancestral home in England after the brutal murder of his brother. He’s bitten by a werewolf during his visit and succumbs to a horrifying transformation. 

Nick Frost and Aisling Bea headline the British horror comedy “Get Away,” which centers on a family who discover a serial killer is on the prowl during their holiday on a remote Swedish island. Frost wrote the script. ​​XYZ Films produced “Get Away” alongside John Hegeman of Wayward Entertainment, Lee Kim of Resolute Films and Frost. The co-producer is Richard Kondal for Big Safari, with executive producers Vince Totino of Wayward Entertainment and Patrick Fischer of Creativity Capital.