FALL FILM PREVIEW

The Creator

Opens Sept. 29

English-born director Gareth Edwards made a name for himself with the low-budget Monsters in 2010. Four years later, he helmed the reboot of the Godzilla franchise and made one of the best installments since the series began. Big-budget spectacles with heart and an international cast are his hallmark, and that’ll continue with The Creator, a futuristic thriller set during the war between humanity and artificial intelligence. We’ve seen this story before, but like Godzilla, Edwards promises more than the same old same old.

Killers Of The Flower Moon

Opens Oct. 20

For years, the teaming of Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio was only eclipsed by the legendary movies Scorsese and Robert de Niro made together. Now, all three join forces for the cinematic adaptation of David Grann’s nonfiction book, which chronicles a series of suspicious murders of Osage people after oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma. Lily Gladstone co-stars, as does BW’s own arts and culture editor, Jezy J. Gray, in a small principal cast role.

Fingernails

Opens Nov. 3

Greek filmmaker Christos Nikou’s debut feature, Apples, had the dubious distinction of premiering in the thick of a global pandemic. Naturally, his followup is sure to garner a bit more attention. Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed play clerks at a compatibility clinic where couples can test their romantic match by having their fingernails removed. It’s lo-fi sci-fi with a too-narrow focus, but the performances, which also include Luke Wilson and Jeremy Allen White, are outstanding.

Anatomy Of A Fall

Opens Oct. 13

French filmmaker Justine Triet has been making narrative features for a decade. But it wasn’t until her latest, Anatomy of a Fall, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May that she achieved international recognition. Anchored by Sandra Hüller (who excelled in 2016’s Toni Erdmann), Anatomy of a Fall blends family drama with a whodunit plot and is sure to bring out the true crime lovers and the arthouse crowd alike.

Nyad

Opens Oct. 20.

You might not know of Diana Nyad, but you should. She was the long-distance swimmer who, at the age of 26, tried to swim from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida. That swim was scuttled after currents pushed Nyad off course, but she wasn’t the quitting kind. So she tried the swim again four decades later at 64. Annette Bening stars as the headstrong and cantankerous Nyad, Jodie Foster plays her equally assertive friend and coach, and documentary filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi — best known for their Oscar-winning Free Solo — jump into the narrative waters for a genuine crowd-pleaser.

NAPOLEON Opens Nov. 22

Ridley Scott and Joaquin Phoenix have some big shoes to fill. In addition to Abel Gance’s 1927 monumental epic, Charlie Chaplin and Stanley Kubrick’s failed attempt to bring the diminutive emperor to the big screen cast a long shadow. But that hasn’t stopped Scott and Phoenix from throwing their hat in the ring for their spin on the man who came from nothing and briefly ruled everything. Vanessa Kirby stars as Josephine, and a wonderfully continental cast back the leads.