Must Watch Films Released 2023

With 2022 nearly on the books and 2023 nipping at our heels, it’s only fitting we take on the time-honored task of looking ahead at the movies (dozens of them, in fact) that we can’t wait to see in the year to come.

2023 will bring a hefty number of much-hyped studio films, including sequels like “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” “Creed III,” “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “Dune: Part Two,” and “A Haunting in Venice.” Want even more franchises? Boy, have we got those in spades, including new entries into both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Universe, a new “John Wick” feature, a new “Scream” film and a new “Saw” film, and even yet another “Fast and Furious” film.

More edifying: Among even studio films, there are also plenty of original features, too, like “Oppenheimer,” “Cocaine Bear,” “Plane,” “Megan,” “65,” “Next Goal Wins,” “Strays,” “Challengers,” and “True Love.” And many of those films hail from some of our favorite directors, from Taika Waititi to Luca Guadagnino, Christopher Nolan and Elizabeth Banks. Dig still deeper, and more treasures await: a new film from Gareth Edwards! A big-screen take on “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret”! What about Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” film, or a new spin on Dracula starring Nicolas Cage?

In the indie sphere, a wide variety of some of our best filmmakers awaits, including new films from Brandon Cronenberg, Jesse Eisenberg, Nicole Holofcener, Ari Aster, and Rebecca Lenkiewicz. A number of these titles are already bound for Sundance, so we’ll get a read on them soon enough. (And, never fear, even the indie space has room for sequels and world-building, like Ti West’s “MaXXXine,” which aims to complete his wild trilogy.)

Streamers won’t be ignored (per usual), with Apple bringing both a new Martin Scorsese and a new Ridley Scott, and Netflix already locking in films from Bradley Cooper, Wes Anderson, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, and David Fincher, with surely many new titles still to be announced.

For housekeeping purposes, please note: This list only includes films that have confirmed release dates in 2023 (TBD 2023 dates will be updated as firm dates are announced) and includes features from the “Big Five” studios (Disney/Fox, Sony, Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros.), along with their specialty arms (like Searchlight Pictures and Focus Features); mini-majors like MGM and Lionsgate; plus streamers like Netflix and Amazon, and indie and boutique outfits like A24, Neon, IFC Films, Bleecker Street, Magnolia Pictures, Shout! Factory, Strand Releasing, and more. Bonus: Some of these titles we’ve already been lucky enough to see (and we’ll have a deeper dive into those titles next week).

All films listed below are debuting in theaters unless otherwise specified — new films we can’t wait to see in 2023.

“Megan” (January 6, Universal)

An overprotective robot friend, a baffled Allison Williams, and the Blumhouse stamp of approval? This is the sort of film early January viewing was made for.

“Plane” (January 13, Lionsgate)

The kind of formula that’s been missing from recent studio-made action offerings: a tough guy who plays by his own rules (Gerard Butler) but is dedicated to his buttoned-up job (commercial pilot) finds himself and a ragtag bunch of weirdos in an insane situation (plane gets hit by lighting, they crash on an island run by violent militant separatists) where he, plus a hard-to-pin down maybe-compatriot (Mike Colter as an extradited murderer), need to fight their way out of an impossible situation. Even better? That’s only the tip of the cinematic iceberg that is “Plane”!

“Saint Omer” (January 13, Neon’s Super)

With “Saint Omer,” Alice Diop shows an unflinching gaze, yet while Truman Capote examined his subjects with a clinical detachment, the filmmaker distinguishes herself here by daring to empathize with her own. Not with her crime, but with the temporary insanity that afflicted a brilliant, marginalized Senegalese immigrant in Paris. The film was lauded in 2022, when it was picked as France’s entry for the Oscars’ Best International Feature Film, and will soon arrive for all audiences to ponder.

“Skinamarink” (January 13, IFC Films)

A festival sensation that was leaked, torrented, and then turned into a word-of-mouth hit big enough to warrant a theatrical release courtesy of IFC Midnight (before it arrives on Shudder), Kyle Edward Ball’s “Skinamarink” is a hardcore, micro-budget, fuzz-core freakout of a horror debut that effectively feels like staring at the last shot of “The Blair Witch Project” for 100 minutes. The story ostensibly follows two kids who wake up in the middle of the night to find that their father has disappeared (along with the exits to their house), but this twisted kaleidoscope of long hallways, disembodied voices, and creepy dolls is less interested in legible plot than abstruse petrification. Ball got his start running a YouTube channel where he would adapt people’s nightmares for them; with “Skinamarink,” he cuts out the middle man.

“When You Finish Saving the World” (January 20, A24)

First-time director Jesse Eisenberg has always displayed a knack for putting his own stamp on other people’s stories, whether humanizing a zombie iconoclast like Mark Zuckerberg or exhuming Greg Mottola’s acrylic memories of working at a rundown amusement park, and there isn’t a single line in “When You Finish Saving the World” that you can’t hear coming out of his mouth — his presence behind the camera is so palpable that it would have been redundant for Eisenberg to cast himself. (This is a compliment.)

“Missing” (January 20, Sony)

Five years after Aneesh Chaganty’s John Cho-starring mystery thriller “Searching,” the clever screen film gets a sequel. It’s a natural enough idea in our true crime- and social media-obsessed world, an idea “Missing” niftily plays off of. This one follows new characters (including Nia Long and Storm Reid as a mother and daughter) but exists firmly inside the “Searching” universe. The pedigree is there, too: the first film’s editors, Nick Johnson and Will Merrick, make their directorial debut on the feature, with their own script inspired by an original idea from Chaganty and his “Searching” co-writer Sev Ohanian. Details are under wraps, but we’re guessing fans of the original film will not be disappointed.

“Close” (January 27, A24, following a one-week qualifying run in December)

“Close” is the second feature by Belgian director Lukas Dhont, whose 2019 debut “Girl” — another lucid, involving, and acutely observed coming-of-age drama — was understandably controversial both for its casting of a cisgender boy in the role of a trans ballet dancer and for the way its final moments weaponized the film’s clarity toward a violent ending that verged on the emotionally pornographic. This time, he doesn’t save the violence, but he does unspool another deeply affecting portrait of children on the cusp: in this case, two boys who have been best friends forever.

“Infinity Pool” (January 27, Neon)

Brandon Cronenberg (“Possessor”) continues to follow in the footsteps of his body horror director-dad with his third feature, which follows a young, rich and in love couple (Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth) on vacation who have the time of their lives at an all-inclusive resort until they find something dangerous — but seductive! — just beyond the resort walls. The cast and crew should be enough to stoke plenty of interest on their own, but a splashy Sundance debut, the threat of an NC-17 rating (which Cronenberg successfully appealed down to an R), and a gung-ho theatrical release from NEON will all contribute to making “Infinity Pool” one of the first must-see movies of 2023.

“One Fine Morning” (January 27, Sony Pictures Classics, following a one-week qualifying run in December)

This effervescent slice-of-life story, as palpable and alive as a gust of summer air rustling the trees along the Seine (Denis Lenoir’s typically vibrant 35mm cinematography makes sure of that), is never didactic in a way that makes “One Fine Morning” feel like a clichéd story about how a woman on the edge (Léa Seydoux) gets her groove back. On the contrary, filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve has traced her own paternal grief into an illuminatingly honest sketch about how loss is necessary for rebirth, guilt inextricable from self-fulfillment, and the present worth savoring for its role in bringing the past and the future together — rather than as a buffer for keeping them apart.

“Knock at the Cabin” (February 3, Universal)

Once tipped to be the next Spielberg, M. Night Shyamalan seems to have instead found his true calling as a sort of ultra-earnest dad-brain Rod Serling; after mercy-killing the “Unbreakable” trilogy with 2019’s “Glass,” the increasingly prolific Shyamalan has pivoted into a new phase of his career that focuses on putting normal families in unimaginable situations. That trend started with “Old,” and it continues with the awkwardly titled but deliciously appealing “Knock at the Cabin,” in which Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge play a couple whose woodsy vacation with their young daughter (Kristen Cui) is turned upside down when Dave Bautista, Rupert Grint, Abby Quinn, and Nikki Amuka-Bird show up at their door and insist that the world will end if our heroes don’t make “the ultimate sacrifice.” It’s probably safe to assume that’s not an empty threat.

“Baby Ruby” (February 3, Magnolia Pictures, in theaters and on VOD)

Despite its title, writer/director Bess Wohl’s debut feature “Baby Ruby” isn’t primarily about the titular infant. It instead takes interest in her beleaguered mother, Jo (Noémie Merlant of “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”), a lifestyle influencer for an online magazine. Her husband, Spencer (Kit Harington, “Game of Thrones”), is an “ethical” butcher. The pair, living in a lavish cabin, on paper, is the kind of seemingly perfect couple who put their idyllic baby pictures online to stir envy. They show the best parts of motherhood and sanitize the strain. But the bitter truth that Jo discovers is that you can’t hide the arduous parts.

“Body Parts” (February 3, Shout! Factory, in theaters and on VOD)

A clever and damning documentary about the history of nudity, sex scenes, and women’s bodies on film. Objects become subjects in Kristy Guevara-Flanagan’s sweeping yet focused analysis that exposes the truth about the power of images to shape the world’s views of women.

“Magic Mike’s Last Dance” (February 10, Warner Bros.)

Possibly the most important movie ever made in the pre-“Barbie” era, this long-anticipated sequel to 2015’s “Magic Mike XXL” (almost certainly the most important movie ever made in the pre-“Barbie” era) finds Channing Tatum’s puppy-like stripper taking his banana hammock to London in order to gyrate atop Salma Hayek and put on a show similar to the Vegas revue this franchise has already inspired in real life. Steven Soderbergh successfully lobbied Warner Bros. to give this HBO Max project a proper theatrical release, and it’s our solemn duty as cinema lovers and citizens of Earth to reward that effort several times over.

“The Blue Caftan” (February 10, Strand Releasing)

When an aging couple operating a struggling Moroccan dress shop hires a dashing young apprentice, some of the first words out of his mouth are “I work fast.” That also describes the approach of “The Blue Caftan” director Maryam Touzani, who sets up its straightforward premise so quickly that you’d be forgiven for thinking you had the entire film figured out within five minutes. A closeted gay tailor, who fights with his wife about money, begins mentoring a young man who’s more beautiful than any item in his shop. Gee, what could possibly happen here?

“Sharper” (February 10 in theaters, February 17 streaming, A24 and AppleTV+)

Hot off a run of directing episodes of the much-loved “Andor,” first-time feature filmmaker Benjamin Caron assembles an enviable cast — Julianne Moore, John Lithgow, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, and Briana Middleton — to tell a stylish tale of a Manhattan con artist who takes on a big (too big?) mark.

“Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” (February 15, Fathom Events)

“Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” is a story about what happens when a beloved little bear from children’s literature grows homicidal after his best human friend goes away to college, but — more fundamentally — this cheap horror curio is a story about what happens when iconic texts fall into the clutches of the public domain. Shot in 10 days and armed with the rights to A.A. Milne’s first “Winnie-the-Pooh” book (but not to the visually identifiable version of the character that Walt Disney has popularized over the last several decades), Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s opportunistic film begins shortly after Pooh and Piglet have eaten Eeyore out of hunger, and it only promises to get more childhood-ruining from there. Those planning to see this should keep in mind that it will only be in theaters for one night, and that “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” will likely be playing on the next screen over.

“Pacifiction” (February 17, Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films)

The art film of the year. Last year and this one.

“Return to Seoul” (February 17, Sony Pictures Classics, following a one-week qualifying run in December)

Few movies have ever been more perfectly in tune with their protagonists than Davy Chou’s jagged, restless, and rivetingly unpredictable “Return to Seoul,” a shark-like adoption drama that its 25-year-old heroine wears like an extra layer of skin or sharp cartilage. The film spans eight years over the course of two hours, but you can feel its bristly texture and self-possessed violence from the disorienting first scenes.

“Emily” (February 17, Bleecker Street)

A ravishing period drama that plays fast and loose with the facts of Emily Brontë’s remarkable life in order to paint a portrait of the author that bleeds with the same heart-in-its-hands emotionality she had to suffuse into her work.

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (February 17, Disney)

They made another “Ant-Man” movie, and Wikipedia promises that Gregg Turkington reprises his iconic role as the Baskin-Robbins manager from the first one. If that’s not enough to get your blood pumping, we might also mention that “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” introduces mega-franchise villain Kang the Conquerer (Jonathan Majors), meaning that you basically have to see it if you want to have any idea of what’s happening at your local multiplex for the next few years.

“Cocaine Bear” (February 24, Universal)

The butterfly effect in action: On September 11, 1985, a drug smuggler dropped 40 plastic containers out of a private plane somewhere over Georgia before dying from a parachute malfunction later that night; on February 24, 2023, a dark comedy about a large woodland creature who ingests an entire “Boogie Nights” worth of blow will be released in multiplexes across the country, fulfilling the Lumière brothers’ lifelong dream of seeing Brooklynn Prince and Ray Liotta (in one of the late actor’s final performances) team up to fight a jittery CGI black bear. The trailer left a lot to be desired, but the wacky premise — along with the impressive team of producers that brought this timeless story to the screen, which includes Lord and Miller, Brian Duffield, and director Elizabeth Banks — demands the benefit of the doubt.

“We Have a Ghost” (February 2023, streaming on Netflix)

Comedy horror maestro Christopher Landon (“Freaky,” the unimpeachable “Happy Death Day 2U” series) brings his skills to something touch new: a family horror comedy. Based on a Vice short story (which is still available to read right now) from executive producer Geoff Manaugh, the David Harbour-starring film follows a family that a) finds a ghost, b) becomes social media stars, and c) well, you’ll just to have to wait for the film.

“Creed III” (March 3, MGM)

Everybody loved “Creed,” and apparently there was also a “Creed II.” Even on the heels of a forgettable sequel, however, interest is high in the “Rocky” successor’s latest return to the ring, as “Creed III” boasts a story co-conceived by Ryan Coogler, a heel turn by Jonathan Majors, and a chance to watch star (and producer) Michael B. Jordan step behind the camera for his directorial debut. One way or the other, it’s always exciting to see what happens when one of Hollywood’s brightest young talents auditions to be an auteur, and Jordan has learned from some of the best.

“Scream 6” (March 10, Paramount)

After resurrecting the long-dormant “Scream” franchise with their clever “Scream” requel, the Radio Silence dudes are looking to continue the lineage with a brand-new sequel. A twist, sort of, as this one moves far, far away from California, taking the terrors of Ghostface right to the Big Apple.

“65” (March 17, Sony)

Thanks to a recent trailer, the secretive new film from “A Quiet Place” writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods has revealed itself to be, OK, fine, a pretty secretive new film, but maybe with aliens and astronauts? At least it definitely stars Adam Driver, and we definitely want to see more.

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” (March 17, Warner Bros.)

Despite the endless woes of the DCEU, 2019’s warm and funny “Shazam!” managed to overdeliver on virtually all fronts. Now, director David F. Sandberg returns for the rare superhero sequel that doesn’t feel like the stuff of pure obligation, as Billy Batson and his foster siblings and forced to fight against the Daughters of Atlas (the incredible trio of Lucy Liu, Helen Mirren, and Rachel Zegler) in order to save the world and — fingers crossed — prevent the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe from changing yet again.

“John Wick: Chapter 4” (March 24, Lionsgate)

Yeah, we’re thinking he’s still back. Somehow, there are still bad guys who John Wick hasn’t killed. Even more improbably, there are still bad guys who are willing to fight him. It doesn’t make a ton of sense, but the promise of Donnie Yen and Rina Sawayama joining the action is too good to question.

“Master Gardener” (March 30, Magnolia Pictures)

After the recent existential nightmare of “First Reformed” and last year’s stunningly cruel psychodrama “The Card Counter,” Paul Schrader returns with another gritty tale of redemption for his loose trilogy. It is with those built-in expectations, and knowing how dark Schrader is capable of going, that his loyal audience will be bracing themselves for cruelty when “Master Gardener begins. But, while the central character’s arc will likely launch a dreaded “discourse,” there is a tenderness to “Master Gardener” that may prove its biggest surprise.

“Palm Trees and Power Lines” (March 2023, Momentum Pictures, in theaters and on VOD)

Lea knows the difference between wrong and right. Wrong: the way dudes treat her mom. Wrong: her friends running out on their bill at a local diner. Wrong: getting into a strange man’s truck. But, as has forever been the human condition — and in the case of Jamie Dack’s uncomfortably honest “Palm Trees and Power Lines,” the teenage human condition — knowing is only half the battle, and Lea (a breakout Lily McInerny in a remarkable first feature role) is about to endure quite a battle indeed. The festival hit expands Dack’s own short of the same name, with thrilling results.

“R.M.N.” (April 7, IFC Films)

Chekhov’s gun has seldom fallen into hands as steady and menacing hands as in Cristian Mungiu’s poorly titled, expertly staged “R.M.N.,” which finds the elite Romanian auteur extrapolating the personal tensions that gripped his previous work (e.g., “Beyond the Hills” and the Palme d’Or-winning “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days”) across an entire Transylvanian village. The result is a socioeconomic crucible that carefully shifts its weight to the same foot that Mungiu always loves to rest on your throat; a slightly over-broad story of timeless xenophobia baked full of local flavor and set right on the cusp of a specific moment in the 21st century.

“Renfield” (April 14, Universal)

It was a major bummer to see director Chris McKay follow his brilliant “The LEGO Batman Movie” with Amazon’s ultra-bland wannabe-blockbuster “The Tomorrow War,” but the Adult Swim alum appears to be appealing to his strengths with an action-comedy about Count Dracula’s favorite lackey (Nicholas Hoult) falling in love with a New Orleans traffic cop (Awkwafina). Did we mention that Dracula is played by Nicolas Cage? Because of course he is.

“Mafia Mamma” (April 14, Bleecker Street)

The official synopsis sells this one perfectly: The film “follows an American woman (Toni Collette) who inherits her grandfather’s mafia empire in Italy. Guided by the firm’s trusted consigliere (Monica Bellucci), she hilariously defies everyone’s expectations, including her own, as the new head of the family business.” Mafia Mamma Toni Collette? Brilliant.

“Evil Dead Rise” (April 21, Warner Bros.)

This brand-new “Evil Dead” feature comes with Sam Raimi’s very own stamp of approval: He handpicked director Lee Cronin for a fresh exploration of what happens when very nice, very normal people raise the dead. While the franchise has grown more unwieldy over time, thanks to sequels, series, and remakes, Cronin’s film sounds like its own thing, but with the lineage to make it a real scream.

“Polite Society” (April 28, Focus Features)

“We Are Lady Parts” creator Nida Manzoor’s actioner is bound for Sundance and will hit wide release just three months later. Per its official logline, it “follows martial artist-in-training Ria Khan, who believes she must save her older sister Lena from her impending marriage. After enlisting the help of her friends, Ria attempts to pull off the most ambitious of all wedding heists in the name of independence and sisterhood.”

“Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” (April 28, Lionsgate)

“The Edge of Seventeen” writer and director Kelly Fremon Craig has proven she knows her way around a charming, messy, totally original coming-of-age story, so it’s only fitting she next take on a classic tale chock-a-block with her usual obsessions. Fremon Craig adapted the beloved Judy Blume novel herself and promises to deliver another funny, sweet, and very believable tale of fraught adolescence.

“Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” (April 2023, Kino Lorber and Zeitgeist Films)

Haruki Murakami’s novels may be all but unadaptable (not that anyone has really tried since Tran Anh Hung’s “Norwegian Wood”), but the Japanese author’s short stories have provided the source material for two of the best movies of the last 20 years in “Burning” and “Drive My Car.” Pierre Földes’ “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” looks to split the difference with an animated film that borrows its title — but not all six of its segments — from Murakami’s anthology of the same name. The film premiered to positive notices on the festival circuit last year and seems poised to increase Murakami’s presence beyond the page.

“Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3” (May 5, Disney)

James Gunn closes out his big-hearted, candy-colored, rock ‘n’ roll Marvel trilogy before he moves over to run DC’s own comic book movie arm full time. (Salute emoji here.)

“Fast X” (May 19, Universal)

The “Fast & Furious” series has been on a steady decline since the glory days of “Fast Five,” and not even Justin Lin — who’s helmed all of the franchise’s best films — has been fully able to regain control of the wheel. His discord with Vin Diesel peaked with Lin walking away from “Fast X” just a week after production began, and the decision to replace him with “The Incredible Hulk” director Louis Leterrier doesn’t exactly fill us with confidence that the final chapters of Dominic Toretto’s family saga will start with their foot on the gas. Even so, these movies are bigger than any reservations we could possibly have about them, and this one promises to be the biggest one yet.

“The Little Mermaid” (May 26, Disney)

Disney’s push into turning some of its most beloved animated properties into live-action spectacles gets even more splashy with Rob Marshall’s take on the iconic mermaid/maybe hoarder. Actual singer Halle Bailey steps into the role of the dare-to-dream-for-more Ariel, plus Melissa McCarthy as the villainous Ursula, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, and Awkwafina as Scuttle. We want to be part of this world!

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (June 2, Sony)

“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” blew minds and sparked a whole new excitement for everyone’s favorite neighborhood web-slinger when it swooped into theaters in 2018 and swung away with the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Much of the same creative team returns for the first installment of a two-part sequel that promises to be bigger and more psychedelic in just about every way, as it finds Miles Morales teaming up with an even wider array of Peter Parkers (including Oscar Isaac’s Spider-Man 2099, and Daniel Kaluuya’s Spider-Punk) in order to save the multiverse from a mysterious supervillain known as The Spot (Jason Schwartzman). If it’s even half as good as its predecessor, every other comic book movie coming out next year will have to fight amongst themselves for second place.

“Strays” (June 9, Universal)

Just when it seemed like streaming had sucked the laughs out of the movies forever, 2023 suggests that comedy might be legal at the multiplex, again! At least that’s what Universal is hoping for when it releases the third Lord and Miller film on our preview so far, a live-action adult animated comedy about an abandoned dog (voiced by Will Ferrell) who teams up with some other strays (including Jamie Foxx and Isla Fisher) to get revenge on his former owner (Will Forte). It might sound a little iffy on paper, but director Josh Greenbaum — of the “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” Greenbaums — has more than earned himself the benefit of the doubt.

“Elemental” (June 16, Disney)

Following on the heels of three strong direct-to-streaming features (“Soul,” “Luca,” “Turning Red”) and a disastrous return to theaters with last summer’s “Lightyear,” Pixar finds itself with a bit of an identity crisis on its hands, along with an unusually urgent need for the studio to remind people that it’s capable of creating must-see multiplex events. That puts an unfair amount of pressure on the flickering shoulders of next June’s “Elemental,” a high-concept story of love and friendship about the relationship that forms between a girl made out of fire (Leah Lewis) and a guy made out of water (Mamoudou Athie). It sounds like some classic Pete Docter anthropomorphism, but this metaphor-rich modern fairy tale actually comes from “The Good Dinosaur” director Peter Sohn, who conceived it as a tribute to his immigrant parents’ experience of starting a new life in New York City.

“Asteroid City” (June 16, Focus Features)

Little is known about Wes Anderson’s latest film, beyond the fact that it’s billed as a romance, features literally every famous actor you can name off the top of your head (including WesWorld newcomer Tom Hanks), and takes place at a Junior Stargazer convention in a fictional American desert town circa 1955. That description alone is enough to summon dreams of “Moonrise Kingdom,” which only makes us more excited to take another look at the world through Anderson’s telescope.

“No Hard Feelings” (June 23, Sony)

Jennifer Lawrence’s return to regular acting gigs continues with this R-rated coming-of-age dramedy from the director of “Good Boys,” in which the mega-wattage “Red Sparrow” star plays a woman who — for whatever reason — responds to a Craigslist ad that a mother wrote in search of someone to date her Large Adult Son (20-year-old actor Andrew Barth Feldman). Matthew Broderick, Natalie Morales, and Ebon Moss-Bacharach help round out the cast for this mid-summer original, which should be crude and tender and allow Lawrence to showcase a natural aptitude for comedy that not even David O. Russell and Adam McKay’s least funny movies have been able to obscure.

Untitled Adele Lim film (June 23, Lionsgate)

“Crazy Rich Asians” scribe Adele Lim makes her directorial debut with a comedy that “follows the journey of four Asian-American women traveling through Asia in search of one of their birth mothers.” It stars “Everything Everywhere All at Once” breakout Stephanie Hsu, plus Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, and Sabrina Wu.

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (June 30, Disney)

Forget about “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom the Crystal Skull” and focus on what seems to be the real final chapter in Indy’s story, complete with a clearly revitalized Harrison Ford, a kooky mystery, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge to boot. Mutt who?

“Extraction 2” (June 2023, streaming on Netflix)

Three years after Sam Hargraves’ actioner was a smash hit for the streamer, the filmmaker returns for a sequel. Sure, sure, that sounds normal enough, but do you remember how the first film ended? With star Chris Hemsworth’s mercenary with a heart of gold being very much killed? Surprise: He’s back for this next one!

“Lift” (TBD Summer 2023, streaming on Netflix)

Will 2023 end up being the year of the great plane movie? Mere months after the arrival of the Gerard Butler-starring “Plane,” Netflix gives us F. Gary Gray’s “Lift,” which follows a topnotch criminal crew (the massive cast includes Kevin Hart, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Vincent D’Onofrio, Úrsula Corberó, Billy Magnussen, Jacob Batalon, Jean Reno, Sam Worthington, Viveik Kalra, Yun Jee Kim, Burn Gorman, and Paul Anderson) who take on a daring new gig: save the world from a terrorist attacking by pulling off a heist…mid-flight.