Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
2018 was a breakthrough year for Netflix’s movies. Comedies like Set It Up and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before helped revitalize the rom-com genre. Outlaw King and Bird Box drew headlines for their epic sweep and must-see blockbuster status, respectively, with both headlined by top-shelf, A-List movie stars. And with Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, their very first Best Picture nomination is right around the corner.
Don’t expect Netflix to let their foot off the gas pedal in 2019, either. With dozens of movies on the horizon, made by some of the best and most dynamic filmmakers around, Netflix’s chances for more big breakthroughs seem pretty high. These 25 films make up a quick preview of what Netflix has in store all year.
'Close'
Release Date: January 18
Who’s Involved?: Noomi Rapace (the Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movies; Prometheus) stars, with director Vicky Jewson behind the camera.
What We Know: Rapace stars as a counter-terrorism expert tasked with protecting an heiress (Sophie Nélisse).
'Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened'
Release Date: January 18
Who’s Involved?: Director Chris Smith is the documentarian behind last year’s Netflix doc Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, and even more excitingly, he’s the director behind the acclaimed 1999 film American Movie.
What We Know: The true story behind the infamous Fyre music festival, a would-be luxury music festival organized by Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule. The disastrous bungling of the Fyre festival played out in tweets and Instagram, but this doc sets out to tell the whole story.
Stream Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened on January 18
'Polar'
Release Date: January 25
Who’s Involved?: Director Jonas Akerlund is an acclaimed music-video director, having made such iconic videos as Madonna’s “Ray of Light” and Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s “Telephone.” The cast features Mads Mikkelsen (TV’s Hannibal) and Vanessa Hudgens.
What We Know: Mikkelsen plays Duncan Vizla, one of the world’s top assassins, known as the Black Kaiser. His attempts to settle into retirement get derailed when an old employer targets him.
'Velvet Buzzsaw'
Release Date: February 1
Who’s Involved?: Writer/Director Dan Gilroy re-teams with his Nightcrawler stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo, as well as an all-star supporting cast including Toni Collette, Billy Magnussen, John Malkovich, Daveed Diggs, and Stranger Things‘ Natalia Dyer.
What We Know: Set to premiere at this January’s Sundance Film Festival, Velvet Buzzsaw is set within the contemporary art scene in Los Angeles and is filed on IMDb as a “comedy, crime, horror,” which, if you’ve seen Nightcrawler, makes a lot of sense.
'IO'
Release Date: February 7
Who’s Involved?: Anthony Mackie (the MCU’s Falcon) and Margaret Qualley (The Leftovers) headline the cast.
What We Know: Qualley plays Sam, a teenage girl on a post-apocalyptic Earth whose population is swiftly and steadily leaving the planet behind.
'High Flying Bird'
Release Date: February 8
Who’s Involved?: Steven Soderbergh directs from a script by Moonlight Oscar-winner Tarell Alvin McCraney. The cast features Andre Holland (Moonlight; Hulu’s Castle Rock), Zazie Beetz (Atlanta), and American Vandal season 2 MVP Melvin Gregg.
What We Know: The first of two Soderbergh/Netflix collabs in 2019, this one stars Holland as a sports agent who presents his NBA star client (Gregg) with a controversial business opportunity during a lockout.
'The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind'
Release Date: March 1
Who’s Involved?: Academy Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) directs his first feature film, in which he will also co-star as the main character’s father.
What We Know: The film is an adaptation of the self-penned true story of William Kamkwamba, who as a young boy in Malawi built his own wind turbine from scrapyard parts and the knowhow in library books, in order to help his village. The film will make its world premiere at Sundance in late January before its March debut on Netflix.
Stream The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind on Netflix starting March 1
'Triple Frontier'
Release Date: March 15
Who’s Involved?: Writer/director JC Chandor (Margin Call; A Most Violent Year) teams with Hurt Locker / Zero Dark Thirty writer Mark Boal, with a cast led by Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, and Pedro Pascal.
What We Know: The eight-year-plus journey to get Triple Frontier made has encompassed a jettisoned version directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp, and Chandor almost got underway with a cast led by Channing Tatum, Tom Hardy, and Mahershala Ali. The premise is that five military veterans reunite to rob a South American cartel.
'The Dirt'
Release Date: March 22
Who’s Involved?: The cast’s central quartet features Machine Gun Kelly (Beyond the Lights and most recently Netflix’s Bird Box), Iwan Rheon (Game of Thrones’ reprehensible Ramsay Bolton), Douglas Booth (Jupiter Ascending), and Daniel Webber (11.22.63). Director Jeff Tremaine is best known for Bad Grandpa and Jackass: The Movie.
What We Know: This is the long-awaited Motley Crue movie, if you’re the kind of person who’s been long awaiting a Motley Crue movie. And with Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, and Nikki Sixx’s group autobiography as the source material, expect a celebration of that hair metal lifestyle.
'Hotel Mumbai'
Release Date: March 29
Who’s Involved?: Armie Hammer, Dev Patel, Nazanin Boniadi, and Jason Isaacs lead the ensemble cast.
What We Know: Having premiered at last September’s Toronto Film Festival, this is an adaptation of the documentary about the 2008 Taj Hotel terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
'The Highwaymen'
Release Date: March 29
Who’s Involved?: Director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side) leads a cast that includes Kevin Costner, Woody Harrelson, Kathy Bates, Kim Dickens, and John Carroll Lynch.
What We Know: Costner and Harrelson play a pair of Texas Rangers who end up being the law officers who end up apprehending (so to speak) the legendary criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.
'The Irishman'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Martin Scorsese directs an all-star cast headlined by Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci. Also onboard are Bobby Cannavale, Ray Romano, Anna Paquin, Jesse Plemons, and Harvey Keitel.
What We Know: It’s been a decade in the making for this story about the longtime bodyguard Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran (De Niro) who confessed to murdering Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino), but for many movie fans, the idea of a Scorsese/Pacino/De Niro team-up will be worth the wait. The Irishman migrated from Paramount to Netflix amid talk of ballooning budgets (at $175 it’s Scorsese’s most expensive movie ever, as well as his longest production shoot), and Scorsese, much like Alfonso Cuaron with Roma, is pushing to get as much of a theatrical release as he can get.
'Wonderland'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights; Hancock) seemingly has no interest making movies without Mark Wahlberg anymore. Wonderland marks his fifth consecutive collaboration with Wahlberg, after Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, Patriots Day, and Mile 22.
What We Know: Wahlberg plays a Boston ex-felon (what? slow down! I know) who re-enters the city’s criminal underworld. Also if you’ve been waiting for Post Malone to make his motion picture debut (aside from a voice role as “Brooklyn Bystander” in Into the SpiderVerse), well, you’ve found it.
'Earthquake Bird'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Director Wash Westmoreland directed Julianne Moore’s Oscar-winning role in Still Alice and most recently made Collette with Keira Knightley. Here, he teams with Alicia Vikander and Riley Keough.
What We Know: Based on a novel, the film is set in Tokyo in the late ’80s and sees Vikander play an expat who gets suspected of murder when her friend (Keough) goes missing and it’s discovered that the two of them were rivals for the same man.
'Untitled Noah Baumbach Project'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: As the current placeholder title suggests, Noah Baumbach is directing, from a script he wrote on his own (as opposed to recent collaborations with Greta Gerwig). The film stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, with Laura Dern and Merritt Wever in supporting roles.
What We Know: Despite having made some tetchy comments about preferring the theatrical experience to streaming, Baumbach returns for his second Netflix movie after last year’s The Meyerowitz Stories. Here he returns to an oft-visited subject in his films: divorce, as Johansson and Driver will play a married couple going through the process of splitting up.
'6 Underground'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Michael Bay (Armageddon; The Rock; all the bad Transformers movies) directs a cast led by Ryan Reynolds and also including Dave Franco, Melanie Laurent, and Cory Hawkins.
What We Know: Netflix is hoping to get into the action franchise game with Bay and Reynolds, starting with this movie about six billionaires who fake their own deaths in order to take down the world’s most notorious criminals. So, like, a Justice League where ALL their superpowers are “I’m rich.”
'The Last Thing He Wanted'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Dee Rees is back directing for Netflix after her Mudbound became such a groundbreaking Oscar success story. She’s adapting from the Joan Didion novel with a cast that features Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, and Willem Dafoe.
What We Know: Is Netflix bringing back the old-school political thriller? Didion’s novel is about an American journalist (Hathaway) who removes herself from covering the 1984 U.S. presidential campaign to care for her ailing father (Dafoe) and in the process becomes mixed up in his business as a covert arms dealer to Central America. Affleck plays a U.S. government official who gets involved with Hathaway.
'Juanita'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Director Clark Johnson is a prolific TV director who has helmed films like S.W.A.T and The Sentinel. His star is Alfre Woodard.
What We Know: What’s this? An actor’s showcase for Alfre Woodard, one of the best and most underrewarded actresses we’ve got? Sounds good! Woodard plays the titular Juanita, who leaves behind her crappy adult kids and humdrum existence to travel to Montana and start over.
'The Laundromat'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Steven Soderbergh directs his second Netflix film of the year from a script by Scott Z. Burns (The Informant!; Contagion), starring Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, and Antonion Banderas and boating a supporting cast that includes David Schwimmer, Jeffrey Wright, and Matthias Schoenaerts.
What We Know: Soderbergh’s long-awaited movie about the discovery of the famed Panama Papers will also be his first teaming with Streep, as well as giving Streep the distinction of starring in movies about the Pentagon Papers and the Panama Papers.
'Shaft'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Director Tim Story (Barbershop; Fantastic Four) takes the reins on the resurgent Shaft franchise, with Samuel L. Jackson picking up the role of John Shaft II that he played in 2000’s Shaft. He’s joined by Jessie T. Usher, Alexandra Shipp, and Regina Hall.
What We Know: 2000’s Shaft cast Jackson as the nephew of the original Shaft. Now, Jessie T. Usher will play Jackson’s son, John Shaft III, meaning that three generations of Shafts will take part in this film.
'Always Be My Maybe'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Nanatchka Khan, showrunner for ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat and creator of the late, lamented Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23 directs, with stars Ali Wong, Randall Park, with Keanu Reeves in a supporting role.
What We Know: Park is the lead actor in Fresh Off the Boat, where Wong has served on the writing staff, in addition to blowing up in her own right via her Netflix stand-up specials, so the family is all together for this romantic comedy about two childhood friends who end up falling for each other as adults.
'Dolemite Is My Name'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Director Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow) directs from a script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the team behind such films as Ed Wood and The People vs. Larry Flynt and the TV series The People vs. O.J. Simpson. Eddie Murphy leads a cast that includes Wesley Snipes, Chris Rock, Craig Robinson, and Tituss Burgess.
What We Know: As is the Alexander/Karaszewski custom, this is a true story, with Murphy playing actor Rudy Ray Moore, who starred in a series of ’70s blaxploitation films as the pimp/kung-fu character Dolemite.
'Rim of the World'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Director McG is back with Netflix after his 2017 film The Babysitter. The screenplay is by Zack Stentz (Thor and X-Men: First Class).
What We Know: The film centers on four teenagers who have to save the world after their summer camp is invaded by aliens.
'Wine Country'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Amy Poehler makes her directorial debut with a cast that’s a veritable Saturday Night Live reunion: Poehler, Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, and Paula Pell.
What We Know: The plot couldn’t be more simple: a group of friends gather at a Napa Valley winery for a 50th birthday party. One imagines hilarity ensues.
'I'm Thinking of Ending Things'
Release Date: TBA
Who’s Involved?: Charlie Kaufman directs from a script he adapted from an Ian Reid novel. Brie Larson and Jesse Plemons have been cast.
What We Know: Per Netflix’s description, “An unexpected detour turns a couple’s road trip into a terrifying journey through their fragile psyches. Sounds like exactly a job for the man behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche, NY.
