The 22 Must-See Films of 2016

Feature by Film Team | 22 Dec 2015

From The Hateful Eight to the new Ghostbusters, these are the films we're most looking forward to in 2016

The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino)

Released 8 Jan

Quentin Tarantino’s flashy personal style and quotable dialogue mark him out as the perfect auteur for film fans beginning to explore cinema’s possibilities. Don’t let his accessibility fool you, though; at his best (Death Proof), Tarantino’s exhilarating genre homages are precision-engineered, intelligent and even progressive. We’ll find out whether The Hateful Eight is more of the same in January. [Tom Grieve]

Creed (Ryan Coogler)

Released 15 Jan

Michael B Jordan as the Human Torch in a film directed by Josh Trank seemed like a really great idea. It did not work.

Michael B Jordan as Apollo Creed’s son in a Rocky sequel seemed kinda dumb and very strange. Going from the media buzz since the film’s US release, it worked really well. [Ross McIndoe]

Deadpool (Tim Miller)

Released 4 Feb

Gird your loins, folks! “The merc with a mouth" is on his way to spice up your stagnating relationship with the superhero genre courtesy of his own brand of fast-talking, bullet-strewn, cancer-riddled, chimichanga-loving, fourth-wall-breaking masked mayhem. Things are about to get a little freaky. [Ben Nicholson]

Goosebumps (Rob Letterman)

Released 5 Feb

You don’t have to be well-versed in RL Stine’s poop-inducing kids’ books to get a kick out of this delicious premise: a bunch of teens accidentally unleash the monsters from the Goosebumps canon and have to help Stine (played by Jack Black) squish them back into his manuscripts before they destroy town. The trailer gives off a pleasing Joe Dante vibe and we can’t wait to see Black back in School of Rock mode bickering with minors. [Jamie Dunn]

Bone Tomahawk (S Craig Zahler)

Released 19 Feb

The presence of Kurt Russell might lead one to expect a B-movie brashness to western Bone Tomahawk, but what people will discover is actually a much more sober and grim experience – punctuated by tar-black humour and some genuinely astonishing violence – in a sort of reworking of The Searchers. With added cannibals. Still, there’s Kurt’s magnificent facial hair to gaze upon for comfort, and warm support from the incomparable Richard Jenkins. Will split audiences right down the middle. [Chris Fyvie]

Hail, Caesar! (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)

Released 26 Feb

It’s been far too long since the Coen Brothers have gone full screwball, but the upcoming Hail, Caesar!, a 1950s-set Hollywood satire resembling a mash-up of Barton Fink and a light-hearted MGM Technicolor budget-buster, has the potential to be their screwiest screwball yet. Keep those most excellent Coen comedy tropes coming, guys. We’ll bite. [Michelle Devereaux]

Goodnight Mommy (Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala)

Released 4 Mar

This Austrian thriller has been winning praise ever since its late-2014 festival debut. It sees two twin boys come to grips with both a new home and their mother’s face-altering cosmetic surgery. Is this really their mother? And can those who scheduled this for release on the weekend of Mother’s Day please get a raise? [Josh Slater-Williams]

Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson)

Released 11 Mar

Charlie Kaufman finally makes a follow-up to 2008’s mind-bending Synecdoche, New York, and apparently it’s a doozy. Anomalisa, a grown-up stop-motion fable about a misanthropic, Kaufmanesque loner, has been heralded as one of the best films of the year. Hopefully that means we won’t have to wait another seven-plus years to get his next one. [MD]

High-Rise (Ben Wheatley)

Released 18 Mar

With his last few films, Ben Wheatley has proven himself an expert in twisting British sensibilities into varyingly bizarre genre fare. Who better, then, to bring to the screen the blood-letting and nihilism of JG Ballard’s tower-block novel? Tom Hiddleston, Luke Evans and Jeremy Irons look perfect for atavistic class warfare. [BN]

The Club (Pablo Larraín)

Released 25 Mar

Following the cross-over success of the Gael García Bernal-starring No, Chilean director Pablo Larraín has finally laid to rest the cinematic ghost of Augusto Pinochet. Now his attention shifts to a fierce and complex present-day parable about guilt, sin and the machinations of the Catholic Church. [BN]

Victoria (Sebastian Schipper)

Released 1 Apr

Like a burst of pure adrenaline, Sebastian Schipper’s Berlin-set heist movie is an enthralling journey through the entire spectrum of human emotions. Filmed in one take, without any digital trickery or subterfuge, this two-hour homage to Bonnie and Clyde condenses the whole of human experience into 134 minutes of high-octane cinema. [Patrick Gamble]

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Nasty Baby (Sebastián Silva)

Released 8 Apr

From a director renowned for his twisted sense of humour and a fondness for misdirection, Sebastián Silva’s self-reflective dissection of Brooklyn’s bohemian settlers is destined to divide audiences. Starring alongside TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe and Kristen Wiig, Silva’s deep understanding of the indiscernible tensions middle-class regeneration produces allows this socially conscious thriller to undertake a sinister, yet uncomfortably plausible tonal shift. [PG]

Midnight Special (Jeff Nichols)

Released 15 Apr

This tale about a boy with unusual abilities being pursued by religious sects and government forces alike has been described by its director as a “sci-fi chase film.” With John Carpenter cited as an influence and Nichols’ unique feel for the texture of life in rural America perfectly suited to a road movie, it’s already looking an enticing prospect. [Michael Jaconelli]

Son of Saul (László Nemes)

Released 29 Apr

One might think that given the breadth of its cinematic treatment, the Holocaust may not be the most fertile ground for staggeringly bold and original new filmmaking, but if the rave reviews coming from Cannes were anything to go by, László Nemes' Grand Prix-winner is exactly that. [BN]

X-Men: Apocalypse (Bryan Singer)

Released 19 May

The X-Men have survived an obsessive need to make Hugh Jackman the centre of almost every film, a spin-off so bad that it had to be more or less silently removed from the canon, and the acting of both Vinnie Jones and will.i.am. He might be semi-immortal and devastatingly powerful, but I still don’t like Apocalypse’s odds. [RM]

The Nice Guys (Shane Black)

Released 3 Jun

Shane Black is back. The stellar financial success of his Iron Man 3 writing-directing gig has given the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang man free rein to make the Shane Black-iest film to ever feature mismatched detectives at Christmas. Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling headline this 1970s conspiracy comedy set in seedy Los Angeles, and the first trailer is uproarious. [JS-W]

Ghostbusters (Paul Feig)

Released 15 Jul

Who you gonna call if you’re after a female-led comedy that subverts genre conventions with sly wit and downright hilarity? It’s Paul Feig. The Spy and The Heat director is teaming up again with Bridesmaids' Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig (alongside SNL cast Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones) for Feig’s reboot of this 80s classic, which is sure to be this summer’s funniest blockbuster. [PG]

Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)

Release date TBC

America’s finest indie filmmaker is back with a film about three women whose lives intersect in small-town America. One of these women is, of course, played by Reichardt’s longtime collaborator Michelle Williams, but we're also keen to see her joined by Laura Dern (too rarely seen on the big screen) and Kristen Stewart (whose recent performances suggest she’s the real deal). [JD]

Knight of Cups (Terrence Malick)

Release date TBC

“It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever,” as rock sages David St Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel once elegantly espoused. Similarly, it’s fine line between To the Wonder and The Tree of Life. Malick fans will hope for more of the latter from the now oddly prolific, reclusive maverick, as debauched screenwriter Christian Bale finds his soul or whatever… but there’s the faint whiff of that Batfleck catastrophe around Knight of Cups. [CF]

The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

Release date TBC

Perennially underrated, classically-inclined filmmaker James Gray (Two Lovers, We Own the Night) makes a foray into both biopic and adventure cinema with this portrait of legendary British explorer Percy Fawcett, who ventured into the Amazon in search of El Dorado, never to return. Here’s hoping this actually gets the UK distribution his recent masterpiece The Immigrant failed to receive. [JS-W]

Love and Friendship (Whit Stillman)

Release date TBC

The DNA of Jane Austen’s prickly world runs through all of Whit Stillman’s comedies of manners, so it was only a matter of time before a full-blooded adaptation. It’s not one of her classics, though, but Love and Friendship, an unfinished work written when Austen was a teen (rumour is, when she wrote it, she misspelled friendship). What we’re most excited for, however, is Stillman’s reunion with Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny, who were sublime as best frenemies in his unsung masterpiece The Last Days of Disco. [JD]

Evolutiom (Lucile Hadzihalilovic)

Release date TBC

Ever since writer/director Lucile Hadzihalilovic teased that she was working on an original feature over a decade ago, fans of unsettling, Gallic Gothic cinema have been waiting with baited breath. The resulting Evolution makes for a fittingly uneasy diptych with her debut Innocence (2004). Whereas Innocence brought the uncertainty of postmodern cinematography and storytelling to a traditional Female Gothic tale, Evolution is a queer science fiction body horror in the vein of Lovecraft and Cronenberg. [Rachel Bowles]