As the year draws to a close, December couldn’t be further from holiday get-togethers as horrors, live-action spectaculars, a Bob Dylan biopic, and drama studies frontload the gift-giving season. Leading the charge is Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada”, a sobering character study where Richard Gere’s Leonard Fife lifts the lid on his past as a Vietnam draft dodger through bittersweet flashbacks supported by Jacob Elordi. The same weekend, horror flicks “Nightbitch” and “Y2K” give moviegoers opposing takes on horror: the former is an artsy, surrealist dark comedy about a forced-to-be, stay-at-home mom portrayed by Amy Adams; the latter is a campy fight against turn-of-the-millennium technology led by Rachel Zegler.
Sony enters the Marvel universe with “Karven The Hunter” as Aaron Taylor-Johnson bills the R-rated villain origin story alongside Russell Crowe. However, “Sonic Hedgehog 3” is a family-friendly live-action that delivers equal amounts of boom boom pow with new additions Keanu Reeves and Jim Carrey revving up for a world-shattering fight. Also, Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King” dazzles as an origin story brimming with star power, from Beyoncé to Donald Glover. Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” offers a sprawling, post-war immigrant tale about art, ambition, and pursuing the American Dream.
Capping off the months are highlights, including Robbert Eggers’ vibrant yet gothic remake of “Nosferatu”, headed by Bill Skarsgård and Lily-Rose Depp, and “A Complete Unknown”, where Timothée Chalamet transforms into a pre-fame Bob Dylan for the James Mangold-directed biopic. And for those craving a scandal, Nicole Kidman heats up the screen in “Babygirl”, a steamy office erotica releasing on Christmas Day.
Ahead, explore the 10 year-end films everyone is talking about.
Oh, Canada
December 6
Director Paul Schrader takes another stab at a Russell Banks book-to-film adaptation following 1997’s “Affliction”. Led by Richard Gere and Uma Thurman, “Oh, Canada” dissects the complex and unlikable Lenoard Fife (Gere), one of sixty thousand draft evaders and deserters who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam, in a sitdown that deconstructs his fabricated life via Jacob Elordi-supported flashbacks.
Y2K
December 6
From the mind of ex-“SNL” member Kyle Mooney, Rachel Zegler stars in this campy horror where high school noobies, including Lachlan Watson and The Kid LAROI, experience millennium meltdown firsthand as they off against the advent of the internet and overpowered Y2K technology after the human race.
Nightbitch
December 6
“Motherhood, it changes you; it connects you to some primal urges” is the unexpectedly perfect explanation for Amy Adams’ new set of shape-shifting powers (and canine teeth) as a frustrated stay-at-home mom, bothered by her husband and former peers’ more free-willed career paths.
Kraven the Hunter
December 13
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the fearsome, titular Karven in Sony’s first Marvel film. After being released from prison, Karven not only seeks vengeance on his gangster father (Russell Crowe), but the standalone, bloody action-adventure narrates the beginnings of one of Marvel’s most fearsome villains.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
December 20
In the franchise’s third installment, Keanu Reeves joins the live-action “Sonic” universe as the overpowered arch-rival Shadow, who forces protagonists Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and Knuckles (Idris Elba) to seek out an unlikely alliance in Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) in hopes of saving the planet.
Mufasa: The Lion King
December 20
Already buzzing with the A-list additions of Beyoncé, daughter Blue Ivy Carter, and Donald Glover, Disney’s stunning live-action prequel of “The Lion King” chronicles the rise of Mustafa (Aaron Pierre) from outsider to The King of Pride Rock as he and brother-by-choice Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), later known as The Dark King Scar, chase destiny.
The Brutalist
December 20
Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones star in filmmaker Brady Corbet’s melodramatic post-WWII American epic as visionary architect László Toth and wife Erzsébet. When industrialist Van Buren commissions László to design a grand monument, he unknowingly hands the American Dream to the Toth family on a silver platter, ultimately re-landscaping the immigrants’ newfound home.
Nosferatu
December 25
Bill Skarsgård is the Count Orlok in the latest 1922 German Expressionist film remake, originally an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula”. This time, Robert Eggers decided that gothic horror should be more grandiose this go-around, as Orlock’s human love interest Ellen Hunter, played by Lily-Rose Deep, hints at the film’s A-list cast, featuring Emma Corrin, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, and Willem Dafoe.
Babygirl
December 25
The only way for high-powered CEO Romy (Nicole Kidman) to buckle under pressure is if company intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) is in the room, sexually biting a cookie. As their spicy office hook-up bites into her home life, suspense builds in Romy, and risqué hotel sex nor club escapades cannot simply cure it.
A Complete Unknown
December 25
The long-awaited Bob Dylan biopic stars Timothée Chalamet as the then-young Minnesota singer alongside Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez and Elle Fanning as Silvie Russo. Leading up to Dylan’s name-making 1965 stage at Newport Folk Festival, which forever rewrote standard folk music, filmmaker James Mangold captures the music legend’s growing following throughout 1960s New York City.
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