The Big Picture · Discussion · Top Five

The 10 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2024. Plus: Tarantino’s Pivot, Scorsese’s Sinatra, and Spielberg’s UFOs.

April 19, 2024/ 86 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins

Sean and Amanda work through a week of movie news (Tarantino shelving his 10th film, Scorsese's Sinatra biopic, Spielberg's next UFO movie), then each counts down five most-anticipated releases of summer 2024.

21 films across 5 segments.

AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.

The Movie News

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 2019

Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter reported that Tarantino shelved The Movie Critic, long assumed to be his 10th and final film, about a 1970s porn-rag critic named Jim Sheldon, with rumored casting that drifted from Paul Walter Hauser to Brad Pitt to Tom Cruise and reportedly morphed into another Cliff Booth story. Sean's take: he keeps telling Tarantino to drop the 10-movies rule, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was already a near-perfect note to have ended on at nine.

The Irishman 2019

Sean frames Scorsese's reported Sinatra biopic (Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank, Jennifer Lawrence as Ava Gardner) as a possible capstone to the gangster arc that runs Goodfellas, Casino, The Irishman, with the entertainment industry as the last frontier the mob infiltrates. His worry: it's a music biopic, and this plus a rumored second Scorsese Jesus film (Andrew Garfield and Miles Teller attached) both sound like they've had 'some meetings' and not much else.

A Soft Preview of ‘Abigail’

Abigail 2024

Sean saw it and walks through the marketing problem: it opens as a straight abduction thriller (six archetypal criminals grab a millionaire's ballerina daughter and hold her in an old house) before the reveal, about an hour in, that Abigail is a vampire. The trailers give the vampire away, so you spend the whole first act waiting for a turn the film was written to hide. With Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, and Kathryn Newton.

Imaginary 2024

The Blumhouse movie Amanda kept confusing with Abigail: the one about a girl and a possessed stuffed bear that slides across the floor. Sean saw it at a screening: 'not very good.' It sets off a long riff about killer Roombas and Amanda's refusal to own any Wi-Fi-enabled smart-home devices.

Sean’s 5 Most Anticipatedcounted down 5 to 1

No. 1

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga 2024

No. 1, and the movie Sean says his whole summer is riding on. George Miller back in the Mad Max world with Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth; he was mixed on the trailer but says the CinemaCon footage was incredible.

No. 2

MaXXXine 2024

No. 2, and the one 'work of art' on his list. Ty West's third Mia Goth film after X and Pearl, a late-'70s/early-'80s LA serial-killer and porn-world drama, homage to B-exploitation and Heat. Cast includes Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Giancarlo Esposito, and Kevin Bacon.

No. 3

Alien: Romulus 2024

No. 3. Fede Álvarez (the Evil Dead remake) directing, with press-tour footage of him fawning over Ridley Scott. 'Do we need a seventh Alien movie? We don't need anything. Do I need it? I do.'

No. 4

Deadpool & Wolverine 2024

No. 4, arriving on Sean's birthday and the only Marvel movie of the year. Directed by Shawn Levy (Free Guy); the first MCU film outside the Spider-Verse he's been excited for since Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, wary of the retcon housekeeping. Jennifer Garner reportedly back as Elektra.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes poster

No. 5

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes 2024

No. 5, slotted in after Amanda goaded him into full 'moron mode' over the more respectable Kinds of Kindness. He loves the Reeves-era Apes films and plans to rewatch them all, bracing for a letdown.

Amanda’s 5 Most Anticipatedcounted down 5 to 1

No. 1

Twisters 2024

No. 1, actually a double feature with Richard Linklater's Hit Man, which Amanda names alongside it. Twisters is total moron mode (they're still firing radar sensors into tornadoes); Hit Man she hasn't seen but the trailer looked delightful, and she's all in on Glenn Powell, a stock she and Sean say they called back in 2017. Her vacation, annoyingly, coincides with the Twisters release.

No. 2

The Fall Guy 2024

No. 2. A big splashy action-romance built on movie stars, the kind of thing that barely exists anymore. She'll happily take Ryan Gosling grandstanding every six months; loved his SNL run, and she and Sean note his and Emily Blunt's chemistry.

No. 3

Trap 2024

No. 3. M. Night Shyamalan's Josh Hartnett thriller: goofy dad takes his daughter to a pop concert, then it turns. Amanda concedes the trailer may have already spent the whole hook, but she's forgiving of a Shyamalan high-concept premise even when the ending doesn't land.

No. 4

Fly Me to the Moon 2024

No. 4, her 'taking a chance' pick: an Apple romantic comedy with Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum set during the space race, staging a fake backup moon landing. She wants a movie-star romcom in the summer; last saw the pair together in Hail, Caesar!

No. 5

Despicable Me 4 2024

No. 5, prompted by a story about her son deciding he's ready for the movies after silencing the room during The Sound of Music. She wishes it were a Minions movie instead (she's just not into Gru) but assumes it'll be one of the year's biggest films.

Honorable Mentions

A Quiet Place: Day One 2024

Michael Sarnoski (Pig) directing the prequel, with Lupita Nyong'o and Joseph Quinn. Sean's reservation: the power of the earlier films was being dropped into a world already adjusted to the horror, and an origin story gives that up.

The Bikeriders 2024

Jeff Nichols' movie, which Sean saw and really liked at Telluride. Dropped by Fox, now opening via Focus. Part of a crowded June 21 slate of five indies alongside Kinds of Kindness, Fancy Dance, Janet Planet, and Thelma.

Janet Planet 2024

Annie Baker's A24 debut with Julianne Nicholson, about mothers and daughters. The one 'respectable' pick Amanda had on her list before the Trap trailer dropped and she deleted it.