The year starts off with a bang, as this instantly-iconic murderous android doll—think Chucky meets Small Soldiers—lived up to its full campy, murderous, wildly-entertaining potential.

Skinamarink slowly but surely picked up buzz, and now will finally be available for viewers to watch and see what some of called the scariest and most purely disturbing horror movie in recent memory.

Missing is the spiritual sequel to Searching, the John Cho-starring mystery that was released in 2018 and told its story entirely through a Mac desktop. Missing comes from the people behind Searching, and will instead put Storm Reid (Euphoria, The Invisible Man) at the center of another thrilling mystery.

One of A24’s first 2023 offerings is When You Finish Saving The World, a coming of age story that puts mother (Julianne Moore) and son (Finn Wolfhard) at odds. The movie is Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut, and seems like it has the potential to live up to A24’s usual (very high) standard.

The idea of a “Nepo baby” has been a topic of frequent discussion recently, but you don’t hear it too much when talking about Brandon Cronenberg, the son of legendary director David Cronenberg. That’s probably because Brandon (who directed the awesome, intense, and grossly-brutal Possessor) clearly has the same kind of talent that his famous father (The Fly, The Brood, Crimes of the Future) has. Infinity Pool stars Alexander Skarsgård and 2022 horror darling Mia Goth (X and Pearl) in a story that takes us to a luxurious vacation resort—before things start getting really, really weird.

Gonna be honest: there’s a pretty good chance that once we see this movie it comes off the list entirely. But based on the cast, why not be hopeful? Any comedy featuring Eddie Murphy, Jonah Hill, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and David Duchovny, among others, will have us excited—even if it seems like the movie itself may ultimately let us down.

M. Night Shyamalan’s movies may not always hit, but we will always commend him for being one of the few auteur filmmakers in the business who’s always trying to bring something new and exciting to the table (OK, outside of his Avatar movie. We can forget about that one). Knock at the Cabin—based on the novel Cabin at the End of the World—finds a family taking a trip to a secluded cabin only to be confronted by violent conspiracy theorists (led by Dave Bautista)who hold them hostage for increasingly wild reasons.

Steven Soderbergh and Channing Tatum are back for a third and final film in the delightful Magic Mike series; this time, Tatum’s co-star will be the great Salma Hayek.

We finally get to see the real-deal debut of Jonathan Majors‘ new Marvel Cinematic Universe supervillain Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the first big-screen installment of the mega-franchise. Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michelle Pfieffer, and Michael Douglas all return, while Kathryn Newton takes over as Cassie Lang and Bill Murray has some bizarre new role.

This looks like a great movie for people who are on drugs to watch, and when February 24 rolls around, I could very well be one of those people.

Michael B. Jordan returns to his breakthrough boxing role, this time making his directorial debut in addition to starring. His foe in the movie will be a childhood friend played by Jonathan Majors, who is, you guessed it, outrageously jacked.

The most consistent franchise in horror—seriously, every Scream movie is good—returns for its sixth installment, this time moving the action to New York City. This will be the first film in the franchise without original final girl Neve Campbell (boo!!!), but at least Coureney Cox, along with Scream (2022) stars Jenna Ortega, Melissa Barrera, Mason Gooding, and Jasmine Savoy Brown will return.

Inside stars Willem Dafoe as a art theif who gets stuck in a penthouse when a heist doesn’t go according to plan. Quite frankly, Willem Dafoe in a room of priceless art for an entire movie sounds like a fantastic film.

Adam Driver has starred in Star Wars andworked with some of the greatest directors in the world, from Ridley Scott and Noah Baumbach to Martin Scorsese and, currently, Francis Ford Coppola. So what better way to test his true movie star power than in a bizarre action movie where he….fights a bunch of dinosaurs set 65 million years in the past? As strange as 65 sounds, considering his resume the last few years, it’s hard to imagine this movie will be bad.

I don’t really know about this one. DC is a moment of great turnover and turmoil and no one really knows what will go on with the Shazam franchise after this one. And while Shazam! was fun, it wasn’t exactly begging for a sequel. Still, it’s always interesting to see the direction that these movies push the future into.

Of course Men’s Health is excited for John Wick: Chapter 4. Would you expect anything less?

A Good Person stars Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman as an unlikely duo who bond after an unspeakable tragedy. Directed by Zach Braff (Pugh’s ex-boyfriend), this seems like a movie that could be one of the better character studies of the first part of the year—and may wind up making you cry.

The trailer for this one doesn’t look great! It sure doesn’t! But it stars Chris Pine, and comes from the team behind the wonderful dark comedy Game Night, so this is a movie worth being excited about nonetheless.

If we can get used to Chris Pratt’s Mario voice, we can do anything. And this movie really does look like it has the potential to be quite immersive, and quite fun.

Russell Crowe stars in this horror movie based on a a real Italian priest named Gabriele Amorth who performed thousands of exorcisms over his 60 years as a priest. Crowe looks to be in his element.

Renfield looks like it could be an early frontrunner for the most fun horror movie of the year. Nicholas Hoult plays Renfield, and Nicolas Cage plays Dracula in this unique take on the timeless dynamic between vampire and assistant, this time focusing on the assistant—and how badly he wants to get away from his toxic boss. Think What We Do In The Shadows meets Horrible Bosses meets Dracula.

If you haven’t seen the trailer for Evil Dead Rise yet…you are missing out. It is BONKERS. This is, of course, the fifth big-screen outing for the Evil Dead franchise, which began with Sam Raimi’s three films before continuing with Fede Alvarez’s film in 2013. This time Irish director Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground) takes the helm, and he looks to be more than capable of the task.

The Super Troopers and Beerfest gang are back on Hulu in April with Quasi, which is said to be a reimagined and comedic take on The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Why not?

Are you ready to be disturbed? Are you ready to be shaken to your core? Are you ready to leave a movie theater thinking “what the hell did I just watch?” Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) is without question one of the most brilliant writers/directors in modern horror, and his mysterious new A24 film Beau is Afraid will follow Joaquin Phoenix through generations—and probably blow our minds for a third time.

Before he moves to the top job at DC, James Gunn will put a bow on his Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The whole team is back (though Gamora is now the 2014 version of Gamora), and we’ll get to see Will Poulter’s Adam Warlock for the first time. Is this movie going to make us cry? It might make us cry.

Cars. Family. Vin Diesel. You know about this one. And while The Rock may not be back—that’s one feud that may never resolve itself—the family does get to add Jason Momoa and Brie Larson this time.

With all due respect to Spider-Man: No Way Home and the films of Sam Raimi, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the greatest Spider-Man movie of all time. How could you not be jazzed to see the sequel? Based on the promotional art and trailers, Across the Spider-Verse looks to be just as mind-blowing as the original.

Strays is said to be an adult-oriented animated comedy starring Will Ferrell as an abandoned dog who teams up with other strays to get revenge on his neglectful owner. It comes from the same director as the very funny Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar, and will also star Jamie Foxx, Will Forte, Isla Fisher, and Randall Park.

Pixar tends to be a winning formula, and Elemental looks to be an attempt at getting back into the Soul or Inside Out lane. Sure!

This movie will most likely be a complete mess! There have been rumors for years of cameos added, cameos cut, and all sort of universe-altering plot developments. The star of the movie also spent much of 2022 as a fugitive, jumping from one unsettling headline to another. You have to at least be curious about how this all plays out.

Wes Anderson’s first of two 2023 movies will bring most of his usual gang back, along with newcomers Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie, and Steve Carell, among others. This movie is said to have more of a sci-fi plot and should be a lot of fun.

No Hard Feelings is an adult-oriented comedy with Jennifer Lawrence in the leading role. Adult comedies with cinematic releases basically don’t exist anymore, so we’re going to be excited for this one.

Indy! He’s back! Harrison Ford is putting the hat on for his first adventure since 2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, this time losing Shia LaBeouf and gaining a goddaughter (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge). Other cast members include Boyd Holbrook and Mads Mikkelsen, among others, while James Mangold (Logan, Walk the Line, Identity) takes over for Steven Spielberg as director.

Did you see Mission: Impossible — Fallout? That movie is absolutely amazing. Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible series is only getting better with age, and knowing Tom Cruise—the man who truly believes he can do anything—he’ll want to top the biggest movie of his career (Top Gun: Maverick) with something even bigger in Dead Reckoning Part One. Can not wait.

The cinema-pocalypse will fully hit on July 21, 2023, when both Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (starring Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrell, and many more) and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer hit theaters. Gerwig, who was an indie darling for years before becoming one of the industry’s most heralded directors with her Lady Bird and Little Women, gets a big budget for the first time, and has us all wondering how this movie will play out. Our guess? Really, really fun.

And facing off with Barbie will be Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s likely mind-blowing biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy), the mastermind of the U.S.’s Manhattan project and atomic bomb. The movie will also star Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, and Emily Blunt. This feels like one you’ll really want to see in IMAX.

This Marvel installment will cross Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel, played by Brie Larson) over with Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel, played by Iman Vellani) and Monica Rambeau (Photon, played by Teyonah Parris) for some body-swapping fun. Not sure yet how this will fit into the larger MCU picture, but it should be a good time.

This TMNT reboot is being produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, which is enough for us to get excited for it and think that it could be something fun and subversive enough to be worth the price of admission.

Based on one chapter “The Captain’s Log” from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this movie—about a ship carrying a ton of cargo, some of which may or may not be sinister!—sounds very fun, and very creepy. Corey Hawkins, Liam Cunningham, and David Dastmalchian are among the impressive cast.

Disney takes another stab at its Haunted Mansion property after the 2003 film with Eddie Murphy. We’re mainly keeping an eye on it because of the cast, which includes LaKeith Stanfield, Owen Wilson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Rosario Dawson, and Winona Ryder, among others.

Cobra Kai star Xolo Maridueña will make his superhero debut in DC’s Blue Beetle, which seems like the first major project that James Gunn has something of a hand in since taking the top job at the superpowered studio. Could be fun—we will see!

The comedy trio known as Please Don’t Destroy—made up of Ben Marshall, Martin Herlihy, and John Higgins—blew up online during the pandemic, and then found themselves making their bizarre and absurdists brand of shorts for a little show called Saturday Night Live. Next up? A feature film, produced by some guy who’s done a thing or two in comedy before named Judd Apatow.

This is some kind of horror movie starring John Cho. I just like him! Hope this is good. Also starring Katherine Waterston, who is also usually good.

This will be the third mystery film directed by Kenneth Branagh that also stars him as detective Hercule Poirot (following Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile). What’s one more! This installment will also feature Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, and Michelle Yeoh, among others.

Taika Waititi’s first non-Marvel movie since Jojo Rabbit (which won him an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay) is Next Goal Wins, which will center on Michael Fassbender as the real-life Dutch-American football coach Thomas Rongen as he tries to lead the American Samoa soccer team to the FIFA World Cup. It’s been a quiet few years for Mr. Fassbender, but we’re excited to see him back doing cool movies again.

No plot has been released yet for True Love, which we only know will be a sci-fi epic that will star John David Washington, Gemma Chan, Allison Janney, and Sturgill Simpson, among others. But the important detail is that the movie is written and directed by Gareth Edwards, whose most recent film is Rogue One: A Star Wars Movie. While that film famously underwent significant reshoots, Edwards is still the credited director, and the movie is considered by many to be one of the greatest things that Star Wars has ever done. We will see what he’s got for us with this one.

The same team behind the recent Halloween trilogy (David Gordon Green and Danny McBride with Blumhouse producing) are now going to apply that same formula to another legendary horror franchise: The Exorcist. And just as Jamie Lee Curtis returned for the Halloween movies, Ellen Burstyn will return for The Exorcist movies. Why not give it a chance?

Dune was enough of a success in 2021 for director Denis Villeneuve to get his Dune: Part Two—completing the story of Frank Herbert’s first book—greenlit. Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, and Christopher Walken are among those joining the cast for what is easily one of the most-awaited blockbusters of the year.

Based on the book of the same name, The Hunter Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes essentially seems to function as the Star Wars prequels for the Hunger Games franchise. How did President Snow (Donald Sutherland in the original movies) get to be the way he was? Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth star, and director Francis Lawrence returns, so the movie should have the same feel as the Catching Fire (etc) that we all loved.

We don’t need to get too deep into this one: it’s Timothée Chalamet as young Willy Wonka. And it’s a musical. This movie is going to make a chocolate factory full of money, and we are going to be watching.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom kind of falls in the same Shazam: Fury of the Gods and The Flash category of…we don’t really know what’s going to be happening here, as the DC Universe seems to be gearing up for a near complete reboot. That said, director James Wan always has a singular vision, and at the very least, this movie—which returns star Jason Momoa and most of the other notable cast members from the franchise’s first movie in 2018—should be a fun time.

We so desperately were hoping that The Killers of the Flower Moon—Martin Scorsese’s true crime epic based on the bestselling book of the same name and starring Jesse Plemons, Leonard DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro, Lily Gladstone, and Brendan Fraser—would come out in 2022. Alas, the editing and post-production wound up taking longer than expected, and so now we’ll have to wait for the film to hit Apple TV+ (Scorsese’s first time working with them) in 2023. Take your time, Marty.

We told you Michael Fassbender was back! This movie—coming to Netflix at some point in 2023—teams Fassbender with Tilda Swinton and the legendary director David Fincher. If you want to get a hint of what the movie is going to be about, you can check out the French graphic novel upon which it’s based.

The Raid director Gareth Evans returns with Havoc, a fast-paced action conspiracy thriller that will star Tom Hardy as a detective immersed in a dark underworld. His co-stars here will include Timothy Olyphant, Forest Whitaker, and Luis Guzmán, among others.

There have been attempts at Salem’s Lot before, but this is hoping to be the best version of Stephen King’s novel of the same name yet. Lewis Pullman plays Ben Mears, the ‘Salem’s Lot native who returns home as the story’s events kick into motion.

Hunter Schafer leads this horror movie from director Tilman Singer that will also star Jessica Henwick (The Matrix Resurrections, Glass Onion) and Dan Stevens (Legion, The Guest). The plot has been kept entirely under wraps, but that’s a good trio to start with!

One of our most awaited films of the year finds Emma Stone reteaming with The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthimos for another movie that sounds just strange and twisted enough to be a perfect fit for the filmmaker who was also behind The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Based on Alasdair Gray’s novel, Poor Things is something of an updated and inverted version of Frankenstein; Stone plays a pregnant abused wife who dies to escape her terrible husband, while Willem Dafoe (!!!) plays the scientist who manages to bring her back—with the brain of her unborn child. Mark Ruffalo, Jarrod Carmichael, Christopher Abbott, and Margaret Qualley are among others in this movie’s impressive cast.

Nightbitch, a horror movie based on the book of the same name, is a story about a stay-at-home mom and artist who becomes increasingly convinced that she’s turning into a dog when the sun goes down. This doesn’t sound likely to be the role to finally win star Amy Adams that elusive Oscar that she’s long deserved, but it should be a return to Sharp Objects and Arrival form after a couple years of disappointing projects like The Woman in the Window.

One of the best and most original films of the last few years was director Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby, which was something of a hybrid between Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man and Uncut Gems, while infusing it with a dark sense of humor (and looming social dread) that’s all its own. Seligman is reteaming with star Rachel Sennott, along with The Bear star Ayo Edebiri, for Bottoms—a movie about two queer girls who set up an underground fight club with the alterior motive of losing their virginities before graduation. Marshawn Lynch, former NFL star and all around hilarious person, will also star.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a heist movie with a social bend that was a major hit at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The movie is based on the nonfiction book of the same name, and will be the second feature from director Daniel Goldhaber after his very underrated sci-fi/horror movie CAM.

Based on the GameStop short squeeze of 2021 (and the book, The Antisocial Network, written about it), Dumb Money is sending off major The Big Short vibes. With a cast that includes Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Pete Davidson, and Sebastian Stan, this could be one of the most fun ‘based on a true story’ movies of 2023.

Bradley Cooper’s first film since his excellent 2018 A Star Is Born is Maestro, a biopic on American conductor and musician Leonard Bernstein; he is directing, starring, and co-writing. The movie will also feature Carey Mulligan, Jeremy Strong, and Maya Hawke, and should get one of Netflix’s biggest 2023 pushes for awards. .

Any horror fans who have already watched X and its prequel Pearl will be thrilled to know that a third film—a sequel titled maXXXine—is coming soon. All details are being kept under wraps as of now (Seriously! When we asked writer/director Ti West about it, he gave us absolutely nothing.) but that will just make it that much more sweet when all is finally revealed.

Another Wes Anderson movie? Yup! Netflix has the distribution on The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which will star Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role, based on the work of Roald Dahl.

Don’t find yourself feeling too bad for Henry Cavill after his recent departure from The Witcher and false star on re-entering the DC Universe with his role as Superman; he’s already got another franchise that sounds like a winner waiting in the can. Argylle, based on a debut novel from writer Elly Conway that hasn’t even been released yet, could be one of the biggest action movies of 2023, with Cavill playing the titular character, a world-class spy who gets amnesia and starts to think he’s actually a novelist. This movie’s cast also features Sam Rockwell, Dua Lipa, Bryce Dallas Howard, Samuel L. Jackson, John Cena, Bryan Cranston, and Arianna DeBose.

This sci-fi/mystery movie—featuring Jamie Foxx, John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Kiefer Sutherland—could be one of Netflix’s more ambitious offerings on their 2023 slate. And with that cast and a pulpy sci-fi hook, we’re cautiously optimistic that this could be pretty unique.

Evan Romano
Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE.