The 42 Most Anticipated Movies of 2022

The Film School Rejects team digs into this year's list of promised releases in search of the most anticipated movies of 2022.
Most Anticipated Movies

Men (May 20)

Alex Garland has once again paired up with A24 to expand and/or warp our minds. That’s most of what we know about Men from its cryptic first trailer, other than the fact that it appears to be a film in which a mysterious masculine figure is terrorizing Jesse Buckley. And honestly, after Ex Machina and Annihilation and [gestures toward everything Jessie Buckley has done lately], what more information could you possibly need? (Neil Miller)


Top Gun: Maverick (May 27)

Considering the recent and devastating news that we’ll be waiting a while longer for the next Mission: Impossible movie, we can only hope that the other highly anticipated Tom Cruise film will live up to the hype. Considering that several decades have passed since the Tony Scott classic, Top Gun: Maverick is a sequel that has a big legacy to live up to. But with Cruise and Val Kilmer reprising their roles and the promise of daredevil action sequences that we’ve already glimpsed in the trailer, this sequel looks incredibly promising and, hopefully, breathtaking. (Anna Swanson)


Bob’s Burgers: The Movie (May 27)

Fans of television’s most lovable working-class family have been waiting for this one for a while — it was announced all the way back in 2017. To have Bob (H. Jon Benjamin), his wife Linda (John Roberts), and their kids Tina (Dan Mintz), Gene (Eugene Mirman), and Louise (Kirsten Schaal) solving mysteries, playing pranks on the denizens of their seaside town, and trying to save the restaurant on the big screen will be, at long last, a true delight. (Neil Miller)


Elvis (June 24)

In 2001, Australian director Baz Lurhmann proved that he knows how to absolutely nail a movie-musical with the glitzy and widely acclaimed Moulin Rouge!. It only makes sense, then, that he be the one to tell the larger-than-life true story of musical legend Elvis Presley. After an extensive process of searching for the perfect Elvis, (understandably a difficult thing to do!), Luhrmann settled on Austin Butler, a once-teen-star who has lately proven himself as an exceptional actor, notably with his performance as the menacing Tex Watson in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Not terribly much has been released about the project just yet, but I feel confident in saying that Elvis’ life is a story that would be pretty tough to go wrong with. (Aurora Amidon)


Thor: Love and Thunder (July 8)

Thor: Love and Thunder is my own personal Avengers: Endgame. As the second Thor feature directed by Taika Waititi, the film (just one part of Marvel’s stacked 2022 slate) is poised to bring back Natalie Portman, deepen Tessa Thompson’s role as Valkyrie, and add Russell Crowe and Christian Bale to the mix. Thor: Ragnarok was a Marvel high point, a thoroughly entertaining movie that told a superhero story while capturing a new level of epic style (remember Hela?!), clever humor, and genuine pathos.

Waititi didn’t even technically write the Ragnarok script, yet his indelible sense of humor and love of improvisation shined through plenty in the final project. Now, he’s penned the sequel’s screenplay alongside Sweet/Vicious creator Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, and all signs indicate that Thor: Love and Thunder will be bigger, bolder, and wackier than its predecessor. (Valerie Ettenhofer)


Bullet Train (July 15)

I’m obligated to anticipate this very cool-sounding action movie as it opens on my birthday, but even if it didn’t, the film’s premise, director, and cast would make it impossible to ignore. David Leitch directs this adaptation of the bestselling Japanese novel about a fast-moving train and the five assassins who find themselves on board at the same time. Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Zazie Beetz, Michael Shannon, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, and more make up the passenger list, and we can’t wait to hop aboard. (Rob Hunter)


Nope (July 22)

No other director has become a master of horror faster than Jordan Peele. Warping his surreal sense of humor into the language of horror cinema, his debut, Get Out, has gone on to become one of the most talked-about horror movies in years that pushed the genre in new directions. While his follow-up, Us, didn’t inspire the same level of acclaim that Get Out received, both of Peele’s first two movies show an artist unafraid to experiment with characters and story structures while needling into some of the dirty little lies that our nation was built on.

And if the first poster and trailer for Nope are any indication, he’s not slowing down that cinematic experimentation. Plot details haven’t been fully revealed, so who knows what mysteries lurk behind that low-hanging cloud featured in the poster. That said, I think we can all expect one thing to happen in the film: someone is going to point at that cloud and say exactly what the audience is thinking, “NOPE!” (Jacob Trussell)


Beast (August 19)

I’ll admit up front that I know very little about this one and am including it here based on its simple premise: Idris Elba vs a lion. Seriously, that’s more than enough to get my butt into a seat, but for the rest of you, there’s also Sharlto Copley co-starring (presumably as the lion) and Baltasar Kormakur in the director’s chair. Kormakur previously directed the still-fun 2 Guns back in 2013. Again, though: Idris Elba fights a lion! (Rob Hunter)


Samaritan (August 26)

Overlord is a terrifically entertaining B-movie with a real budget delivering action, horror, and some great characters, and now director Julius Avery is finally back with a follow-up. His latest is a different beast altogether as it tells the tale of a boy who discovers an aging superhero the world thought was long gone. Sylvester Stallone stars as the hero, and while I expect there to be a family-friendly angle here, the talent involved means it still has promise. (Rob Hunter)


Dark Harvest (September 9)

David Slade came out swinging with the one-two punch of Hard Candy (2005) and the still-brilliant 30 Days of Night (2007) before landing a gig directing one of the Twilight films… and then pretty much moving on to television. But 2022 looks to mark his (hopefully) glorious return to horror with an adaptation of Norman Partridge’s novel about a blade-wielding creature on a bloody rampage. A full-on monster movie heading into Halloween season? Yes please. (Rob Hunter)

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