Let’s be honest: when it comes to movies, there are as many box office misses as there are hits. Recently, we’ve been blessed with hits like Everything Everywhere All At Once and Where The Crawdads Sing but when it comes to movie news and Hollywood castings, it’s easy to get overexcited.

So allow us to home in on some of the best and most exciting ones. We’re talking everything from thrillers, sci-fi romances and new roles from the likes of Sex Education’s Emma Mackey, Kit Harington, Paul Mescal and even an on-screen reunion with Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley.

With that, here are the nine films that are firmly at the top of our film radar. 

The Good Nurse

Jessica Chastain has certainly been a busy actor as of late. Not only did she star (and produce) spy thriller film The 355, she’s also recently bagged an Oscar and is set to bring us a dystopian TV adaptation of epic proportions. Another stellar production to add to that list is upcoming Netflix film The Good Nurse. 

Chastain will be joined by Eddie Redmayne (Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them) to lead the film, in which she plays the ‘good’ nurse, Amy Loughren, who seeks to uncover the truth behind a series of mysterious deaths. As the synopsis reads: “Suspicious that her colleague is responsible for a series of mysterious patient deaths, a nurse risks her own life to uncover the truth in this gripping thriller based on true events.”

The thriller is based on the very real true crime case and investigation into American serial killer Charles Cullen (played by Redmayne), who murdered as many as 300 patients over his 16-year career as a nurse. It sounds eerie but something tells us this film is going to be very, very good.

The Good Nurse will be available to stream on Netflix this autumn, exact release date TBC. 

Aftersun

While we’ve seen Daisy Edgar-Jones return to our screen in a variety of new film and TV roles (Disney+’s Fresh, Under The Banner Of Heaven and upcoming Where The Crawdads Sing), we haven’t seen as much from her Normal People counterpart Paul Mescal.

While he’s featured in Netflix hit movie The Lost Daughter, raved-about upcoming film Aftersun is really where we can’t wait to see him as the star of the show. 

It’s his first major role since the hit BBC drama and stars Mescal as a young father who takes his 11-year-old daughter on a budget holiday in the 90s. It’s a troubled relationship but the film is set to explore depression, mental health and fatherhood in the most confronting (and beautiful) of ways. 

It may sound like a simple premise but if the raving reviews from Cannes Film Festival are anything to go by, it’s set to platform Mescal as one of the best, emotionally raw and wide-ranging actors of recent time. If one thing’s for certain, we’ll be packing the Kleenex when this lauded film finally comes to the big screen.

Elvis

Who knew this would be the year of so many anticipated biopics? As well as Ana De Armas’ anticipated Netflix Marilyn Monroe biopic, Blonde, we have this upcoming Baz Luhrmann film to pine over.

Many of us are already familiar with Elvis Presley’s rise to fame in the 1950s but what some don’t know about is the complex relationship he had with his manager, Colonel Tom Parker (played by Tom Hanks). Elvis is set to explore all this and more, alongside a talked-about score featuring Doja Cat and many other yet-to-be-confirmed artists.

If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ll know that Austin Butler’s performance as Elvis is the stuff of starry legends and, as well as getting a 12-minute standing ovation at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the film also has the seal of approval from Elvis’ widow, Priscilla Presley.

Elvis is out in UK cinemas now.

Motherland

Just as we’re lapping up the new season of Netflix’s Stranger Things, it looks like the team behind the smash hit series is bringing us a Halle Berry-led thriller.  

While we don’t currently know much more about the casting or the more intricate details of the film, we do know that The Hills Have Eyes and Piranha 3D filmmaker Alexandre Aja is aboard to direct the feature. According to Variety, the upcoming feature will chart “the story of a mother and her twin sons who have been tormented by an evil spirit for years.

“When one of the boys questions whether the evil is real, the family’s sacred bond is broken, and it becomes a fight for survival.”

The film is expected to go into production next year, and trust us, we’ll be counting down the days till we know more. 

Wicked Little Letters

If you caught Netflix’s The Lost Daughter – and if you haven’t, feel free to stream it immediately – then you’ll be brimming with excitement for this on-screen reunion of Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley.

This time around, they’re bringing their talents to a comedy, which is already being buzzed about at Cannes. It’s being produced by French powerhouse Studiocanal alongside Colman’s own company, South Of The River Pictures.

According to Deadline, the upcoming film is based on a true story and will see the in-demand Brit and Irish actors play very different neighbours who come together to solve a mystery.

In terms of their upcoming roles, we’re more than a little excited. Buckley will be playing fiery Rose Gooding who “has little in common with the pious Edith Swan (Colman), aside from them being neighbours in the seaside town of Littlehampton in the 1920s.

“One day, Edith and others in the town start receiving scandalous letters written with foul language as eccentric as it is obscene, and the finger of suspicion immediately falls on Rose. As Rose stands to lose her freedom and the custody of her daughter, and outrageous letters continue to blight the town, police officer Gladys Moss begins to suspect something is amiss. Together with a group of resourceful women, Gladys endeavours to solve the mystery, liberate Rose and catch the real culprit.”

We’re already excited about catching Buckley on the big screen in Men, but this new project is already shaping up to be the kind of divine comedy that’ll resonate with viewers. 

Fingernails

Recent Oscar winner Riz Ahmed (The Long Goodbye, Sound Of Metal) is leading an upcoming sci-fi romance alongside Jessie Buckley, and honestly, we’re intrigued.

Their joint-lead casting has just been announced, but if two names were to ever get us excited for a romantic film, it would definitely be these two.

Cate Blanchett’s production company, Dirty Films, will also be behind the project, which sounds like it could be an episode of Black Mirror.

According to Deadline, this is set to be a surreal drama and a “grounded sci-fi love story”. In the film, a test has been discovered that measures whether couples are truly in love. And so, to help couples succeed, love institutes have opened to help guide them. “Anna (Buckley) is sceptical of the positive result she’s received with her longtime partner, so she starts working in a love institute as an assistant to Trevor (Ahmed), a mysterious, dedicated instructor,” the synopsis reads.

It seems like both an in-depth exploration of society’s never-ending search for love, but also a playful take on the romantic drama genre. Either way, we’re totally here for it. 

Eiffel

It seems like the cast of Netflix’s Sex Education are all up to fun things right now, with Emma Mackey the latest to take centre stage in an upcoming movie which we’re waiting for with bated breath. Due for release on 12 August, this moody French romantic epic has all the makings of a glorious film.  

It’s about the story behind the Eiffel Tower, and according to the synopsis: “Having just finished the Statue of Liberty, Gustave Eiffel is at the peak of his career.” Everything changes the day he crosses paths with Adrienne Bourgès (Mackey) and their forbidden relationship inspires him to change the Paris skyline forever.

Eiffel is set to be released in UK cinemas on 12 August.

Mary’s Monster

Give us a period drama with a gritty plotline at its core any day but when Kit Harington and Clara Rugaard have just been confirmed to lead it? Even more so.

As reported by Deadline, the new film will chronicle the life of Frankenstein scribe Mary Shelley.

The period film, which will have a contemporary sheen to it, will deal with Mary’s mental struggle to write her seminal novel. Rising Danish actor Rugaard will play Mary Shelley and Harington will be ‘the monster’.

The film’s official synopsis reads: “Mary is seduced by her own inner monster catapulting her into a dangerous, destructive psychological romance. Realising the monster is inextricably linked to her own mental state, her only route to salvation is in bringing him to life.”

While additional casting is underway, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo (Coda) is confirmed to play Mary’s husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and Sebastian de Souza (Normal People) will play Byron. 

Saltburn

You know when you see a list of names that you didn’t expect to see in one film, but somehow, it just works? Well the news of Saltburn is a little like that.

Jacob Elordi (Euphoria), and Barry Keoghan (The Batman) have just been confirmed to star in the upcoming film alongside Rosamund Pike, which is set to begin production this year.

So far, not much is known about the film apart from the fact it will be a “story of obsession”, while other plot details are bing kept firmly under wraps. The film will be produced by Emerald Fennell (The Crown) and LuckyChap Entertainment’s Josey McNamara, Tom Ackerley and Margot Robbie.

But if there’s one thing we know, it’s that Elordi and Keoghan’s recent performances – as Nate in HBO’s Euphoria and The Joker respectively – paint a very good picture of the kind of engaging role they’ll be bringing to the upcoming movie. And lest we forget how chillingly convincing Pike is in Gone Girl and I Care A Lot, you just know that this is a movie we absolutely cannot wait for. 

Lead Image: Netflix