Midnight Special
The ubiquitous Michael Shannon stars as a father on the run with his uncommonly gifted eight-year-old son, aided by a sidekick (Joel Edgerton) and ex-wife (Kirsten Dunst). Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, the film’s car-chase plots morphs into a work of supernatural sci-fi with a large debt to Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. While the film generated some buzz at the Berlin Film Festival, some critics were less impressed: BBC Culture’s Nicholas Barber described it as “a conventional sci-fi with some very obvious antecedents”, while The Guardian’s Benjamin Lee called it “disappointingly lifeless”. Released 16 March in France and 18 March in Brazil and the US.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Watchmen and 300 director Zach Snyder returns with the follow-up to Man of Steel (2013). Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill square off as the caped crusaders in the first live-action film to feature both characters on screen – as well as other DC Comics favourites, including Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and The Flash. Support comes from a heavyweight cast (Amy Adams, Holly Hunter, Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane), with villainous duties discharged by Jesse Eisenberg (Lex Luthor) and Michael Shannon (General Zod). Released 23 March in Spain, 24 March in Australia and 25 March in Japan.
Cemetery of Splendour
Like much of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s work, Cemetery of Splendour (Rak Ti Khon Kaen) blurs the lines between reality, dream and myth. It follows a nurse, Jen (Jenjira Pongpas) as she tends to Itta, a soldier, one of many who are stricken with sleeping sickness. While housed in a temporary clinic, the soldiers experience coloured light therapy to help ease their dreams and raise them from their comatose state. The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin called it a “wondrous journey… inwards and downwards, to a place where the simplest rhythms of everyday life become hallowed and mythic. Hollywood Reporter’s Jordan Mintzer praised the film’s “unearthly qualities of a sustained reverie.” Released 4 March in the US and 26 March in Japan.
10 Cloverfield Lane
First things first – is this film Cloverfield 2? Rather than a sequel to the 2008 monster-horror movie, producer JJ Abrams has called 10 Cloverfield Lane its “spiritual successor” or “blood relative”. Mary Elizabeth Wanstead stars as a woman who wakes from a car accident to find herself in a cellar. It’s the cellar of a man who has saved her from a chemical attack – or has he? The directorial debut of Dan Trachtenberg, the three-hander co-stars John Gallagher Jr and John Goodman – in his most menacing role yet. Released 10 March in Denmark, 11 March in Canada and 30 March in Egypt.
The Witch
“If you can survive it”, wrote Time’s Stephanie Zacharek, “The Witch is a triumph of tone”. The debut feature from writer/director Robert Eggers, The Witch is set in 1630s New England and concerns the terrifying unravelling of a family, as told by its young protagonist, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy). The film made a splash at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, with reviews being largely positive – The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane called it “at once sticky with tangible detail and numinous with suggestion” while Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers warned: “It’ll scare the hell out of you”. Released 4 March in Mexico, 11 March in the UK and 17 March in Chile.