New Year, new resolutions. And although we aren’t the ones to, ehm, limit our minds with some silly promises given by our inebriated selves right around 23:59 on December 31st, 2021, watching good movies is a resolution that we can happily stick to. With this kind of promise, the only worry would be picking out just the right movies that will satiate every need of a bone fide cinephile. But how do you know if the movie is truly going to be that good before watching it? Well, easily, you check Bored Panda’s list of the most anticipated movies of 2022! And if the new year might look quite uncertain with its possibilities right now, you can be sure that these movies will, most definitely, 100% premiere when they are supposed to, and they will certainly be worthy of your time.
And, by the looks of it, this year’s movie crop is bound to be a thrilling one in the most direct sense of the word as there are plenty of thrillers, spy movies, horror flicks, and even one massively epic Viking saga. On the other hand, there will also be enough laughs with Pixar’s Turning Red and Reese Witherspoon’s Elle Woods in Legally Blonde 3. Not to get too excited in here, but there’s even a sequel to Downton Abbey! With Dame Maggie Smith! And there’s a new Black Panther movie! Okay, we might just have gotten a bit too excited in here, but that’s just showing that 2022 might be at least a bit better than its predecessors.
Okay, so scroll down below and check out the movies to get antsy for yourself! Don’t forget to give your vote to the movies that you are looking forward to the most this year and share this article with your movie-obsessed friends too!
#1 Turning Red
Whatever Pixar touches turns into an instant classic, and we are sure that Turning Red is on the same path. This time, it’s a coming-of-age story, following the life of Mei Lee - a teenager who turns into a red panda whenever she’s overly excited. Oh, and one more thing, the songs performed by this movie’s fictional boy band, the 4*Town, are written by the ingenious duo of Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell. Now that’s something to look forward to!
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55points
#2 Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness
If something could get our hopes up for an upcoming Marvel movie, it’s the return of the legendary director Sam Raimi who directed the original Spider-man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire. Now, speaking of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness - it’s a follow-up to 2016’s Doctor Strange, which continues on the time-jumping adventures of the eponymous doctor played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Here, he casts a spell that opens the door to a multiverse, including an alternate Doctor Strange, whose threat to humanity once again requires the combined forces of Strange, Wong, and Wanda Maximoff.
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54points
#3 The Northman
The Northman, an upcoming flick by Robert Eggers of The Witch and The Lighthouse fame, promises to transport us into the times of the Vikings, Iceland in the 10th century, to be more specific. It’s going to be a huge historical epic about the fate of one Viking prince starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Defoe, Nicole Kidman, and Alexander Skarsgard (it wouldn’t be a real Viking movie without him, right?). The Northman is sure to be filled with wrath, revenge of epic proportions, and incredible fight scenes. Having watched the previous movies by this up-and-coming director, our hopes are as high as Mount Everest for his newest endeavor.
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53points
#4 John Wick: Chapter 4
Will there ever come a time when we wouldn’t want to see Keanu Reeves on our screens? Highly doubtful, and he’s definitely one of the reasons we are so excited for this fourth installment in the John Wick franchise. Although there’s not much known about the plot as of yet, we’ve learned that it will be a direct sequel to the John Wick: Chapter 4 - Parabellum movie. This chapter will also see the debut screen performance of Japanese-born singer-songwriter Rina Sawayama, and we are beyond thrilled about that!
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53points
#5 Thor: Love And Thunder
We love ourselves some kooky humor that comes from Taika Waititi, and it’s even better when it is merged with one of our pop culture icons, Thor. This upcoming movie will be a direct sequel to 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok, which was also directed by Waititi. Love And Thunder, of course, will star Chris Hemsworth, as there’s no way we could see Thor as anyone else! Besides the actors reprising their roles from the earlier movie, this one adds in Natalie Portman, as Thor’s astrophysicist ex-girlfriend Jane Foster, to its roster.
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53points
#6 The Batman
The 2022 Batman is gritty, dark, and it stars the talented Robert Pattinson as the newest reincarnation of The Dark Knight. As Pattinson himself described it, his version of Batman is ‘crazy and perverse,’ and that’s just how we like it! In this movie, Batman’s main nemesis is the Riddler (Paul Dano), and his partner in crime is Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz). There are also a couple more actors in The Batman that we just know will add in tremendously, and we are antsy to see the characters of John Turturro and Colin Farrell coming to life.
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52points
#7 The 355
What makes this spy movie by Simon Kinberg stand out from all your run-of-the-mill secret agent films? Well, this time, it’s the most badass crew of females that are about to save the world from certain annihilation. Jessica Chastain, who’s a CIA agent in The 355, assembles an all-star crew of fellow renegade females to recover a mass destruction weapon straight from the enemy’s hands. Her crew consists of a rival CIA agent Marie (Diane Kruger), psychologist Graciela (Penelope Cruz), and computer genius Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o). Although their mission is a behemoth one - to save the world from World War III - we will sleep soundly, knowing that our lives are in these ladies’ hands.
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51points
#8 Jurassic World: Dominion
Jurassic World, in our opinion, wouldn’t be right without Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum. Thankfully, this sixth installment in the franchise will see all of them reprising their roles! This sequel to 2018’s Jurassic World will also include the performances of relative newbies of this universe - Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. Who, hopefully, will not have to run in high heels this time as there will definitely be invasive dinosaur species to be chased by.
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51points
#9 Downton Abbey: A New Era
Even if you weren’t a fan of the original Julian Fellowes series, you will be now as we are doubtful that anyone could resist Dame Maggie Smith’s glorious performance filled with dry (yet sensible) humor for long. However, if you did follow the hijinks in the Downton Abbey series, you will be glad to know that the main cast is still here and the characters, though evolved, are still the same. Just the premise is a bit different, as the aristocrats are pulled out of their comfort zone and thrown into a French villa. Abominable!
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50points
#10 Scream
The fifth installment in the Scream franchise, this 2022 flick is bound to be refreshingly awesome as it is once again starring the original crew - Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette. Now, with them on the screen, you are bound to get a mixture of both the screams and sweet nostalgia. The 2022 Scream is the direct sequel to the last movie in this franchise and is set 25 years after it ended. Of course, there’s the ghost-faced killer, a group of hunted teenagers, and there’s still the favored meta-humor of the original Scream movie. We are getting our hopes up right here!
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46points
#11 Nope
It seems that Jordan Peele is not done with upending the horror movie tropes concerning people of color, and this will be his third time doing so. Peele’s upcoming psychological thriller will star Daniel Kaluuya, who we’ve met in Get Out, miss Keke Palmer, and Steven Yeun (remember the Walking Dead’s Glenn?). And, although there’s not much more that we can tell you about this positively horrific movie as of now, we think that Peele’s previous flicks set a definite tone that you can also expect from Nope.
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45points
#12 Legally Blonde 3
A long-overdue (it’s been twenty years!) sequel to Legally Blonde 2 is our most awaited guilty pleasure movie of the year. We are finally going to see what Reese Witherspoon’s Elle Woods has been up to, and we are sure that it will be something for the greater good and, most certainly, for our entertainment. Hopefully, there will be enough toy-sized dogs, the color pink everything, and the ditzy blonde stereotypes that we all have loved so much. Now, the biggest question is how to not run out of patience waiting for its premiere date, which is set to be May the 20th?
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42points
#13 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
No one ever would be able to replace the late Chadwick Boseman in his role of T’Challa, and Marvel’s choice not to cast anybody else in his place is a testament to his talent. And, although most of the cast of the original Black Panther movie will once more grace our screens, writer/director Ryan Coogler openly expressed his devastation in writing another Panther movie without Chadwick in it. Though we will have to wait for November 11, 2022, to learn more about the Wakanda Forever plot, we are sure it is going to be just as great as its predecessor’s.
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41points
#14 Don’t Worry Darling
Don’t Worry Darling is a psychological thriller set in the 1950s, following the lives of a married couple (Florence Pugh and Harry Styles) as they navigate their lives in utopian America. Although previously Olivia Wilde directed a movie mainly based on teenage awkwardness, this second flick exploring more adult topics looks more than promising. And what’s creepier than a thriller hiding behind the shiny Formica veneer of the American dream?
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40points
#15 Top Gun: Maverick
Now here’s a sequel that we’ve waited some thirty-odd years too long for - Top Gun: Maverick. Tom Cruise will be once again reprising his role of the daredevil test pilot Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell, who’s now instructing rookie pilots on how to navigate the skies. Guess who’s one of the trainees? Well, it’s the son of Maverick’s late buddy Nick ‘Goose’ Bradshaw. Right in the feels!
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39points
#16 Crimes Of The Future
David Cronenberg once did it, and he’s about to do it again - scare us senseless with his revisioned 1970s horror movie called Crimes Of The Future. Will it be scary? Well, if humans living (or, rather, trying to live) in a synthetic dystopian future does not sound freaky, then we don’t know what will. Does Crimes Of The Future star some amazing actors? It sure does, as we’ll see the performances of such Hollywood icons as Viggo Mortensen and Kristen Stewart. This movie just might be the scariest of the year, but thankfully, there’s enough time to gather our courage for its premiere date sometime in June 2022.
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38points
#17 Pinocchio
The year 2022 will see two Pinocchios - a Guillermo del Toro stop-motion animation film and Robert Zemeckis’ live-action one. The one that we are talking about is the del Toro one since the other looks creepy enough to be the actual evil twin of Pinocchio. Anyway, this stop-motion musical fantasy animation flick will, of course, be based on the story by Carlo Collodi, and the voice actor cast here is very promising and consists of Ron Perlman, Tilda Swinton, John Turturro, and Cate Blanchett, just to name a few. Some also say that this adaptation of Pinocchio is bound to be dark and twisted, but what would you expect when Guillermo del Toro directs it - Pan’s Labyrinth, anyone?
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38points
#18 Mission: Impossible 7
Is the Mission: Impossible series the next James Bond franchise? Well, there are a couple of similarities, at least - first, they are both spy/special agent flicks, and second, the audiences can’t seem to get enough of them. Thus, here’s the seventh installment of the latter series, called Mission: Impossible 7, with Tom Cruise reprising his role as IMF agent Ethan Hunt. And while we are still uncertain of the action that is about to take place in this flick, we are sure there will be enough running on the rooftops and obliterating evil-doers.
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36points
#19 Rustin
Rustin, a drama movie directed by George C. Wolfe from a screenplay by Dustin Lance Black, has some very interesting pieces of backstory to it. First of all, the eponymous Rustin is, in fact, THE Bayard Rustin - an iconic LGBTQ leader who organized the 1963 march on Washington. Second, we already know Dustin Lance Black as the genius behind the Milk screenplay, which also talked about a queer rights activist, and that’s very promising news. And lastly, this Netflix original was produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions. Do we have our hopes up, or do we have our hopes up for it?
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32points
#20 Deep Water
Deep Water, an erotic psychological thriller by Adrian Lyne, will see Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas as a married couple who have fallen out of love with each other. And while it seems like a scary enough perspective, that’s not only it as they soon start playing hateful mind games with each other, and people around them begin to die. Although we really do not want to spoil the movie, you can do it yourself if you want by reading Patricia Highsmith’s 1957 novel of the same name.
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31points