World of Reel's 35 most anticipated movies of 2019

Taking a cue from Hollywood-Elsewhere's 2019 preview, I present to you World of Reel's 35 most anticipated movies of 2019. The original list was of around 100 movies, but these are the cream of the crop, what should be considered a cinephiles wet dream of projects. You won't find 'The Avengers' of 'The Lion King' because, quite frankly, those are sure-fire box-office bonanzas and I am just not that excited about them. In fact, there are only 4 sequels or reboots on this list, already a high enough number for me.

1. Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman — A mob hitman recalls his possible involvement with the slaying of Jimmy Hoffa. (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Jesse Plemons).

2. Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — A faded TV actor and his stunt double embark on an odyssey to make a name for themselves in the film industry during the Helter Skelter reign of terror in 1969 Los Angeles. (Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie).

3. Ang Lee’s Gemini Man — An over-the-hill hitman faces off against a younger clone of himself. (Will Smith, Clive Owen, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Benedict Wong).

4. Darren Aronofsky’s Untitled Artificial Intelligence Courtroom Project — Allegedly about an artificial intelligence court case.

5. J.C. Chandor’s Triple Frontier — Five friends team to take down a South American drug lord. (Charlie Hunnam, Ben Affleck, Pedro Pascal, Oscar Isaac)

6. J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode IX — The conclusion of the new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy. (Daist Ridley, Adam Driver, Domhnall Gleeson)

7. Marielle Heller’s You Are My Friend — The story of Fred Rogers, the honored host and creator of the popular children’s television program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson, Tammy Blanchard).

8. Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse — The story of an aging lighthouse keeper named Old who lives in early 20th-century Maine. (Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe)

9. Pedro Almodóvar’s Dolor y gloria — A film director reflects on the choices he’s made in life as past and present come crashing down around him. (Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, Cecilia Roth, Asier Etxeandia)

10. Richard Linklater’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette? — After her anxiety-ridden mother disappears, 15-year-old Bee does everything she can to track her down, discovering her troubled past in the process. (Cate Blanchett, Judy Greer, Kristen Wiig, Laurence Fishburne)

11. Jordan Peele’s Us — Plot unknown; described as a “social horror-thriller.” (Lupita Nyong’o, Anna Diop, Elisabeth Moss, Kara Hayward)

12. Todd Phillips’ Joker — Joker origin story. (Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Shea Whigham, Zazie Beetz)

13. Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die — Deadpan comic zombie film (Tilda Swinton, Adam Driver, Caleb Landry Jones, Chloë Sevigny)

14. Greta Gerwig‘s Little Women — Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War. (Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet, Emma Watson, Saoirse Ronan)

15. Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy — Set on a mysterious island where aging and time have come unglued, Zeitlin’s mythological story tells the tale of two children from different worlds fighting to maintain their grip on freedom and joy. (Tommie Lynn Milazzo, Shay Walker)

16. Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta — A 17th-century nun in Italy suffers from disturbing religious and erotic visions. She is assisted by a companion, and the relationship between the two women develops into a romantic love affair. (Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling, Lambert Wilson, Olivier Rabourdin)

17. Untitled Noah Baumbach Project — An unfolding divorce that spans from New York City to Los Angeles. (Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Ray Liotta, Laura Dern)

18. Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat — A group of journalists unearth 11.5 million files, linking the world’s most powerful political figures to secret banking accounts to avoid taxes. (Gary Oldman, Melissa Rauch, Meryl Streep, Robert Patrick)

19. James Gray’s Ad Astra — Astronaut Roy McBride travels to the outer edges of the solar system to find his missing father and unravel a mystery that threatens the survival of our planet. (Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga)

20. Rian Johnson’s Knives Out — A modern murder mystery in a classic whodunit style. (Jamie Lee Curtis, Ana de Armas, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans)

21. Safdie Brothers' Uncut Gems — Upcoming American crime drama, directed by Josh and Benny Safdie, from a screenplay by the Safdies and Ronald Bronstein. (Adam Sandler, Lakeith Stanfield, Idina Menzel, Judd Hirsch, Eric Bogosian, and Pom Klementieff.)

22. Terrence Malick’s Radegund — Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian conscientious objector, refuses to fight for the Third Reich in World War II and is executed in 1943. Shot in late summer of 2016. (August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Michael Nyqvist, Jürgen Prochnow, Matthias Schoenaerts, Bruno Ganz)

23. Bong Joon-Ho's Parasite — A peculiar tale about two families who are worlds apart yet somewhat alike portrays a striking reality of the world we live in.

24. Josh Cooley's Toy Story 4 — Toy Story 4 is an upcoming American 3D computer-animated comedy film, and the third sequel to Toy Story.

25. Tim Miller's Untitled Terminator Reboot — The untitled Terminator film, colloquially referred to as Terminator 6, is an upcoming American science fiction action film directed by Tim Miller with a screenplay written by David S. Goyer.

26. Ari Aster's Midsommar —A young woman reluctantly joins her boyfriend on a summer trip where things quickly go awry. It stars Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, Vilhem Blomgren, William Jackson Harper, Ellora Torchia and Archie Madekwe.

27. Danny Boyle's All You Need Is Love  — Set to the music of the Beatles, it’s about a musician who thinks he’s the only one who can hear the Beatles’ music. (Lily James, Ed Sheeran, Ana de Armas, Kate McKinnon, Lamorne Morris) Sheeran plays himself discovering a rising young musician. Mckinnon plays a talent agent. Hamesh Patel costars.

28. Jay Roach’s Fair and Balanced — Fox honcho Roger Ailes and sexual harassment allegations that resulted in his resignation. (Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Allison Janney, Kate McKinnon, Malcolm McDowell, Mark Duplass)

29. Dan Gilroy’s Velvet Buzzsaw — American horror thriller film, written and directed by Gilroy. (Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Zawe Ashton, Natalia Dyer, Tom Sturridge, Daveed Diggs, Toni Collette, John Malkovich and Billy Magnussen) Set in LA’s contemporary art world, wealthy celebrity artists collide with billionaire collectors in an unusually twisted comedy horror thriller. (Netflix)

30. Noah Hawley’s Pale Blue Dot — A female astronaut who, after returning to Earth from a life-changing mission in space, begins to slowly unravel and lose touch with reality. (Natalie Portman, Dan Stevens, Jon Hamm, Zazie Beetz)

31. Dee Rees’ The Last Thing he Wanted — A journalist quits her newspaper job and becomes an arms dealer for a covert government agency. (Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Willem Dafoe, Toby Jones)

32. Joe Wright’s The Woman in the Window — An agoraphobic woman living alone in New York begins spying on her new neighbors only to witness a disturbing act of violence. (Amy Adams, Wyatt Russell, Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore)

33. Ciro Guerra’s Waiting for the Barbarians — An honest magistrate in a small outpost of a large empire has a crisis of conscience and tries to lead a resistance when a military commander shows up to torture and murder the natives who pose no threat. The revered author J.M. Coetze won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Literary acolytes a little upset with Depp casting. (Johnny Depp, Robert Pattinson, Mark Rylance, Harry Melling)

34. Trey Edward Shults’ Waves — Two young couples navigate through the emotional minefield of growing up and falling in love. (Lucas Hedges, Sterling K. Brown, Alexa Demie, Taylor Russell)

35. Woody Allen's Rainy Day in New York — Here's hoping Amazon comes to its senses and releases the damn thing.