Holiday Movie Preview Guide 2022

Bones and All (in theaters Nov. 23)

Can two fine young cannibals (Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell) find happiness together, and learn something from more grown-up cannibals (Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg and David Gordon Green)? Film fest audiences found this flick delicious.

The Swimmers (on Netflix Nov. 23)

True story: Two sisters flee Syria’s bloody war, make a perilous voyage and wind up competing as swimmers at the 2016 Olympic games in Rio.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover (in limited theaters Nov. 23, on Netflix Dec. 2)

An erotically unfulfilled aristocrat (Emma Corrin) gets steamy with a lowly gamekeeper (Jack O’Connell) in D.H. Lawrence’s classic true-lust story.

White Noise (in theaters Nov. 25)

A Hitler studies professor (Adam Driver) and his pill-popping missus (Greta Gerwig) hide out from a scary airborne toxic event in Noah Baumbach’s bold adaptation of Don DeLillo’s iconic novel. It’s rated the No. 6 likeliest best adapted screenplay Oscar nominee.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (in theaters Nov. 23-29, on Netflix Dec. 23)

In the jolly Knives Out sequel, sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) gets invited to a murder mystery party on the Greek isle of an Elon Musk–like zillionaire (Edward Norton). It’s every bit as mischievously twisty as the first movie, a whodunit that will delight and keep you guessing.

The Fabelmans (in theaters Nov. 23)

Steven Spielberg’s somewhat autobiographical coming-of-age story about an Arizona kid (Gabriel LaBelle) who falls in love with making movies while his mom and dad (Michelle Williams and Paul Dano) fall out of love, possibly partly thanks to Uncle Benny (Seth Rogen). The scene where the kid gets advice from legendary director John Ford (David Lynch!) really happened. Spielberg has 19 Oscar noms for director and best picture; this could be his first for original screenplay.

The Son (in limited theaters Nov. 25, nationwide Dec. 16)

A heartrending awards-magnet drama about a tormented young man (Zen McGrath) whose distraught mother (Laura Dern) sends him to live with his dad (Hugh Jackman) and his gorgeous new stepmom (Vanessa Kirby). Jackman has never been better, and few movies have treated the topic of mental illness with such depth and sensitivity.

Coming in December

Emancipation (in theaters Dec. 2, on Apple TV Dec. 9)

Will Smith makes his return to the big screen after his mortifying Oscars fiasco in an action-thriller inspired by the true story of an enslaved man who escapes his Louisiana plantation torturers, outwits the vicious men hunting him and joins the Union Army.

Women Talking (in theaters Dec. 2)

The Crown’s Claire Foy, Frances McDormand, Jessie Buckley and Rooney Mara star in Sarah Polley’s dreamy, scary story of women in a remote Mennonite religious community struggling to reconcile their vows to respect authority and their urgent need to escape the rapists who prey on them. It seems like a bizarre nightmare, but it’s inspired by a true event.

Pinocchio (on Netflix Dec. 9)

Guillermo del Toro makes a stop-motion animated film from the classic, darker-than-Disney tale.

The Whale (in theaters Dec. 9)

Fifteen out of 21 top Gold Derby Oscar predictors say Brendan Fraser will win best actor for his fearless, deeply moving performance as a severely obese recluse, much beloved by his colorfully neurotic friends, who tries to turn his life around and bond with his bitterly estranged teenage daughter.

Avatar: The Way of Water (in theaters Dec. 16)

Kate Winslet, Michelle Yeoh and Edie Falco join the cast in the sequel to James Cameron’s record-breaking hit about blue-skinned aliens battling humans on the planet Pandora.

I Wanna Dance With Somebody (in theaters Dec. 21)

Naomie Ackie plays doomed superstar Whitney Houston in a biopic by the writer of the Freddie Mercury film Bohemian Rhapsody, which won Rami Malek the best actor Oscar.

The Pale Blue Eye (in limited theaters Dec. 23, on Netflix Jan. 6)

At West Point in 1830, moody, drunken young cadet Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling) helps a retired detective (Christian Bale) investigate a grisly murder and macabre secrets. Costars include The X-Files’ Gillian Anderson and Apocalypse Now’s Robert Duvall.

Babylon (in theaters Dec. 23)

In the Wild West of 1920s Hollywood, a Clark Gable–like star (Brad Pitt) parties hard with a brash new starlet (Margot Robbie). But Jean Smart reportedly steals the show as an old-pro showbiz journalist who coaches the actress on how to act and speak at the dawn of talkies.

A Man Called Otto (in limited theaters Dec. 25, nationwide Jan. 13)

Tom Hanks plays cantankerous widower Otto, who gets a tentative new lease on life by grudgingly befriending his new neighbors. It’s the American take on the best-selling novel A Man Called Ove, whose Swedish film adaptation was 2016’s most popular foreign film in the U.S.

Turn Every Page (in theaters Dec. 30)

A documentary that celebrates a soon-to-be-lost literary era, and a kind of love story about two of the most beloved legends in the publishing business, Lyndon Johnson biographer of genius Robert Caro and his editor Robert Gottlieb (who brought you Catch-22 and 600 other books), racing to finish their last masterpiece book after half a century’s work. Their fans Bill Clinton, Conan O’Brien, Ethan Hawke and David Remnick weigh in.

Wildcat (in theaters Dec. 21, on Prime Video Dec. 30)

The producers of Tiger King present an equally hot, more heartwarming documentary about a PTSD-tormented British Afghan war vet who went to Peru’s jungle and cared for a baby ocelot orphaned by loggers. Man and ocelot both felt emotional healing — and so will you.