Hollywood wants 2019 to be the Year of the Really Big Movies.
Many of this year’s “must-see movies” lists include more than 40 movies, with some of the lists reaching up to 60. Those are pretty overwhelming numbers, even for movie-obsessed souls like yours truly, and it can be hard to sort through the release dates to find the ones you really can’t miss. If you’re having trouble, here’s a guide to some of the greatest hits.
Disney-Pixar redux
I’m probably cheating by squeezing five different movies into this entry, but Disney has some big guns set to fire in 2019 and if I’d let them, they’d take over the whole list. The biggest splashes will be the two sequels on the books—”Toy Story 4″ is coming out in June, and “Frozen 2” is opening in late November—but there’s also some excitement for the three live-action remakes.
The first of the trio will be “Dumbo,” which features several new human characters that will introduce themselves to us in March. Will Smith will use his genie magic to help “Aladdin” in May, and “The Lion King” will be roaring onto the big screen in July.
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Two more hotly anticipated movies hitting the big screen in 2019 are March’s “Captain Marvel” and April’s “Avengers: Endgame.” “Captain Marvel” is officially Marvel’s first female-led blockbuster, and if that’s not enough to have you cheering we’ll also get to see Samuel L. Jackson as a young, eye patch-free Nick Fury.
“Avengers: Endgame,” on the other hand, isn’t the entire movie you cheer for—so many characters will die, and at least some of them will stay dead. Still, it’s the culmination of the last 10 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and rumor has it that they’ll introduce at least one hero who will definitely survive to get their own movie.
Star Wars: Episode IX
After two years of waiting, we’ll finally see the end of the trilogy for Christmas 2019. After Rian Johnson’s divisive turn in the driver’s seat, Episode VII director J.J. Abrams is back at the helm. We don’t even know what the official title will be yet, but we do know that Billy Dee Williams is slated to return as Lando Calrissian. Rumor also has it that Carrie Fisher will make an appearance as well, thanks to unused footage from the previous films.
Non-Disney delights
Surprisingly, there are also several exciting new movies coming out that aren’t being financed by Disney. March will bring audiences “Us,” the latest thriller from Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Jordan Peele. In the movie, Winston Duke and Lupita Nyong’o are a couple whose family is threatened when their home is invaded by doppelgangers.
Brad Pitt will return to the big screen in May’s Ad Astra, which features the star as an astronaut who goes to space to figure out why his father never came home from a similar mission.
On a lighter note, we’ll get to return to the Lego universe with “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” in February and the Men in Black universe with “Men in Black International” in June.
Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society. Find her on Twitter at @wardellwriter or drop her a line at themovieguruslc@gmail.com.