RAZZLE DAZZLE (12 FILMS FOR 2024)

© Warner Bros Pictures

OK. So you've had barely time to breathe now that 2023 is over.

But don't let that stop you.

It's time look ahead at the treats that cinema has in store for us in 2024.

So what are the twelve films Pomona is most looking forward to this year?

First up, let's chat about what isn't on there.

Ryan Gosling's outing as 'The Fall Guy' hasn't made the Top 12 list.

Nor have the sequels to 'Deadpool,' 'Inside Out,' 'Beetlejuice,' 'Twister' or the 'A Quiet Place' prequel.

'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' missed out too but here's our guide to twelve films to look out for in 2024.

THE HOLDOVERS (January)

Alexander Payne reunites with his 'Sideways' star Paul Giamatti for this tale of boarders in a New England prep school who have to stay over the Christmas vacation.

With Giamatti playing a grumpy history teacher tasked with looking after the pupils, expect this film to figure strongly during awards season.

Watch out also for a potential breakthrough performance by Dominic Sessa as one of the students and Da'Vine Joy Randolph as a head cook in a film by a director who seems to really embody the spirit of great 1970s directors like Hal Ashby and Bob Rafelson.

ALL OF US STRANGERS (January)

Andrew Scott is attracting a lot of awards season buzz for his performance in this supernatural drama about a gay screenwriter confronting his past.

Paul Mescal plays his younger lover in Andrew Haigh's movie, while Claire Foy and Jamie Bell play Scott's parents who may or may not be dead.

A slight departure from the realism of 'Weekend' and 'Lean On Pete,' Haigh dabbles in fantasy for the first time. Expect a lot of interest, though, in whether it secures Scott his first ever Best Actor Oscar nomination.

AMERICAN FICTION (February)

Another Academy Award contender to keep an eye on is Cord Jefferson's comedy drama about racial stereotyping in the literary world.

Jeffrey Wright plays an author who jokingly writes an outlandishly ridiculous African American book only for it to receive widespread acclaim.

With Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, Sterling K Brown, Adam Brody and Keith David among the cast, Jefferson's movie won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and has been garnering great reviews as the race for Golden Gloves, SAGs, BAFTAs and Oscars hots up.

THE ZONE OF INTEREST (February)

Ever since he made his directorial debut in 2000 with 'Sexy Beast,' English director Jonathan Glazer has been a real talent worth following.

His latest is a historical drama about the Auschwitz commandant Rudolph Hoss which won the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival last year and has drawn rave reviews. It could also land Glazer a Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar nomination.

Starring Christian Friedel and Sandra Huller, it's another daring move by a director who is not afraid to push the boundaries of cinema.

DUNE, PART II (March)

Denis Villenueve seemed to have pulled off the impossible when he came up with a mesmerising first instalment of the previously unfilmable Frank Herbert sci-fi classic.

After a gorgeously shot and impressively executed first outing, the Canadian returns with Timothee Chalamet as the intergalactic noble Paul Atreides, Zendaya's warrior Chani, Rebecca Ferguson's Lady Jessica, Josh Brolin's weapons master Gurney Halleck, Dave Bautista's thuggish Glossu Raban and Stellan Skarsgard's villain Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.

With Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken, Austin Butler and Lea Seydoux joining the cast, anticipation is sky high for Villeneuve's second 'Dune' outing but can he conjure up the magic again?

MICKEY 17 (March)

For his first film since the remarkable Oscar success of his 2019 film 'Parasite,' Korean director Bong Joon-ho has gone back to sci-fi with this tale about an employee on a space mission who is given dangerous tasks because his life is expendable and can be easily regenerated.

That all sounds fine, until one particular regeneration goes awry.

Robert Pattinson plays Mickey in the English language film which also stars Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Rufalo.

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE (March)

Okay, so it has seemed like a law of diminishing returns ever since Ivan Reitman's original 'Ghostbusters' burned up the box office in 1984.

However after the slight improvement of Jason Reitman's 2021 reboot of the supernatural franchise 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife', there's a chance we might actually get a decent outing if Gil Kenan can avoid turning it into a bloated spectacle.

Returning to its New York roots with original Ghostbusters Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson joining Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Celeste O'Connor, McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard just might do the trick. Here's hoping.

BACK TO BLACK (May)

With Kingsley Ben-Adir starring in 'Bob Marley: One Love' in February, the other big music biopic to get excited about this year is Sam Taylor Johnson's Amy Winehouse flick.

Johnson already has form in this world, having made the well received 2009 John Lennon feature 'Nowhere Boy' about The Beatle in his teenage years.

This is a gamble, though, for the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' director, with Marisa Abela stepping into a make or break role as the pop jazz chanteuse, Eddie Marsan as her dad Mitch, Lesley Manville as her gran Cynthia and Jack O'Connell as her dodgy boyfriend Blake-Fielder Civil.

FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (May)

It's been a long wait since George Miller last gave us the acclaimed 2015 reboot 'Mad Max: Fury Road' with Tom Hardy.

However wisely he has chosen to give us a prequel for the most interesting character in his last version of dystopian action franchise, Charlize Theron's warrior Furiosa.

Anya Taylor Joy takes over the role and with Chris Hemsworth and Tom Burke along for the ride, the film follows Furiosa's adventures after she is snatched by a biker horde and plunged into the middle of a dangerous conflict between two tyrants. Buckle up, it's going to be a very loud, bumpy ride.

JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX (October)

Todd Phillips' follow-up to his superb 2019 origins tale 'Joker' sees Joaquin Phoenix return to his Best Actor Oscar winning role of the shy comic turned deranged criminal Arthur Fleck.

Joining him for what is billed as a musical thriller is Lady GaGa as a psychiatrist brought in to treat him who might just become Harley Quinn.

Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Jacob Lofland and Harry Lawtey also make up a superb cast, with Zazie Beetz returning in a film that will do well to mine the dark comedy and intelligence of the original. 

MAXXXINE (TBC)

Ty West and Mia Goth's final part of the 'XXX' trilogy will probably be the most anticipated horror movie of 2024.

Its predecessors 'X' and 'Pearl' have been unsettling but very stylish in their execution.

And with the final instalment moving from Texas to 1980s Hollywood, expect Goth to cement her place as the undisputed queen of indie horror in a grisly slasher fest.

KNEECAP (TBC)

Love them or loathe them, you're going to be hearing an awful lot in 2024 from the West Belfast hip hop act Kneecap.

Fresh from releasing an impressive track 'A Better Way To Live' with Fontaines DC frontman Grian Chatten, their origin story from director Rich Pepplatt will make history this month by becoming the first Irish language movie to open the Sundance Film Festival.

Looking like a West Belfast version of 'The Young Offenders,' they've recruited Michael Fassbender and Simone Kirby to appear in the movie but expect them to whip up a lot of tabloid outrage over the coming months.