2021 had a whole host of great films, from superhero smackdowns in the form of Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Suicide Squad to huge spectacles like Dune and Godzilla Vs Kong. 2021 also saw plenty of Oscar worthy performances in the likes of King Richard, Spencer and House of Gucci and countless other brilliant, as well as many not so brilliant, films. But fear not, because 2022 has just as many, if not more excellent films to get us excited about. Read on below for a taste of what's to come in 2022, from the biggest blockbusters to the awards films, including many of those 2021 releases that haven't quite been released here in the UK just yet. Take a look at our rundown of what's to come and for the current release dates of all these exciting new films. All dates are subject to chance and correct at the time of writing.
2022 starts of strong with The Electrical Life of Louis Wain starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza being served straight into cinemas on New Year's Day. Friday January 7th sees actioner The 355 starring Jessica Chastain and Lupita Nyong'o finally release after a year-long delay. That same day Stephen Graham stars in Boiling Point, the spectacular film set in a restaurant kitchen that was shot in just one take with no digital trickery. Joel Coen's adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth will arrive on Apple TV+ on January 14th after a limited cinema release on Boxing Day. January 14th also sees the return of iconic horror franchise Scream with the original trio of Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette returning for this killer sequel along with Peter Dinklage-led musical Cyrano and the critically acclaimed drama Memoria starring Tilda Swinton also releasing that day. It's touted to win many awards at the Oscars, but Kenneth Branagh's Belfast finally arrives on British shores on January 21st, the same day as Guillermo Del Toro's Nightmare Alley, Guy Ritchie's Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre and Journal for Jordan starring Michael B. Jordan. Just a week later on January 28th we finally get to see Pedro Almodovar's Parallel Mothers, animated sequel Sing 2 as well as the long delayed Sony Superhero film Morbius starring Jared Leto which rounds off a very stacked opening month of 2022.
February continues at the same pace that January sets off with featuring plenty of even more exciting new releases. February 4th is the current release date for Jackass Forever along with the highly acclaimed Cannes films Belle and The Souvenir Part II. The Eyes of Tammy Faye starring Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield is also released that day but it's Moonfall that's the real big hitter. From director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012) Moonfall sees a mysterious force knock the moon towards the earth in what promises to be a spectacular cinematic event. February 11th sees Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg team up in Uncharted in an attempt to beat the videogame movie curse and Kenneth Branagh returns as the world's greatest detective Poirot after there is a Death on the Nile. Animated documentary Flee executively produced by Riz Ahmed releases on the same day too. Michael Bay returns with a bang on February 18th with Ambulance starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Yayha Abdul-Mateen II, the same day as the Channing Tatum comedy film Dog is released. February 18th also has Texas Chainsaw Massacre arriving on Netflix, a direct sequel to the 1974 classic slasher. After debuting at the Venice Film Festival all the way back in 2020, The Duke starring Jim Broadbent as 60-year-old taxi driver turned art thief finally releases in the UK on February 25th and bringing February to a close.
March 4th 2022, is perhaps the biggest day of the year for superhero fans as The Batman starring Robert Pattinson as the caped crusader, Colin Farrell as the Penguin and Paul Dano as the Riddler releases and we finally get to meet vengeance. The other highlights in March include Disney and Pixar's Turning Red about a teen girl who turns into a giant red panda when she gets too stressed or excited. The legacy continues with Downton Abbey: A New Era arriving on March 18th, the same day as Warner Bros. horror film Unwelcome. And rounding off March is action-adventure-comedy The Lost City starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum
Moving into April the sequels start coming at us thick and fast with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and The Railway Children Return both arriving on the first of the month. The following week we return to Hogwarts with Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore with Mads Mikkelsen now playing the evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald after Johnny Depp's departure. April 22nd sees the return of Paul Verhoeven with his biographical lesbian nun film Benedetta as well as the return of Robert Eggers, director of The Lighthouse, with his new epic historical thriller The Northman starring Alexander Skarsgård, Willem Dafoe and Anya Taylor-Joy. That same day also has the release of Operation Mincemeat starring Colin Firth about the true story during WWII of the most successful war-time deception ever attempted. To add to all of these, April also sees a sequel to the 2019 comedy Fisherman's Friends and Nicolas Cage plays himself in action-comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent which promises to be a wild ride.
Onto May, and Marvel finally make their big entry to the year with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, directed by Sam Raimi, which promises all sorts of multiversal mayhem and the return of the Scarlet Witch after WandaVision. DC also have something in the form of animated adventure DC League of Super-Pets featuring the voices of Dwayne Johnson and Keanu Reeves. May 27th sees the long-delayed sequel Top Gun: Maverick.
June is an equally big month with Jurassic World Dominion asking us what happens if dinosaurs were free to roam the earth once again before Disney and Pixar release Lightyear, a film about the real astronaut that the toy Buzz Lightyear was based on. The currently untitled Baz Luhrmann Elvis Presley film starring Austin Butler as Elvis and Scott Derrickson's The Black Phone are also due to release in June too.
July has another Marvel film for us with Taika Waititi returning to direct Thor: Love and Thunder which also sees the return of Natalie Portman's Jane Foster. Will she be the next Thor? After being delayed by two years Minions 2: The Rise of Gru might finally let us see the adorable little yellow minions on the big screen once again in July. Brad Pitt and Aaron Taylor-Johnson star in David Leitch actioner Bullet Train which promises to be an adrenaline fuelled ride. Jordan Peele's new film Nope comes out in July providing us with plenty of scares to keep us up at night and on July 29th Dwayne Johnson steps into the role of Black Adam in the Shazam! spin-off film.
The rest of the year promises plenty of exciting new releases, many of which we won't know about just yet but some of the highlights include Mission: Impossible 7 where Tom Cruise will perform even more incredible stunts along with the return of the adorable Puss in Boots in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Olivia Wilde directs Harry Styles and Florence Pugh in the psychological thriller Don't Worry Darling and we get Guillermo Del Toro's second film of the year in the form of the stop-motion animated Pinocchio which is set to arrive on Netflix. Animated sequel to Into the Spider-Verse titled Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) will be one of the biggest films of October along with the final instalment into the Halloween franchise Halloween Ends. There will be more superhero offerings with the Flash and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever arriving within a week of each other in November and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in December, the same day as James Cameron's Avatar 2. It's been 13 years but we're finally getting a sequel to the highest grossing film of all time in 2022 with more sequels planned all the way up until Avatar 5 in 2028.
Chris Pratt voices Mario along with Charlie Day as Luigi in an untitled Mario film which is set to arrive in cinemas for Christmas 2022 along with Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody and Damien Chazelle's new film Babylon. Also set to arrive in 2022 but without release dates yet is another instalment in the Rocky franchise Creed III, a third Legally Blonde film, Knives Out 2 which will be going straight to Netflix, Expendables 4 as well as a Tetris film starring Chris Pratt
Whilst there will be plenty of good and exciting films not mentioned above that are due to be released in 2022 along with many that haven't even been announced yet, 2022 is shaping up to be a very exciting year with loads of entertainment in store for us.