Fall Movies 2025

Posted on September 1, 2025 at 7:23 am

Back to work, back to school, back to sweaters, raking leaves, Halloween, and Thanksgiving!

And it’s time to go back to one of the best times of the year for movies. Here’s what I’m looking forward to this fall, including two highly anticipated sequels arriving for Thanksgiving. (As usual, release dates may change.)

SEPTEMBER

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (September 12) We met the Crawley family and their servants in 1912. Now it is the 1930s, they are mourning the loss of the Dowager Countess, and, as always, there will be challenges, complications, and romance.

Tin Soldier (September 12) Oscar winners Robert De Niro and Jamie Foxx play a cult leader and the former soldier who challenges him.

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (September 12) By now, it may be going to 12. Our favorite mini-Stonehenge metal trio is reuniting, and real-life music superstars are as excited as we are, with on-screen appearances by Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Lars Ulrich, Questlove, and Garth Brooks. And, we hope, a new drummer.

A Big, Beautiful Journey (September 19) Kogonada made a deeply moving film about two people walking around talking about architecture and another deeply moving film about a family in the future whose beloved robot nanny breaks. This is what is certain to be a deeply moving film about strangers played by Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie who go on a fantasy journey together as they visit their pasts.

Him (September 19) Jordan Peele produced this film about a promising high school athlete whose dream comes true when he has a chance to be at a training camp run by his idol. It does not go well.

London Calling (September 19) After fleeing the UK from a job gone wrong, a down on his luck hitman (Josh Duhamel) is forced to train the completely inept son of his crime boss (Rick Hoffman) to kill people.

Eleanor the Great (September 26) Scarlett Johansson’s first project as a director stars June Squibb as the title character who moves to New York City for the first time in her 90s, after the death of her best friend.

One Battle After Another (September 26) Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson is always very private when it comes to telling us what to expect from his upcoming films. So we don’t know much beyond the impressive cast: Leonardo di Caprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Wood Harris, Alana Haim, and Chase Infiniti.

OCTOBER

The Smashing Machine (October 3) Dwayne Johnson plays MMA fighter Mark Kerr, co-starring Emily Blunt.

Tron: Ares (October 10) Jeff Bridges, star of the 1982 original, returns in a new chapter that promises to be set more in the analog world, with a computer program weaponized to interact with reality. The cast includes Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Cameron Monaghan, Evan Peters, Gillian Anderson, Jodie-Turner-Smith, Arturo Castro, Hasan Minhaj. I saw the new racer and heard the soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails at Comic-Con and both were very cool.

Roofman (October 10) The improbable but true story of Jeffrey Manchester, a former U.S. Army Reserve officer who turned to robbing businesses, particularly McDonald’s restaurants, by drilling through their roofs. After escaping prison, he hid in a Toys “R” Us for six months, living undetected while planning his next moves. Manchester is played by Channing Tatum, co-starring with Kirsten Dunst.

Kiss of the Spider Woman (October 10) Word is that this may be Jennifer Lopez’s Oscar moment. She plays the title character, as remembered by a prisoner, who tells the story of his favorite movie to his cellmate (Diego Luna). “Chicago’s” Bill Condon directs.

After the Hunt (October 10) Julia Roberts plays a professor dealing with conflicting allegations made by the people she is closest to, played by Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri, directed by “Challengers” and “Call Me By Your Name’s” Luca Guadagnino.

Blue Moon (October 17) Lorenz Hart was one of the greatest lyricists of all time and his collaborations with Richard Rodgers, including “My Funny Valentine,” “Mountain Greenery,” and the song that gives this Richard Linklater film its title are a permanent part of the American Songbook. This film takes place as the show Rodgers wrote without him, “Oklahoma,” is opening. Hart was under 5 feet, and there is some movie trickery to make star Ethan Hawke look short and balding.

Stiller and Meara: Nothing is Lost (October 17) I grew up watching “The Ed Sullivan Show” with my family, and my favorite (until the Beatles arrived!) was the comedians. I loved the real-life couple of Stiller and Meara, now better known for their acting work, Jerry Stiller in “Seinfeld” and Anne Meara in movies like “The Daytrippers” and “Awakenings.” This loving documentary is made by their actor/writer/director son Ben Stiller.

Good Fortune (October 17) How has it taken so long for someone to cast Keanu Reeves as an angel come to earth to guide a human? Aniz Ansari wrote and directed a film that is a throwback to mid-century classics like “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” (remade by Warren Beatty as “Heaven Can Wait”) and “A Guy Named Joe” (remade by Steven Spielberg as “Always’). Ansari stars as well, along with Sandra Oh, Seth Rogen, and Keke Palmer.

A House of Dynamite (October 24) Kathryn Bigelow is one of the all-time greats when it comes to action thrillers. This one stars Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson in a tense drama about an attack on the US. The cast also includes Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee, and Jason Clarke, and the screenplay is by NBC news chief Noah Oppenheim.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (October 24) This musical biopic has “The Bear’s” Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 1982, making his sixth studio album, Nebraska, “Studio” is not exactly the right term as it was recorded without his band in Springsteen’s own bedroom.

Regretting You (October 24) Based on the best-seller by Colleen Hoover, this is the story of a mother and daughter following the death of the father of the family. Alison Williams, Mckenna Grace, and Dave Franco star.

Nouvelle Vague (October 31) Another Richard Linklater film, and also based on a true story, this is about the filming of a very influential French movie that was a part of the New Wave (translation of Nouvelle Vague), a movement to make films that were more natural, with a gritty documentary feeling. Zoey Deutch plays Jean Seaberg, the American actress who starred in the film as an expat, with Guillaume Marbeck playing 26-year-old director Jean-Luc Goddard.

NOVEMBER

Frankenstein (November, date not set) Yet another re-telling of the story of the doctor who wanted to create life, but this one is a passion project for Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro, who has a thing for monsters. Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Charles Dance, Christoph Waltz,.and Oscar Isaac star.

I Wish You All the Best (November 7) A non-binary teen thrown out of the house by their parents moves in with their sister and finds a new world of acceptance and friendship.

Begonia (November 7) Emma Stone and director Yorgos Lanthimos have had a very fruitful artistic partnership, including “The Favourite,” “Poor Things,” and “Kind of Kindness.” In their latest, Stone plays a powerful CEO kidnapped by conspiracy theorists who believe she is an alien.

Peter Hujar’s Day (November 7) Ben Wishaw plays Peter Hujar, a photographer in New York in the 1970s and 80s. His black and white images were original, striking, and influential. He was known for being both brilliant and difficult when he died of AIDS in 1987. In this film, Rebecca Hall plays writer Linda Rosenkrantz, who interviewed Hujar about how he spent his day. Anything writer/director Ira Sachs does will be unexpected and thoughtful.

Train Dreams (November 7) The team behind “Sing Sing,” Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, adapted Denis Johnson’s novella, Train Dreams, the story of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th Century.

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t (November 14) The magicians of the Four Horsemen are back with more tricks up their sleeves. Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco return along with Morgan Freeman, plus some new faces: Dominic Sessa of “The Holdovers” Justice Smith of “Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” and Ariana Greenblatt of “Barbie.”

Eternity (November 14) You die, you go to heaven, and you have the chance to live the rest of eternity with the person you married. But what if the first person you married died and has been waiting in heaven for you all this time and the second person you married also thinks he’ll be spending all of eternity with you? Elizabeth Olson, Miles Teller, and Callum Turner star.

Jay Kelly (November 14) You want to make a movie about a huge movie star who is aging and thinking back on whether his life has had meaning. So why not cast a real-life huge movie star? That’s what co-screenwriter of “Barbie” Noah Baumbach has done with George Clooney as an actor named Jay Kelly, with co-stars Adam Sandler and Laura Dern.

Murder at the Embassy (November 14) When a private detective is called to investigate a suspicious murder inside Cairo’s seemingly impenetrable British Embassy, she discovers a second crime has been committed that could ignite a global war. Everyone within the walls of the embassy is a suspect, but the ultimate evil force is lurking right around the corner. Mischa Barton returns as Miranda Green in the follow up to the highly successful film “Invitation to Murder.”

Wicked: For Good (November 26) One of the most highly anticipated films of the year is part 2 of the origin story of the two witches of “The Wizard of Oz.” We’ll learn more about the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Tin Woodman, as well, plus some great songs.

Zootopia 2 (November 26) Everyone’s favorite police bunny is back with her slightly reformed partner in this sequel to the Oscar-winning delight.

Hamnet (November 27) Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, and Jessie Buckley star and Chloe Zhau directs a story imagining William Shakespeare’s wife after the death of her young son, as her husband processes it by writing a play called “Hamlet.” It is based on the acclaimed novel by Maggie O’Farrell.

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Interview: Downton Abbey Producer Gareth Neame

Posted on September 23, 2019 at 12:37 pm

Producer Gareth Neame explains how he came up with the original idea for the “Downton Abbey” series, what went into adapting it for a feature film, why Americans and British fans see it differently, and why it is that fans respond to it so strongly, and confesses, at last, which is his favorite character.

What does it take to be a good producer?

I suppose you have to be quite tenacious, ideally you’re pretty passionate about what you do. I think you have to have attention to detail and you have to make the right judgment. Of course in every creative endeavor let’s say there are 100 key decisions that have to be made. The more of those 100 decisions you get right, the more likely it is you’re going to have a success. You can get a bunch of them wrong — you could put the wrong hair dresser on the show and you can have one of the writer’s not be quite right and the location you chose wasn’t the best place. Or you can get a number of these things right. Every show does but the more of them you get right the bigger difference it makes. So your judgment calls are quite important. And you have to find things you’re passionate about. It is really hard to produce something that you’re not enthusiastic about.

Running a production business is difficult because you can’t really love every show you make equally. Like Julian Fellowes would say, “Characters don’t love all their children equally; they have favorites.” Unless you’re going to make one thing at a time, it’s really hard to love everything. As a busy production company we make multiple shows but somehow you need to love all of those things as much as you can and you need to be tenacious and patient.

I suppose that’s what happened with the Downton movie. It’s taken me three years from the end of the television show to get it to the screen and that was an awful lot of persuading. We had to have 20 actors all be available at the same time and to make deals with us. We could probably have made it if a few of them didn’t show up a for the movie but we really wanted everyone there. We had to make the film at an affordable price so they had to make reasonable deals with us and fortunately all of them wanted to do it but they were waiting to see was it really going to happen. “If I commit are the others going to commit as well?” There was a little bit of everyone having to hold hands and go in together.

Is it true that the series was originally your idea?

I’m a British producer based in London so I like to find stories that are expressly British subjects. The great thing about the English country house genre, a genre I really like, is it’s pretty unique and it has all these wonderful iterations, comedy, romance, mystery, drama. There are so many different iterations of that genre giving us a slightly fictional world that never quite existed.

But certainly visually it exists and as you can see from Downton and other shows, there are lavish, beautiful historic properties. There was a very clear system of deference and protocol and everyone having their place which lends itself very well to drama. So I think it’s a good genre and it’s unique to Britain and so I’ve always thought it was a great environment. The idea was in my mind for several years. About 12 years ago now probably I was going through channels on the TV and I alighted upon an excerpt of Upstairs Downstairs and I knew what it was straightaway. I thought, “This is really interesting. I’m 40 and I’m too young ever to have watched that show, which means there are two generations who never saw it.” So I thought the time was right to invent this.

There’s a house I went to once near where my parents lived that had very well preserved servants’ quarters and kept exactly as it was in the Edwardian time and then it had all these gadgets in the kitchen like hundred-year-old toasters and ways that you kept things fresh. They actually had all kinds of gadgets and technology, just things that we have forgotten about now. That ended up in the show with Mrs. Patmore and the fridge and her aversion to technology because it was going to put her out of a job.

Roundabout the same time I got to know Fellowes and I was so impressed with his film Gosford Park and then I read his novel Snobs and I thought this man really has an outstanding of British culture and history and the way that we all speak. I can’t think of anyone really writing on screen who captures that strange way that we Brits have with speaking when we never really say what we mean, we say the opposite of what we mean. He captures that voice so well. I thought, “There’s something incredibly salable about Julian Fellowes and what he’s doing and he’s unique,” so I then said to him “Look, I’ve got this idea for this episodic show and in a lot of ways it’s returning to what you did with Gosford Park; it’s going back to that world but doing it as an episodic weekly show.” He’d never written/created a drama series so I didn’t know for certain if he was going to be able to do that to the degree that he did.

Do Americans and British audiences see it differently?

I just think there is an American fascination with the monarchy and the aristocracy and the places they live in and the clothes they wear, their behavior and the codes of behavior and so on and perhaps the servants life is a little bit more closely aligned to the lives that we’re all leading in a way anyway.

I think it is more egalitarian to the British audience because actually there’s a huge number of modern Brits who are descended from people who were in service and there were millions of people doing that so lots and lots of people can look back three generations ago when their grandmother was a maid. It’s quite normal.

The success in America is built on the mystique of the whole thing; it’s different and it’s quite glamorous. To Brits many of us live within a few minutes’ drive of some castle or ancient place. We live very comfortably alongside our history. Lots of people live in old houses. Some would say we look back a little bit too much. Perhaps we look back bit too much and America look forward a bit too much and aren’t knowledgeable enough about their history. There’s so much historical drama made in Britain that it’s not radical to us in a way.

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Sophie McShera stars as Daisy Mason and Lesley Nicol as Mrs. Patmore in DOWNTON ABBEY, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Jaap Buitendijk / © 2019 Focus Features, LLC

My favorite scene in the film is the one with the Dowager Duchess and Lady Mary just quietly talking about some very important issues.

I think the passing over of the baton is always been a theme of the great houses. These characters are really tenants on a temporary basis and they have to look after it during their time but they may hand it on. That’s why they have survived because they do always hang on to the next generation and I think many families recognize the fact that these things can skip a generation. Violet, as she says in that scene, she loves her son but she sees Mary as the true descendent and I think that can be very true in families that sometimes there’s a very strong bond between grandparent and grandchild.

Mary’s probably was the heart of the show. When people say, “Who was your favorite character?” which they often do, I’d do a runaround and say I love all of them. But I always come back to her because she’s the heart of it.

We wanted to make the Downton movie. We didn’t say we were going to make a franchise but who knows, maybe we do go back if it does really well and Mary is the person who is running the whole thing and has the baton that Violet has passed her.

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Behind the Scenes

Downton Abbey

Posted on September 19, 2019 at 5:11 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements, some suggestive material, and language
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Assassination attempt, scuffle
Diversity Issues:	Class issues
Date Released to Theaters:	September 20, 2019
Date Released to DVD:	December 16, 2019

There’s a reason the hugely popular “Downton Abbey” television series and this first theatrical release are named for the property, not the characters. The part of Downton Abbey the building, or, I should say, the estate, is played by real-life historic Highclere Castle. It is over a thousand acres and has 200 rooms. And (which you can stay in via Airbnb). The story began in 2010 (1912 in Downton years) with the vital question of the future of the estate, which like most British great homes, was entailed. That means that it would always be inherited by the eldest male of each generation. (For more on this issue, see Sense and Sensibility and Moving Midway and let me just have a brief aside here to say that one completely revolutionary decision of our founding fathers that does not get enough credit for deciding that in the United States people could leave their property and land as they wished.).

The noble family occupying Downton Abbey are the Crawleys, headed by Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville of “Paddington”), who with his American wife Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) has three beautiful daughters and no sons. The property will thus go to to a cousin, who conveniently has become engaged to the oldest daughter, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery). Unfortunately, as the first episode begins, he had been traveling to the United States on the Titanic, and he has been killed. Lady Mary is very sorry to lose her fiancé, but the family is in a complete upheaval because the next male relative is someone they don’t even know. Meanwhile, one of the great strengths and points of interest in the show is that it devotes equal attention and respect to the extensive staff below stairs, the servants, who all have complicated characters and conflicts and lives. They include Mrs. Patmore, the cook (Lesley Nicol), Carson, the head butler (Jim Carter), Tom Branson, and the chauffeur (Allen Leech), who crosses the uncrossable line by marrying one of the Crawley daughters. And there’s everyone’s favorite character, the acid-tongued Dowager Duchess exquisitely played by Dame Maggie Smith.

There is a ton of drama and romance over the run of the series, plus World War I and other seismic historical events.

And so now, here we are with the first Downton Abbey feature film, picking up the story in 1927, and once again the issue of property and inheritance is at issue. Writer Julian Fellowes had a daunting challenge. He had to take two dozen characters the fans were deeply invested in and were used to being able to watch through long-form storylines over the course of months. It’s kind of like “The Avengers” for the PBS/Anglophile crowd (I consider myself happily and proudly in both camps).

And, you know what? He pulls it off, with a brilliant mechanism for bringing everyone together in a high-pressure situation that gives even the most devoted fan many sigh-worthy and highly satisfying developments. As the movie begins, we follow a very important letter from its creation to its receipt. They are to receive a visit from the King and Queen of England (that would be King George and Queen Mary, the parents of future abdicator Edward VIII and “The King’s Speech” younger brother who became George VI, father of the present Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history). This is an honor that no one can turn down. And so Downton is made ready, every tiara and silver serving piece polished, every piece of furniture in every one of the 200 rooms shined, and every arcane protocol meticulously followed.

There are ups and downs, none of the downs too terrible, all of the ups reassuring and satisfying. If we think about it for a moment, we will remember why we do not want to return to that world. It will take less than a moment if we consider the possibility we would be returning as the servants, not the nobility; the Crawleys may worry about money, but they get to worry in some beautiful clothes and settings while they are nicely cared for. We are aware that both the upstairs and downstairs characters struggle with the restrictions of their positions but somehow it all seems like a fairy tale to escape to in this lush and beautiful version, where we can all imagine ourselves dressing for dinner and receiving a visit from the royal family.

Parents should know that this film includes references to terminal illness, family conflicts, assassination attempt, scuffle, an out of wedlock child, and some mild language.

Family discussion: Why did the servants rebel? Why did Violet change her mind about the property? Do you agree with what Thomas told the princess?

If you like this, try: “Gosford Park” and the “Downton Abbey’ television series

Dowton Abbey Recap

Posted on September 14, 2019 at 8:13 pm

If you need to be brought up to date on Downton Abbey before seeing the movie next week, here’s a handy recap.

And for background on the real-life story behind the castle on the show:

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MVP of the Week: Dan Stevens

Posted on March 21, 2017 at 3:55 pm

Dan Stevens has been best known as Matthew Crawley in “Downton Abbey,” but this week he seems to be everywhere, starring opposite Emma Watson as the prince and the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast,” and opposite Anne Hathaway in a very different kind of monster story, “Colossal.” Think of it as “Beauty and the Beast,” except he’s the beauty. Kind of. He also stars on television in one of the most unusual superhero stories of all time, “Legion.”

Coming up, Stevens stars in “The Ticket.”

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