The Movie Theaters Have More Than Just Scary Features in October 2024

We’ve seen several movies in the theater recently. (Shocker, I know!) We saw a few of the October trailers, but not as many as we might have expected. As I compiled this list, I kept seeing big names for features that I didn’t even know existed. It was a really odd feeling because usually when I put together the list of movies releasing next month, I only find one or two I hadn’t heard of before.

As always, we hope you’ll find something that inspires you to head to the theater. Maybe you’ll want to see a docudrama about the start of Saturday Night Live or the Dating Game killer. Perhaps one of the feature films set in a major comic book universe. Or even better, one of the many comedies and dramas that simply look interesting. Start here:

Joker: Folie À Deux

Release Date: October 4, 2024
Genre: Action, Sequel
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beetz

“Joker: Folie À Deux” finds Arthur Fleck institutionalized at Arkham awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker. While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that’s always been inside him.

White Bird

Release Date: October 4, 2024
Genre: Family, Drama, Biography, War
Cast: Ariella Glaser, Orlando Schwerdt, Bryce Gheisar, with Gillian Anderson and Helen Mirren

From the world of Wonder, which sparked a movement to “choose kind,” comes the inspirational next chapter: WHITE BIRD. Struggling to fit in at his new school after being expelled for his treatment of Auggie Pullman, Julian (Bryce Gheisar) is visited by his grandmother (Helen Mirren) and is transformed by the compassionate and heroic story of her attempts to escape Nazi-occupied France during WWII. From the director of Finding Neverland, WHITE BIRD reminds us to be brave and choose kind.

Piece by Piece

Release Date: October 11, 2024
Genre: Animation, Biography, Comedy, Family
Cast: Pharrell Williams, Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg

Piece By Piece is a unique cinematic experience that invites audiences on a vibrant journey through the life of cultural icon Pharrell Williams. Told through the lens of LEGO® animation, turn up the volume on your imagination and witness the evolution of one of music’s most innovative minds.

Saturday Night

Release Date: October 11, 2024
Genre: Comedy, Biography, Historical, Drama
Cast: Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun, Cooper Hoffman, Andrew Barth Feldman, Kaia Gerber, Tommy Dewey, Willem Dafoe, Matthew Rhys, J.K. Simmons

At 11:30pm on October 11, 1975, a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers changed television – and culture – forever. Directed by Jason Reitman and written by Gil Kenan & Reitman, Saturday Night is based on the true story of what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live. Full of humor, chaos, and the magic of a revolution that almost wasn’t, we count down the minutes in real time until we hear those famous words

We Live in Time

Release Date: October 11, 2024 **Dates on studio and official sites range October to January
Genre: Drama, Romance
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh

Almut (Florence Pugh) and Tobias (Andrew Garfield) are brought together in a surprise encounter that changes their lives. As they embark on a path challenged by the limits of time, they learn to cherish each moment of the unconventional route their love story has taken, in filmmaker John Crowley’s decade-spanning, deeply moving romance.

The Line

Release Date: October 18, 2024
Genre: Drama
Cast: Alex Wolff, Lewis Pullman, Halle Bailey, Austin Abrams, Angus Cloud, Bo Mitchell, Denise Richards, Cheri Oteri, Scoot McNairy, John Malkovich

Alex Wolff stars as Tom, a scholarship student desperate to break free from his working-class background who is charmed by the prestigious KNA fraternity’s promises of high social status and alumni connections that open doors. But upon beginning a romance with Annabelle (Halle Bailey), a classmate outside of his social circle, and the manipulative schemes of his fraternity president (Lewis Pullman) unfolding during the hazing of new members, Tom finds himself ensnared in a perilous game of ambition and loyalty.

Smile 2

Release Date: October 18, 2024
Genre: Horror, Suspense, Sequel
Cast: Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kyle Gallner, Lukas Gage, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Peter Jacobson, Raúl Castillo, Dylan Gelula, Ray Nicholson

About to embark on a new world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her dark past to regain control of her life before it spirals out of control.

Flight Risk

Release Date: October 18, 2024
Genre: Thriller
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Dockery, Topher Grace

In this high-stakes suspense thriller, Academy Award®️ nominee Mark Wahlberg (Actor in a Supporting Role, 2006 – The Departed) plays a pilot transporting an Air Marshal (Michelle Dockery) accompanying a fugitive (Topher Grace) to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem.

Rumours

Release Date: October 18, 2024
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Alicia Vikander, Roy Dupuis, Charles Dance, Takehiro Hira, Denis Ménochet, Zlatko Burić, Rolando Ravello

Ricocheting between comedy, apocalyptic horror, and swooning soap opera, Rumours follows the seven leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies at the annual G7 summit, where they attempt to draft a provisional statement regarding a global crisis. With unexpected, uproarious performances from a brilliant ensemble cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Alicia Vikander, and Charles Dance, these so-called leaders become spectacles of incompetence, contending with increasingly surreal obstacles in the misty woods as night falls and they realize they are suddenly alone. A genre-hopping satire of political ineptitude, the latest film from incomparable directors Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson is a journey into the absurd heart of power and institutional failure in a slowly burning world.

Hard Truths

Release Date: October 18, 2024
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Cast: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin

Legendary filmmaker Mike Leigh returns to the contemporary world with a fierce, compassionate, and often darkly humorous study of family and the thorny ties that bind us. Reunited with Leigh for the first time since multiple Oscar-nominated Secrets and Lies, the astonishing Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions, and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son, and anyone who looks her way. Meanwhile, her easygoing younger sister, played by Michele Austin (Another Year), is a single mother with a life as different from Pansy’s as their clashing temperaments – brimming with communal warmth from her salon clients and daughters alike. This expansive film from a master dramatist takes us into the intensities of kinship, duty, and the most enduring of human mysteries: that even through lifetimes of hurt and hardship, we still find ways to love those we call family.

Exhibiting Forgiveness

Release Date: October 18, 2024
Genre: Drama
Cast: André Holland, Andra Day, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, John Earl Jelks

Tarrell (Holland) is an admired American painter who lives with his wife, singer Aisha (Day), and their young son, Jermaine. Tarrell’s artwork excavates beauty from the anguish of his youth, keeping past wounds at bay. His path to success is derailed by an unexpected visit from his estranged father, La’Ron (Jelks), a conscience-stricken man desperate to reconcile.

Tarrell’s mother, Joyce (Ellis-Taylor) a pious woman with a profound and joyful spirituality, hopes that Tarrell can open his heart to forgiveness, giving them all another chance at being a family. Tarrell and La’Ron learn that forgetting might be a greater challenge than forgiving in this raw and deeply moving film.

Woman of the Hour

Release Date: October 18, 2024
Genre: Drama, True Crime, Mystery
Cast: Anna Kendrick, Tony Hale, Daniel Zovatto

Rodney Alcala was a killer in the midst of a killing spree when he brazenly took part and won a date on the popular TV game show “The Dating Game”.

Anora

Release Date: October 18, 2024
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Cast: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan

Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.

Goodrich

Release Date: October 18, 2024
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Cast: Michael Keaton, Mila Kunis, Andie MacDowell, Carmen Ejogo, Kevin Pollak, Michael Urie, Laura Benanti, Danny Deferrari, Jackie Sandler, Poorna Jagannathan, Vivien Lyra Blair

After his younger second wife leaves him and enters a 90-day rehab program, Los Angeles art dealer Andy Goodrich seeks out his adult pregnant daughter Grace for help with raising his nine-year-old twins

Venom: The Last Dance

Release Date: October 25, 2024
Genre: Action/Adventure, Superhero, Sequel
Cast: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach and Stephen Graham. The film is directed by Kelly Marcel from a screenplay she wrote, based on a story by Hardy and Marcel. The film is produced by Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, Amy Pascal, Kelly Marcel, Tom Hardy and Hutch Parker.

In Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance.

Nickel Boys

Release Date: October 25, 2024
Genre: Drama
Cast: Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor

Elwood Curtis’s college dream shatters alongside a two-lane Florida highway. Bearing the brunt of an innocent misstep, he’s sentenced to the netherworld of Nickel Academy, a brutal reformatory sunk deep in the Jim Crow South. He encounters another ward, the seen-it-all Turner. The two Black teens strike up an alliance: Turner dispensing fundamental tips for survival, Elwood, clinging to his optimistic worldview. Backdropped by the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, Elwood and Turner’s existence appear worlds away from Rev. Martin Luther King’s burnished oratory. Despite Nickel’s brutality, Elwood strives to hold onto his humanity, awakening a new vision for Turner.

Pretty awesome list, isn’t it? For a month that is often about all-things-scary, it’s great to see so many comedies and dramas!

Which of these movies and trailers are new to you?