Tom Cruise has spent the past decade making movies where he flies planes or jumps out of them. This fall, he’s buried in prosthetics as an oil baron who sets off a global meltdown. That’s one of 16 films the Journal’s Esther Zuckerman flags for the run-up to Thanksgiving, in a season of festival favorites, blockbusters and genuine oddities. Here are the six we’d actually clear an evening for.
Worth a Night Out
The Social Reckoning (Oct. 9). Aaron Sorkin revisits Facebook, this time built on the Journal’s reporting about Meta Platforms (META). Half the fun: Jeremy Strong’s Mark Zuckerberg versus Jesse Eisenberg’s from 2010.
Digger (Oct. 2). Cruise goes satirical for Birdman filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu, with a whiff of Dr. Strangelove. Can he pull it off? That’s the fun of finding out.
Wicker (Oct. 23). Olivia Colman is a medieval fisherwoman who orders a wicker husband (Alexander Skarsgård) from a basket weaver (Peter Dinklage). Zuckerman’s case: “It’s so odd it’s charming—and surprisingly romantic.”
Wild Horse Nine (Nov. 6). John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell play CIA agents on Chile’s Easter Island in a buddy caper that’s quietly about mortality, with what Zuckerman calls a career-best Malkovich.
I Play Rocky (Nov. 6). It isn’t a remake. It’s the story of how Sylvester Stallone wrote and starred his way to a big break, with Anthony Ippolito as a dead-on Stallone.
The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth (Nov. 25). Brad Pitt is back as his Oscar-winning Los Angeles stuntman, in a sequel written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by David Fincher. Two auteurs that different, one movie.
Also worth a look: John Wilson’s comedic documentary The History of Concrete (Sept. 18), and Ariana Grande taking on Ben Stiller in the fourth Meet the Parents movie, Focker-in-Law (Nov. 25).
Mind the Subscriptions
One twist worth noticing: Netflix (NFLX) is giving La Bola Negra, its drama about the long shadow of the Spanish Civil War, the longest theatrical run in the streamer’s history. Even a streamer wants this one seen in a theater.
That’s a handy nudge for the budget. Movie nights you remember are money well spent. The quieter leak is the subscription that renews whether anyone watches or not, so pull the card statement and cancel what nobody’s opened in months.
You check the umbrella stand before the forecast turns. Recurring charges deserve the same habit, and fifteen minutes with your statement can turn up the ones hiding in plain sight.