The Complete Guide to Hollywood Movies Opening in October 2019
October looks great. There is Joker (opening 3 Oct) with Joaquin Phoenix, which sounds like an introspective character study of a man’s descent into madness, directed by the guy who brought you The Hangover movies and other dude-bro comedies. Huh. Will be interesting to watch. Gemini Man (10 Oct) is another action sci-fi movie starring Will Smith. I think it’s his eighth one. I’ve also included Pain and Glory (31 Oct) though it’s a Spanish film, because it’s by Pedro Almodóvar — nuff said.
Movies coming out in October 2019
(Click on the movie titles in the bullets to jump to that section if you don’t want to scroll through the entire list. You can also click on each movie’s heading to go to their IMDb pages. Release dates below are for Singapore, but if you’re outside Singapore, IMDb can tell you fairly accurately what’s the release date in your country.)
- Joker (3 Oct)
- The Farewell (3 Oct)
- Gemini Man (10 Oct)
- Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (17 Oct)
- The Current War (17 Oct)
- Terminator: Dark Fate (24 Oct)
- The Kill Team (24 Oct)
- The Addams Family (31 Oct)
- Zombieland: Double Tap (31 Oct)
- Pain and Glory (31 Oct)
- Countdown (31 Oct)
Opening on the week of 3 October
Director: Todd Phillips (“The Hangover” series, “Due Date”, “War Dogs”, “School for Scoundrels”, “Starsky & Hutch”)
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Shea Whigham, Brett Cullen, Frances Conroy, Marc Maron, Bill Camp
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Synopsis: Director Todd Phillips’ JOKER centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone fictional story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham’s fractured society. A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night… but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty, Arthur makes one bad decision that brings about a chain reaction of escalating events in this gritty character study.
Director: Lulu Wang (“Posthumous”)
Cast: Awkwafina, Tzi Ma, Diana Lin, Zhao Shuzhen, Lu Hong, Jiang Yongbo
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Synopsis: A Chinese family discovers their grandmother has only a short while left to live and decide to keep her in the dark, scheduling a wedding to gather before she dies.
Opening on the week of 10 October
Director: Ang Lee (“Life of Pi”, “Brokeback Mountain”, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”)
Cast: Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen, Benedict Wong
Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Synopsis: GEMINI MAN is an innovative action-thriller starring Will Smith as Henry Brogan, an elite assassin, who is suddenly targeted and pursued by a mysterious young operative that seemingly can predict his every move.
Opening the week of 17 October
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (17 Oct)
Director: Joachim Rønning (“Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge”, “Kon-Tiki”)
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Ed Skrein, Lesley Manville, Harris Dickinson, Imelda Staunton, Sam Riley
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Synopsis: MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL is a fantasy adventure that picks up several years after “Maleficent,” in which audiences learned of the events that hardened the heart of Disney’s most notorious villain and drove her to curse a baby Princess Aurora. The film continues to explore the complex relationship between the horned fairy and the soon to be Queen as they form new alliances and face new adversaries in their struggle to protect the moors and the magical creatures that reside within.
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”)
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Shannon, Tom Holland, Nicholas Hoult, Katherine Waterston, Matthew Macfadyen, Tuppence Middleton
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Synopsis: The dramatic story of the cutthroat race between electricity titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to determine whose electrical system would power the modern world.
Opening the week of 24 October
Terminator: Dark Fate (24 Oct)
Director: Tim Miller (“Deadpool”)
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, Diego Boneta
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Synopsis: Linda Hamilton (“Sarah Connor”) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (“T-800”) return in their iconic roles in TERMINATOR: DARK FATE, directed by Tim Miller (Deadpool) and produced by visionary filmmaker James Cameron and David Ellison. Following the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, TERMINATOR: DARK FATE also stars Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, and Diego Boneta.
Director: Dan Krauss (“5B”)
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Nat Wolff
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
Synopsis: A young American soldier in Afghanistan is disturbed by his commanding officer’s behavior and is faced with a moral dilemma.
Opening on the week of 31 October
Directors: Greg Tiernan (“Sausage Party”), Conrad Vernon (“Sausage Party”, “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted”, “Monsters vs. Aliens”, “Shrek 2”)
Voice Cast: Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Oscar Isaac, Allison Janney, Finn Wolfhard, Elsie Fisher, Aimee Garcia, Nick Kroll, Bette Midler
Genre: Animation, Comedy, Family
Synopsis: Get ready to snap your fingers! The Addams Family is back on the big screen in the first animated comedy about the kookiest family on the block. Funny, outlandish, and completely iconic, the Addams Family redefines what it means to be a good neighbor.
Zombieland: Double Tap (31 Oct)
Director: Ruben Fleischer (“Venom”, “Gangster Squad”, “Zombieland”)
Cast: Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Abigail Breslin, Zoey Deutch, Rosario Dawson, Thomas Middleditch, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Luke Wilson
Genre: Action, Comedy, Horror
Synopsis: A decade after Zombieland became a hit film and a cult classic, the lead cast (Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, and Emma Stone) have reunited with director Ruben Fleischer (Venom) and the original writers Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick (Deadpool) for ZOMBIELAND 2: DOUBLE TAP. In the sequel, written by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick and Dave Callaham, through comic mayhem that stretches from the White House and through the heartland, these four slayers must face off against the many new kinds of zombies that have evolved since the first movie, as well as some new human survivors. But most of all, they have to face the growing pains of their own snarky, makeshift family.
Director: Pedro Almodóvar (“Talk to Her”, “All About My Mother”, “Volver”)
Cast: Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz
Genre: Drama
Synopsis: PAIN AND GLORY tells of a series of reencounters experienced by Salvador Mallo, a film director in his physical decline. Some of them in the flesh, others remembered: his childhood in the 60s, when he emigrated with his parents to a village in Valencia in search of prosperity, the first desire, his first adult love in the Madrid of the 80s, the pain of the breakup of that love while it was still alive and intense, writing as the only therapy to forget the unforgettable, the early discovery of cinema, and the void, the infinite void created by the incapacity to keep on making films. PAIN AND GLORY talks about creation, about the difficulty of separating it from one’s own life and about the passions that give it meaning and hope. In recovering his past, Salvador finds the urgent need to recount it, and in that need he also finds his salvation.
Director: Justin Dec (debut feature)
Cast: Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Lail, Anne Winters, Charlie McDermott, P.J. Byrne
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Synopsis: In COUNTDOWN, when a young nurse (Elizabeth Lail) downloads an app that claims to predict exactly when a person is going to die, it tells her she only has three days to live. With time ticking away and death closing in, she must find a way to save her life before time runs out.
