January is usually a barren wasteland when it comes to new releases. You’re either catching up on Oscar-nominated films that only now made it to your local theater after playing in Los Angeles and New York for months, or you’re wishing you were at Sundance looking at all the buzzy titles coming out of Park City. That’s another way of saying, the new film year truly kicks into high gear in February.
We know keeping track of everything that’s coming out on any given weekend is a hassle, so we wanted to help. We’ve scoured festival programs, plenty of IMDB pages, studio releases and came up with a sampling of projects you should be keeping track of in the year ahead. The criteria? We wanted to find movies that had Latino talent in front of the camera and made no attempt to discriminate when it came to budgets, subject matters, or even genres.
Find below a near-exhaustive list of all the films starring your favorite Latinx actors, from big budget flicks with Tessa Thompson and Gina Rodriguez to small indies with Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna (not together though), as well as plenty of international titles doing the festival rounds we hope make it to the States by the end of the year. Oh, and wouldn’t you know it, several Marvel and Disney titles made the list too — guess the Mouse House knows it needs at least one or two Latino supporting players in each of its tentpole projects.
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A Wrinkle in Time
Opens March 9, 2018
Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time is already primed to be one of the most talked about films of 2018. Not only is it the first live-action blockbuster directed by an African-American woman, but it features an enviable A-star cast that includes Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, and Chris Pine. Based on the beloved novel by the same name about a young girl who sets out on a quest to find her missing father and in the process be recruited to fight against the Darkness that threatens her world. Adding to his scene-stealing roles in The Martian and Ant-Man, Michael Peña also stars as a character called “Red” (which we’re hoping means he’s the Man with the Red Eyes, which would mean the actor is going dark for this Disney flick).
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Avengers: Infinity War
Opens May 4, 2018
Offering up the biggest, most superhero-stacked film yet, Avengers: Infinity War is the culmination of the latest phase of Marvel films. That means we’ll not only see Chris Evans’ Captain America and Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man team up yet again, but we’ll finally see the Avengers meeting the Guardians of the Galaxy (including Zoe Saldana’s Gamora) as well as the Wakanda warriors. Word has it even Benicio del Toro will be reprising his role as The Collector, who, last we met, had one of the infinity stones that give the film its title.
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Ant-Man and the Wasp
Opens July 8, 2018
As the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues expanding, fans are getting a second helping of the Paul Rudd-starrer Ant-Man. This time, as the title suggests, the story will also focus on his fellow crime-fighter, Hope van Dyne aka the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) as they take on a mission that will shed light on the van Dyne’s past. Returning for this big screen outing is Michael Peña as the fast-talking and outright hilarious Luis, a friend of Scott Lang’s from his past as a petty criminal.
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The Nun
Opens July 13, 2018
The fifth installment of The Conjuring series is headlined by none other than Oscar nominee Demián Bichir. The Mexican actor plays Father Burke, who is investigating the mysterious suicidal death of a nun. True to its genre, Burke ends up having to confront Valak, a demon who has taken the blasphemous form of a nun. Set in 1952 at the Cârța Monastery in Romania, the film also stars Taissa Farmiga and Bonnie Aarons.
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Scarface
Opens August 10, 2018
While few details are available on the remake of the infamous Al Pacino flick Scarface, we know at least two things: Joel and Ethan Coen (of No Country for Old Men fame) wrote the script and Diego Luna has been cast as Cuban refugee Tony Montana, who becomes a drug kingpin in 1980s Miami—and who would like you to say hello to his little friend.
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Widows
Opens November 16, 2018
Arguably one of the most anticipated films of 2018 is Steve McQueen’s Widows. Starring Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Elizabeth Debicki, and Michelle Rodriguez as the eponymous widows, this thriller follows the four women as they take on the heist that got their husbands killed.
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Creed II
Opens November 21, 2018
Ryan Coogler may not be returning to helm the sequel to his wildly successful sequel/reboot to Rocky, but we are damn excited to see Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson reprise their roles as Adonis and Bianca. Add in the fact that this boxing flick will feature Rocky IV‘s Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) whose son Adonis will be going up against.
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If Beale Street Could Talk
Release date TBD
Based on James Baldwin’s novel of the same name, Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to his Oscar-winning Moonlight is set in Harlem and follows a young woman trying to prove her fiancé’s innocent of a crime while carrying their first child. The film is stacked with talent, including Stephan James, Colman Domingo, Brian Tyree Henry, Dave Franco, Ed Skrein, and Regina King. But more thrillingly, it features Chilean Pedro Pascal, Emily Rios, and even Diego Luna.
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Roma
Release date TBD
It’s been five years since Alfonso Cuarón’s masterful Gravity stormed into theaters and ended up netting him a Best Director Oscar. After going big, he’s going back to his roots for his latest, Roma. Set in the 1970s in Mexico, the film chronicles a life in the year of a middle-class family. With behind the scenes footage making it look like he’s channeling the Halconazo, and with talk that the film is roughly inspired by his own coming of age, we truly can’t wait for Roma to come out.
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Miss Bala
Release date TBD
Here’s the kind of remake we can get behind. In this summer 2018 release, Jane Villanueva (Gina Rodriguez) herself headlines the American take on Miss Bala. That Mexican film focused on a young woman who finds herself hostage to a gang while taking part in the Miss Baja contest. Dealing with the drug trade and offering a stark look into this criminal world across the U.S.-Mexican border, this Cannes film is being remade by Catherine Hardwicke, of thirteen and Twilight fame.
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Where Life is Born
Release date TBD
Carlos Reygadas is starring in his next project. Titled Where Life is Born, the flick finds the Mexican director playing Juan, a husband in a couple who have an open relationship. Of course, things get complicated when his wife falls for someone else. And to add to the eerie if playful authentic feel of it all, Reygadas’ real life partner, Natalia Lopez, will play his wife in the film.
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La quietud
Release date TBD
Pablo Trapero (The Clan) has recruited Edgar Ramírez and Bérénice Bejo for his latest. As per Variety’s synopsis of the film: “The film sees Bejo’s character, Eugenia, return from Paris to the family’s rural estate, La Quietud, after the father is hospitalized following a stroke. There she reencounters her younger sister, Mia, (Martina Gusmán) and their mother, whom she hasn’t seen in 15 years. Old rancors, resentment, still rankle between the siblings, but their love has survived the geographic distance and is bulwarked by their common trauma by a tragic past and a troubled relationship with their parents.”
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Todos lo saben
Release date TBD
After his last two films won Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film (A Separation and The Salesman), eyes were on Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi to see what he’d do next. We’d never have guessed that he’d recruit real-life couple Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem to shoot a Spanish language thriller about a Spanish woman who returns to her hometown with her Argentinean husband and her family in tow. But, that’s where we’re at. And to offer even more colorful casting for the Spain-set flick is perhaps the most famous Argentinean actor of the moment: Ricardo Darín.
