YAM’s Most Anticipated Films of 2016

5-2.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story dir. Gareth Edwards

Felicty Jones leads this Star Wars side-prequel as she and her fellow X-Wing steal plans to destroy the first Death Star. This story enables the cinema side of the franchise to expand past the Skywalker saga, featuring Jones and an impressive supporting cast: Riz Ahmed, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker, and Donnie Yen. We can only hope that director Gareth Edwards learned from the missteps of his previous effort, 2014’s Godzilla, to create something more like the impressive “Halo jump” sequence from that film.

A Storm in the Stars dir. Haifaa Al-Mansour

Wadjda was both an engaging drama and an impressive production feat– being the first feature-length film directed by a Saudi woman (with Al-Mansour having to radio directions to male cast and crew from inside a van), and the first feature-length film by any director to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia. Al-Mansour’s upcoming film is an American production about the relationship between Mary Wollstonecroft (later Shelley) and the poet Percy Shelley, with Elle Fanning playing the young woman who would ultimately write Frankenstein.

Three (三人行, Three on the Road) dir. Johnnie To

The prolific Johnnie To often twists genre expectations with unique atmosphere. Here he returns to Hong Kong crime drama, with Louis Koo as a criminal whose scheme a detective (Wallace Cheung) decides to exploit for the potential of more arrests. Gao Yuanyuan and Zhao Wei also star.

X-Men: Apocalypse dir. Bryan Singer

The follow-up to X-Men: Days of Future Past sees mutants face the risen Apocalypse.

1. Captain America: Civil War

dir. Joe and Anthony Russo

Will this follow-up live up to the fans’ praise of Winter Soldier? Or will the expanded cast and Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-ins distract from the core story? We’ll find out this summer.

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Note: This list was compiled by Diandra Rodriguez