Speaking of awards attention, a nod seems all but inevitable for Angelina Jolie: In Pablo Larraín’s swooning conclusion to his unofficial trilogy of beguiling and frequently misunderstood cultural icons, beginning with Jackie and Spencer, she transforms into the legendary opera singer Maria Callas as she lived out her final days in 1970s Paris. (After all, both Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart were nominated for their efforts, and came very close to winning.) Expect ravishing costumes, too, and appearances from The Power of the Dog’s Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alba Rohrwacher, and Haluk Bilginer as tycoon Aristotle Onassis, Callas’s lover who eventually left her for Jacqueline Kennedy.
Queer
Photo: Yannis Drakoulidis
Luca Guadagnino’s last film, the sweaty, sexy Challengers, had been due to open last year’s Venice Film Festival before being pulled from the line-up in the midst of the Hollywood strikes. Now, the auteur is making up for it with yet another steamy, movie star-led romance penned by Justin Kuritzkes, with costumes by Jonathan Anderson and a throbbing soundtrack courtesy of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. An adaptation of William S. Burroughs’s 1985 novella of the same name, Queer casts Daniel Craig as an American expat chasing a younger man (Outer Banks’s Drew Starkey) in ’40s Mexico City. Jason Schwartzman, Henrique Zaga, Lesley Manville, and pop star Omar Apollo round out the ensemble, but the beloved British actor and former Bond is, by all accounts, the main attraction, giving a performance that should get him closer to an Oscar than ever before.