We Live in Time, Gladiator 2

Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield bring genuine chemistry to A24’s time-hopping romance drama “We Live in Time,” which jumps around the life of a couple faced with a challenging cancer diagnosis. The movie hails from “Brooklyn” filmmaker John Crowley. From Variety’s review: “Crowley is confident that the chemistry between Pugh and Garfield is so compelling, people will want to watch his movie again and again… he has made what’s meant to be a greatest-hits version of your typical romantic comedy, serving up all the key scenes from Almut and Tobias’ relationship — meeting one another’s families, the marriage proposal, parenthood, divorce, cancer diagnoses and so on — just not in that order.”

Ridley Scott’s long-awaited “Gladiator 2” debuted on Paramount+ at the end of January, but it’s sure to be one of the biggest streaming offerings of February, considering this is its first full month of availability. Paul Mescal leads the action tentpole as the son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus, who finds his way back to Rome on a quest for vengeance. There was a time when some Oscar pundits had the “Gladiator” sequel winning Scott best director honors, but alas the movie was shut out of this year’s Academy Awards. The original “Gladiator” was an Oscars powerhouse with wins for best picture and best actor for Russell Crowe. 

Renee Zellweger is back in “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,” the fourth and final movie in the rom-com series. While the film is getting a theatrical release overseas, Universal is streaming it in the U.S. exclusively on Peacock and surely hoping for a Valentine’s Day viewing boost. The film picks up with Bridget as a single mother raising two kids with help from her friends and even her former lover, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). She’s soon pursued by a dreamy younger man (Leo Woodall) after deciding it’s time to go back to work and step back out into the world of dating.

Tom Hanks and Robin Wright appear decades younger in “Here,” their big reunion with “Forrest Gump” director Robert Zemeckis that didn’t exactly take the box office by storm last fall. However, the movie could find some attention on Netflix this month as subscribers start buzzing about all the de-aging VFX trickery on screen. Based on Richard McGuire’s 2014 graphic novel of the same name, “Here” takes place across a century in a single location. The camera never moves from a fixed position inside a home for the entire 104-minute runtime, as the viewers are treated to the stories of the people who made a home there. The central couple is played by Hanks and Wright.  

Apple’s first big original movie of the year is Scott Derrickson’s “The Gorge,” starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy as two highly-trained operatives tasked with guarding towers on opposite sides of a vast gorge, protecting the world from an undisclosed, mysterious evil that lurks within. The film’s synopsis continues: “They bond from a distance while trying to stay vigilant in defending against an unseen enemy. When the cataclysmic threat to humanity is revealed to them, they must work together in a test of both their physical and mental strength to keep the secret in the gorge before it’s too late.”

Directed by Oscar-winning documentarian Morgan Neville (“20 Feet From Stardom”), “Piece by Piece” explores the life and work of Pharrell Williams, who decided that his story should be told via Lego (apparently as a metaphor for the creative way in which he sees the world). Alongside Williams, the Focus Features film stars Jay-Z, Missy Elliot, Gwen Stefani, Busta Rhymes and Snoop Dogg, all rendered in Lego, and chronicles Williams’ life from humble beginnings in Virginia Beach to his early career as a producer in the Neptunes and performer in N.E.R.D. to becoming one of the most prolific and successful artists working today.

Justin Kurzel’s “The Order” is a riveting and explosive docudrama about the modern American white-supremacist movement in the 1980s. Despite Jude Law giving what might be the best performance of his career, the film remained under the radar this Oscar season. Law plays an FBI agent investigating a series of crimes who stumbles onto the terrain of the Order, the scruffy band of right-wing racist terrorists in the Pacific Northwest who are funding an “army” to rise up against the U.S. government. “The film’s cutting topicality is that it fills in how believing that the U.S. government is the enemy is inextricably linked, in its emotional and historical legacy, to the ideology of white supremacy,” writes Owen Gleiberman in his review.

It’s hard to believe RaMell Ross’ acclaimed adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s “The Nickel Boys” walked away with just two Oscar nominations (best picture and best adapted screenplay), especially since Ross’ direction and Jomo Fray’s cinematography was perhaps the most visionary of last year. From Variety’s review: “Ross strips away as many of the words as possible, searching instead for images to tell the story of Elwood, a Tallahassee teen who’s so much more than a victim of the system. Except, Ross doesn’t tell the story so much as inhabit it. For the first hour or so, ‘Nickel Boys’ feels like the most exciting narrative debut since ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild.’”

“Strange Darling” unfolds during the one-night stand of two characters known as only The Lady (Willa Fitzgerald) and The Demon (Kyle Gallner), one of whom is a serial killer. From Variety’s review: “Captured entirely on 35mm film, JT Mollner’s second feature is buoyed by clever construction and stellar performances from Fitzgerald and Gallner… Mollner flips the script on this tired genre, crafting the cleverest thriller of its kind in a while with a mighty assist from a pair of killer performances. Best experienced with as little foreknowledge as possible, ‘Strange Darling’ demands a bit of patience, but it also rewards it.”

It’s the perfect time for “Parasite” to return to Netflix as director Bong Joon Ho’s long-in-the-works follow-up, the Robert Pattinson-starring dark comedy “Mickey 17,” is finally coming to theaters March 7 from Warner Bros. “Parasite” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2019 and became a box office sensation with $262 million worldwide. It also became the first South Korean movie to win the Oscar for best picture, while Bong picked up honors for best director, best original screenplay and best international feature.

Amy Schumer pretends she’s a mom-to-be in the new trailer for Netflix’s R-rated comedy “Kinda Pregnant.” In the film, Schumer plays Lainy Newton, a newly single teacher who wants to be a mother. She gets a little jealous after discovering her best friend, Kate (Jillian Bell), is pregnant, leading Lainy to tell a slight fabrication in the form of donning a fake baby bump. Her deception is complicated by the fact that she meets her dream man (Will Forte) while acting like she’s with child.

Angelina Jolie is one of the year’s biggest Oscar snubs for “Maria,” considering filmmaker Pablo Larrain directed both Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart to Oscar nominations in “Jackie” and “Spencer,” respectively. The latter drama returns to Netflix this month. In naming “Spencer” the best movie of 2021, Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Kristen Stewart, transforming herself, does a tremulously acerbic and precise recreation of the Princess Diana personality (the halting elegance, the shyness jostling with the coquettishness of fame). But that’s just the ground floor of her performance. She takes the audience on a flesh-and-blood journey in a movie that’s at once a diary, a soap opera, a horror film, and a rigorously speculative drawing-room biopic.”

Mason Gooding and Dylan Sprouse team up for the action thriller “Aftermath,” which is making its streaming debut on Netflix this month after a small theatrical release from Voltage Pictures last year. The film’s supporting cast includes Megan Stott and Dichen Lachman. The movie centers on a PTSD-stricken war veteran who becomes trapped alongside his teenage sister on the Tobin Memorial Bridge in Boston, Mass., during a hostage plot. It’s up to the veteran to save the day.

“Mean Girls” director Mark Waters is behind the camera for Netflix’s original rom-com “La Dolce Villa,” starring Scott Foley as a successful businessman who travels to Italy to stop his daydreaming daughter, Olivia, from restoring a crumbling villa. But Italy has different plans as Foley’s character, Eric, meets the potential love of his life. The movie’s supporting cast includes Violante Placido, Maia Reficco and Giuseppe Futia.

“In the Summers,” a coming-of-age tale from writer-director Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio, won Sundance’s grand jury prize in 2024 and the directing award in the U.S. dramatic competition. The movie tells the story of two daughters navigating a turbulent but loving father during yearly visits to his home in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The Latin American family portrait is headlined by René Pérez Joglar (known in the music industry as Residente), who plays the divorced father, while the two siblings, Violeta and Eva, are played at different ages by several rising actors, including Sasha Calle (“The Flash”), Lío Mehiel (“Mutt”) and Sharlene Cruz (“Flatbush Misdemeanors”). 

“Coda” breakout Emilia Jones plays Reality Winner in the appropriately titled “Winner,” which recounts how the NSA translator became a whistleblower who leaked information about Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. From Variety’s review: “‘Winner’ is well acted, well told and … well, a tough sell to people tired of politics. It’s not a typical whistleblower movie, like ‘The Insider’ or ‘Official Secrets’ (both excellent), but more of a prickly character portrait, imbued with humor and a headstrong sense of defiance (courtesy of co-writer Kerry Howley, channeling Winner’s voice).”

Mary-Louise Parker stars in “Omni Loop” as a physicist with a week left to live and a bottle of pills that send her back five days at a time, allowing her to extend her life indefinitely. But what she really wants is a cure that will let her move forward. Best not to spoil how writer-director Bernardo Britto manages to transform her existential crisis into something heartbreakingly profound. Just when you thought you’d had your fill of time-loop movies, along comes an indie with fresh insights into the entire human experience, anchored by Parker’s multi-dimensional performance.

Gotham and Spirit Award nominee “Ghostlight” tells the story of a construction worker who unexpectedly joins a local theater’s production of “Romeo and Juliet,” which has major ramifications on his relationship with his family. From Variety’s review: “The film celebrates the healing power of art, as a family shaken by its eldest son’s suicide uses a community theater production to work through emotions they haven’t been able to discuss openly at home… screenwriter Kelly O’Sullivan has a natural storytelling gift, coupled with a knack for comedy. Here, she takes elements like grieving families, difficult teens and small-town communities and rearranges them into a surprising and moving narrative.”

Anthony Mackie is storming movie theaters this month as Captain America in Marvel’s latest tentpole, “Captain America: Brave New World,” but he’s also coming to streaming as his 2024 post-apocalyptic thriller “Elevation” makes its debut on Max. Directed by George Nolfi, the movie stars Mackie as a single father tasked with saving the life of a young boy. The mission brings Mackie’s character face to face with monstrous creatures.

“Waitress: The Musical” brings Sara Bareilles’s Tony-nominated Broadway favorite to the screen. Bareilles stars as Jenna Hunterson, a waitress and expert piemaker stuck in a small town and a loveless marriage. When a baking contest in a nearby county offers her a chance at escape, Jenna fights to reclaim a long-forgotten part of herself. The synopsis continues: “Through the support of her fellow waitresses and an unexpected romance, Jenna begins to find the courage to take a long-abandoned dream off the shelf. Waitress celebrates the power of friendship, dreams, the family we choose and the beauty of a well-baked pie.”