The outliers of the superhero-verse are back on the big screen among the many new movies to watch in October.

The hotly anticipated and already divisive Joker: Folie à deux (Oct 4) premieres at the top of the month. Lady Gaga joins Joaquin Phoenix as Harley Quinn in this supervillain film that may or may not also be a musical. (Read my review of Joker: Folie à Deux.) At the end of the month, Tom Hardy returns as Eddie Brock in Venom: The Last Dance (Oct. 25). With Brock now on the run with Venom, the pair are forced to make a devastating decision that might bring down the curtain on their “last dance.” Co-starring Juno Temple, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Rhys Ifans.

A serious look at an unserious venture, Saturday Night (Oct. 11) depicts the 90 minutes leading up to the first ever Saturday Night Live show in October, 1975. The film features an all-star cast playing a different all-star cast, including Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd and Nicholas Braun as Andy Kaufman AND Jim Henson.

Surprisingly not meant to be an SNL sketch, Sebastian Stan plays Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice (Oct. 11). Just in time for the election, the film is about the story of how a young Donald Trump started his real-estate business in 1970s and ’80s New York with the helping hand of infamous lawyer Roy Cohn. (Read my review of The Apprentice.)

Two major festival hits are also hitting the big screen. Sean Baker’s Anora (Oct 25) won the Palme D’or and has been amassing big buzz as it screens at festivals across the world. Mikey Madison stars as Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, who meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled. Baker, known for films like The Florida Project, Red Rocket and Tangerine, might be on his way to his first ever Best Picture Oscar in a race without any other obvious nominees.

In other festival crowd-pleasers, there’s Conclave (Oct. 25), the improbably entertaining murder-mystery style thriller about choosing the new pope. Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow are among the cast. (Read my review of Conclave.)

For another festival favourite, Guy Maddin and Evan & Galen Johnson, direct Rumours (Oct. 18), a black comedy about the leaders of the G7 getting lost in the woods during an unspecified emergency. The cast features Roy Dupuis, Cate Blanchett and Charles Dance, among others, as the bumbling leaders of the free world. (Read my review of Rumours.)

White Bird (Oct. 4) is a coming of age period drama directed by Marc Forster and featuring a cast that includes Gillian Anderson and Helen Miren. From the graphic novel of the same name, the movie is a prequel and a sequel to the film Wonder (2017), a film that didn’t seem to have a large cultural imprint, but then again… maybe it did? 

For fans of Saoirse Ronan, she’s starring in the upcoming film The Outrun (Oct. 4) as a biologist trying to recover from alcoholism on a remote Scottish island. If you really like U.K. film and television, be sure to check out Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh in We Live in Time (Oct. 11), a decades-spanning romantic drama about an up-and-coming chef and a recent divorcée find their lives forever changed when a chance encounter brings them together.

For more actor-driven projects, Michael Keaton stars in Goodrich (Oct 18). Andy Goodrich’s life is upended when his wife enters a rehab program, leaving him on his own with their young kids. Goodrich leans on his daughter from his first marriage, Grace, as he ultimately evolves into the father Grace never had.

For something scarier, Smile sequel Smile 2 (Oct. 18) stars Naomi Scott as a pop singer who begins to experience a series of increasingly disturbing events as she is about to go on tour. For more spooky cinema, Montreal theatres are putting on their best spooky face for the month of October, so be sure to check out lineups at Cinéma du Parc, Cinéma Moderne, Cinéma Public and the Cinémathèque Québécoise for some Halloween-themed screenings. 

Also in October, the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma runs from Oct. 9 to 20. This year’s edition features films like Anora, Emilia Pérez and Bird. You will also be able to attend the Massimadi Festival from Oct. 23 to 27, focused on film and art from the Afro LGBTQ+ community in Canada. The 2024 edition will feature 15 films highlighting renaissance and resilience (this year’s theme), including Anthony Chen’s critically acclaimed Drift. ■

This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Cult MTL. Check Montreal cinema showtimes here.

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