Colin Farrell

Well, would you look at that. Sofia Coppola went and made a proper genre film — transforming her signature dreamy style into something vaguely insidious in the first trailer for The Beguiled. A remake of the 1971 Clint Eastwood film (based on the 1966 novel of the same name), Coppola’s latest stars Colin Farrell as a wounded Union soldier who takes refuge at a southern boarding school headed by Nicole Kidman. And then things…take a turn.

J.K. Rowling‘s wizarding world has finally returned. Now that you’ve seen the new Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and read our spoiler-free review, it’s time discuss all the spoilers, criticisms, and theories for what’s next in the five-film franchise. Take out your wands, fill up a nice cold mug of Butterbeer, and get ready to go back in time to the 1920s.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has been releasing so many clips lately that you can almost watch the entire movie before its premiere without leaving your computer. Most of them have included information we already know or serve to introduce us to some of the beasts we’ll meet, but one of the new ones released today touches on a very important detail: the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald.

How do you make a successful Harry Potter prequel without Harry Potter? J.K. Rowling’s new spinoff, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, travels back nearly 70 years to 1926 before the events of the first Potter movie to tell a whole new story in a new setting with (almost) all new characters. Reviving the magical universe from the second biggest franchise of all time is a pretty risky move, but Fantastic Beasts does a good job of blending the familiar with the new.

Sofia Coppola’s latest project already sounds like it could be her most interesting in years, particularly for a longtime fan such as myself who found her last two efforts — Somewhere and The Bling Ring — to be entirely underwhelming (though not without some merit). The director has officially begun production on her next film, The Beguiled, a Civil War-era drama which marks her fourth feature with Kirsten Dunst, and will hit theaters next summer.

Thursday brought some big news for Harry Potter fans, namely that a five new movies are on the way. During a Global Fan Event for ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,’ J.K. Rowling announced that the Harry Potter prequel spinoff will be followed by four sequels, and that she’s already completed the script for the second film. The event featured a live-streamed panel with the movie’s cast, then afterwards showed the audience an exclusive sneak peek of the new movie.

We’re about a month away from our return to J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world — or another corner of it, in another time, anyway. Although the world will feel somewhat familiar to fans of the Harry Potter series, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is introducing a whole new cast of charming (and not-so-charming) characters that we’ll hopefully come to know and love throughout the trilogy. And this series of character posters should help you get better acquainted.

Don’t call it a comeback. No, really — you may think that ’90s darling Alicia Silverstone hasn’t been doing much acting in recent years, and while that’s partially true, you just haven’t been looking in the right places. The actress appears to be choosing more interesting roles as of late, and after recently appearing in the James Franco festival fave King Cobra, she’s turned her sights to one of our most compelling modern filmmakers: Yorgos Lanthimos.

It’s the near-distant future and your husband or wife has left you. Instead of making a Tinder profile or joining OKCupid, you check into The Hotel. There you have 45 days to find a new partner, and if you fail you’re transformed into the animal of your choosing, then released into The Forest to live out your days. Is this a foreshadowing of our future? Maybe, but it’s also the plot of Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film, ‘The Lobster.’

In 2013, Spike Jonze delivered one of the most poignant and thoughtful meditations on the complexities of relationships and humanity with Her. Two years later and Yorgos Lanthimos has given us what is perhaps the most definitive relationship film in years with The Lobster, a movie that explores the full spectrum of relationships with impeccable wit, delightfully dark humor and insights so sharp they verge on deadly.