Two of these you probably have heard of, the third, probably not.
Oppenheimer - Christopher Nolan's epic about the invention of the bomb. As we've discussed here, this moment in time was a game changer for humanity. Nolan tackles the subject with everything at his disposal and a massive cast. This comes out this summer and I would say, all due respect to there being another Indiana Jones film on tap as well, this is the event picture that everybody should check out.
Killers of the Flower Moon - Martin Scorsese turns David Grann's nonfiction book into a sprawling picture about the Osage Indians and how they came to acquire the rights to oil rich lands and then how some wealthy white guys went about taking it back from them. This all took place at the time the FBI was coming into existence. Scorsese has tilted his story more toward the experience of the Osage but does maintain the FBI helping to crack the case with Jesse Plemons as the agent on the scene. Leo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone star. This is coming in the fall.
The Zone of Interest - This is the one you likely have not heard anything about but it knocked people out at Cannes. Again we have a rather weighty and difficult subject here but the guy helming this one, Jonathan Glazer, is simply one of the best filmmakers working today. This is based on a novel by Martin Amis, who just passed away the other day. The film really just uses the novel as a jumping off point and what Glazer explores here is more the capacity of any human being to commit violence on other human beings. The story is about the commandant of Auschwitz and his wife and family living a beautiful and dreamlike life just outside the walls of the camp. This is told from their point of view, just a family, doing family things, while just beyond their flowers and garden and ivy coated wall, the horrors of the Holocaust are raging. Here's the interesting thing, in the film, we don't go inside the camp, the story takes place in the house where the commandant and his family live and the surroundings. So, rather than see what the prisoners are going through, showing that obscenity, we instead watch the commandant and his family go about their lives, peaceful and bucolic. Glazer said this approach to telling the story occurred to him when he visited Auschwitz and saw how close the commandant's house was to the camp. Then through extensive research he learned more about the life of the man and his family. Glazer has made three other films, Sexy Beast, Birth, and Under the Skin. All very different, all fantastic cinema. I recommend all three. This comes out later in the year.
