A new Scream, Creed, Shazam, and John Wick: All the new movies you'll want watch in March

There are a few key firsts with , making it stand out as more than just the ninth film in the Rocky franchise. It’s the first without an appearance from Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa, as the star takes a backseat in just a producer role. Also on the creative side is reboot-franchise lead Michael B. Jordan, making his feature directorial debut. Doubling the amount of star power—and muscles—on camera is Jonathan Majors, playing a childhood friend of Jordan’s Adonis Creed whose long-bubbling resentments threaten the champion’s life Adonis has created with his sweat, blood, and tears. Expect more of all three in what looks to be another bout of gritty yet inspiring drama.

Michael Shannon, Kate Hudson, Zach Braff, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Don Johnson: now that is a cast. Written and directed by Michael Maren, centers on a man who is decidedly not a mysterious author named Shriver but accepts an invitation to appear as him. It looks to be a comedy of errors that allows Shannon, as the imposter, to show off his full range of buffoonery. And maybe it’s just Hudson’s effervescence throwing things off, but is this also, mayhaps, a rom-com?

Ghostface is back and more ghostly, and serving more face, than ever. picks up where last year’s left off, moving the action for the first time away from Woodsboro to New York City. Right off the bat, there’s something more uncomfortably eerie about a slasher stalking victims openly in a corner store or on the subway, as star . Courteney Cox and Hayden Panettiere unite multiple generations of Ghostface survivors although, for the first time, without Neve Campbell. The glimpses so far of this installment, directed by Matt Bettinelli and Olpin and Tyler Gillett, promise a gory good time with plenty of jump scares in the big city—enough to make us think of Woodsboro as a quaint idyll in comparison.

Seeing Idris Elba on the big screen reprising the role that put him on the map, Detective Chief Inspector John Luther, is sure to be a treat. is a continuation of the 2011-19 BBC procedural, appearing in select theaters on February 24 before its March 10 Netflix release. Written by series creator Neil Cross and directed with feature-length, action-packed grandeur by Jamie Payne, the film follows a disgraced Luther racing to stop yet another deranged serial killer (Andy Serkis, of course) before the authorities (led by Cynthia Erivo) can stop him. Why does this tale begin with Luther staging a prison break, you ask? For the same reason Elba proved such a brilliant fit for the role: he plays a good guy getting in the heads of bad guys, grappling with the darkness of the criminal underworld to the point of having to face his inner darkness.

Adapted from a 2018 Spanish film, which was inspired by a real-life team of basketball players with intellectual disabilities, ticks many of the boxes that make sports dramas a reliable source of comfort. Underdogs defying the odds all the way to inspiring victory? You bet. A curmudgeon fallen from grace and forced to coach a team he considers beneath him, launching an inevitable redemption arc? Woody Harrelson more than fits that bill. Bobby Farrelly makes a solo directorial debut with Champions, which co-stars Kaitlin Olson, Ernie Hudson, Cheech Marin, and a slew of authentically cast actors with intellectual disabilities—an all-too-rare occurrence in Hollywood.

Despite the obvious production value in its computer-generated dinosaurs and flashy sci-fi technology, there’s something pleasingly old school about , which features an extraterrestrial Adam Driver crash-landing on Earth just before that infamous asteroid did the same. The thrills feel distinctly like a 1970s-era B-movie, where monsters jump scarily, albeit improbably, from the darkness. This Scott Beck and Bryan Woods creature feature, like their A Quiet Place before it, limits its scope to a few actors and spare dialogue, letting us focus on the fun juxtaposition of ancient nature facing down futuristic tech. Which side will you root for?

For fans wondering where Shazam fits in with his fellow DCEU superheroes, there’s a helpful explainer in the above official trailer for . As we catch glimpses of the Flash, Aquaman, and Batman, Zachary Levi’s Billy Batson asks, “What am I even contributing?” While it doesn’t exactly sound like a vote of confidence for one of the many film series poor Warner Bros. Discovery is hoping will finally turn things around for them, there’s value too in an action-packed comedy that exists for action-packed comedy’s sake. The most promising prospect of this sequel might be its villains: the so-called daughters of Atlas, played by real-life goddesses Lucy Liu, Rachel Zegler, and Helen Mirren.

is one of those films with a premise as killer as it is concise: an art thief is trapped in a New York City penthouse after it locks him inside mid-heist. Not sold yet? The fact that Willem Dafoe plays said art thief (named Nemo, no less) should seal the deal. As the trailer indicates, this is far from a quirky comedy of errors. Instead, we catch glimpses of psychological horror, of Dafoe going mad with only the priceless art around him, the hermetically sealed apartment’s climbing temperature, and his thoughts. It’s such a perfect pairing of actor and material, it’s easy to imagine director Vasilis Katsoupis and writer Ben Hopkins had no one but Dafoe in mind.

It turns out the bittersweet conclusion to signaled the beginning, rather than the end, of our golden age of Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda together onscreen. While February’s offered silly, heartwarming delight, their newest collab, , leans into darker comedy, centered on the duo uniting to exact revenge on the widower of a deceased friend. Paul Weitz, a longtime collaborator of Tomlin stretching back to Admission and Grandma, writes and directs this wry comedy whose surface-level hijinks are but a means to explore aging, death, and long-held regrets. Let’s hope Tomlin and Fonda don’t soon move on from this trend of pairing off every chance they get.

Looking to extend his apparent on screen, Keanu Reeves finally returns as ultra-assassin John Wick after a . may renege on the promise of more creative installment titles after Chapter 3 – Parabellum, but sometimes all you want from another shoot-’em-up action-thriller—for many fans, the shoot-’em-up action-thriller series—is another chapter. At this point, Reeves and director Chad Stahelski can do no wrong, and all the John Wick formula needs is compelling supporting stars to try their hand at all the high-octane ass-kicking. This time, joining Laurence Fishburne and Ian McShane in such roles are Hiroyuki Sanada, Bill Skarsgård, Donnie Yen, and pop star .

Let’s set aside the surrounding the newest adaptation of the Dungeons & Dragons games, something your average moviegoer will certainly do come March 31. Those simply craving a high-flying fantasy adventure featuring charismatic movie stars tossing off quips (and who may have been disappointed by the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s of such) have exactly that with . Chris Pine has a blackbelt in cheeky one-liners, after all, and Hugh Grant practically invented them. Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Daisy Head round out what looks like a charming enough start to Paramount’s bid to turn D&D into a of their own.

A Thousand And One, the first major project from writer-director A.V. Rockwell, confirms her as a filmmaking talent to watch. Peers at this January’s Sundance Film Festival agreed, giving the Teyana Taylor-led drama the coveted . Set in the steadily gentrifying Harlem of the 1990s, it’s the tale of a woman versus the world, raising against all odds the young son she’s removed from the foster care system. Heartrending without becoming sappy, and urgent in its depiction of the all-too-real systems of oppression facing young Black mothers, A Thousand And One could be the first theatrically released awards contender of 2023. Don’t be surprised if the luminous Taylor appears on leading actress Oscar prediction lists almost a year from now.

“Deux or die,” promises the trailer for Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston’s follow-up to their Netflix hit Murder Mystery, a tagline almost as delightfully stupid as the very title Murder Mystery. Delight and stupidity continue to reign, this time on a Caribbean island and then in Paris, as couple-turned-private-detectives Nick and Audrey Spitz attempt to solve a case involving the kidnapping of the friend whose exotic wedding they’re attending. Mark Strong, Mélanie Laurent, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Kuhoo Verma co-star in , dropping just shy of April Fools’ Day, which somehow feels appropriate. Have Sandler and Aniston tricked us all into making this a major film franchise?

Coming March 3, Kurt Wimmer reimagines Children Of The Corn (which will then stream on Shudder on March 21) and Guy Ritchie reunites with both Jason Statham and Hugh Grant on the long-delayed action flick , co-starring Aubrey Plaza, Josh Hartnett, and Cary Elwes. On March 24, British stalwart Stephen Frears gives Sally Hawkins, Harry Lloyd, and Steve Coogan the chance to shine in , while Zach Braff directs Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman in the dramedy . And on the last day of the month, catch French anthology comedy Smoking Causes Coughing and Vivian Oparah and David Jonsson in Hulu and Searchlight’s rom-com .