The Best Movies That Didn’t Release In 2020

What would 2020's best movies list have looked like if the world had not been changed so dramatically by the pandemic? With theatrical releases decimated as far back as March - apart from a handful of brave (or foolhardy) hold-outs, the year saw the industry adapting to the removal of collective audiences from the equation. But before it all, there was a plan for some huge movies to come out and no doubt to delight fans.

2020 also saw the dawn of a potentially scary new era for films, with Warner Bros. revealing their shocking new model to release their 2021 schedule - including lots of 2020 originals - directly to HBO Max. It won't be the death of cinema alone, despite concerns from the likes of Christopher Nolan, but there's every chance that 2020 was the last year of the traditional model. Whether studios work hard enough to protect film will depend on the financial stakes, but the films that were cut out of the 2020 calendar will find a way out either way.

Related: The Best Sci-Fi Movies Of 2020

As a wistfully smiling old man Captain America proved at the end of the MCU's Infinity Saga, there's a lot of pleasure in exploring alternate universes. And in the interest of looking back at what could have been, here's the 15 best movies (probably) that didn't release in 2020 (but were supposed to).

15. A Quiet Place 2

While the case for diminishing returns in a gimmick-led movie - and in horror in particular - might be particularly relevant, A Quiet Place has a lot going for it. John Krasinski may have been dramatically killed off, but the writer/director returns to helm the sequel, with original cast Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe supplemented by the incoming talents of Cillian Murphy and Djimon Hounsou. It's a solid base, with a still-great conceit (even with several poor copycat sensory horrors put out in the wake of its predecessor's success) and while the "humans are worse than monsters" escalation could look rote, John Krasinski is invested enough to make the sequel work. As long as it doesn't lose itself to needless expansion away from what worked first time, it would have been one of the year's winners.

14. Fast & Furious 9

It's cynical to call the Fast & Furious franchise a guilty pleasure because it delegitimized billions of box office dollars as a fad. That ship has sailed, (been raced by a submarine, fought a baby and gone to space as well probably) and there is no shame in admitting that the Fast & Furious movies are a solid, mostly self-aware joy. Street racing is a thing of the past, but the franchise can still call on new actors like John Cena as an indication of its draw and precedent suggests some of the most ridiculous, entertaining set-piece-driven, spectacle cinema is on the cards. With the return of Han adding emotional piquancy, it would have been up in the top 10 performers easily.

13. Raya and the Last Dragon

Raya stands in the desert in her hat in Raya and the Last Dragon

The Disney+ release model in mid-2021 might raise a few eyebrows, but Raya and the Last Dragon has the Disney Animation juggernaut power behind it, which counts for a lot. Apportioning too much of the 2020 accolades to the film on the brand alone is somewhat reductive, but Disney's recent digital animations - from Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen onwards - have been successes on a scale only limited by comparisons to the greatest of their number. Raya offers further chance for exploration into real world cultures not afforded enough "mainstream" screentime and the marriage of reality, humanism and mysticism is a formula Disney have danced to the bank on before.

12. Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun 2: Who The Villain Is In Maverick Tom Cruise

In the wake of Cobra Kai's surprisingly brilliant reinvigoration of the Karate Kid franchise, Top Gun: Maverick is coming at the perfect time. That is particularly pertinent given the parallel between Top Gun's upstart former pilot prodigy and Johnny Lawrence and Daniel Larusso. If Cruise's twinkling eyed Maverick was LaRusso, Val Kilmer's Ice Man was the Navy equivalent of Cobra Kai's most famous graduate. The similarities may end there, but in both cases, the follow-up story is about what happens after the hero takes the curtain call, and for Maverick that means facing mortality, redundancy and fading dreams. And while Cruise isn't the young flyboy any more, Top Gun 2's specific appeal lies in that very fact.

11. Ghostbusters: Afterlife

After the unfortunate failure of the 2016 reboot (and the distasteful narrative that grew around it like a toxic parasite), the supernatural franchise returns with the old cast (bolstered by a new cast including the irrefutable charms of Paul Rudd) and a promise to apparently be less revisionary. There are certainly some hurdles for Afterlife, which was originally due to land in the middle of July 2020, but it will get a lot of attention for his cast reunion alone, and with Jason Reitman steering the ship his father first cast off, there's good reason to think it will land with the original audience in a way that Paul Feig's reboot did not.

10. Eternals

Even with Marvel's Phase 4 and 5 plans now radically altered by the global pandemic and also by a raft of changes announced at 2020 Disney Investors Call, Eternals remains one of the most intriguing prospects. There are lots of new things to celebrate in the second age of the MCU (after the end of the Infinity Saga), but Eternals packs in bold new world designs, different lore and diversity, both in gender and race and also sexuality (in a finally meaningful way). As an MCU film, it already had drawing power (in a more quiet 2020), but intrigued word of mouth would have pushed Chloé Zhao's colorful curio even further. Come 2021, it still will.

9. Candyman

The shadow puppet of Daniel Robitaille's Candyman from Candyman 2021

In a world increasingly populated by nostalgia-embracing reboots and rebirths, Candyman stands a little apart because it never really got off the ground as a franchise. One brilliant, lore-setting horror original (with a definitive performance by Tony Todd) made way for two less-than-satisfying sequels, confirming the idea behind the films and their monstrous star as significantly better than the framework. But in 2020 (or 2021, when it will belated release), Candyman has taken on even greater relevance because of the issues of race tied into the character. If Get Out was important as an allegory, Candyman is paramount as a more overt revenge horror striking back against a lot more than just a group of specific killers. Marketed heavily on Jordan Peele's involvement, there's no overlooking the fact that this is Nia DaCosta's film and her impending involvement in Captain Marvel 2 will add further appeal.

8. In The Heights

Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera from In the Heights movie

Had the world gone as intended in 2020, there's still a big chance that Lin Manuel Miranda's Hamilton release on Disney+ would have been one of the biggest of the year. Culturally relevant, brilliantly written, and wonderfully performed, it was a triumph of Miranda's talent (as well as the collected talents of an incredible cast) and it made what the musically-minded writer did next all the more loaded. In 2020, that should have been In The Heights, the film adaptation of Miranda's first original musical, which he wrote in college and which went on to win multiple Tonys. On the back of Hamilton alone, In The Heights would have over-performed, but the original stage show was a success for all the reasons Hamilton was and if some of the songs take off in similar fashion, it could have a similar projection in 2021.

7. Godzilla vs Kong

Godzilla king of the monsters Kong skull island Godzilla vs king kong

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters may have been more of an acquired taste than its predecessor of Kong: Skull Island, but the world's most famous monsters have tenure with an army of fans and the interest in this epic clash of the Titans has not wained despite multiple delays. Whether it will have the same impact on the small screen of HBO Max as it would have had on IMAX theater screens in 2020 is a matter for serious debate, but pairing up two of cinemas oldest icons (both bona-fide brands in their own right) has clout built in. Combine that with the promise of even more monster spectacle with appearances by other Monsterverse characters (and even a great human cast who may be used properly this time) and it's a recipe for impact.

6. The French Dispatch

There's a danger in undervaluing Wes Anderson movies as little more than expensive and pretty collections of great casts, which is to do a great auteur a disservice. It's true that the "love letter to journalists" - inspired by Anderson's own love of The New Yorker - features the usual troupe of actors the director employs (along with some new additions) and that it will aim squarely for quaint, but Anderson is a deft, affectionate story-teller and few directors can rival his world-building. Had it released in 2020, it might have been even more pertinent given its focus on the freedom of the press, but whenever it comes out, it is almost certified to be another quirky delight. The cast reads like an embarrassment of riches, with the vignette set-up offering added space for the kind of A-lister ensemble only Anderson could command.

5. Last Night In Soho

Originally slated for a September 2020 release, Edgar Wright's return to horror can call on the director's genius when it comes to genre film-making as well as the central casting of The Queen's Gambit break0out Anya Taylor-Joy. The latter is arguably now even more of a selling point, given the success of the recent Netflix mini-series, but Last Night In Soho is all about Wright's horror craft and the prospect of time travel and intrigue. Equally as exciting, the horror is billed as drawing on the likes of Don't Look Now and Repulsion, so chalk this one in the psychologically disturbing column. Last time he made a horror, it was comedy-tinged, of course, so seeing how Wright applies his genre passion without the impulse to parody or pastiche is a very exciting prospect.

4. The Beatles: Get Back

The Beatles performing the Rooftop Concert in Get Back

After the ground-breaking brilliance of his documentary masterpiece They Shall Not Grow Old, which took old footage and restored it with modern production methods, Peter Jackson returns to factual film-making for this Beatles doc. Charting the making of the Beatles' 1970 album Let It Be, Get Back recuts footage shot by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg's 1970 documentary of the album. Peter Jackson's objective was to create a new narrative, showing the camaraderie between the group and to reclaim the album from the myth that it was created out of an environment of conflict. This is effectively The Jackson Cut, taking in 55 hours of video - and including a full 43-minute concert - that is about as close to essential viewing as any Beatles fan will find, as well as being another huge technical achievement on Jackson's CV. Combining the subject, the story, and the method should have made this one the year's biggest documentary.

3. Halloween Kills

After 2018's Halloween reboot reclaimed the Michael Myers franchise from its more wayward sequels, David Gordon Green was rewarded with the chance to make a slasher trilogy. And with the third planned film in the sub-series titled Halloween Ends, everything got that little bit more exciting, particularly given the lack of logic in killing off one of horror's most iconic characters. Or her tormentor, Myers. Halloween Kills promises to unite Laurie Strode with a mob intent on taking down Myers in what sounds like a wonderful twist on the usual dynamic. It's a shame Paul Rudd couldn't return as Tommy Doyle but he is deputized intriguingly by former John Hughes collaborator Anthony Michael Hall and around him and Jamie Lee Curtis' iconic final girl is an eye-catching cast of returning characters all tied together by earlier encounters with The Shape. It seems inevitable it would have been one of the most talked about movies of 2020 and its new slot in time for Halloween 2021 should capture the same sort of attention.

2. Dune

In a year without either Star Wars or an Avatar sequel on the big screen, Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel (which isn't a mere reboot of the divisive 1984 movie) could have been the year's big high-concept sci-fi. Blade Runner 2049 may not have been a complete home-run, but Villeneuve has built up more than enough goodwill on the back of some stunning achievements in film-making that he's a draw on his own. Visually bold and committed to a very specific aesthetic quality, Villeneuve has amassed one of the most impressive casts of 2021 headed by Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides. Dune is steeped in deep mythology and comes with a ready-made fanbase, and while it's the first part of a double-header, there is more than enough story to actually warrant the split. As long as the original does well, which all evidence points to, fans will be rewarded with two Dunes.

1. No Time to Die

Daniel Craig as James Bond in No Time to Die Bond 25

Bond should have returned in 2020, and even without original director Danny Boyle involved and the specter of Daniel Craig's previous unhappiness at even the prospect of returning as 007, No Time to Die would have been one of the year's very best. It's been an uncharacteristically long wait to see the follow-up to 2015's Spectre, and though a reboot in 2020 would probably have received an artificial boost, the prospect of Daniel Craig's Bond retirement is a draw in itself. Add to that the presence of Lashana Lynch's replacement 007 and more than a faint whiff that Rami Malek's mysterious villain is a redone Dr. No, plus the marketing leaning heavily on the kind of nostalgic Bond fan-baiting that did Skyfall so well and there's lots of reason to believe No Time To Die would have done well. Now that it's been shunted into 2021 - after two delays - Bond 25 should still deliver on everything that made it one of this year's most hyped prospects in the first place.

Next: 2020's Best Movie Trailers