The fall movie season is upon us, but some of the year’s most exciting cinematic events are still months away.

For starters, there’s “Dunesday.” Assuming neither studio budges before then, Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Dune: Part Three” and Disney’s “Avengers: Doomsday” will both slam into theaters on Dec. 18. (This is, of course, the 2026 equivalent of 2023’s “Barbenheimer,” which saw the highly anticipated films “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” get released on July 21.)

And many of us can’t wait for “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” which will watch Brad Pitt reprise his stuntman-turned-driver character from writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 banger “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Penned by Tarantino but directed by the often similarly brilliant David Fincher, Netflix’s “Cliff Booth” is getting a theatrical release the day before Thanksgiving and then arriving on the streamer two days before Christmas.

Plus, a myriad of award-hopeful dramas will start dropping once the weather turns cold.

Nonetheless, the stretch from mid-September through mid-November will bring so much to theaters and streaming platforms that we couldn’t cover all of it. Still, we’ve endeavored to create a rundown of many of the dramas, Halloween-time frights, animated offerings and other movies coming soon.

As always, dates are subject to change.

“Daniel and the Fiery Furnace” | Sept. 18 | Theaters: Mena Massoud (“Aladdin”) portrays the titular hero, and Elijah Alexander (“The Chosen”) is King Nebuchadnezzar in this Biblical tale directed by the sibling tandem of Matthew and Daniel Kooman (“She Has a Name”). “Daniel and the Fiery Furnace” counts musical artist Michael W. Smith among its producers.

“Goody Goody” | Sept. 18 | Shudder: Halloween season means it’s horror-focused streaming service Shudder’s time to shine. We’ll let the official logline for this Raymond Creamer-directed production do the heavy lifting: “Lulled into a necessary sense of comfort during a long home birth process, expecting parents and their midwife begin to realize something may be horribly wrong. A blizzard rages outside, trapping the family in their home as increasingly sinister complications arise.” The horror feature stars Brianna Hildebrand (“Deadpool”), Jack Quaid (“The Boys”) and Tiya Sircar (“The Good Place”).

“Resident Evil” | Sept. 18 | Theaters: Filmmaker Zach Cregger terrified us with 2022’s “Barbarian” and then gave us food for thought with (the still reasonably scary) “Weapons” last year. For his next act, he’s rebooting the long-running zombie-powered “Resident Evil” movie series, which is based on the video game series of the same name. Directed and co-written by Cregger (with Shay Hatten, “John Wick: Chapter 4”), “Resident Evil” stars “Weapons” alum Austin Abrams as a medical courier making a delivery when the all-important disease outbreak takes place. He then must desperately fight for survival. The cast also features Zach Cherry, Paul Walter Hauser and Kali Reis as scientists with the oh-so-problematic Umbrella Corp. We can’t help but find this to be an odd choice by Cregger, whose “Resident Evil” fandom stems from the game, not the earlier movies, but we like his choice to tell what is said to be an original parallel story rather than a reinvention of what’s already been done.

“Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom” | Sept. 18 | Theaters: It’s hard to resist anything by British stop-motion studio Aardman, be it a lovely “Wallace & Gromit,” “Chicken Run” or “Shaun the Sheep” offering. This movie — the third big-screen “Shaun” adventure, following “Shaun the Sheep Movie” (2015) and “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon” (2019) — involves a Halloween-season mystery at Mossy Bottom farm. It sounds scary, but this is no time to be (cough) sheepish.

“Sunny Dancer” | Sept. 18 | Theaters: Bella Ramsey stars in this coming-of-age dramedy set at — as her character, Ivy, calls it — “chemo camp.” The 17-year-old cancer survivor doesn’t want to be there, but we can expect her to make a connection with other youths and a camp counselor played by Neil Patrick Harris. George Jaques (“Black Dog”) wrote and directed the film.

“The Weight” | Sept. 18 | Theaters: Set in 1930s Oregon, this historical drama stars Ethan Hawke as the recently incarcerated Samuel Murphy, who’s offered a dangerous deal by a warden (Russell Crowe). Padraic McKinley, a long-time TV editor on series including “Dexter,” is making his directorial debut.

“The Love Hypothesis” | Sept. 23 | Prime Video: Lili Reinhart stars as Olive, a Ph.D. candidate focused on her future who becomes entangled in a complicated romantic situation involving a professor played by Tom Bateman, in this adaptation of Ali Hazelwood’s bestselling 2021 novel. Rachel Marsh and Nicholas Duvernay play supporting roles in the rom-com, directed by Claire Scanlon (“The People We Hate at the Wedding”).

“Forgotten Island” | Sept. 25 | Theaters: DreamWorks Animation is behind this adventure about a pair of lifelong friends, Jo (voiced by H.E.R.) and Raissa (Liza Soberano), who find themselves at a crossroads when they are transported to a magical world via a portal. Problematically, on the island of Nakali, memories fade more and more the longer you stay. More voice work is turned in by Broadway veteran Lea Salonga, Dave Franco, Jenny Slate, Manny Jacinto and Jo Koy, among others.

“Heart of the Beast” | Sept. 25 | Theaters: David Ayer (“End of Watch,” “The Beekeeper”) is at the helm for this survival thriller in which Brad Pitt portrays a Special Forces officer who, following a catastrophic plane crash and with only his retired combat dog by his side, becomes stranded in the Alaskan wilderness. J.K. Simmons and Anna Lambe play supporting roles.

“Primetime” | Sept. 25 | Theaters: Robert Pattinson portrays “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen in the mid-2000s in this biographical thriller based on a 2007 article in Esquire, “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die.” Lance Oppenheim (“Some Kind of Heaven”) directs, with Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo and singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers among the film’s supporting players.

“Unabomber” | Sept. 25 | Netflix: Janus Metz (“ZeroZeroZero,” “All the Old Knives”) helms this fact-based drama in which Jacob Tremblay (“Room,” “Wonder”) stars as the infamous Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, and Russell Crowe portrays famed psychology professor Henry Murray, with ties to a young Ted at Harvard University. Shailene Woodley portrays the FBI agent leading the manhunt for the Unabomber, and the cast also includes Annabelle Wallis and Alexander Ludwig in supporting roles.

“Digger” | Oct. 2 | Theaters: Pairings do not get more intriguing than superstar actor Tom Cruise and acclaimed filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu, he of “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” and “The Revenant.” They’re teaming for this satirical black comedy in which Cruise’s character is racing to save a world he’s in danger of destroying. The impressive supporting cast includes John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons and “House of the Dragon” star Emma D’Arcy.

“Verity” | Oct. 2 | Theaters: You don’t tend to associate Michael Showalter — long ago a cast member of the MTV sketch comedy show “The State” and the director of movies including the comedy-drama “The Big Sick” and the hilarious “The Lovebirds” — with psychological erotic thrillers, but he’s at the helm of this one, an adaptation of the Colleen Hoover novel. Adapted by screenwriter Nick Antosca, the creator of Apple TV’s “Cape Fear,” “Verity” reteams Showalter with Anne Hathaway, who starred in his 2024 offering, “The Idea of You.” She portrays a bestselling author, Verity Crawford, while Dakota Johnson stars as another writer, Lowen Ashleigh, who finds herself on a difficult journey. Josh Hartnett portrays Verity’s husband, Jeremy.

“Animals” | Oct. 9 | Netflix: Slated to hit select theaters at the same time it releases on the streaming giant, this Netflix production is helmed by and stars Ben Affleck. He portrays a candidate for mayor, who’s squeezed for ransom money after his son is kidnapped, in the crime thriller. It also features Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson and Steven Yeun. Affleck co-wrote the screenplay with the prolific Billy Ray (“Captain Phillips,” “Richard Jewell”) and the lesser-known Connor O. McIntyre.

“Matchbox: The Movie” | Oct. 9 | Apple TV: Mattel’s Matchbox toy brand serves as the backbone for this action comedy, in which an undercover CIA agent, John Cena’s Sean Walker, reunites with some childhood friends and ends up pulling them into an international adventure with the world’s fate at stake. Directed by Sam Hargrave (“Extraction”), “Matchbox: The Movie” also features performances by several notable actors, among them Jessica Biel, Sam Richardson and Teyonah Parris.

“Other Mommy” | Oct. 9 | Theaters: Horror veteran James Wan is a producer in this pre-Halloween scare helmed by Rob Savage (“Host,” “The Boogeyman”) that sees Academy Award winner Jessica Chastain in the dual roles of Bela’s mother and the movie’s titular supernatural entity. The supporting cast includes Jay Duplass (“Transparent”), Dichen Lachman (“Severance”) and Arabella Olivia Clark (“The Housemaid”) as the aforementioned Bela. The film’s source material is the 2024 novel “Incidents Around the House” by “Bird Box” author Josh Malerman.

“The Social Reckoning” | Oct. 9 | Theaters: Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing”) is the writer and director of this sequel of sorts to the acclaimed 2010 drama “The Social Network,” directed by David Fincher and starring Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Fincher’s gone, as is Eisenberg, with Jeremy Strong (“Succession,” “The Apprentice”) portraying an older Zuck at the time of an information leak in 2021 about the harmful effects of platforms such as Facebook by whistleblower Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison, “Anora”) and reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”).

“Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” | Oct. 9 | Theaters: Bassam Tariq (“Mogul Mowgli”) is the writer and director of this action drama that stars Mahershala Ali as a religiously devout hit man who, after the loss of his wife, desperately tries to protect his kids from forces closing in around him. Notable supporting cast members include John Cho, Tramell Tillman and Giancarlo Esposito. The film is set to open in limited theaters on Sept. 25 before going wider.

“Breeder” | Oct. 16 | Theaters: Need something weird for Scaretober? Consider the logline from this offering from the Independent Film Company and Shudder: “An eccentric poodle breeder lures a broke college student to her remote ranch with a promise of research funding. But, as he soon learns, there’s a catch.” Daniel Doheny, Dot-Marie Jones and Maddie Phillips are among the cast.

“Masterplan” | Oct. 16 | Prime Video: Perhaps we’ll learn that the family that steals together stays together, as a legendary thief (Stanley Tucci) recruits two strangers (Simona Tabasco and Victor Belmondo) … who are actually his kids to help steal the “Mona Lisa” in this slick-looking, straight-to-streaming heist flick.

“Sacrifice” | Oct. 16 | Netflix: Chris Evans portrays a movie star, and Anya Taylor-Joy plays what Netflix’s logline for “Sacrifice” calls “a radical warrior.” The zealot, along with her followers, takes Evans’ character hostage on a night that “descends into chaos, both an inward journey and an outward adventure ensue, where the line between performance and belief, salvation and sacrifice, begins to blur.” The stacked supporting cast boasts Vincent Cassel, Sam Richardson, John Malkovich and Salma Hayek Pinault, among others.

“Sense and Sensibility” | Oct. 16 | Theaters: Daisy Edgar-Jones (“Where the Crawdads Sing,” “Twisters”) stars as Elinor Dashwood, and Esmé Creed-Miles (Prime Video’s “Hanna”) plays opposite her as Elinor’s sister Marianne in this latest adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved 1811 romantic drama novel. The cast also boasts Caitríona Balfe and Frank Dillane, and Georgia Oakley (“Blue Jean”) directs.

“Street Fighter” | Oct. 16 | Theaters: After the release of “Mortal Kombat II” in May, you may have wondered how long it would be until another long-running fighting video game series was punching and kicking its way back into theaters. This latest big-screen “Street Fighter” is helmed and co-written by Kitao Sakurai (“The Eric Andre Show,” “Bad Trip”) and stars Noah Centineo as Ken Masters, Andrew Koji as Ryu, Callina Liang as Chun-Li, David Dastmalchian as M. Bison and wrestlers Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoai and Cody Rhodes as Akuma and Guile, respectively. Given Sakurai’s experience in comedy — and that pal Eric André will be part of the proceedings as Don Sauvage — you’d expect the flick to bring a few laughs along with its over-the-top fighting sequences.

“Tenzing” | Oct. 16 | Apple TV: In select theaters a week before its streaming release, this fact-based drama is the story of Himalayan climber Tenzing Norgay (Genden Phuntsok), who, with New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary (Tom Hiddleston), was the first to summit Mount Everest. Known for documentaries including “Sherpa” and “Mountain,” Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom directs.

“Whalefall” | Oct. 16 | Theaters: A scuba diver (Austin Abrams, “Weapons”) searching for the remains of his father (Josh Brolin) has little time to escape the sperm whale that has swallowed him in this survival thriller helmed by Brian Duffield (“No One Will Save You”). The latter co-wrote the screenplay with Daniel Kraus, author of the 2023 novel of the same name.

“Ali G: Who Iz I?” | Oct. 23 | Theaters: After daring British actor-comedian Sacha Baron Cohen starred in a second movie as outlandish but lovable Kazakh Borat Sagdiyev, 2020’s “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” you had to wonder when he would again inhabit another of his satirical creations, the ridiculously dressed Londoner Ali G. The plot of this follow-up to 2002’s “Ali G Indahouse” is said to involve Ali learning his girlfriend (Morgana Robinson) is pregnant and venturing off to America to try to make money. It’s sure to be a wild ride and it will see Baron Cohen make his directorial debut.

“Clayface” | Oct. 23 | Theaters: Creatively led by James Gunn, the relatively new DC Universe is already dabbling in horror with this film based around a lesser-known Batman villain. Tom Rhys Harries (“The Gentlemen”) portrays the titular figure, aka Matt Hagen, who, after a procedure gone wrong, is able to reshape his body like clay. Naomi Ackie (“Blink Twice”) plays a scientist and Matt’s love interest, while Max Minghella (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) is a Gotham City cop. James Watkins (“Speak No Evil”) directs from a screenplay by prolific horror master Mike Flanagan (“Doctor Sleep,” “Midnight Mass”) and Hossein Amini (“Snow White and the Huntsman”), with Flanagan credited with the story.

“Klara and the Sun” | Oct. 23 | Theaters: The talented — and typically offbeat in the most pleasant of ways — Taika Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit,” “Thor: Ragnarok”) directs this adaptation of the 2021 dystopian science-fiction novel by the acclaimed Kazuo Ishiguro. Co-written by Waititi and Dahvi Waller (“Mad Men”), the film stars Jenna Ortega as Klara, who, as press materials state, is “an Artificial Friend who wants nothing more than to find the perfect home.” Klara becomes an important friend to Josie (Mia Tharia), who has a difficult relationship with her mother (Amy Adams), the pair having endured significant loss. This tale of healing also features supporting work by, among others, Steve Buscemi and Natasha Lyonne.

“Wicker” | Oct. 23 | Theaters: Based on its trailer, this comedic romantic fantasy film, set in a medieval farming town, will be more than a little naughty and positively cheeky. Olivia Colman stars as a fisherwoman who enlists a basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband (Alexander Skarsgård). Elizabeth Debicki and Richard E. Grant are among the notable supporting players. Adapted from Ursula Wills-Jones’s short story “The Wicker Husband,” “Wicker” is written by the “Save Yourselves!” tandem of Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson.

“Wildwood” | Oct. 23 | Theaters: The latest endeavor by the stop-motion animation wizards of Laika (“Coraline,” “Kubo and the Two Strings”) is a gorgeous-looking adaptation of the 2011 novel of the same name by the husband-and-wife tandem of writer Colin Meloy and illustrator Carson Ellis. Laika CEO Travis Knight — the son of Nike co-founder Phil Knight and the director of non-Laika endeavors “Bumblebee” (2018) and this year’s “Masters of the Universe” — is at the helm, with Chris Butler (Laika’s “ParaNorman”) credited with the screenplay. Says Laika: “The film follows Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) and her classmate Curtis Mehlberg (Jacob Tremblay), who are drawn into a hidden magical forest near Portland, Oregon, in an attempt to save Prue’s kidnapped brother, Mac (Arthur Knight, son of Travis), from the crows, who are led by a mysterious woman named Alexandra (Carey Mulligan).” A number of well-known actors also contribute voice work, including Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina, Jake Johnson, Angela Bassett and Amandla Stenberg.

“The Mosquito Bowl” | Oct. 30 | Theaters: A Netflix production set to land on the streaming platform less than a month after hitting theaters, this sports drama is directed and co-written by Peter Berg and is based on the book “The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II” by Buzz Bissinger. If those two names together jog a football-shaped memory, it’s because Berg wrote and directed the 2004 big-screen adaptation of Bissinger’s 1990 book, “Friday Night Lights,” and developed the subsequent TV series version. Based on a real event, “The Mosquito Bowl” tells the tale of four college football stars who put their careers on hold and who, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, play a meaningful football game as they prepare for the invasion of Okinawa. Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson and Tom Francis are members of the ensemble cast.

“The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” | Oct. 30 | Theaters: John Turturro’s Harry Lehman is a veteran pickpocket still trying to make a go of it in a modern New York City, where wallets filled with cash are a thing of the past. Meanwhile, he’s caring for his disabled wife, Rosie (Karina Arroyave), and his life becomes even more complicated when he accidentally steals something very valuable to the wrong people. The cast of this drama, written and directed by Noah Segan (“Blood Relatives”), also features Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Steve Buscemi and Jamie Lee Curtis. The film will be in select markets a week earlier.

“A Dog’s Perfect Christmas” | Nov. 4 | Netflix: Dennis Quaid has been a fixture of the heartwarming movie series begun with 2017’s “A Dog’s Purpose” — based on the 2010 novel of the same name by W. Bruce Cameron — and he’s back for this holiday tail, er, tale co-written by Cameron and his wife and regular collaborator, Cathryn Michon, who also directs. The cast also includes Milo Ventimiglia and Mary Steenburgen.

“The Cat in the Hat” | Nov. 6 | Theaters: Hollywood isn’t ever shy about trying again. Critics panned the 2003 live-action adaptation of the beloved Dr. Seuss book starring Mike Myers. This shiny-looking animated version, which features Bill Hader voicing the fantastic feline, looks to be a safer bet.

“Ghost Soldier” | Nov. 6 | Theaters: William Eubank (“Underwater”) directs Jim Caviezel in this action thriller. Caviezel (“The Passion of the Christ,” “Sound of Freedom”) portrays a solitary man living off the grid who must lean on his Special Forces training and background in advanced weapons development to defend his hometown from a powerful and corrupt corporation.