Are we already entering the summer movie season? April brings us the most anticipated theatrical release of the year, with Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame, and there’s a very good chance it will remain the biggest movie through the end of 2019. But there are many other great titles coming out this month, including a new DC superhero movie and some major horror and documentary features.
Below is our guide to all the major titles coming to theaters in April and how to get your tickets now.
April 5:
Shazam!
Starring: Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Jack Dylan Grazer
The latest entry of the DC Extended Universe is also the franchise’s most standalone effort, following the Big-like adventures of a teenage boy (Asher Angel) who can magically turn into an adult-size superhero (Levy). It’s all fun and games and flying, though, until he must save his city from the evil Dr. Sivana (Strong).
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Pet Sematary
Starring: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow
Based on Stephen King’s classic horror novel, this second adaptation of Pet Sematary centers around a burial ground from which the dead come back to life — yet now they’re evil. That includes pet cats or young children, both in the case of the oft-grieving Creed family, who have just moved into town from the big city.
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The Best of Enemies
Starring: Taraji P. Henson, Sam Rockwell, Ann Heche
Oscar winner Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) plays another bigot in this drama based on the true story of Ku Klux Klan leader C.P. Ellis and his longtime rivalry turned partnership with civil rights activist Ann Atwater (Henson) in Durham, North Carolina, in the early 1970s over a matter of school desegregation.
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Amazing Grace
Starring: Aretha Franklin, Mick Jagger, Rev. James Cleveland
Director Sydney Pollack (The Firm) originally helmed this concert film back in 1972, documenting the late Aretha Franklin’s performance with the choir of the New Bethel Baptist Church in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. Unfinished for more than 40 years, the movie is finally hitting theaters thanks to music producer Alan Elliott.
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April 12:
Hellboy
Starring: David Harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane
Rebooting the devilish comic book movie franchise after two adaptations from Guillermo del Toro, this version of Hellboy aims to be darker and more R-rated. Harbour portrays the titular supernatural superhero as he and the rest of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense face a villainous Arthurian witch named Nimue, aka “the Queen of Blood” (Jovovich).
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Missing Link
Starring (voices): Hugh Jackman, Zoe Saldana, Zach Galifianakis
From Laika, the stop-motion animation studio behind Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, comes a comedic adventure about a Bigfoot (Galifianakis) who teams up with an investigator (Jackman) and a free spirit (Saldana) to travel the world in search of his long-lost Yeti relatives. Timothy Olyphant co-stars as the voice of an evil explorer.
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Little
Starring: Regina Hall, Issa Rae, Marsai Martin
In the second Big-inspired movie of the month, Hall plays a ruthlessly successful tech mogul who is magically transformed into her younger self. Martin, who plays the teenage version of the character, also came up with the comedic premise and serves as an executive producer on the movie, one of Hollywood’s youngest ever.
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After
Starring: Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Josephine Langford, Selma Blair
Based on the best-selling romance novel by Anna Todd, which began as One Direction fan fiction involving singer Harry Styles, this drama centers around the love story of a good-girl college student (Langford) with a boyfriend back home who enters a rocky relationship with a cruel bad boy (Fiennes Tiffin) with a dark secret.
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April 17:
Penguins
Starring (voice): Ed Helms
The latest real-life animal adventure from Disneynature takes us to Antarctica for a look at Adélie penguins. Helms narrates the movie, which focuses on the “coming-of-age story” of Steve, one in a million of these flightless birds, as he finds a mate and then cares for their child while avoiding threats, including killer whales and leopard seals.
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Breakthrough
Starring: Chrissy Metz, Josh Lucas, Topher Grace
Based on a true story, this faith-based drama follows the parents (Metz and Lucas) of a teenager who miraculously recovered after he seemingly drowned in an icy lake and then fell into a coma. Mike Colter co-stars as the first responder who saves the boy (Marcel Ruiz), while Grace portrays a local pastor at the family’s church.
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April 19:
The Curse of La Llorona
Starring: Linda Cardellini, Marisol Ramirez, Raymond Cruz
Produced by James Wan and tied to his Conjuring Universe franchise, The Curse of La Llorona is another horror movie inspired by supernatural folklore. Cardellini stars as a widowed mother of two who is haunted by the legendary ghost known as La Llorona, aka “the Weeping Woman,” in 1970s Los Angeles.
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Under the Silver Lake
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough, Topher Grace
The latest movie from It Follows writer/director David Robert Mitchell, Under the Silver Lake is a comedic neo-noir thriller in which Garfield plays a man searching for the mysterious woman (Keough) who suddenly came into his life only to immediately go missing.
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April 26:
Avengers: Endgame
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Brie Larson, Paul Rudd, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Karen Gillan, Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Letitia Wright
This is it, the 22nd installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and potentially the one that ends it all — or at least the franchise as we know it. The follow-up to the cliffhanging Avengers: Infinity War follows the surviving superheroes, led by Captain America, as they attempt to set right what went away when Thanos snapped his fingers. Joined by Captain Marvel, the Avengers might just be able to reverse the devastating genocide of half the MCU’s population.
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The White Crow
Starring: Oleg Ivenko, Ralph Fiennes, Louis Hoffman
Oscar-nominated actor Ralph Fiennes returns to the director’s chair for this biographical drama about Rudolph Nureyev (Ivenko), the brilliant Russian dancer and choreographer who famously defected from the Soviet Union in 1961 at the height of the Cold War. Fiennes also co-stars in the movie as ballet master Alexander Pushkin.
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J.T. Leroy
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern, Courtney Love
The scandal that shook the publishing world is dramatized in this biopic from Justin Kelly (King Cobra) starring Oscar-nominated actress Laura Dern as author Laura Albert, who took on the alter ego “J.T. Leroy” and then had her sister-in-law, Savannah Knoop (Kristen Stewart) portray the suddenly celebrated personality in public.
