Gerard Johnstone directs this efficient shocker for US film producer Blumhouse, best known for horror hits. The film is about an AI-enabled children’s companion with trenchant views on how to bring up its creator’s orphaned niece. Allison Williams takes the Dr Frankenstein role in this tale of a childhood friendship she has inadvertently designed to last forever. US cinemas now; UK cinemas from 13 January
Irreverent, out-of-this-world fun from Blades of Glory directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck. An asteroid strike sends space miner Andy (Anthony Ramos) spiralling down to an alien planet where he must rescue a colleague (Naomi Scott). Only two things stand in his way: the native fauna and his own spectacularly unhelpful artificially-intelligent survival suit (voiced by Zachary Quinto). US and UK cinemas from 10 February
Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (who made their names with 2018’s A Quiet Place) write and direct this off-world thriller. Adam Driver plays an astronaut who crash-lands on a desolate planet, only to discover that he isn’t alone. This is all we know of a film whose fraught production history has generated any number of wild rumours in the past couple of years (in which dinosaurs have featured prominently). US and UK cinemas from 10 March
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Christopher Nolan’s enormous, big-budget biopic about the “father” of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, stars frequent collaborator Cillian Murphy as the theoretical physicist who managed the Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project and designed the bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr. and Florence Pugh also star. US and UK cinemas from 21 July
Director Gareth Edwards’s 2016 Star Wars spin-off Rogue One gave that franchise a vital shot in the arm. He returns to science fiction with a near-future romance starring John David Washington and Gemma Chan. No plot details were available at time of writing, but on past performance (Edwards wrote as well as directed the 2010 low-budget smash Monsters) this is definitely one to watch out for. Scheduled for release in US and UK cinemas on 6 October
Denis Villeneuve once again takes up Frank Herbert’s classic saga of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), destined to become the scourge of the universe as he endeavours to save his adopted desert planet Arrakis from destruction. New cast members include Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Léa Seydoux and Christopher Walken. Game of Thrones’ linguistic consultant David Peterson developed imaginary languages for the film. Scheduled for release in US and UK cinemas on 3 November
Spaceman Johan Renck, best known for music videos before his work on the visually stunning and profoundly disturbing mini-series Chernobyl, directs this adaptation of the 2017 novel Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař. The Netflix original stars Adam Sandler as Jakub Procházka, determined to overcome his rural upbringing and become his country’s first astronaut. Netflix original, date TK
The Grab (2022) Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s first documentary since Blackfish in 2013 reveals how land purchases by autocratic states are giving countries like Russia, China and Saudi Arabia control over the future of the world’s fresh water, farming and livestock. Distribution negotiations are under way for a film Cowperthwaite concedes () may be “upping her enemy count”. Released in US 7 October 2022; awaiting UK release
Patrick and the Whale (2022) Marine videographer Patrick Dykstra, who won a BAFTA for his cinematography on the BBC’s Blue Planet II, heads to the Caribbean island nation of Dominica, joins a pod of sperm whales and makes a special friend of Dolores, a 13,600-kilogram marine mammal with a brain considerably bigger than Patrick’s. This visually stunning celebration of the ocean’s gentlest giant premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada last September and is awaiting wider distribution. US release 7 October 2022; UK release date TK
