The 5 Most Anticipated Movies of September

As we inch closer to the perennial thrills of October, we’re starting to see the spookier stuff creep into our box office release schedules, including the No. 2 selection — and the No. 5 selection — in this month’s polls. But our top choice for the month is, in fact, a sci-fi action jaunt from the guy who brought us the most recent Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Read on for the most anticipated movies opening in September 2023!

Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla) hasn’t directed a film since Rogue One: A Star Wars Story back in 2016, but by most accounts, Rogue One is one of the best Star Wars projects we’ve gotten in recent memory, if not the best. So it shouldn’t be too surprising that his latest effort, another sci-fi action-adventure, is the most anticipated movie of the month. John David Washington stars as an ex-special forces mercenary in an unspecified future who is tasked with hunting down a malicious AI with the power to end humanity. The moral quandary? That AI has taken the form of a young child. This one hits theaters at the end of the month, and it co-stars people like Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, and Allison Janney.

Here’s that spooky stuff we were talking about up in the intro. After a brief detour into would-be reboot territory in 2021 with Spiral, the Saw franchise returns to its roots — somewhat literally — with Saw X, a direct sequel to the very first film. Tobin Bell returns as John Kramer, who travels to Mexico for a miracle cure for his cancer and discovers he’s been scammed; the only logical thing to do, of course, is to take on the mantle of Jigsaw once again and have his revenge. The Saw films were an annual Halloween staple for nearly a decade during the 2000s before they slowed down, but this may breathe new life into the franchise.

There are times when Denzel Washington wants to quote Shakespeare in black and white, and then there are times when he just wants to kick some ass. For the latter, it doesn’t get much more satisfying than Antoine Fuqua’s The Equalizer series, based on the 1980s TV show about vigilante justice. This third and presumably final installment takes the action to Southern Italy, where Denzel’s Robert McCall is looking to settle down but runs afoul of the local mob and decides to clean up his community. The only thing left for him to do now is a team-up with Liam Neeson.

Speaking of team-ups, we’ve got a new Expendables movie on the way, and if its title — Expend4bles — doesn’t tell you exactly what kind of movie it’s going to be, it’s still pretty clear this is firmly tongue-in-cheek business here. The plot almost doesn’t matter — we’re all here to see a bunch of past-their-prime action stars of yore come together to take down a global threat of some sort, and that’s what we’re getting. New names added to the cast include Ong Bak’s Tony Jaa, The Raid’s Iko Uwais, 50 Cent, Andy Garcia, and… Megan Fox.

And finally, we have Kenneth Branagh’s third Agatha Christie adaptation after Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. This one finds Branagh’s Hercule Poirot enjoying his retirement in the titular Italian city when he’s invited to a séance where, of course, one of the guests is murdered. Once again, it’s up to Poirot not only to figure out who the killer is, but whether or not something supernatural is actually going on. The previous two Poirot films have been fun little whodunnits for fans, and this one’s illustrious cast includes Tina Fey, Jamie Dornan, and Michelle Yeoh, among others.