21 Highly Anticipated Movies Screening At This Year's SXSW

From big-budget comedies like Spy and Get Hard to indie films starring Jason Schwartzman and Natasha Lyonne, the Austin-based film festival has a lot to offer.

With its laid-back, party-friendly, homegrown Austin vibe, the SXSW Film Festival — part of the larger SXSW festival that runs from March 13–March 22 — charts a distinctive path from other fests throughout the year. For one, it embraces more mainstream, audience-friendly fare from major studios (like the first film on this list), and on the opposite end of the spectrum, the film fest also supports truly outré independent movie experiments (like the second film on this list). And there's plenty in between.

1. Spy

Larry Horricks / 20th Century Fox

Director and screenwriter: Paul Feig

Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Miranda Hart, Bobby Cannavale, Allison Janney, Peter Serafinowicz, Morena Baccarin, and Jude Law

Writer-director Feig's distaff comic take on the classic spy thriller stars his Bridesmaids and The Heat star Melissa McCarthy. 20th Century Fox isn't releasing Spy until June 5, so this early premiere suggests some serious confidence in the film's ability to generate some major buzz, and then sustain it for more than two months.

2. Uncle Kent 2

LGray Photography

Director: Todd Rohal

Screenwriter: Kent Osborne

Starring: Kent Osborne, Kate Herman, Lyndsay Hailey, Jennifer Prediger, Steve Little, and Joe Swanberg

In the hyper-meta follow-up to Joe Swanberg's barely seen 2011 indie Uncle Kent, Kent Osborne, who played a quasi version of himself in the first film, is so desperate to make a sequel that he goes to Comic-Con (for some reason) and ultimately down a vortex of his own psyche. (Full disclosure: I went to high school with director Todd Rohal, who was a senior when I was a freshman. He produced a film critic show for our school that I appeared on once to review Philadelphia. I haven't seen him in 20 years.)

3. Ex Machina

A24

Director and screenwriter: Alex Garland

Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, and Alicia Vikander

After writing several high-brow sci-fi-driven features (including 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Never Let Me Go, and Dredd), Alex Garland is making his directorial feature debut with this film about a recluse tech CEO (Oscar Isaac) who invites one of his employees (Domhnall Gleeson) to his enormous estate to test a shockingly lifelike artificial intelligence (Alicia Vikander).

4. The Final Girls

Courtesy SXSW

Director: Todd Strauss-Schulson

Screenwriters: M. A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller

Starring: Taissa Farmiga, Malin Akerman, Adam DeVine, Thomas Middleditch, Alia Shawkat, Alexander Ludwig, Nina Dobrev, Angela Trimbur, Tory N. Thompson, and Chloe Bridges

More meta moviemaking! Max (Taissa Farmiga) is a high schooler whose late mother used to be an '80s scream queen — or "final girl," a term first coined by feminist film theorist Carol J. Clover in 1987. One night, she and her friends find themselves mysteriously trapped inside a slasher movie (as you do) and they have to fight their way back out. The similarly self-aware The Cabin in the Woods premiered at SXSW in 2012 to a raucous reception —  The Final Girls will likely never have a more friendly audience than it will in Austin.

5. Trainwreck

Universal Pictures

Director: Judd Apatow

Screenwriter: Amy Schumer

Starring: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, Vanessa Bayer, Tilda Swinton, LeBron James, and John Cena

On the heels of her breakout Comedy Central show, Amy Schumer wrote and stars in this romantic comedy about a proudly promiscuous magazine writer who falls for the sports doctor (Bill Hader) she is profiling. This film won't premiere until July, and it's being billed as a work-in-progress screening at SXSW, but the last time director Judd Apatow brought a work-in-progress film to Austin, it was as the producer of Bridesmaids. Clearly, he's hoping history repeats itself.

6. Get Hard

Warner Bros.

Director: Etan Cohen

Screenwriters: Story by Adam McKay and Jay Martel & Ian Roberts, screenplay by Jay Martel & Ian Roberts and Etan Cohen

Starring: Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, Tip "T.I." Harris, Alison Brie, Edwina Findley, and Craig T. Nelson

The third major studio comedy to screen at SXSW pairs Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart. The former plays James King, a financial manager facing a stint in prison for fraud, and the latter plays Darnell Lewis, the straight-laced family man King mistakes for an ex-con and begs for help in learning how to survive doing hard time. Get Hard is the feature directing debut of Etan Cohen, who made a name for himself as a screenwriter on the envelope-pushing 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder (Justin Theroux and Ben Stiller also wrote the screenplay). This film's story, meanwhile, hinges on a clueless white man making a grossly stereotypical assumption about a black man, so it's safe to assume Get Hard will try to push the envelope until it rips.

7. 7 Chinese Brothers

Courtesy of 7 Chinese Brothers

Director and screenwriter: Bob Byington

Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Tunde Adebimpe, Eleanore Pienta, Stephen Root, and Olympia Dukakis

Jason Schwartzman — already having a good film festival year with his Sundance hit The Overnight (also screening at SXSW) — stars as an arrested, wise-ass twentysomething who can barely hold a job and lives in a low-key haze of booze and pills. He remains devoted to his grandmother (Olympia Dukakis) and his dog Arrow (played by Schwartzman's real dog Arrow), and his affection for his new boss at the local Quick Lube (Eleanore Pienta) may just help him turn things around. (The title, by the way, refers to the R.E.M. song of the same name.)

8. Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine

Courtesy SXSW

Director: Alex Gibney

Alex Gibney was another standout presence at this year's Sundance Film Festival with his Scientology documentary Going Clear, and at SWXW, he's digging into the life of Apple's legendary co-founder and visionary leader Steve Jobs. The festival synopsis promises "a critical examination" of Jobs, including interviews with those who knew him.

9. Fresno

Aaron Epstein

Director: Jamie Babbit

Screenwriter: Karey Dornetto

Starring: Natasha Lyonne, Judy Greer, Malcolm Barrett, Jessica St. Clair, Fred Armisen, Molly Shannon, Michael Hitchcock, Ron Livingston, Allison Tolman, and Aubrey Plaza

The last time director Jamie Babbit teamed up with Natasha Lyonne, it was for the cult favorite coming-out comedy But I'm a Cheerleader. This time, Lyonne plays Martha, the younger lesbian sister of Shannon (Judy Greer), a recovering sex addict who accidentally kills a guest staying in the hotel where she works as a maid.

10. The Invitation

Courtesy of The Invitation

Director: Karyn Kusama

Screenwriters: Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi

Starring: Logan Marshall-Green, Tammy Blanchard, Michiel Huisman, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Lindsay Burdge, John Carroll Lynch, Mike Doyle, Michelle Krusiec, Marieh Delfino, and Jay Larson

Two years after the death of their son, grieving father Will (Logan Marshall-Green) suddenly reunites with his eerily altered ex-wife Eden (Tammy Blanchard) — along with her new husband (Michiel Huisman) — at a dinner party at what was once Will and Eden's home. And then things get (even more) sinister.

11. Hello, My Name Is Doris

Seacia Pavao

Director: Michael Showalter

Screenwriters: Laura Terruso and Michael Showalter

Starring: Sally Field, Max Greenfield, Beth Behrs, Wendi Mclendon-Covey, Stephen Root, Elizabeth Reaser, Jack Antonoff, Natasha Lyonne, and Tyne Daly

So often, movies romantically match older men with younger women, but Michael Showalter has made a career of inverting movie cliches (The Baxter, They Came Together). In his latest, Sally Field plays a single 60-year-old woman whose pursuit of her much younger co-worker (Max Greenfield) ends up making her a New York hipster celebrity.

12. Breaking a Monster

Ethan Palmer

Director: Luke Meyer

What happens when some tweens from Brooklyn go from posting videos to YouTube of their metal rock performances in Times Square to landing a $1.8 million record deal with Sony Music? This warts-and-all doc traces the sudden and swift rise of Unlocking the Truth as they spar with their manager, perform at last year's SXSW Music Festival, and struggle to record their first single. The band will also perform on the first night of the 2015 SXSW Music Festival.

13. Manson Family Vacation

Courtesy SXSW

Director and screenwriter: J. Davis

Starring: Jay Duplass, Linas Phillips, Tobin Bell, Leonora Pitts, Adam Chernick, and Davie-Blue

It's a film festival in the 2010s, so invariably there is a film featuring at least one of the Duplass brothers. This time, it's Jay (of Amazon's Transparent), who plays a straight-laced Los Angeles lawyer whose ne'er-do-well brother (Linas Phillips) arrives in town and demands they visit the famous sites of the Manson Family murders. Mark Duplass, who is also giving a keynote address at the festival, executive produced with his frequent collaborator and older brother Jay.

14. Raiders!

Kurt Zala

Directors: Jeremy Coon and Tim Skousen

For over a decade, film geeks have heard about the famed shot-for-shot adaptation of Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark that three teenage boys made over seven years in the '80s — save for the famous scene involving a "flying wing" airplane that ultimately explodes. This documentary explains how it all happened, and how the men reunited 30 years later to finally shoot that missing scene with a largely crowdfunded budget in excess of $50,000. Their original shot-for-shot remake will also play immediately following the premiere screening of the documentary.

15. Wild Horses

Fred Hayes

Director and screenwriter: Robert Duvall

Starring: Robert Duvall, James Franco, Josh Hartnett, Luciana Duvall, Adriana Barraza, Jim Parrack, Angie Cepeda, and Devon Abner

Robert Duvall's first directorial effort in 13 years follows a Texas Ranger (played by Duvall's wife, Argentine actress Luciana Duvall) who is determined to solve a 15-year-old cold case involving a missing boy, a powerful rancher (Duvall), and his sons (James Franco and Josh Hartnett).

16. Sweaty Betty

Courtesy of Sweaty Betty

Directors and screenwriters: Joseph Frank and Zachary Reed

Starring: Rico Mitchell, Seth Dubose, Floyd Rich III, Uncle Bay, Tarich Rich, Floyd Rich V, Chrissy Rich, Charlotte the Pig, and Cassy the Dog

The lives of several families living in Washington, D.C., collide, and it involves a 1,000-pound pig named Miss Charlotte whose owners desperately want her to become the mascot for the Washington Redskins. (Make your own joke about that particular NFL team here.)

17. Moonwalkers

Courtesy SXSW

Director: Antoine Bardou-Jacquet

Screenwriter: Dean Craig

Starring: Ron Perlman, Rupert Grint, and Robert Sheehan

Ron Perlman and Rupert Grint play a CIA agent and a rock band manager, respectively, who team up in 1960s London to try to get Stanley Kubrick to fake the Apollo 11 moon landing. I repeat: Ron Weasley and Hellboy want the director of 2001: A Space Odyssey to fake one of the greatest achievements in human history. Even if this movie is a total mess, it will be kind of impossible for it to be boring.

18. GTFO: Get The F#&% Out

Courtesy GTFO

Director: Shannon Sun-Higginson

Last year, GamerGate made depressingly clear that the place of women in video games — as both gamers and game designers — has never been more fraught with toxic misogyny and harassment. This documentary promises to explore the issue, but, tellingly, its Kickstarter campaign predates the GamerGate conflagration by at least a year. This issue has been simmering for quite some time.

19. A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story

Courtesy SXSW

Director: Sara Hirsh Bordo

Due to a rare syndrome that keeps her body from gaining any weight, Lizzie Velasquez has experienced bullying both in person and online, and she rose to prominence after her TEDx talk about bullying went viral. This documentary chronicles her life and her efforts to pass federal anti-bullying legislation.

20. One & Two

Courtesy SXSW

Director: Andrew Droz Palermo

Screenwriters: Andrew Droz Palermo and Neima Shahdadi

Starring: Kiernan Shipka, Timothée Chalamet, Elizabeth Reaser, and Grant Bowler

In her first major starring role post-Mad Men, Kiernan Shipka plays Eva, a teenager who shares a curious special ability with her brother Zac (Timothée Chalamet) and lives with her parents on a farm that is itself mysteriously isolated from the rest of the world.

21. The Breakfast Club

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Director and screenwriter: John Hughes

Starring: Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy

In 1985, a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal sat in their high school library for Saturday school detention, and learned they had much more in common than they ever imagined. Stars Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy are scheduled to help celebrate the 30th anniversary celebration of John Hughes' indelible high school drama at SXSW with a special screening of a new remastered edition, which will also screen nationwide on March 26 and 31.

Mar. 12, 2015, at 21:35 PM

The original version of this post reversed Rupert Grint and Ron Perlman's roles in "Moonwalkers." It's since been updated to correctly state that Grint is the rock band manager and Perlman is the CIA agent in the film.

This post has also been corrected to state that Carol J. Clover's term "final girl" first appeared in print in 1987, not 1992.