3. The Hateful Eight
Release Date: December 25th 2015 (In Glorious 70mm), January 8th 2016 (in everything else). Despite the various false starts and some fine exceptions, the revisionist Western revival never really happened after Unforgiven. We might have got The Assassination Of Jesse James, The Proposition, True Grit and Django Unchained, but cowboy film-makers have been beating a lonely drum. Luckily, Quentin Tarantino cares about as much about current genre tastes as he does for questions about being a racist in interviews, and his Hateful Eight - pregnant with a sort of Greatest Hits Tarantino cast - looks set to be a delight. Why Should You Be Thankful? Its Tarantino, so you get everything that sets him apart as a ludicrously good film-maker. Hes a pervert for visuals, a magpie of great character actors and performers and his script will be as sizzling as it is uncomfortably outrageous at times. The cast looks brilliant top to bottom, but its particularly exciting to see how Jennifer Jason Leighs wildcat performance turns out. Given what QT usually gets out of his leading ladies, theres hope for a lot. And of course, hes never better than when hes teasing out a slow-burn story web where everyone could (and probably will) kill each other horribly at the end.