It’s been more than a year since the coronavirus pandemic forced cinemas to shutter their doors and sent us scurrying into the safety of our own homes.

Tumbleweeds drifted across Hollywood for the better part of 2020 as social distancing restrictions and shutdowns wreaked havoc on film release calendars worldwide.

As normality returns, though, we can finally look forward to the release of some of the most highly anticipated films and TV shows of the last year.

A Quiet Place Part II

John Krasinski and Emily Blunt’s horror sequel was due to come out on March 20, 2020.

As we are now painfully aware, some other ‘unprecedented’ things were happening right around that time which meant things didn’t quite go to plan.

The film was delayed until September, and delayed again until April 2021.

And then, it was delayed once more.

The good news: fans can finally catch the frightening flick in cinemas from May 27.

Stranger Things 

The eagerly-anticipated fourth season of science fiction thriller Stranger Things couldn’t escape the pandemic-related shutdown. (And by escape, we mean move production to Australia.)

Executive producer Shawn Levy told Collider that the delay turned out to be a silver lining for Stranger Things creators, Matt and Ross Duffer.

“I’ll just say the pandemic definitely massively delayed shooting and therefore the launch of our current season four,” Levy said.

“But it impacted very positively by allowing the Duffer brothers, for the first time ever, to write the entire season before we shoot it and to have time to rewrite in a way that they rarely had before, so the quality of these screenplays are exceptional, maybe better than ever.” 

Sadly, we still have a while to wait, with no word yet on the exact release date, but Netflix dropped has its first teaser trailer:

Marvel madness

The Marvel machine just won’t stop churning out hit after hit, and there’s a slew of new titles coming your way.

If you haven’t finished WandaVision, or The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, you better clear your calendar and get to it, because phase four of the Marvel cinematic universe is about to debut.

The long-awaited Black Widow movie will be available on Disney+ on July 9, and will explore the KBG origin story of Marvel’s deadliest woman.

The Scarlett Johansson-led film was tipped to premiere in May 2020, before delays saw it benched for more than a year.

Marvel’s latest sizzle reel also features clips from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and The Marvels, both of which will drop in 2022.

Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

Ryan Reynolds, Salma Hayek and Samuel L Jackson lead an all-star cast in the comedy-action film of the year.

The film follows a bodyguard on a much needed sabbatical, who gets dragged into mayhem by the wife of a hitman.

Originally penned for an August 2020 release, Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard will be in cinemas on June 16.

Spiral: From the Book of Saw 

Spanning eight films, the grisly and gory Saw franchise terrorised audiences for the better part of the 2000s.

Now, a new chapter is starting, and it looks painfully familiar.

This new instalment follows Detective Zeke Banks (Chris Rock) and his novice partner as they look into a series of eerie murders that remind them of the city’s gruesome past.