Lena Waithe
In September, Lena Waithe became the first black woman to win an Emmy for comedy writing, for the “Thanksgiving” episode of Master of None, based on her own coming-out story. Her upbringing on the southside of Chicago also informs new TV drama The Chi, which she wrote, produced and stars in. Look out for her, too, in dystopian sci-fi Ready Player One.
Lucas Hedges
Already Oscar-nominated for his role as troubled teen Patrick in Manchester By the Sea, Lucas Hedges features in two more films currently garnering Oscar buzz in the form of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird. His first big lead role is to follow, in Joel Edgerton’s gay conversion therapy drama Boy Erased. Stardom seems pretty much assured.
Alden Ehrenreich
Han Solo was the role that catapulted Harrison Ford into the major league, and it could do the same for Alden Ehrenreich, who plays the young galactic buccaneer in Solo: A Star Wars Story, Lucasfilm’s latest Rogue One-style spinoff. Discerning cinemagoers will have already seen him in the Coen’s Hail, Caesar!. A universe of new opportunities awaits.
Vicky Krieps
Jean-Claude Juncker, Andy Schleck … now you can add Vicky Krieps to that list of famous Luxembourgians. With a filmography including Hanna and A Most Wanted Man, she should break through to the mainstream with a role opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s upcoming 1950s London fashion-world drama, Phantom Thread.
Chadwick Boseman
The Marvel Universe may be close to bursting point, but first there’s room for a Black Panther movie, with Chadwick Boseman reprising the role he first played in Captain America: Civil War. Boseman has described Black Panther as a “super antihero” with “swagger” – qualities he is more than familiar with after playing James Brown in Get On Up.
Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos
These three friends are already news-famous, for foiling an armed gunman and suspected terrorist on a train from Amsterdam to Paris in 2015. Now they are about to become movie-famous, too, because, in an unorthodox move, Clint Eastwood has cast them to play themselves in his film about the incident, The 15:17 to Paris.
Daniela Vega
Several commentators have tipped Chilean Daniela Vega to become the first trans actor to be nominated for a best actress Oscar on the strength of her bravura performance in Sebastián Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman. The film, about a trans woman coping with the prejudice unleashed when her older male lover dies, is getting an international release in 2018.
Awkwafina
New York rapper and comedian Nora Lum – AKA Awkwafina – has been going places since her track My Vag went viral on YouTube. Next up, she will be seen alongside the likes of Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett and Rihanna playing a scrappy wingman in Ocean’s 8. “I was just rapping about my genitalia, not making a feminist message,” she told the Guardian before what is sure to be a whistlestop 12 months. Read a full interview here.
Justin Chon
You may recognise him as Eric Yorkie from the Twilight saga, but Justin Chon has refused to be defined by his teen movie fame. A prolific vlogger and member of parody K-pop boyband BgA, he’s about to find a whole new audience as director and star of the provocatively titled Gook, focusing on the story of two Korean-American shopworkers during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Anya Taylor-Joy
Half-British, half-Argentinian, US-born actor Anya Taylor-Joy is making a name for herself as the star of intelligently spooky fare. She follows up her leading roles in The Witch and M Night Shyamalan’s Split with Thoroughbreds, a drama about boarding school girls gone bad. She is also one of The New Mutants, a kind of X-Men: The Next Generation.
Storm Reid
A Wrinkle in Time is Disney Pictures’ big beast for 2018, a fantasy adventure based on Madeleine L’Engle’s novel and directed by Ava DuVernay. Leading the impressive ensemble cast (Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Zach Galifianakis) is 14-year-old Storm Reid, already a veteran of 12 Years a Slave and Sleight.
Millicent Simmonds
After winning the lead role in Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck at an open audition, Utah teenager Millicent Simmonds – a deaf actor who lost her hearing at the age of one – will follow that up with A Quiet Place, a supernatural horror that also stars John Krasinski and Emily Blunt.
Robin Campillo
The French-Moroccan film-maker’s 120 Beats Per Minute tells the tale of his time with Aids activists ACT UP Paris in the early 90s. After what has been a banner year for LGBT cinema, from the Oscar triumph of Moonlight to the global success of Call Me By Your Name, A Fantastic Woman and his own film, Campillo is one of many queer storytellers courting mass attention, while sticking to his own terms. Read a full interview here.
Johnny Flynn
He has done Shakespeare, he has done heartwarming TV comedy (Scrotal Recall/Lovesick, Comedy Central’s Brotherhood) ... he has even released four albums of accomplished indie-folk. Now Johnny Flynn has found his breakthrough film role – as a belligerent Jersey loner suspected of multiple murder in Michael Pearce’s compelling directorial debut, Beast.
Josie Rourke
The artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse since 2011, Josie Rourke has overseen acclaimed productions of Coriolanus, City of Angels and Les Liaisons Dangereuses. In 2018, she is diversifying into film with an upcoming biopic of Mary Queen of Scots, starring Saoirse Ronan in the title role.
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
As the man behind the camera for the gorgeous Call Me By Your Name, Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom received almost as many plaudits as the film’s lead actors. Look out for his elegant work on the Suspiria remake, in which he continues a fruitful relationship with director Luca Guadagnino.
Zazie Beetz
Zazie Beetz was the breakout star of Donald Glover’s Atlanta, playing Glover’s on-off girlfriend, Vanessa. She has been rewarded with her first blockbuster movie role – as mercenary mutant Domino in Deadpool 2.
Disasterpeace
In 2014, Rich Vreeland – AKA Disasterpeace – made the impressive leap from chiptune composer via acclaimed videogame soundtracks (Fez, Hyper Light Drifter) to scoring cult supernatural horror It Follows. Director David Robert Mitchell has retained his services to soundtrack noir thriller Under the Silver Lake, starring Andrew Garfield and Riley Keough.
Hong Chau
Born in a Taiwanese refugee camp after her parents fled Vietnam by boat, this Vietnamese-American actor’s own story feels deserving of the big-screen treatment. Instead, Chau is gaining a reputation for stand-out appearances in other people’s stories – after turns in David Simon’s New Orleans TV series Treme and Paul Thomas Anderson’s stoner noir Inherent Vice, she’s currently appearing as a Vietnamese dissident in Alexander Payne’s shrink-ray comedy Downsizing, a role that has already earned her a Screen Actors Guild award nomination.
Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani
Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani are a France-born couple living in Brussels who express their love for each other through the medium of ultraviolent exploitation horror films. As you do. They co-directed the psychedelic giallo homages Amer and The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears; look out for their heavily stylised retro crime caper Let the Corpses Tan.
Daniel Kokotajlo
Big things are expected of this Manchester-born film-maker, whose directing debut Apostasy – a film he also wrote, based on his own experiences growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness – helped land him the IWC Schaffhausen film-maker bursary award, worth a handy £50,000.
Claes Bang
Now 50, actor Claes Bang is little known outside his native Denmark. That should change with the worldwide release of Ruben Östlund’s The Square, in which Bang plays a seemingly dapper and assured museum director, whose underlying insecurity spills out in a series of bizarre and audacious set-pieces. His performance helped the film win 2017’s Palmes d’Or at Cannes.
Vanessa Taylor
Having previous worked on Alias and Game of Thrones, Taylor is currently one of Hollywood’s most in-demand screenwriters. She has co-written Guillermo del Toro’s latest empathetic fantasy, The Shape of Water – rated by critics as his best since Pan’s Labyrinth – and her next project is Disney’s live action Aladdin, directed by Guy Ritchie.
Florence Pugh
Oxford’s Florence Pugh has certainly crammed a lot into her short career. Just 21, and she has already starred in a multi-award-winning series (Lady Macbeth), appeared opposite Anthony Hopkins in King Lear and been taught to punch by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (for her part in a forthcoming wrestling biopic). Proving her best days are still ahead of her, she’s also been cast in Little Drummer Girl, an adaptation of a John Le Carré tale currently being made by the team behind The Night Manager. Read a full interview here.
Nakhane Touré
South African Nakhane Touré first rose to prominence as a singer-songwriter, influenced by Radiohead and Ali Farka Touré. In 2015, he published his first novel; now he’s added acting to his list of accomplishments, starring in The Wound – a film that has proved controversial for its depiction of homosexual desire at a traditional Xhosa initiation ritual.
Bria Vinaite
Plucked from Instagram to become the star of one of 2017’s most celebrated films, The Florida Project, Bria Vinaite has keeping it indie with a role in Harmony Korine’s latest weirdo stoner comedy, The Beach Bum, alongside Matthew McConaughey, Isla Fisher and Snoop Dogg.
Trevante Rhodes
The heartwarming, award-snaffling success of Moonlight has opened doors for many of its cast and crew, including former sprinter Trevante Rhodes. He will play a Predator-hunting marine in Shane Black’s update of the classic sci-fi shooter and a sergeant in Afghanistan war drama 12 Strong, alongside Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth, and Michael Shannon.
Yeon Sang-ho
After its success with Okja, Netflix has returned to South Korea to sign another offbeat comedy. Psychokinesis, about a man whose accidentally acquired superpowers turn out to do more harm than good, is directed by Yeon Sang-ho, who previously won international plaudits for his animated drama The King of Pigs.
Ashton Sanders
Another Moonlight alumnus – he played the teen version of protagonist Chiron – Sanders can next be seen in Captive State, a new sci-fi thriller from Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt. He has also been tapped for the sequel to Denzel Washington vehicle The Equalizer.
Mamoudou Athie
Mamoudou Athie is the son of a Mauritanian diplomat who got his break as Grandmaster Flash in noble TV failure The Get Down, following that up with a role in Patti Cake$. In 2018, look out for him in coming-of-age drama 100 Percent More Humid (with Juno Temple) and The Frontrunner, about Gary Hart’s ill-fated 1988 presidential bid.
Cynthia Erivo
All eyes are on Steve McQueen’s Widows, a female-fronted heist movie based on a 1983 Lynda La Plante TV serial. Sharing top billing with Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki and Michelle Rodriguez is newcomer Cynthia Erivo, previously best known for playing Celie in the Broadway version of The Color Purple. Erivo has also scored a part in Drew Goddard’s new thriller, Bad Times at the El Royale.
Haifaa al-Mansour
Saudi Arabian film pioneer Haifaa al-Mansour – her 2012 directorial debut Wadjda was the first full-length feature shot entirely in the country – has now turned her attention to a biopic of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, starring Elle Fanning and Douglas Booth (as love interest Percy Bysshe). Perhaps less promising is a romcom called Nappily Ever After ...
Tim Kirkby
The director of Fleabag, My Mad Fat Diary and Veep makes the leap to Hollywood with Action Point, a comedy thriller starring Johnny Knoxville as a daredevil who opens his own lo-fi theme park – with disastrous/hilarious consequences.
Mark Stanley
A busy TV actor, you may recognise Mark Stanley from Loves, Lies & Records, Broken, Dickensian or as a loyal brother of the Night’s Watch in Game of Thrones. He plays a frazzled farmer in Dark River, a new slab of balletic social realism from The Selfish Giant director Clio Barnard, which also stars Ruth Wilson and Sean Bean.
Constance Wu
Riding high on the success of ABC comedy series Fresh Off the Boat, Constance Wu was recently named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine, complete with an endorsement from Lena Dunham. She heads the cast in an opulent adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s comic novel Crazy Rich Asians, coming later in 2018.
Vanessa Kirby
A star of British theatre and TV, currently stealing the show as Princess Margaret in The Crown, Kirby is making a lunge for Hollywood via a part in Mission Impossible 6.
Christian Rivers
It has been a long apprenticeship – but having storyboarded all of Peter Jackson’s films since 1992, Christian Rivers is finally getting the chance to direct his own, in the form of steampunk adventure Mortal Engines. His name is also still attached to Jackson’s long-mooted Dam Busters remake, but whether that will ever happen is anyone’s guess.
