A New Era: Focus Features Rolls Out Its Films For 2022

This year, Focus Features turns twenty years old. In the last two decades, Focus has upheld its commitment to showcase original talents, captivating stories, and unforgettable characters. This year will be no different. From the return of the Crawley clan in Downton Abbey: A New Era to stunning new voices like You Won’t Be Alone’s Goran Stolevski to visionary filmmakers like Robert Eggers' reigniting the epic with The Northman, 2022 promises everything that the Focus brand has come to represent. Here are the six films slated so far with more to follow. 

The Outfit | March 18

After winning the 2015 Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Imitation Game, Graham Moore has written and directed the gripping, original thriller The Outfit. Cornered by circumstances beyond his control, a master London cutter and tailor (Mark Rylance) must stitch together a design clever enough to outwit the Chicago mob if he is going to survive. With a cast that also includes Dylan O’Brien, Zoey Deutch, and Johnny Flynn, The Outfit pulls together remarkable talent — such as Academy Award®-winning composer Alexander Desplat and fashion icon Zac Posen — to tell its mesmerizing tale. As a novelist, Moore is no stranger to crafting a great thriller, having won several awards for his best-selling mystery The Sherlockian. 

You Won’t Be Alone | April 1

On April 1st (after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival), Goran Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alone hits theaters. With a talented international cast that includes Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Félix Maritaud, and Sara Klimoska, Goran Stolevski weaves a beautiful and bewitching tale set in a mountain village of 19th century Macedonia. When a young girl is kidnapped and turned into a witch by an ancient spirit, she yearns to understand the human life she left behind and sees in the villages all around her. Tapping into a terrifying power deep inside her, she begins a sometimes wondrous, sometimes horrific odyssey to understand what it means to be a man, woman, or child by taking over their bodies and shapes. Having won awards around the world for his short movies, the talented Australian/Macedonian Goran Stolevski marks his feature film debut with You Won’t Be Alone. 

The Northman | April 22

Visionary filmmaker Robert Eggers brings 10th century Iceland to the screen with The Northman. After his father is murdered, a young Viking prince is set on a heroic quest to avenge his death and reclaim his kingdom. With a cast that includes Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk, and Willem Dafoe, The Northman brings back the epic with style, imagination, and meticulous attention to historical detail in a story co-written by Eggers and Icelandic poet and novelist Sjón Sigurdsson . “This movie really deserves to be seen on the big screen because it quite literally is an epic,” exclaims Eggers. “The scale of the landscapes and some of the action sequences, and also just it's more immersive when you're there.”

Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris | May 6

Based on Paul Gallico’s much loved, comic novel, Anthony Fabian’s Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris spins the charming tale of a cleaning woman (Lesley Manville) who falls hard for a couture Dior dress and decides must have it. After penny-pinching and working herself to the bone, Mrs. Harris saves enough money to realize her dream. But when she takes off for Paris, she has no idea how her heroic efforts will alter the future of the House of Dior. With a remarkable cast including Isabelle Huppert, Jason Isaacs, Lambert Wilson, Alba Baptista, Rose Williams, and Lucas Bravo, Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris is made in partnership with the House of Dior. 

Downton Abbey: A New Era | May 20

Get ready for the film event of 2022, when Downton Abbey: A New Era steps into the future in this effervescent sequel. "Everything from entertainment to transport was really different by the end of the '20s,” explains creator and screenwriter Julian Fellowes. “That's what we're referring to in that [title].” In addition to the original cast, Hugh Dancy, Laura Haddock, Nathalie Baye, and Dominic West join in the fun as the Crawleys and their staff travel to the south of France to vacation in a grand villa the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) has mysteriously inherited. Simon Curtis, who directed My Week with Marilyn, will be taking over the helm for this sequel that Fellowes promises to be an "unashamedly feel-good movie."

TÁR | October 7

Todd Field (who directed acclaimed dramas like In the Bedroom and Little Children) writes and directs TÁR, a period drama with Cate Blanchett as an orchestra conductor of a German orchestra at the heights of her career.