Your ultimate March movie guide: Five films you need to see this month – USA TODAY

The weather is getting warmer, the world’s plenty busy between presidential primaries and viral outbreaks, and after a couple of months ruled by two Bad Boys and a speedy hedgehog, the good stuff’s finally arriving at your local movie theater.

March brings a new film in Pixar’s iconic animated canon, Ben Affleck in a sports movie, a horror satire bound to offend every political stripe, a return to a scary-movie landscape where you want to stay quiet, and an empowering live-action Disney remake digging into Chinese history.

Here are five films to mark on your calendar to catch at the cinema this month:

‘Onward’: How the animated fantasy puts fun back into the tear-jerking and sentimental Pixar canon

‘The Way Back’: Ben Affleck found playing basketball harder than playing an addict in his new movie

If you like dumpster-diving unicorns and a good cry: ‘Onward’ (Friday)

Pixar’s gone fantasy for a new animated movie starring Marvel compatriots Tom Holland and Chris Pratt as a couple of elfin brothers who mess up a magical spell, conjure half their dead dad and hit the road in a sweet van with only 24 hours to bring the rest of him back. Buckle up for fun but if you got emotional at the end of “Field of Dreams,” the boffo ending here will wreck you, too. Read our ★★★ review. 

If you prefer sports movies with a little something extra: ‘The Way Back’ (Friday)

Affleck trades in his Batarang for a coach’s whistle in a basketball drama that leans way more into an addiction narrative than just winning The Big Game. (Though there’s definitely one of those, too.) Affleck stars as an alcoholic former hoops star who returns to his Catholic school alma mater to lead their lowly roundball squad, with both the team and the man turning important corners. Read our ★★★ review.

If you’ve had it with the politically divisive discourse: ‘The Hunt’ (March 13)

The tagline claims “The most talked-about movie of the year is one that no one’s actually seen” and they’re not kidding. There’s plenty of buzz about the film delayed last year amid mass shootings and a President Trump tweet: A group of conservative “deplorables” are hunted for sport by a cabal of liberal elites, though with a script co-written by Damon Lindelof (“Watchmen,” “The Leftovers”), you can probably expect some unexpected nuance.

If you’re not too self-conscious about how loudly you eat movie popcorn: ‘A Quiet Place Part 2’ (March 20)

Writer/director John Krasinski’s sequel to his surprise 2018 sci-fi horror thriller picks up where the innovative original left off, with a family (Emily Blunt, Noah Jupe and Millicent Simmonds) dealing with the tragic loss of a loved one and venturing out into a post-apocalyptic world – as silently as possible, by the way – filled with blind, terrifying alien creatures that target noisy prey.

If you like strong female figures with your historical epics: ‘Mulan’ (March 27)

Don’t go in expecting a faithful adaptation of the 1998 Disney musical with rousing anthems and Eddie Murphy voicing a friendly dragon. The new “Mulan” directed by Niki Caro (“Whale Rider”) goes all in on the action drama with the tale of a young Chinese warrior woman (newcomer Yifei Liu) who disguises herself as a man to take her ailing father’s place in the imperial army.

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