April used to be the quiet month between awards season and summer. This year it has a lot to say, and most of it is sung. The AV Club’s April preview counts “a slew of pop-star fantasias,” with Mother Mary, Erupcja and Michael all in theaters, plus two video game adaptations, a Steven Soderbergh art heist and a new season of Euphoria on HBO.
We picked eight releases from the guides at the AV Club, WJLA and Boston.com, in release order. Dates are U.S.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (cinemas, April 1): Mario in space
The sequel follows 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie into the wider Nintendo cosmos, with Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy and Jack Black returning, Donald Glover joining as Yoshi, and Benny Safdie’s Bowser Jr. breaking his dad out of prison, per the AV Club. We have how it opened.
The Drama (cinemas, April 3): the worst thing you’ve ever done
A24’s black-hearted rom-com sends Zendaya and Robert Pattinson into wedding week with a game: Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Pattinson) start their engagement by asking each other “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Her answer is more than he bargained for. Zendaya’s other April show, Euphoria, is below.
Euphoria Season 3 (HBO, April 12): five years later
Sam Levinson’s drama returns after more than four years with Rue (Zendaya) smuggling drugs across the Mexican border and a Hans Zimmer score in place of Labrinth’s. It premiered April 12 and has eight episodes. We ran the full story on the score and the Labrinth fallout.
Erupcja (cinemas, April 17): Charli xcx goes to Warsaw
Charli xcx’s film career keeps expanding, and this is the strangest yet. In Pete Ohs’ 71-minute film she plays Bethany, a Londoner on a mini-break whose boyfriend (Will Madden) is about to propose, until a volcanic eruption strands them in Warsaw and she goes looking for an old friend (Lena Góra). NME calls it “slight but beguiling.” Charli has explained the appeal of working with Ohs in musical terms:
The way he talked about making his films felt akin to making an album and the chance meeting also felt equivalent to the conversational and spontaneous nature of his film making.
Charli xcx, Uproxx
Mother Mary (cinemas, April 17): Anne Hathaway’s pop-star séance
David Lowery’s A24 film stars Hathaway as a pop star who turns up at her old dressmaker’s (Michaela Coel) door, and it comes with a seven-song album made with FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli xcx. Read the soundtrack story.
Mile End Kicks (cinemas, April 17): the music critic’s romcom
The AV Club pitches Chandler Levack’s follow-up to I Like Movies at “aging millennials and zoomers desperate for anything that resembles a cool, pre-smartphone hang.” Barbie Ferreira plays a 24-year-old music critic who moves to Montreal in 2011, at the center of the indie-rock universe, and gets romantically involved with members of the band she is supposed to cover. Devon Bostick, Stanley Simons and Jay Baruchel co-star.
Lorne (cinemas, April 17): the man behind SNL
Morgan Neville, who made 20 Feet From Stardom, directs the Focus Features documentary on Lorne Michaels, with exclusive footage and interviews with Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, John Mulaney, Andy Samberg, Conan O’Brien and Chris Rock, per TheWrap. Michaels has largely stayed out of the spotlight, so the film is a rare look at the man who has run the show for nearly five decades.
Michael (cinemas, April 24): the King of Pop biopic
Antoine Fuqua’s film stars Jaafar Jackson as his uncle, with Colman Domingo and Nia Long as Joe and Katherine Jackson, and the AV Club says it covers the story as a single film because the later abuse allegations are not legally cleared for dramatization. See how it opened.
Also this month
Hulu’s The Testaments, the Handmaid’s Tale follow-up with Chase Infiniti, starts April 8, per Boston.com, and Netflix’s shark-and-hurricane thriller Thrash and the Halle Bailey rom-com You, Me & Tuscany arrive April 10, according to WJLA. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is in cinemas April 17, Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay starts April 29, and Disney’s The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens the following weekend.
- Cinemas
- *The Super Mario Galaxy Movie* (April 1), *The Drama* (April 3), *Erupcja*, *Mother Mary*, *Mile End Kicks* and *Lorne* (April 17), *Michael* (April 24)
- TV
- *Euphoria* Season 3 (HBO, April 12), *The Testaments* (Hulu, April 8)
Sources
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.
