The Year Ahead in Culture

January

1/6 American Idol begins its final season on Fox 1/8 Leonardo DiCaprio stars in The Revenant 1/10 Ricky Gervais hosts the Golden Globes 1/17 Financial drama Billions debuts on Showtime 1/20 Jennifer Lopez kicks off her Las Vegas residency 1/22 Robert De Niro plays a Dirty Grandpa 1/23 Chelsea Handler debuts a Netflix docuseries 1/29 Pop singer Sia releases a new album, This Is Acting 1/31 Fox stages Grease: Live

February

2/5 The Coen brothers reunite with George Clooney and Tilda Swinton for Hail, Caesar! 2/7 Coldplay performs at the Super Bowl 50 halftime show; Stephen Colbert hosts a postgame show 2/12 Ryan Reynolds dons his Deadpool costume; Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson storm the runway in Zoolander 2 2/14 Mick Jagger–produced HBO drama Vinyl explores the music biz in the ’70s 2/15 James Franco time-travels in Hulu’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 11.22.63; LL Cool J hosts the Grammys 2/26 Rihanna begins a world tour 2/28 Chris Rock hosts the Oscars TBD Samantha Bee goes Full Frontal with her TBS late-night show

March

¾ Tina Fey plays a war reporter in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot 3/9 Justin Bieber starts a world tour 3/18 The Divergent Series: Allegiant hits theaters 3/25 Heroes throw down in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; you’re invited to My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 3/29 A war criminal shakes up an Irish village in Edna O’Brien’s novel The Little Red Chairs

April

4/1 Ellie Goulding starts the North American leg of her tour; catch Jon Hamm in Keeping Up With the Joneses 4/5 Thomas Piketty asks Why Save the Bankers? in a book of essays 4/10 The MTV Movie Awards air 4/15 Nicki Minaj joins Barbershop: The Next Cut; The Jungle Book features the voices of Idris Elba, Scarlett Johansson and Lupita Nyong’o 4/19 Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle: Book 5 arrives in English; L.S. Hilton’s novel Maestra–already compared to Gone Girl–comes out 4/29 The star-studded cast of Mother’s Day includes Jennifer Aniston and Julia Roberts

May

5/6 Captain America: Civil War lands in theaters 5/10 A family tries to cheat death in Don DeLillo’s novel Zero K 5/11 The Cure begins its first North American tour in eight years 5/13 Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Snowden; Matthew McConaughey stars in Civil War drama The Free State of Jones 5/20 The Angry Birds Movie features the voices of Jason Sudeikis and Maya Rudolph 5/27 Mutants battle in X-Men: Apocalypse

June

6/1 Dixie Chicks headline their first U.S. tour in a decade 6/14 Roxane Gay shares Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body; comedian Tig Notaro releases memoir I’m Just a Person 6/17 Finding Nemo sequel Finding Dory makes a splash 6/21 A rich family loses its wealth in Lionel Shriver’s novel The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047 6/24 Demi Lovato and Nick Jonas kick off a joint tour; celebrate Independence Day: Resurgence like it’s 1996

July

7/15 Who you gonna call? The new Ghostbusters get to work 7/22 Star Trek Beyond boldly goes into theaters 7/29 Matt Damon returns to the Bourne franchise

August

8/5 Comic-book villains join forces in Suicide Squad 8/23 Imbolo Mbue reportedly sold her first novel, Behold the Dreamers, for seven figures 8/28 The MTV Video Music Awards air

September

9/6 Spy-fiction legend John le Carré gets real in The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life 9/16 Renée Zellweger reprises her most famous role in Bridget Jones’s Baby 9/23 Denzel Washington leads The Magnificent Seven remake 9/30 Deepwater Horizon brings the BP oil spill to the big screen

October

10/7 Emily Blunt and Justin Theroux star in The Girl on the Train 10/24 A fan-sourced Taylor Swift book hits shelves

November

11/4 Benedict Cumberbatch becomes Doctor Strange 11/18 Eddie Redmayne shows you Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in this Harry Potter prequel 11/23 Tour Oceania with Disney’s Moana

December

12/16 Felicity Jones blasts off to a galaxy far, far away in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story 12/21 Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence head to space in Passengers; the Assassin’s Creed video game becomes a movie with Michael Fassbender

Compiled by Nolan Feeney and Sarah Begley