--- --- # The Year Ahead in Culture by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Dec 21, 2015 7:17 PM UTC by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Dec 21, 2015 7:17 PM UTC 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 The Year Ahead in Culture ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4157573/2016-calendar/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4157573/2016-calendar/"},"headline":"The Year Ahead in Culture","datePublished":"2015-12-21T19:17:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:33:45.730Z","description":"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...","url":"https://time.com/4157573/2016-calendar/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4157573/2016-calendar/","name":"The Year Ahead in Culture"}}]}] ```