'Alien: Covenant,' 'Dunkirk,' 'Beauty And The Beast' And More Previewed In New Photos

Considering how battered and bruised 2016 left the world in general, the only sane thing to do is look at 2017 with caution and fear. Except for the movies. The movies look pretty cool. A bunch of new images from the year's biggest movies have arrived online, suggesting that we may get to see some pretty cool movies before civilization completely collapses.

These photos come from USA Today's 2017 summer movie preview (which also includes that Justice League photo we all saw yesterday) and while I've snagged a few of my favorite images to share below, you can click that link to check out quite a few more.

Let's start with this image from Bill Condon's live action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, which is borrowing heavily from the look of the 1991 classic and for good reason. Why fix something that isn't broken? Condon is an inspired choice for this film, a musical aficionado who somehow managed to make the final Twilight movies perfectly delightful camp, and I'm all about Emma Watson and furry Dan Stevens falling in love while singing at each other.

Let's be perfectly honest with one another here: I'm kind of dreading Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. This series has gotten progressively worse with each entry, going from excellent to good to bad to awful over the course of four movies, which does not bode well for part five. However, this one does feature the great Javier Bardem as an evil ghost pirate with a killer design that does not look all that special in a still image but really sings in that teaser trailer. And that may be enough.

And we arrive at what is, for me, the main event of this preview: a new look at Katherine Waterston as Daniels in Alien: Covenant. I've talked before about how her look in this movie seems to deliberately echo Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley and that remains true here. Between that resourceful haircut, the rugged style, and her ability to look nothing short of badass with a weapon in her hand, it's a comparison that Alien: Covenant seems to be openly welcoming.

Let's wrap this up with a new image from Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, which shows off the lead character from the film: Fionn Whitehead's English soldier, Tommy. While there are a handful of big names in the film (including Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, and Tom Hardy), the core characters will be played by mostly unknown actors...and also One Direction's Harry Styles. In any case, it's a choice that will hopefully emphasize the everyman quality of the soldiers stranded on the shores of Dunkirk, France.