Snarky superhero movies, sequels galore, rom-coms, horror flicks and a whole lot of star power — welcome to your complete, curated guide to this summer's must-sees
Left to right: 'Inside Out 2,' 'Deadpool & Wolverine,' 'Alien: Romulus.' PIXAR; DISNEY, 2
Summer’s here — which means summer movies are back. The fact that we now get big-budget, big-tentpole blockbusters all year round may have dulled the sensation of slipping into an air-conditioned multiplex and losing yourself among the thrills, spills, chills and CGI explosions during the season’s dog days. And yes, last year’s strike certainly disrupted the industry’s usual pipeline of production, which you’ll certainly feel over the next few months. But that doesn’t mean you won’t get, say, a snarky superhero movie. Or a sequel/threequel/prequel to one of a half-dozen franchises. Or the type of movie where things go boom in full, ear-deafening Dolby surround-sound.
And while the summer movie season officially kicked off on Memorial Day weekend with the release of Furiosa — a perfect opening slavo to a three-month period we associate with full-on blockbusterapaloozas — there’s something for virtually everyone hitting theaters, streaming services and arthouses near you before Labor Day weekend. We’ve singled out 44 films hitting screens this summer that will make you laugh, cry, gasp, shriek and, in some cases, levitate out of your seat through sheer joy. Here’s our non-comprehensive but highly curated list of what you need to see from now until end of the August. Enjoy the show(s).
She was the one-armed savior who helped Mad Max survive Fury Road — now find out how Imperator Furiosa became the badass rebel of George Miller’s post-apocalyptic franchise. Forget all of the chatter about how this origin-story prequel “under-performed” over the Memorial Day weekend — it’s a more than worthy addition to the series, and it pays to remember that Fury Road‘s box office was fairly modest before it nabbed Oscar nominations and was dubbed the greatest action film of all time. Anya Taylor-Joy steps into the battered boots once filled by Charlize Theron. Chris Hemsworth and Tom Burke costar. Start your engines.
Imagine the Dardenne brothers got high one night and decided to make a slasher flick. That may be the best way to describe Chris Nash’s addition to the killer-in-the-woods canon, in which a hulking figure rises from the grave and vengefully slaughters everyone in his path. The catch is: Viewers are riding shotgun with this homicidal maniac for long periods of time between grisly murders, with the camera trailing behind. (Including several sequences involving actual shotguns.)
Spanish filmmaker Pablo Berger (Blancanieves) adapts Sarah Varon’s graphic novel, set in a New York filled with anthropomorphic animals, that follows a lonely canine going about his daily routines. When he mail orders a mechanical buddy, his dreams of companionship and connection come true. Then a beach trip gone wrong separates the duo, and as seasons pass, the chance to reunite moves further and further away. Bring tissues. Lots of them.
Tig Notaro and her wife Stephanie Allynne co-direct this rom-com “inspired by a very awkward, honest, sometimes embarrassing true story” about a thirtysomething woman named Lucy (Dakota Johnson) who’s slowly inching her way out of the closet. Her longtime best friend (Sonoya Mizuno) has been pushing her to dive headfirst into the dating pool; meanwhile, the gorgeous new masseuse (Kiersey Clemons) has been giving Lucy some pretty encouraging vibes….
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reunite one more (one last?) time as Detectives Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett, the loose cannons of Miami’s police department. We’re going to go out on a limb and say there will be jokes, shoot-outs, car chases, sleazy bad guys (not to be confused with the “bad boys” of the title), the precinct higher-ups saying that their getting heat from City Hall because of this pair’s shenanigans, more than a few movie star poses, a Miami-based montage featuring a flamingo, and at least one needle-drop of the Inner Circle song. We’d also predict that this is likely to be a hit, but we have to be careful how we use that last word around one of these performers. Bad Boys For Life‘s directing team Adil & Bilall are back for this one as well.
If you’re like us, you probably first clocked Glenn Powell when Richard Linklater cast him in his 2016 comedy Everybody Wants Some!! Thankfully, the handsome actor who everybody now wants to work with has reunited with Linklater for this story, loosely based on a Texas Monthly article, about a tech nerd who helps the police record undercover sting operations. When a colleague who’s supposed to impersonate a professional killer can’t play the part, he’s forced to step in — and immediately falls for the client, a woman (Adria Arjona) fleeing an abusive relationship. Guess who keeps pretending he’s a hit man even after the operation is over? (It hits Netflix on June 7th, after a brief theatrical run.)
Shiva Baby/Bottoms star Rachel Sennott plays a Toronto-based stand-up who takes on a side gig as a nanny for a 12-year-old girl (Olga Petsa). It all seems peachy, until something causes a massive rift between the two, turns the comic into a social-media target and completely derails her life. What happened, you ask? Let’s just say it’s dark, the PTSD that Sennott’s character suffers from is earned, and that, despite the use of the word funny in the title, this is anything but a comedy.
Once upon a time, Mina (Dakota Fanning) got lost in a forest. She soon heard an unsettling noise, and was beckoned to seek shelter inside a house. Once there, she discovered a group of similarly bewildered folks, all of whom warn her about some mysterious force that visits them every night in order to “watch” them. But who are “they,” she wondered. And then, well… she found out. Director Ishana Shyamalan — why yes, she is related to M. Night Shyamalan, who’s producing his daughter’s feature debut — adapts A.M. Shine’s extremely creepy novel for the screen; Barbarian‘s Georgina Campbell and Mandy‘s Olwen Fouéré costar.
Dan (Keith Kupferer) would be the first person to tell you that he’s the last person who knows anything about plays, or Shakespeare, or any of that artsy stuff. But one day, the blue-collar construction worker wanders by a local rep company’s space while they’re rehearsing Romeo & Juliet, and soon, he’s bit by the acting bug. Even better: The play may be what it takes to help him bond with his troubled teenage daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer). A sleeper favorite at this year’s Sundance, this indie drama from directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson is hoping to take the summer’s little-movie-that-could spot quicker than you can say “the healing power of theater.”
When we last saw Riley, the 11-year-old at the center of Pixar’s all-the-feels masterpiece, she was dealing with the fallout of moving to a new city and starting over — something that put her emotions, led by Joy (Amy Poehler), into a free fall. Fast-forward to many years later: She’s now a young woman, which means she’s dealing with a host of new emotions setting up shop in her mind, including Anxiety (Maya Hawke). Suddenly, the old gang has to deal with a lot of new roommates up in that noggin of hers. Poehler, Phyllis Smith and Lewis Black return as Joy, Sadness and Anger, respectively; Hawke, Tony Hale and Liza Lapira join the party as Anxiety, Fear and Disgust.
An American journalist (Lena Dunham) goes to Poland with her father (Stephen Fry), a Holocaust survivor, to get a sense of her roots. Pops has his own reasons for wanting to return to the scene of the anti-Semitic crime, however, and it involves a number of family heirlooms. German director Julia Von Heinz combines a road-trip comedy, a familial drama and a parable about the past never being the past, etc.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the mother of a terminally ill young woman (Lola Petticrew). She’s having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that her loved one may be shuffling off this mortal coil at way too young an age, yet hope comes in a most unlikely form: a shapeshifting parrot that talks in a raspy growl. You read this correctly. Whether director Daina O. Pusic’s magical-realist directorial debut continues A24’s winning streak this year or not, it definitely sounds like a) a solid showcase for JLD and b) it’s likely to liberate a lot of H2O from your tear ducts.
Inspired by photographer Danny Lyons’ book on a real-life Chicago biker gang in the late 1960s — the shutterbug himself is a character, played by Challengers‘ Mike Faist — director Jeff Nichols drama toggles between the group’s leader (Tom Hardy, how we’ve missed you!), who’s struggling and scheming to keep their enemies at bay, and a younger biker (Austin Butler) and his old lady (Jodie Comer). What are they rebelling against? Well, whaddaya got?! Nichols’ longtime muse Michael Shannon, along with Norman Reedus, Boyd Holbrook, Damon Herriman, Emory Cohen and Toby Walllace, suit up to hit the road as well.
There’s an area between Poland and Belarus known as the “green border,” where refugees fleeing unstable regimes attempt to enter into Europe. This influx of migrants has, unsurprisingly, been exploited for various reasons by the powers that be, and turned the gateway region into a geopolitical hotspot. Oscar-winning Polish director Agnieska Holland’s drama about a Syrian family, a border security guard (Tomasz Wlosok) and a Human Rights advocate (Maja Ostaszewska) — who all become caught in a crossfire when one such trip takes a bad turn — has already attracted its share of controversy on the festival circuit, thanks to its critical stance on how both nation’s governments have handled the crisis. And it may be the most harrowing thing you see this summer.
Playwright Annie Baker (The Flick) make her feature-film debut with this story of an 11-year-old girl named Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) during the long, hot summer of 1991, who decides to forego the hell of sleepaway camp for hanging around the house with her hippiesh mother, Janet (Julianne Nicholson). She watches as Mom’s lovers come and go, taking in the confusing, complicated adult world as best as she can. Like Baker’s award-winning stage work, there’s a lot of space and silence, as well as a keen understanding of human relationships and how messy they can get.
Yorgos Lanthimos’ follow-up to Poor Things was supposed to come out right on the heels of that Oscar-nominated juggernaut, under the title And…, last year. Thank god that we got a chance to catch our breath before his next round of disturbing absurdism hits and leaves you reeling. Fresh off its premiere at Cannes, this triptych of stories features a to-die-for cast, including Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, Hunter Schafer, and Mamadou Athie — most of whom play different roles in all three chapters. “Kindness” is always a relative term in Lanthimos’ universe, so take that word’s inclusion in the title with a boulder-sized grain of salt.
Prepare yourself for June Squibb, action hero! The nonagenerian actor plays a woman who gets sucked into a phone scam involving an audio deepfake of her grandson (Fred Hechinger). Angry that she got swindled out of $10,000, the elderly lady decides to borrow a pistol and get revenge, with her best friend (the late, great Richard “Shaft” Roundtree!) riding shotgun. You don’t mess with the Squibb, people. Parker Posey and Clark Gregg costar.
Drawn back to her hometown after the death of her father, Parker (Jessica Alba) starts to do some digging and discovers that Dad’s passing may not have been accidental. She soon discovers that it may have something to do with a rash of recent robberies, dirty cops and a corrupt senator (Anthony Michael Hall). Did we mention that she’s also a Special Forces commando, trained by the government to be a one-woman killing machine? The former Dark Angel star reminds you that her ass-kicking bona fides go way, way back. Now someone pair her in an action-buddy movie with June Squibb.
She (Dakota Johnson) needs a ride from JFK back to her apartment in midtown Manhattan. He (Sean Penn) is the veteran cabbie who takes her fare. Between that initial curbside pick-up and the final drop-off, these two will conduct an impromptu therapy session that covers everything from grief to the perils of romance, commitment, and the difference between men and women. Writer-director Christy Hall had originally conceived this two-hander as a stage play, before pivoting to a screenplay and getting the end result on the prestigious “Black List” for great, unproduced scripts. Word on the street is that Penn is especially good as the grizzled hack who may or may not be harmless.
Fresh off his five-season run on Yellowstone, Kevin Costner once again steps behind the camera for this multi-chaptered, multi-narrative Western — a project the director-star has had in his back pocket since the late 1980s. Subtitled “An American Saga,” it’s a mix of stories that look at how the West was won from a variety of viewpoints, with Costner’s grizzled frontier man acting an anchor as the expansion of territories — and forced relocation of indigenous people — reshape the country. It’s the Dances With Wolves guy directing another epic horse opera! Sienna Miller, Avatar‘s Sam Worthington, Luke Wilson, Jena Malone, Will Patton, Dale Dickey and a host of others costar. The first chapter drops on June 28; Part 2 hits theaters on August 16th.
Let’s go back to ground zero of that alien invasion and see how it all began, shall we? The prequel to John Krasinski’s surprisingly durable postapocalyptic-thriller series teases out the immediate aftermath of those creepy-crawly space bugs taking over our planet, resulting in what we assume will be confusion, panic and a decent amount of carnage. We don’t know much about this latest entry other than the fact that Lupita Nyong’o and Alex Wolff are onboard; Djimon Hounsou will likely be reprising his character from Part II; and Michael Sarnoski, who did the amazing 2021 Nicolas Cage thriller Pig, is the director this time around.
Given how Eddie Murphy had revisited his Coming to America role a few years back, it was probably on only a matter of time before he circled back to what’s arguably still his best-known character. Detroit’s finest streetwise detective Axel Foley returns to that ritziest of L.A. neighborhoods, investigating the death of an old friend. Once he’s back in the city of angels, he finds that corruption is running more rampant than ever within the local police ranks. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Taylour Paige, and Kevin Bacon join what seems to be a host of familiar franchise faces for another fish-outta-water adventure. Cue that synthesizer riff!
Filmmaker Ti West and Mia Goth complete the horror trilogy they began with X and Pearl, as the lone survivor of the inaugural 1970s-slasher entry becomes a porn superstar in the 1980s. Something tells us, however, that her experiences with deranged killers aren’t quite done yet — especially given that we’re talking about the heyday of the infamous Night Stalker. (Hint, hint.) Kevin Bacon, Elisabeth Debecki, Giancarlo Esposito, Bobby Canavale, Lily Collins, Michelle Monaghan and Halsey dress up in their best Reagan-era duds for the occasion.
In the late 1960s, NASA found itself on the verge of winning the Space Race, but losing the marketing war — public support for the organization dedicated to putting a man on the moon was waning, and fast. So the brass hired a PR whiz (Scarlett Johansson) to spruce things up, which irks the base’s alpha astronaut (Channing Tatum) to no end. Oooh, we smell a ring-a-ding-ding rom-com in the making! One-man-D.C.-superhero-industry Greg Berlanti directs; Ray Romano, Woody Harrelson and Community‘s Jon Rash costar. Yes, there will be faked-moon-landing jokes. No, that is not proof that it really did happen and we’re all sheeple.
Sure, we’ve seen the female-FBI-agent-versus-serial-killer-mastermind story before — we even seem to recall one winning a bunch of Oscars a few decades back. But we like the pedigree behind this latest take on the warhorse horror/thriller plot, with It Follows‘ Maika Monroe as the Fed investigating a series of killings that may or may not have some occult leanings; Nicolas Cage (!) as the demented madman who may or may not be solely responsible for the murders; and director Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House) adding in a whole mess of creepy-as-fuck elements. This trailer gives us goosebumps on our goosebumps.
Director Clint Bentley and his cowriter Greg Kwedar proved to be highly adept at character-based dramas with their 2021 movie Jockey; now the two switch places, with the latter stepping behind the camera (and the former pitching in on the script) for this story of a convict (the always great Colman Domingo) involved in a theater program designed for occupants of the titular penitentiary. He and a number of other felons, under the guidance of a sympathetic teacher (Sound of Metal‘s Paul Raci), are putting on an original production and find solace in treading the boards. Most of the cast, in fact, is made up of real-life former members of the prison-based theater groups.
Kristófer (Egill Ólafsson), an Icelandic widower in his autumn years, becomes nostalgic for his younger days, back when he was a handsome young nomad (Palmi Kormákur) wandering around London. Specifically, he’s pining for Mako (played by the model-songwriter Kōki), the daughter of the man who hired him to work at his restaurant. The two fell in love, cultural differences and traditions meant their romance was forbidden, and Kristófer went back home. Now, all these decades later, he’s determined to track down the One Who Got Away. We can already hear the hearts pitter-pattering over director Baltasar Kormákur’s adaptation of the popular novel.
Because who didn’t want a belated sequel to the 1996 disaster movie, with a whole other group of tornado chaser doing what they do best? Glenn Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos, Maura Tierney, Kieran Shipka, Sasha Lane, TV on the Radio singer Tunde Adebimpe and Katy M. O’Brian are in the cast; the fact that Minari‘s Lee Isaac Chung is directing makes us think that this won’t be just another whirlwind CGI-sound-and-fury fest.
The big news is that this third Deadpool movie will integrate Ryan Reynolds’ Merc With the Mouth into the Marvel Cinematic Universe — as well as Wolverine, with Hugh Jackman returning to play the admantium-clawed mutant one more time. It’s the MCU/X-Men universe crossover fans have been waiting for! Huzzah! Also, Jennifer Garner will apparently be reprising her role as Elektra, which she played in that whole separate Daredevil franchise all those years ago. Is there a story? Who cares! All these superheroes! Now under one corporate roof!
Chris Wang (newcomer Izaac Wang) — “Didi” to his family members — is just your typical 13-year-old kid growing up in the Bay Area in the late 2000s, shooting viral videos and skate sessions, pining for the cute girl in his class, trying to figure out where he fits in before high school starts. So far, so very typical coming-of-age dramedy. Yet writer-director Sean Wang’s semi-autobiographical debut immediately distinguishes itself from the usual “that was the summer that changed everything” pack, and has been quietly wowing audiences since its premiere at this year’s Sundance. We also hear that Joan Chen, who play’s the boy’s mom, is generating a lot of potential awards-season buzz. Look, you can’t live on a diet of superhero flicks and disaster movies all summer, right?
Euphoria‘s Hunter Schaefer makes a bid for horror-icon status with this tale of a family vacation at a Bavarian resort. The trip is supposed to help Schaefer’s disaffected teen bond with her dad’s new wife and her stepsister, but to be honest, it’s sort of hard to unwind when the owner (Dan Stevens) keeps acting super-creepy. And the other residents have a habit of vomiting and walking around like zombies with alarming regularity. And some mysterious figure in a trenchcoat keeps running around the grounds after hours, pursuing the young woman in the most predatory way imaginable. We’re getting some very vintage-giallo vibes off this one.
Have you ever heard of Kneecap, the Belfast rap trio known for dropping quality bars in Gaelic about taking drugs, Irish pride, the joys of sex, their love for their respective moms, and taking more drugs? You’re about to, courtesy of writer-director Rich Peppiatt’s music biopic/origin story featuring the actual band. Michael Fassbender also shows up as one of the lad’s dads as well. It’s quite the craic!
The popular videogame about a group of misfits on the planet Pandora (no relation to any other Pandoras that might pop into your head) searching for a missing girl gets its own big-screen adaptation. The pedigree is strong: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt and Jamie Lee Curtis are part of this outlaw band of brothers; and The Last of Us‘s Craig Mazin cowrote the script with director Eli Roth.
A 17-year-old named Sam (Lily Collias) finds herself navigating a weekend hiking trip with her dad (James Le Gros) and his longtime best friend (Danny McCarthy). The two middle-aged men keep rehashing their failures and regrets, as well as poking each other’s pressure points. Wisely, director Indira Donaldson’s feature debut filters all of this Brooklyn Sad-Dadbait through Sam’s perspective — so much of the film’s quietly devastating power relies in Collias’ silent reaction shots and the subtle changes of expression that both hint at and hide seismic shifts underneath the surface. This is easily your best bet for non-blockbuster counterprogramming this summer. Seriously.
Colleen Hoover’s bestseller gets the big-budget Hollywood treatment, with Blake Lively starring as Lily Bloom, a florist who meets a handsome, charming gent named Ryle (Jane the Virgin‘s Justin Baldoni). It’s the perfect romance, until her new beau displays his hot temper — and his anger issues bring up Lily’s memories of seeing domestic violence growing up. And when a potential third corner of a love triangle shows up, in the form of a childhood friend (Brandon Sklenar), things become even more volatile between the couple.
Are we about to officially enter the Josh Hartnett Renaissance — the Hartnettaissance, if you will — with this new M. Night Shyamalan joint? (Regardless, between this and The watchers, it’s clearly a Shyamalan summer.) The actor plays a dad who’s taking his teen daughter (Ariel Donaghue) to see her favorite singer in concert. He soon finds out that this is not just another stop on the pop star’s tour, however, as there’s also a serial killer in the crowd that the Feds are hoping to nab. Folks criticized the trailer for revealing what appears to be the movie’s big twist, but come on: You know that the “I see dead people” filmmaker probably has a couple more secrets up his sleeve.
Did you say you were looking for a documentary that’s designed to pluck your heartstrings with all of the agility and aggression of a Kerry King guitar solo? Look no further than Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s fly-on-the-wall portrait of an annual father-daughter dance at a Washington D.C. prison. Netflix picked this up out of Sundance, where the movie left several crowds cheering and tearing up.
We’re admirers of Damian McCarthy’s 2020 horror movie Caveat, so we’re very curious about his new film, which follows a blind psychic (Carolyn Bracken) who’s trying to get to the bottom of her twin sister’s murder. Luckily, she’s got a number of haunted items collected over the years that can help her track down the killer. Including, we’re assuming, that scary-looking open-mouthed demon bust you see in the picture above this blurb.
There isn’t much known about director Fede Alavarez’s addition to the Alien canon — frankly, we’re happy it has a title, given that it was being referred to simply as Fede Alavarez’s Untitled Alien Movie for months. But according to cast member Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), this new film takes place between the events of the first film and James Cameron’s action-packed 1986 sequel Aliens, and that the latter’s creature-design team were responsible for developing the look and feel of this movie’s Xenomorphs. Hell, yes!
Elliot Page stars as a young man who’s returning to his hometown for the first time since transitioning, an occasion which is rife with conflicting emotions, familial confusion, no shortage of drama and — on the plus side — a reconnection with someone he once carried a torch for. Page cowrote the story with director Dominic Savage, and we have a feeling that this is an extremely personal project for the actor.
Ah, tech billionaires — they do love to invite random strangers and fly them to their private island for wild, crazy parties! And the shindigs of Slater King (Channing Tatum, bro-charming it to the max) are indeed legendary for the excess and extravagance, so when two normies (Naomi Ackie and Alia Shawkat) get the chance to attend a weekend of 1-percenter debauchery, of course they’re going to go. And then, once they’re there, things seem to get strange. And then a little more strange. And then everything seems downright sinister. Zoe Kravitz makes her directorial debut with, judging from the trailer, looks like a cross between Glass Onion and Get Out. The supporting cast is to die for: Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Geena Davis, Kyle MacLachlan, Hit Man‘s Adria Arjona, Saul Williams.
Shout out to Bill Skarsgård for stepping into some mighty big shows for this remake/franchise reboot based on James O’Barr’s comic series about a late musician brought back from the dead to avenge the murder of his soulmate. The role is associated with Brandon Lee and, naturally, the tragic circumstances surrounding the original 1994 movie. Yet Skarsgård and director Rupert Sanders seem intent on both honoring the earlier film and actor, and resurrecting an intellectual property with a strong cult appeal. We’re betting this will be a superhero movie that appeals to Mall Goths of all ages.
They may not be the actual Motown group — it’s just a nickname given to them as they were growing up — yet Odette (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), Barbara Jean (Sanaa Lathan) and Clarice (Uzo Aduba) are still the most harmonious trio of friends you could ever hope to meet. This adaptation of Edward Kelsey Moore’s novel chronicles the ups, downs, trials and triumphs of these three women over the years, and feels like the sort of acting showcase that makes for a perfect palette cleanser after a summer filled with CGI thrills and chills. Mekhi Phifer, Vonde Curtis-Hall, Russell Hornsby and Julian McMahon costar.
Plot details have been kept under wrapped about this Blumhouse horror film, set to come out in the dog days of the season. We know it stars John Cho, Katherine Waterston, Keith Carradine and current horror posterboy du jour David Dastmalchian, from Late Night With the Devil; that Chris Weitz is directing, and though he’s mostly known for doing comedies like the American Pie movies and About a Boy, he did also do a Twilight film; and that it has the sort of title that suggests something genuinely sinister and screwed up is about to happen to everyone onscreen. Who, exactly, is they, and why are they listening? You’ll have to wait and see.
From Rolling Stone US.
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