The summer movie season is upon us, which means a seemingly endless pile-up of superheroes, reboots, and sequels will crowd the multiplexes. While a very select few show some promise, we’ve set out to highlight a vast range of titles–40 in total–that will arrive over the next four months, many of which we’ve already given our stamp of approval.
There’s bound to be more late-summer announcements in the coming months, and a number of titles will arrive on VOD day-and-date, so follow us on Twitter for the latest updates. In the meantime, see our top 40 picks for what to watch this summer below, in chronological order, and let us know what you’re looking forward to most in the comments.
Manhunt (John Woo; May 4)
John Woo’s return to the genre that made his career isn’t so much of a comeback as it is watching one of our best action directors become unleashed. This is a film of superlatives, where storylines and subplots pile on top of each other in the middle of action setpieces that astound in their absurdity. There are cover-ups, conspiracies, badass assassins, jetski chases, revenge plots, super soldiers and much, much more, with Woo orchestrating all of his madness into a giddy delirium while giving viewers a big ol’ self-reflexive wink. One of the most purely entertaining films of 2017, Manhunt is the exact kind of maximalist fun we need right now. – C.J. P.
RBG (Betsy West and Julie Cohen; May 4)
RBG is an essential documentary for the adoring fans of Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg aka The Notorious RBG, according to some millennials. They have created an entire mythology out of a quiet, brilliant women who rose to the rank of the court’s chief dissenter post Bush v. Gore. Directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West have crafted an engaging documentary to hold us over until she, like fellow pioneer of civil rights Thurgood Marshall, gets a biopic of her own later this year. – John F. (full review)
The Day After (Hong Sang-soo; May 11)
Hindsight is a marvelous thing. To quote the lead character of a recent Hong Sang-soo film (and by recent we mean Claire’s Camera, the second of three the prolific director has premiered so far this year): “The only way to change things is to look back on them, slowly.” It’s a mantra Hong clearly lives by as a filmmaker, as do many of the people who inhabit his movies. Hong’s world is all about repetition, and while the cold domestic and workplace settings of his latest film, The Day After, are somewhat of a departure from the unfamiliar streets his character usually walk down, the majority of his signature ingredients are present and accounted for: sad, unfaithful men abusing positions of relative power; dialogue that meanders between the everyday and the sublime; his current muse, Kim Min-hee; and, of course, generous lashings of Soju. – Rory O. (full review)
Lu Over the Wall (Masaaki Yuasa; May 11)
Japanese animation director Masaaki Yuasa, long a cult figure in the U.S., is getting new exposure this year. Following up on Netflix’s release of his series Devilman Crybaby, GKIDS has picked up three of his films for distribution this year. One of these, Lu Over the Wall, demonstrates everything that makes Yuasa one of the best contemporary anime filmmakers. It’s an energetic, frequently hilarious, always visually riveting ride. – Dan S. (full review)
Filmworker (Tony Zierra; May 11)
A week before Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey gets a 50th anniversary theatrical release, featuring an unrestored 70mm print, a documentary that captures his right-hand man, Leon Vitali, will arrive. While it isn’t necessarily the most polished production, it’s still a worthy angle on a different side of Kubrick’s production process. Kyle Pletcher said in his review from NYFF, “Purely as a document and examination of Vitali’s tireless dedication to Kubrick’s vision and legacy, Filmworker is a sufficiently insightful and informative piece, bringing light to the auteur’s profoundly virtuosic filmmaking approach.”
Sollers Point (Matthew Porterfield; May 11)
With his small-scale, deeply felt, and wonderfully-realized dramas, Matthew Porterfield has carved out an impressive eye for a Baltimore we don’t often see on screen. After earning acclaim on the festival circuit and elsewhere with Putty Hill and I Used to Be Darker, the director returns this summer with Sollers Point. Premiering at San Sebastián International Film Festival last fall and touring around, Oscilloscope Laboratories will release it in a few weeks. The drama, starring Jim Belushi, McCaul Lombardi, and Zazie Beetz, follows a man under house arrest who must reacquaint himself with both his family and the community at large. – Jordan R.
First Reformed (Paul Schrader; May 18)
Made with a kind of formal rigor that one would’ve assumed was long past Schrader after the “post-cinema” experimentations of The Canyons and Dog Eat Dog, First Reformed is first and foremost most admirable for its sustained mood. Shot in The Academy aspect ratio and maintaining a stillness and greyness that manages to seem utterly alien to the slow cinema standards of contemporary art films, one gets the sense of the director really having a genuine stake in the making of this picture. It seems the religious content is not so much an affect as a genuine late-in-life plea. – Ethan V. (full review)
On Chesil Beach (Dominic Cooke; May 18)
It’s 1962. Florence Ponting (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward Mayhew (Billy Howle) have just been married. She’s from a wealthy family and he a provincial one; her desire to be active in world affairs beyond her status’ ambivalence and his hope to be accepted as an intellectual with the potential of outgrowing a brawler reputation placing them at odds with the environments that raised them to seek escape. And they are in love: a true, deep, and unstoppable love that allowed their differences to take a backseat as far as community and parentage was concerned. It’s propelled them towards a hotel honeymoon suite on the water, an isolating venue affording them the privacy such auspicious occasions crave and the stifling quiet able to intensify their utter lack of sexual experience and wealth of insecure awkwardness. – Jared M. (full review)
The Tale (Jennifer Fox; May 26)
What does your life mean if the memories that have defined you are revealed to be false? What if the memories are tied to devastating trauma? For Jennifer Fox (Laura Dern), when letters are unearthed revealing more about a “relationship” when she was 13, she starts to not only investigate in the present-day, but excavates the memories that she’s repeated since the trauma and opens a dialogue with her younger self (Isabelle Nélisse). What she perceived as a relationship was, in fact, repeated rape. Directed by Fox herself, The Tale is an emotionally debilitating drama, the powerful kind that makes one want to scream rage at the events on the screen, but are choked by silence as the credits roll, comprehending the irrecoverable damage caused to the protagonist and the director, as the events are based on her own life. – Jordan R. (full review)
American Animals (Bart Layton; June 1)
The rich genre of crime film in which dumbasses get themselves in way over their heads has a proud new entry with American Animals. Though premiering as part of Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic Competition, I’d strenuously argue that it is in fact a documentary that happens to be 90% reenactment. Hell, the movie itself even states in the opening chyron that it is a true story, not based on one. The real figures involved not only provide commentary but also shape the film itself, as conflicting testimonies will change a scene’s location or what a certain person is wearing. The conflict between differing points of view and retrospective perspective express the movie’s themes of shaping one’s reality by acting as though you’re in a different story than the one you think you’re living. – Dan S. (full review)
Hereditary (Ari Aster; June 8)
The recent surge of a particular brand of arthouse horror, favoring tension- and character-building over blood-fueled gonzo insanity, has found at a home in A24 with the likes of The Witch, It Comes at Night, and even Yorgos Lanthimos’ recent features. Their latest in the genre comes with Hereditary, the directorial debut from writer-director Ari Aster, which–as the title suggests–is less haunted house horror and more about the terror tied with psychologically-taut familial relations. Not unlike Robert Eggers’ Sundance sensation, Aster displays proficient skill in eerie tone-setting, elaborate production design, and the type of scares that will leave a pervasive imprint on the mind, even if the underlying mythology gets over-complicated by the finale. – Jordan R. (full review)
En el Séptimo Día (Jim McKay; June 8)
Discussing the ways in which fiction films shift between their linear, wholly narrative impulses and something approaching ethnography is among the most illuminating aspects of movies so deeply tied to a specific time and milieu. En el Séptimo Día, written and directed by Jim McKay, is particularly upfront about this. Near the beginning of the film, a set of onscreen text locates the events of the narrative as Sunset Park, Brooklyn in the summer of 2016, discretely divided into the days of a single week (beginning on Sunday) and the following Monday. With the sole exception of one shot — a cybercafé in Mexico — the movie never leaves this setting, exploring the seemingly endless maze of streets and the establishments and restaurants just off the beaten path with careful detail and an almost unerring eye. – Ryan S. (full review)
Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell; June 22)
After his hit horror thriller It Follows, which packed an unceasing sense of dread, director David Robert Mitchell is back with a film that looks to be an altogether different outing for the director, stylistically speaking. Clocking in at 2 hours and 20 minutes, the mystery romance follows Andrew Garfield’s character Sam who goes on a personal quest to track down a missing woman (Riley Keough) in a music-filled Los Angeles, complete with hidden clues everywhere… or so he thinks. With a vibrant color palette and an off-kilter comedic-meets-romantic vibe, there’s the feeling of an Inherent Vice-meets-David Lynch-meets-Richard Kelly influence, and we can’t wait. – Jordan R.
Damsel (David and Nathan Zellner; June 22)
Two men sit on a bench in the vast desert of the American west waiting for a stagecoach that’s nowhere to be found. One, a grizzled preacher (Robert Forster), is fed up with the ways of the great unknown and headed back east; the other, Parson Henry (David Zellner), is headed west and eager to start a new life. “Things are going to be shitty in new and interesting ways,” Forster’s character warns the newcomer, dashing his hopes that what awaits isn’t the land of his dreams. For the beautiful Penelope (Mia Wasikowska), however, this terrain is far more dangerous. Surrounded by desperate men at every turn, the mission of the west is not just to survive, but live by her own romantic means. – Jordan R. (full review)
The King (Eugene Jarecki; June 22)
Note: Previously premiering as Promised Land at Cannes last year, here’s an excerpt of our review of what’s now titled The King.
A title like Promised Land can be appreciated for its duality: primarily meaning a land of promise but also, in another sense, a land that was promised. We’re talking about the United States of course, or rather filmmaker Eugene Jarecki is in his latest documentary. It’s an abstract road movie, fueled on disillusionment and rock and roll, and one that attempts the quite ambitious task of sketching out a narrative line to link the rise and decline of the nation with the rise and decline of Elvis Presley. If Jarecki struggles a little with this alchemy at times it is because Promised Land is essentially three movies in one: a detailed account of the King’s career; a loose account of the last 80 years of American politics; and a musical performance film. It can be a little jarring to shift between those gears but the director has form with this kind of sprawling state of the nation documentary (as seen with The House I Live in) and manages to keep things running along smoothly. – Rory O. (full review)
Leave No Trace (Debra Granik; June 29)
Early scenes of Leave No Trace feel like The Road. Not the movie adaptation, but Cormac McCarthy’s book, which evokes familial intimacy to an almost harrowing degree. Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other’s world entire. In setting, this is that story’s pre-apocalyptic mirror, with a father and daughter living in the woods instead of a father and son wandering a wasteland. Here there is good earth instead of ash and striking greenery instead of gunmetal, and the lead characters have willingly separated themselves from civilization instead of being violently torn from it. But the central parent-child bond is of the same species, and the movie’s quiet study of it delivers similar heartbreak. – John F. (full review)
Custody (Xavier Legrand; June 29)
It didn’t win the Oscar for best live action short in 2014, but Xavier Legrand’s Just Before Losing Everything was by far my favorite nominee. Discovering his debut feature Custody was constructed as an expansion of that story therefore made it a must-see. The short is soon revealed as a prequel, its look at the fallout of domestic abuse hopefully in the rearview considering Miriam Besson (Léa Drucker) readies to plead her case as to why her now ex-husband (Denis Ménochet’s Antoine) shouldn’t retain custody of their son Julien (Thomas Gioria)—his sister Joséphine (Mathilde Auneveux) recently turned eighteen and is free regardless. But while the evidence seems to prove Miriam’s case, a father’s love trumps a lack of concrete proof of his terror. The threat he poses, however, remains very real. – Jared M. (full review)
Winter Brothers (Hlynur Palmason; June TBD)
It opens in darkness — the beams from headlamp flashlights and sparks of metal on rock our only points of illumination. This is the oppressive environment holding the over-worked and under-paid miners while their boss sits in his factory office without a care as to who the men in his employ are besides a social security number. They let off steam with a bottle of homebrew alcohol to cut the monotony of their daily routines before returning to their respective trailers back in town that barely deserve the label shelter. It’s a futile existence that simply churns along with little in the way of excitement besides the possibility of a cave-in risking each of their lives. So when someone falls ill and the system is altered, everyone takes notice. Writer/director Hlynur Palmason puts us in this dark and aggressive locale to ensure we know these men to be hard-workers with little time for nonsense. – Jared M. (full review)
Life and Nothing More (Antonio Méndez Esparza; June TBD)
Antonio Méndez Esparza’s sophomore feature is a social realist triumph, and one of the year’s true hidden gems (it came and went quickly during the fall festival circuit, where only a handful of critics caught it). Taking place in northern Florida, it follows single mother Regina (Regina Williams, one of the year’s best performances) as she tries to hold down a job at a diner, deal with her rebellious teenage son, and raise her four-year-old daughter while trying to stay afloat. Esparza directs with a simple approach, keeping the camera locked down and providing brief impressions of his characters’ lives to evoke the daily struggle of their existence (the editing, using elliptical cuts to emphasize the way characters inhabit spaces over temporal concerns, is phenomenal). Despite having no distribution at the moment, Life and Nothing More achieved an Independent Spirit nomination for Williams, a deserving nod for best actress and hopefully a chance for a distributor to help get this film seen so it can receive the praise it deserves. – C.J. P.
Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley; July 6)
Sorry to Bother You is a bold debut–in every sense of the word–for rapper-turned-director Boots Riley. There are truly radical, thrilling ideas both in the script and on screen, and also his boldness sometimes undercuts the character- and narrative-building aspects as we jump from compelling idea to idea. Mixing the droll comedy of Office Space with the race-backed satire of Putney Swope, and adding an imaginative dash of Michel Gondry (who gets a parody shout-out in an animated bit), at least something in Sorry to Bother You will surely strike a chord with any viewer, even if it doesn’t fully cohere. – Jordan R. (full review)
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda (Stephen Nomura Schible; July 6)
With a towering body of work, Ryuichi Sakamoto is one of the world’s greatest musical talents. Around these parts, one may most admire him for his film contributions, including Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, Femme Fatale, The Last Emperor, and perhaps some recent Iñárritu films. He’s now the subject of a new documentary from Stephen Nomura Schible, which premiered at Venice last fall to strong reviews and will stop by Tribeca before a summer release. – Jordan R.
Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham; July 13)
If comedy is best pulled from trauma, there are few moments in one’s life more distressingly rich to mine from than middle school. Comedian-turned-director Bo Burnham, now more than a decade removed for proper reflection, depicts the specific time period with all the spot-on crippling anxiety and all-consuming awkwardness in his modest but affecting directorial debut Eighth Grade. – Jordan R. (full review)
Puzzle (Marc Turtletaub; July 13)
With its methodically tidy structure and a script that, beat for beat, lays the pieces to be a quintessential crowd-pleaser, Puzzle fits together like a perfect, well… you know. Directed by Marc Turtletaub, the powerhouse indie producer behind Little Miss Sunshine, Safety Not Guaranteed, Loving, and more, it’s easy to see the appeal of Oren Moverman’s unchallenging, but no less compassionate script, and he found the perfect actress to carry it. Kelly Macdonald’s Agnes prioritizes every need before her own, mostly those of her husband Louie (David Denman) and their two teenage sons. However, when she sparks a newfound obsession with puzzles, it opens up an unforeseen world, and, as with any heart-warming tale, a path of self-discovery that will change her forever. – Jordan R. (full review)
Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie; July 27)
While Ghotocol achieved the highest highs of the Mission: Impossible franchise thus far, Rogue Nation was perhaps the most well-running machine, a slick, intense actioner with stakes. Considering the success of this last entry, it makes sense that, for the first time ever, the franchise is calling back a director with Tom Cruise’s frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie. The first trailer for Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the best studio preview of the year, so let’s hope the film follows suit. – Jordan R.
Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood (Matt Tyrnauer; July 27)
If the phrase “tell-all” hadn’t been coined before 2012, Scotty Bowers’ memoir Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars would have done the job. Here’s a Marine Corps veteran of World War II born in Illinois who decided to land in Hollywood upon his return on a whim. He answered a “wanted” advertisement to work at a gas station, was hit on sexually by Walter Pidgeon while pumping gas, and realized he could use this well-trafficked locale to help pair off closeted male movie stars with young hustlers like himself for twenty bucks a pop. From there he met Cary Grant and Spencer Tracy, had a threesome with Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, and eventually spilled the beans about it all. – Jared M. (full review)
Blindspotting (Carlos López Estrada; July 27)
Blindspotting is a mess that is likely to lessen in your mind as soon as it’s over, even if you may be utterly absorbed in it in the moment (which I often was). A lot of it is provocation which belies a lack of a real message, or story turns that feel unearned even in the heightened context the movie establishes. But there is undeniable craft here, and an impossible-to-ignore signal that everyone involved in the project deserves attention going forward. What does work is strong, sometimes powerful. – Dan S. (full review)
Searching (Aneesh Chaganty; August 3)
John Cho should be our next leading man. Above all else does the thriller Searching, directed by Aneesh Chaganty, make this abundantly clear. Cho stars as David Kim, recently-widowed father of teenage daughter Margot (Michelle La) and doing his best to keep his composure. Opening on a heartfelt and heartbreaking montage of messages and moments as displayed on a computer screen, Chaganty establishes what will be the aesthetic of the picture. – Dan M. (full review)
The Miseducation of Cameron Post (Desiree Akhavan; August 3)
On her prom night, Cameron Post (Chloë Grace Moretz) gets caught making out with her high school girlfriend in the parking lot, resulting in her parents sending her off to God’s Promise, a gay conversion therapy camp. Featuring weeks of religious gaslighting in which those in charge not only you tell you the desires of your heart are immoral, but homosexuality itself doesn’t even exist, The Miseducation of Cameron Post provides a tender, well-rounded, if not entirely successful look at the emotionally abusive experience. – Jordan R. (full review)
The Wife (Björn Runge; August 3)
Playing Joan, the wife of a newly-announced Nobel Prize-winning novelist Joseph (Jonathan Pryce) whose career she has supported while setting her own ambitions aside, Glenn Close gives one of her finest performances in Björn Runge’s latest feature. The actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in the affecting drama, aptly titled The Wife. – Jordan R. (full review)
Skate Kitchen (Crystal Moselle; August 10)
For her breakthrough documentary The Wolfpack, director Crystal Moselle discovered a group of sheltered brothers in NYC’s Lower East Side and captured their passion for filmmaking. With a muddled style and questionable directorial choices, it didn’t quite live up to the film’s initial hook, but Moselle clearly showed talent for making a connection with the youth of the city. That latter quality continues with Skate Kitchen, which uses a narrative backdrop to place us in the center of a female teen skater group–who Moselle discovered on a subway ride–all of whom exude a care-free independence as they make NYC their playground. It’s such a step-up in vibrancy, scope, and emotion that it feels like the introduction of an entirely different, more accomplished filmmaker. – Jordan R. (full review)
We the Animals (Jeremiah Zagar; August 10)
Following a group of boys growing up in rural New York, Jeremiah Zagar’s We the Animals is a coming of age drama that bursts with imaginative energy. While it doesn’t quite live up to the high watermark of its Terrence Malick influence, it still signals a promising directorial talent with a homegrown touch. After picking up an award at Sundance, it’ll stop by Tribeca before arriving in August courtesy of The Orchard. – Jordan R.
BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee; Aug. 10)
Jordan Peele’s blank check meets Spike Lee’s new lease on life. Lee is following up his successes with Chi-Raq and his TV remake of She’s Gotta Have It by teaming up with Jordan Peele (in the producer’s chair.) His newest is an adaptation of the autobiography of Ron Stallworth, a black detective who went undercover to take down the local KKK in Colorado Springs. Stallworth will be played by John David Washington, with Adam Driver and Topher Grace slated to appear. Those who stuck with Lee through the rough years of crowd-funding and more workmanlike productions will be happy for the man to have such a platform again, and the more fair weather fans among us will appreciate a return to his heyday of feature films dominating the cultural conversation. – Nate F.
The Meg (Jon Turteltaub; Aug. 10)
The shark thriller has had quite a life in the many decades since Steven Spielberg’s landmark Jaws, but it was only a few years ago that we got a film that actually provided a similarly worthy jolt, with Jaume Collet-Serra’s brilliantly executed The Shallows. This summer, it’s Jason Statham’s turn with The Meg, which certainly bites off a more expansive scope than the Blake Lively-led film. With the first trailer showing off a popcorn-munching, cheeky tone, courtesy of director Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure, Cool Runnings), this is a project seemingly fully self-aware that those buying a ticket want to see Statham destroy some sharks. – Jordan R.
Madeline’s Madeline (Josephine Decker; August 10)
While many breakthrough directors achieve such a status by helming one feature, Josephine Decker achieved acclaim with two films, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely and Butter on the Latch, which received theatrical releases simultaneously in 2014. Marking her return to narrative feature filmmaking at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Madeline’s Madeline is a drama of boundless spontaneity as Decker deftly examines mental illness and the potentially exploitative lines a performer may cross when pulling life into art. – Jordan R. (full review)
John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection (Julien Faraut; August 22)
From the years 1973 to 1981 the great film critic Serge Daney held the position of editor of Cahiers du cinéma, that most revered and storied of film journals. He also wrote a tennis column. That idea of a shared symbiotic passion for the worlds of cinema and sport—and how the two might be connected—provides the basis for Julien Faraut’s experimental documentary In the Realm of Perfection, a witty and contagiously impassioned ethnographical study of the game and, in particular, the 1985 finals at Roland Garros. – Rory O. (full review)
Support the Girls (Andrew Bujalski; August 24)
Double Whammy is the kind of roadside “breasturant” that sells escapism alongside their fried food and burgers. They may in fact be a dying breed as those damn millennials are choosing to eat healthy, fresh, local, and artisanal; or as we’re told by Double Whammy’s national competition, Man Cave – millennials prefer booties. This is the kind of place with “big ass” or “man size” beers, big screen TVs, and “cute” young waitresses instructed to flirt with clientele. And it’s the setting for the most mainstream comedy yet from Andrew Bujalski, a founding member of mumblecore. Director of pioneering films of the sub-genre like Funny Ha Ha and Beeswax, Bujalski’s latest film, Support The Girls, is a very funny drama following a day in the life of manager Lisa, as played brilliantly by Regina Hall. – John F. (full review)
Makala (Emmanuel Gras; August 24)
Late in Makala, lead subject Kabwita, exhausted after innumerable tribulations, enters a church for spiritual renewal. The preacher declaims that the Book of Job shows that, no matter how much suffering one faces, blessings are still guaranteed. Anyone who’s read the Book of Job will recognize that he is proselytizing the exact opposite message from what most scholars take from the text, which is that the whole point of the story of Job is that there is no sense to suffering, and often no reason for it whatsoever. Kabwita fervently prays on regardless. He has to cling to the hope he can find. – Dan S. (full review)
Let the Corpses Tan (Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani; August 31)
With their third feature, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani tackle the poliziotteschi genre instead of the giallo (here’s hoping for the peplum next). The picture is focused on the fallout of a gold bar robbery in the Mediterranean; a gang of thieves, artists and motorcycle cops colliding to a naturally bloody end. Adapted from a novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette and Jean-Pierre Bastid, yet still not providing too much in the way of narrative, this writer could at least discern plot points involving a Rabid Dogs-like kidnapping, a Treasure of Sierra Madre-inspired descent into greedy violence and, of course, some psychosexual hijinks that likely invokes every genre picture of the past fifty years. If there’s a driving force one can find, perhaps it’s just the greed in a man’s eyes at the sight of gold. – Ethan V. (full review)
The Little Stranger (Lenny Abrahamson; August 31)
Lenny Abrahamson’s Frank was an oddity of comedy, heart, and an underlying darkness. His follow-up, Room, featured a great Brie Larson performance, but lacked in a certain directorial boldness, something that’s hopefully in store when it comes to his follow-up. The Little Stranger, starring Domhnall Gleeson, Ruth Wilson, Will Poulter, and Charlotte Rampling, is a haunted house tale of sorts based on the novel by Sarah Waters (author of Fingersmith, which Park Chan-wook adapted for his glorious The Handmaiden.) Following a country doctor who returns to the place his mother worked, something ominous creeps up. – Jordan R.
Mandy (Panos Cosmatos; TBD)
In an era of dime-a-dozen Nicolas Cage movies, you may think you know what you’re getting when sitting down for his latest feature. Rest assured, nothing could prepare you for the experience of Mandy. I’m not even referring to the gory and gleeful shocks–of which the back half has many–but rather Panos Cosmatos’ intoxicating, singular version, which mixes beauty and batshit insanity for an LSD-fueled descent into darkness like no other. – Jordan R. (full review)
Honorable Mentions
On the documentary side, there’s more we’re looking forward to, despite a few receiving less-than-positive reviews from our critics, including Boom for Real, Generation Wealth, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, McQueen, and Three Identical Strangers. Along with some mentioned above, there’s also more Sundance offerings: Hearts Beat Loud, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, The Catcher Was a Spy, Juliet, Naked, Beast, and Jason Reitman’s return, Tully.
There’s also a handful of studio films we hope deliver the goods, but we’re approaching with apprehension, including Solo: A Star Wars Story, Ocean’s 8, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Adrift, The Incredibles 2, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Captive State, and The Happytime Murders.
What are you watching this summer?