The 10 best films out in UK cinemas and on streaming in August

The job of keeping little people entertained this August falls to this delicately hand-drawn adaptation of novelist Michael Morpurgo’s 1999 castaway adventure about a shipwrecked boy and his dog. Full of lush colours and with a David Attenborough-ish eye for the wonder of nature, ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ should widen the eyes of family members of all ages. Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins are among the voice cast. And for extra family viewing, look out for a re-release for the newly restored and still magical ‘Coraline’ on August 15.

Out Aug 2

Set in a British motorway service station, Londoner Moin Hussain’s debut film mines the month’s most eerie and unsettling seam of sci-fi weirdness. Thirtysomething Adam (‘Line of Duty’s Faraz Ayub) is the M1’s lonely man, an employee at a fast-food joint who flips burgers by night and wrestles with a creeping sense of alienation when his estranged dad dies. Expect something Lynchian to emerge amid all the French fries and toilet breaks.

Out Aug 9

M Night Shyamalan seems to have frontloaded the twist in his new movie. In fact, it’s right there in the trailer: Josh Hartnett’s doting dad is the serial killer who’s stumbled into a police trap at a pop concert. But the man behind ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘Unbreakable’ surely has more surprises in store than just a basic manhunt movie. The twist king will be hoping to bounce back from ‘Cabin in the Woods’s disappointing box office with a thriller that boasts the unexpected  combo of Hayley Mills and Kid Cudi.

Out Aug 9

Doug Liman reunites with his ‘The Bourne Identity’ star Matt Damon for a streaming release that will suit anyone into chatty action capers down to the ground – or, you know, the sofa. Damon and Casey Alffeck plays a couple of blue collar Bostonians whose attempts to pull off a robbery ends with them going on the run. The twist? One of them has their therapist along for the ride. 

Streaming on Apple TV+, Aug 9

With horror auteur Fede Álvarez (‘Don’t Breathe’) behind the camera, hopes are high for a return to the stripped-back frights of the first ‘Alien’ movie. Chestbusting into the middle of the franchise, the story is set between that movie and ‘Aliens’, sending a small band of young colonists into a space station… only to reveal that something nasty got there first. ‘Mare of Easttown’s Cailee Spaeny and ‘Industry’s David Jonsson are among the fresh meat for sci-fi’s most terrifying grinder.

On Aug 16

A revival of the lore-filled cult classic, ‘The Crow’ gets rebooted this month with Bill Skarsgård in the role of once taken, ultimately tragically, by Brandon Lee. As murdered musician Eric Draven, aka The Crow, the ‘It’ star will be back from the dead and avenging his and his fiancée’s (FKA Twigs) slaying. Expect a much darker kind of fairy tale than its British director Rupert Sanders’ 2011 breakthrough ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’.

Out Aug 23

Like ‘8 Mile’ on a cocktail of stout, ketamine and laughing gas, the month’s most raucous release tells the story of West Belfast’s Irish-language rappers Kneecap as they rise from larky wannabe rappers with a habit of putting noses out of joint to a trio of larky successful rappers with the exact same habit. The three Kneecap-ers play a blinder depicting themselves – always a lot harder than it sounds – and if you’ve been loving their recent album, the tunes are ‘parful’ too. 

Out Aug 23

For ages a stellar supporting turn, Colman Domingo has finally crossed over into the big time thanks to his Oscar-nominated performance in ‘Rustin’ and a charismatic turn in ‘The Color Purple’. Like ‘Rustin’, it casts the Philly-raised actor as a real-life person: John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield, an inmate at a maximum security prison who puts on theatre productions and helped change the lives of his fellow prisoners. ‘Shawshank Redemption’ meets ‘Theater Camp’? Sounds like a winner.

Out Aug 30

A man and a stray dog become besties in this hard-edged but poetic Chinese homecoming drama set in the lead up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Taiwanese action star Eddie Peng is Lang, a stunt biker returning to his dusty hometown on the edge of the Gobi Desert after a stint in jail; Xin is the stray greyhound of the title, an initially hostile pooch who falls in with him. Can they survive with gangsters and dog catchers on the prowl?

Out Aug 30

‘Inception’s Elliot Page stars in a minor-key homecoming indie about a trans man heading back to his hometown for his dad’s birthday and confronting the prejudices of his loved ones and some demons of his own. Directed by Brit Dominic Savage, whose domestic abuse drama ‘The Escape’ was its own slice of quiet devastation, its improvised dialogue should bring extra emotional honesty to a trans story with a big heart.

Out Aug 30