August is off to a flyer with blistering Ukrainian war doc 2000 Meters To Andriivka, A24 horror Bring Her Back and Liam Neeson’s comedy masterclass The Naked Gun all landing on day one. From then on, the month serves up an array of intriguing new releases, with something for all tastes and a couple of things for horror fans. Look out for Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman uniting for the first time in a spiky update of ’80s black comedy The War of the Roses and a tasty-looking Darren Aronofsky crime caper.
The word is that Jordan Peele was so put out to have lost the distribution rights bidding war for Zach Cregger’s mysterious horror flick, he fired his entire management team. His mood won’t have been improved by the wild buzz emerging from early screenings. Cregger’s 2022 breakthrough Barbarian was a playful slice of genre fun. This tale of vanishing schoolkids looks a more broody affair – and more frightening too.
Out Aug 8
Fans of the so-called legacy sequel – we know you’re out there – have been enjoying a gala year, with I Know What You Did Last Summer, Final Destination Bloodlines, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy and Tron: Ares all vying hard for the nostalgia dollar. This belated sequel to 2003’s Freaky Friday, itself a legacy reboot for a Gen-X childhood favourite from 1973, sees Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan body swapping once again as a mum and daughter who unleash a whole new curse.
Out Aug 8
The cast you’d most want sliding into your DMs arrives in Celine Song’s (Past Lives) Manhattan romantic drama. Dakota Johnson (professional matchmaker), Chris Evans (struggling actor) and Pedro Pascal (Wall Street hotshot) form an unpredictable love triangle in a movie with romcom-ish inclinations that, tonally, is more Mike Nichols than Nora Ephron.
Out Aug 13
Real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie play a hot-and-cold couple who move to the countryside, whereupon things turn distinctly – and ickily – Cronenbergian. A body horror with some peppery things to say about coupling up and one seriously unexpected Spice Girls needle drop, it’s August’s most daring date movie option.
Out Aug 15
Don’t show up for this Stephen King adaptation expecting killer clowns or other scares. Instead, settle in for a triptych of stories about Charles ‘Chuck’ Krantz (played by Tom Hiddleston and Jacob Tremblay), a dancing accountant who looks back on his life from his deathbed. Doctor Sleep director Mike Flanagan is cinema and streaming’s foremost King-ologist, so expect a treatment that doesn’t put the great man’s nose out of joint.
Out Aug 20
Loathed at Cannes but subject to a critical reappraisal on release in the US, Ari Aster’s sly culture war neo-western has a liberal mayor (Pedro Pascal) and MAGA sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) at loggerheads in small-town Texas during Covid times. Maybe the difference in reactions is explained by Trump’s first six months in office, which make Eddington look more and more like a foresighted effort at examining a divided society. It could just be the must-see film of the month.
Out Aug 22
Barry Jenkins produces this acclaimed debut from writer-director-star Eva Victor. A Sundance hit in January, it sees Victor playing a literature professor at a New England college who finds healing from a past trauma with help from an old friend (Naomi Ackie). Lucas Hedges and John Carroll Lynch co star.
Out Aug 22
A veteran cast of primo thesps gathers to solve a murder or two in this comfort blanket of a crime caper adapted from Richard Osman’s bestseller. Helen Mirren, Sir Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie and Pierce Brosnan are among the cunning oldies who turn Columbo when a property developer is bumped off near their English retirement community.
In select UK cinemas Aug 22. Streaming on Netflix Aug 28
Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman take the roles made famous by Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in this new take on the 1989 marital disaster movie. Somehow, the pair have never worked together but they’ll be making up for lost time as a married couple whose relationship curdles into bitterness and then murderousness in a black comedy overseen by Meet the Parents’ Jay Roach.
Out Aug 29
Darren Aronofsky’s first feature since The Whale looks like a more fast and furious effort than his usual psychologically-driven, high-IQ efforts. Alongside Zoë Kravitz and Matt Smith, Austin Butler will be putting his laconic charisma to good use as a bartender who gets caught up in the criminal underworld of ’90s New York. Could this be an Aronofsky land grab on Coens’ territory? Here’s hoping.
Out Aug 29
Tough-but-tender social realism comes courtesy of legendary Belgian filmmaking siblings Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne this month. The pair’s latest follows a group of teen mums as they cope with addiction, mental health struggles and family tensions. A Cannes prize winner, it’s a proper return to form for the The Kid With a Bike directors.
Out Aug 29
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