With UK cinemas back open and Irish cinemas returning on June 7th,
it's time to take a look at what's on offer at multiplexes and arthouses
this summer, along with movies debuting on VOD and streaming services. Here
are the 50 new releases we're most excited for this summer. All release
details are correct at time of writing but may be subject to change.
Dinner in America - June 1st (Arrow/VOD)
A coming of age rom-com with a confrontational punk energy, director
Adam Rehmeier's Dinner in America sees character actor
Kyle Gallner excel in a rare lead role as a fugitive punk singer who
hides out in the home of a socially awkward young woman (Emily Skeggs), opening her eyes to a world beyond her sheltered suburban life.
A Quiet Place: Part II - June 3rd (Cinemas)
Back in March 2020 I was all set to attend a press screening of
A Quiet Place Part II when COVID-19 suddenly shut down the
world's cinemas. Over a year later and the film is finally seeing the
light of day. The sequel sees the surviving members of the Abbott family
(Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe) venturing out into the
world where they encounter deadly new threats. The original cast is joined
this time by Cillian Murphy and Djimon Hounsou.
Caveat - June 3rd (Shudder)
The feature debut of Irish writer/director Damian McCarthy,
Caveat stars Jonathan French as a drifter who takes a
job looking after a young woman (Leila Sykes) on a secluded island.
The catch is that he must wear a harness that keeps him confined to the
house, which leads to him finding himself trapped in an increasingly
disturbing scenario.
After Love - June 4th (Cinemas)
Writer/director Aleem Khan's feature debut
After Love stars Joanna Scanlan as a widowed British
Islamic convert who discovers her late husband was living a secret life in
France. Seeking answers, she crosses the channel.
Land - June 4th (Cinemas)
In similar fashion to the Oscar winning
Nomadland, Robin Wright's directorial debut Land sees the
actress casting herself as a middle-aged woman who retreats to a life on the
fringe of society, living off the grid in a remote Wyoming cabin.
The Killing of Two Lovers - June 4th (Cinemas/Curzon Home Cinema)
Writer/director Robert Machoian's
The Killing of Two Lovers stars Clayne Crawford as a
suburban father who becomes increasingly unhinged when he learns that his
estranged wife (Sepideh Moafi) has taken a new lover (Chris Coy).
Carmen & Lola - June 7th (DVD/VOD)
Winner of the Goya Award (Spain's Oscars) for Best New
Director, Arantxa Echevarria's
Carmen & Lola stars Rosy Rodríguez as Carmen,
a teen living in a Roma community on the outskirts of Madrid. When she falls
for Lola (Zaira Romero) she finds herself ostracized from her
conservative community.
The Amusement Park - June 8th (Shudder)
46 years ago George A. Romero found himself commissioned by the
Lutheran Society to make a movie highlighting the isolation of the elderly
community. Being Romero, he made The Amusement Park, a nightmarish film in which an old man finds himself driven mad in a
hellish funfare. Now restored, the movie is finally being released to the
general public via Shudder.
Nobody - June 9th (Cinemas)
Hardcore Henry
director Ilya Naishuller returns with this vigilante thriller
starring Bob Odenkirk as a beleaguered husband and father who finds
himself making an enemy of a vicious criminal who threatens his
family.
Awake - June 9th (Netflix)
Directed by Mark Raso (Kodachrome), Awake takes place in the aftermath of a mysterious event
that has left the world's population with an inability to sleep.
Gina Rodriguez plays an ex-soldier whose young daughter (Arianna Greenblatt) seems to be the only one capable of catching 40 winks.
The Father - June 11th (Cinemas)
French playwright Florian Zeller adapts his play
The Father for the screen with Anthony Hopkins in the
Oscar winning role of Anthony, an aging man whose encroaching senility
causes stress for his daughter (Olivia Colman). A home helper (Imogen Poots) is hired, but Anthony begins to question the reality of his daughter, who
appears to him as a stranger played by Olivia Williams.
Shiva Baby - June 11th (MUBI)
Writer-director Emma Seligman's feature debut
Shiva Baby proved one of the highlights of last year's
festival circuit. The film stars Rachel Sennott as a young Jewish
woman whose modern attitudes to sexuality rub up against the traditional
values of the mourners at a day-long shiva.
Agony - June 14th (Digital)
Two icons of Italian genre cinema, Asia Argento and
Franco Nero, unite for Agony, the directorial debut of Michele Civetta. Drawing inspiration from
the Giallo tradition, the film sees Argento play a woman who returns to
rural Italy following her mother's death, where she finds herself plagued by
nightmarish visions.
Boys from County Hell - June 18th (Cinemas)
Writer/director Chris Baugh follows up his acclaimed feature debut
Bad Day for the Cut
with another distinctly Irish take on an established genre.
Boys from County Hell sees an ancient vampire resurrected when
its resting place in a sleepy Irish town is disrupted by roadworks.
In the Heights - June 18th (Cinemas)
Before finding breakout fame with 'Hamilton', Lin-Manuel Miranda had
a hit with his stage musical In the Heights. Now with director Jon M. Chu at the helm, the musical has been
adapted for the screen. The story plays out in the Hispanic milieu of New
York's Washington Heights and is anchored by a local bodega owner (Anthony Ramos).
In the Earth - June 18th (Cinemas)
One of the filmmakers who managed to shoot a movie amid last year's
lockdown is Ben Wheatley (Rebecca,
High-Rise). That movie is In the Earth, which imagines a world in the grip of a deadly virus and focusses on a
scientist (Joel Fry) and park ranger (Ellora Torchia) who find
themselves trapped in a surreal nightmare when they enter the woods for an
equipment check.
Sweat - June 25th (Cinemas)
One of the most talked about movies of the recent festival season is
Magnus von Horn's Sweat. The film stars Magdalena Kolesnik as Sylwia, a Polish fitness
trainer who amasses a large following on social media. Set over three days
in Sylwia's life, Sweat examines the disparity between online
clout and real life contentment.
Supernova - June 25th (Cinemas)
Supernova stars Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth as Sam and Tusker, two
gay lovers travelling around England in a camper-van visiting friends as
they deal with the future of their relationship amid the onset of the
latter's dementia.
Censor - August 20th (Cinemas)
For her feature debut Censor, Welsh writer/director Prano Baily-Bond takes us back to 1985. It's
the height of the 'Video Nasty' era, when Britain's tabloids and politicians
have decided to scapegoat horror movies for the nation's ills.
Niamh Algar plays a film censor who becomes convinced that a
mysterious horror movie holds clues to her sister's unexplained
disappearance.
Freaky - June 25th (Cinemas)
With
Happy Death Day, writer-director Christopher Landon gave us a clever and fun
horror spin on the Groundhog Day format. With his latest
movie, Freaky, he's taken another popular movie trope - the body swap - and rejigged
it for a horror setting. The film stars Kathryn Newton as a
high-schooler who finds herself swapping bodies with a deranged serial
killer (Vince Vaughn).
Another Round - July 2nd (Cinemas)
Carlsberg don't make movies, but if they did they might resemble Danish
filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg's boozed up comedy
Another Round. The film follows a group of middle-aged school teachers (Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang and Lars Ranthe) who come across a theory which states that humans should maintain a
level of alcohol in their bloodstream at all times in order to reach a
state of enlightenment. Vinterberg reteams with screenwriter
Tobias Lindholm, with whom he collaborated with on
The Hunt
and
The Commune.
Voyagers - July 2nd (Cinemas)
Written and directed by Neil Burger (Limitless, The Illusionist), Voyagers is set in a future where our planet is facing
catastrophe. To save the human race, a select group of people, who have been
specifically bred for their intelligence and obedience, are sent into space
to seek a new inhabitable planet to call home. Discovering the secret behind
their expedition, the group turns on itself.
Lily-Rose Depp, Tye Sheridan and Colin Farrell lead the
ensemble cast.
Witch Hunt - July 5th (VOD)
Director Elle Callahan's Witch Hunt imagines an
alternate America where witches exist and witchcraft is illegal, punishable
by burning at the stake. The movie follows two teenage girls (Abigail Cowen
and Echo Campbell) who having witnessed their witchcraft practicing
mother's execution, attempt to flee across the border to safety.
Martin Eden - July 9th (Cinemas)
A loose adaptation of Jack London's 1909 novel, director Pietro Marcello's Martin Eden transposes the story to a version of Italy
that seems to exist in some indeterminate period of the 20th century.
Luca Marinelli plays the eponymous anti-hero as the film charts his
Barry Lyndon-esque rise from uneducated sailor to successful, narcissistic
writer.
Black Widow - July 9th (Cinemas)
Ever since her debut appearance in 2010's Iron Man 2, Marvel fans have been clamouring for Scarlet Johansson's Black
Widow to get her own standalone movie. It's finally arriving this summer,
with Johansson joined by Florence Pugh, David Harbour and
Rachel Weisz, while Cate Shortland (Lore) directs.
Two of Us - July 16th (Cinemas)
This French romance from director Filippo Meneghetti is a rare
lesbian drama that features older protagonists. Veteran stars
Barbara Sukowa and Martine Chevallier play elderly
neighbours who have kept their love affair a secret for decades.
Deerskin - July 16th (Cinemas)
Even by the standards of French oddball filmmaker
Quentin Dupieux (Rubber; Wrong Cops), Deerskin boasts a bonkers premise.
Jean Dujardin plays a man who travels to a secluded corner of France
to purchase a coveted deerskin jacket. Obsessed by the garment, he embarks
on a plot to become the only jacket-wearing person in the world, leading him
on a murderous rampage. To document his quest he ropes in a budding
filmmaker (Adéle Haenel).
The Forever Purge - July 16th (Cinemas)
After four movies and a TV series, the Purge franchise continues with a
fifth big screen entry - The Forever Purge. This one sees an underground movement attempt to expand the annual
Purge from a single night to an ongoing festival of murder. Series writer
James DeMonaco returns with Everardo Gout directing.
Night of the Kings - July 23rd (Cinemas)
This Ivory Coast set drama from director Philippe Lacôte is set
in an infamous prison where the inmates have developed a system of
governance with its own royalty. When the current serving King grows ill and
is expected to commit suicide to make way for anew ruler, he attempts to
prolong his death by having a new inmate tell an elaborate story.
Wrath of Man - July 23rd (Cinemas)
Director Guy Ritchie reunites with Jason Statham for
Wrath of Man, a Los Angeles set action thriller in which Statham plays a cash delivery
man quietly plotting an act of vengeance.
Riders of Justice - July 23rd (Cinemas)
Mads Mikkelsen follows up his knockout work in
Another Round by reteaming with his
Men & Chicken
director Anders Thomas Jensen for this comic thriller. The great Dane
plays a widower who forms a rag tag band of vigilantes and seeks justice
when he learns his wife's death in a train wreck may have been part of a
greater conspiracy.
I Never Cry - July 23rd (Cinemas)
Writer-director Piotr Domalewski’s I Never Cry stars
Zofia Stafiej as a Polish teen who travels to Ireland, where her
father died while working on a construction site, to claim his body. While
tackling bureaucracy she connects with her estranged father through his
friends and co-workers.
The Boy Behind the Door - July 29th (Shudder)
Like their other recent horror movie
The Djinn, directors David Charbonier and Justin Powell's
The Boy Behind the Door enlists young actor
Ezra Dewey for a twist on the home invasion thriller. Dewey and
Lonnie Chavis play two 12-year-olds who attempt an escape when they
find themselves abducted by a stranger.
Limbo - July 30th (Cinemas)
Writer/director Ben Sharrock's feature debut Limbo is
a blackly comic drama that follows the mundane lives of a group of asylum
seekers in a refugee centre on a remote Scottish island.
Stillwater - August 6th (Cinemas)
Directed by Tom McCarthy (Spotlight; The Station Agent), Stillwater stars Matt Damon as an American oil-rig
worker who relocates to France, hoping to free his daughter (Abigail Breslin) from the murder charge she denies.
Old - August 6th (Cinemas)
The latest supernatural thriller from M. Night Shyamalan,
Old sees a family's holiday on a tropical island take a
disturbing turn when they inexplicably begin to age at a rapid pace.
The Green Knight - August 6th (Cinemas)
Director David Lowery is known for movies that channel a very
distinct brand of Americana (Ain't Them Bodies Saints,
The Old Man and the Gun
and Pete's Dragon). But this year he's exploring the lore of Merry Olde England with
Arthurian fantasy The Green Knight. Dev Patel stars as Sir Gawain, a Knight of the Round Table who
sets out to destroy the formidable Green Knight (Ralph Ineson).
Wildland - August 6th (Cinemas)
Jeanette Nordahl's directorial debut sees a 17-year-old girl
(newcomer Sandra Guldberg Kampp) taken in by her aunt (Sidse Babett Knudsen) when her mother dies in a car crash. Thing is, her aunt just happens to
be the matriarch of a dangerous criminal family.
New Order - August 13th (Cinemas)
Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco (After Lucia;
Chronic) may not get the attention of his more illustrious compatriots Cuarón, del
Toro and Iñárritu, but he's one of the more interesting Latin American
filmmakers currently working. His latest, New Order, is a class conscious thriller in which a society wedding erupts in
violence when a former employee of the bride turns up looking for an urgent
loan to pay for a vital medical procedure for his wife.
Don't Breathe 2 - August 13th (Cinemas)
Stephen Lang reprises his role as The Blind Man for this sequel to
the claustrophobic 2016 thriller. This time he seems to be taking something
of a heroic role as he attempts to save a young orphan girl kidnapped by a
group of criminals.
Shorta - August 13th (Cinemas)
In similar fashion to last year's French thriller
Les Misérables, this Dnaish thriller from co-directors Federik Louis Hviid and
Anders Olholm sees a pair of cops try to escape a ghetto when an
incident of police brutality triggers a race riot.
The Man Who Sold His Skin - August 20th (Cinemas)
Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania's
The Man Who Sold His Skin stars Yahya Mahayni as a
Syrian refugee who finds a unique way of being allowed entry to Europe when
he agrees to allow his body to become a canvas for a controversial
artist.
Sweet Girl - August 20th (Netflix)
Aquaman star Jason Momoa stays on dry land for this
thriller. He plays a father who seeks revenge against those responsible for
his wife's death while trying to protect his daughter.
Candyman - August 27th (Cinemas)
The 1990s was a rough decade for horror fans, but one movie that stood out
was 1992's Candyman, an adaptation of a short story by Clive Barker. That film
introduced us to the titular Candyman, thought to be an urban legend but
discovered to be all too real. The hook-handed victim of a racist lynch
mob, Candyman returns to terrorise those who dare to speak his name five
times in front of a mirror. Director Nia Costa's
Candyman is billed as a 'spiritual sequel' to the '92 film.
It remains to be seen what exactly that means, but we do know the original
Candyman, Tony Todd, returns in some capacity.
The Nest - August 27th (Cinemas)
Writer/director Sean Durkin arrived on the scene to considerable
acclaim back in 2011 with his feature debut
Martha Marcy May Marlene, but aside from helming the UK TV mini-series
Southcliffe back in 2013, he seemed to disappear. But now
Durkin is indeed back with a new movie, The Nest. The 1980s set film stars Jude Law and Carrie Coon as a
couple who move to an old manor house in England, where their marriage
begins to unravel.
Finch - August 27th (Cinemas)
Like a sentimental spin on I Am Legend, director Miguel Sapochnik's Finch stars
Tom Hanks as the last man on Earth, a dying inventor who creates a
sentient android (a mo-capped Caleb Landry-Jones) to care for his dog
after his death.
Wildfire - September 3rd (Cinemas)
Director Cathy Brady's Wildfire examines the hangover
of Northern Ireland's Troubles through the turbulent relationship between
two thirtysomething sisters (Nora-Jane Noone and Nika McGuigan, who sadly succumbed to cancer soon after completing her role) whose
mother was murdered during their childhood.
Rose Plays Julie - September 10th (Cinemas)
Several recent movies have breathed new life into the rape-revenge genre
through a female perspective. Joe Lawlor and
Christine Molloy's Rose Plays Julie sees a young woman
(Ann Skelly) seek revenge against the man (Aidan Gillen) whose
rape of her mother lead to her birth.
Dune - September 17th (Cinemas)
Frank Herbert's 1965 tome Dune is one of the most
influential works in the sci-fi genre. In 1984 director David Lynch had a
crack at adapting Herbert's novel for the big screen, and while Lynch's
movie has its defenders, it's generally agreed that film is an intriguing
mess at best. Even worse was a 2000 TV mini-series that devoted six hours
to translating Herbert's work. The latest attempt to bring
Dune to the screen comes courtesy of director
Denis Villeneuve (Arrival,
Blade Runner 2049). This all-star version features
Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin and
Javier Bardem among its ensemble cast.
No Time to Die - September 30th (Cinemas)
Daniel Craig returns as James Bond in director
Cary Fukunaga's No Time to Die. Having quit the spy game, Bond finds himself lured back into service
when the CIA's Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) asks for help rescuing
a kidnapped scientist. Series regulars
Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear
and Christoph Waltz return, joined this time by
Ana de Armas, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch and David Dencik.