If you see only one movie at the cinema this August, then you’re probably looking at Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw. An epic prospect like Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham teaming up to stop a madman wiping out half the world’s population seems like a suitable end to the summer blockbuster season that began with Avengers: Endgame.
But honestly, by this point in a fairly average moviegoing summer, some of us are looking to cool off a bit. From indie films to low-budget genre fare, there are usually a few solid alternatives to the bigger movies also arriving in cinemas at this time of year.
Don’t get us wrong – you know we’re always up for a bit of the old smashy-crashy blockbuster nonsense. But seeing as how planned August releases Artemis Fowl and The New Mutants have been delayed until 2020, it looks like Hobbs & Shaw is doing most of the heavy lifting for the multiplexes at the moment anyway.
That’s not to say the summer season is over and done with. Later this month, we’ll see further franchise entries in the form of Angry Birds 2, the follow-up to Blue Sky’s 2016 video game movie, and Angel Has Fallen, the action threequel which sees Gerard Butler reprise his role as US Secret Service agent Mike Banning. Frankly, it will be difficult not to notice these films, especially as August is a little quieter than usual.
So, as we do every year, we’re taking this opportunity to shine a spotlight on some non-franchise films that are either still playing or coming soon to UK cinemas this month, to see if we can stop our ears ringing before autumn comes along. They’re listed in order of release, and as always, all dates are correct at the time of writing.
Gwen
To start with, check your nearest arthouse cinema’s listings for any upcoming screenings of this debut feature by writer-director William McGregor. If Midsommar left you hankering for more slow-burn folk horror, Gwen will give you another, more understated fix, with a tense and transfixing atmosphere and a stunning performance from Eleanor Worthington-Cox in the title role.
On the cusp of the industrial revolution, Gwen lives with her mother (Maxine Peake) and younger sister (Jodi Innes) on their farm in the hills of Snowdonia, where things start going awry. McGregor plays not only with horror but with Western tropes to create an enormous sense of foreboding and a chill that outstrips any cinema’s air conditioning. Seek this one out.
When can I see it? Still playing in selected cinemas nationwide.
Animals
The story of Animals may sound familiar, but as the title suggests, Sophie Hyde’s film takes some wilder turns. Holliday Grainger and Alia Shawkat play Laura and Tyler, two best friends in their early thirties who find themselves at a crossroads. Living in Dublin, the inseparable partiers are torn when one of them becomes engaged to a teetotaller.
Writer Emma Jane Unsworth adapts her novel for the screen and her script is brilliantly brought to life by the formidable chemistry between Grainger and Shawkat, who became fast friends during pre-production. While Shawkat is a reliable comic performer, Grainger is a revelation in a comedic role that’s hugely different from her previous turns.
When can I see it? In selected cinemas nationwide from 2 August
Blinded By The Light
In some quarters, it’s been noted that the cyclical nature of popular cinema could be turning back towards blockbusters that are more rooted in reality, led by studios spending big on music-centric tentpoles like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman. If so, then it’s not bad timing for the more independent comedy-drama Blinded By The Light, which is based on the true story of a Bruce Springsteen fan growing up in Luton in 1987.
Our hero is Javed (newcomer Viveik Kalra), a British teen who discovers the Boss’ songs and feels compelled to shake off the racial and economic turmoil of his hometown. Set to a rousing selection of Springsteen tracks, the film is directed by Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham, among others), whose penchant for telling socially relevant stories in feel-good commercial crowdpleasers makes this another winner.
When can I see it? In cinemas nationwide from 9 August.
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Forgive us for including a more obvious draw, but Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film is a ringer for this list for precisely one reason. You can always guarantee that a new QT film is going to be different from whatever else is playing in any given month. Fresh off its premiere at this year’s Cannes film festival, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood takes place in 1960s LA and charts the end of Tinseltown’s golden age.
Amid several of the director’s trademark intertwining storylines, we find Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as a fading star-and-stuntman duo (loosely based on Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham) who find themselves phased out of the industry. Currently on general release in the States, Tarantino’s penultimate film looks unmissable. Happily, we only have to avoid the spoilery Film Twitter hot takes for two more weeks…
When can I see it? In cinemas nationwide from 14th August.
Good Boys
In a canny bit of marketing, the trailer for Good Boys opens with producer Seth Rogen telling young stars Jacob Tremblay, Brady Noon, and Keith L. Williams that while they’re apparently alright to act out all of the mature content in the film, the MPAA decrees that they’re not old enough to even watch the trailer.
Indeed, the R rating for crude sexual humour and drug references is the first in history to include the qualifier “all involving tweens.” Charting the three 12-year-olds’ day off school in the run-up to a classmate’s party, this could easily just turn out to be Superbad but with tweens, but on the other hand, it might also be as funny as “Superbad but with tweens” sounds.
When can I see it? In cinemas nationwide from 16 August
Transit
Here’s one they didn’t make earlier. Directed by Christian Petzold, Transit constructs its plot upon the theme of history repeating itself, starting with a clandestine meeting between two men plotting to escape German-occupied Paris that is eventually revealed to be taking place in the present day, or at least a version of it.
The story follows one of these men, Georg (Franz Rogowski), as he assumes the identity and visa of a dead man as a means of getting from Paris to Marseille, where he also meets the man’s wife (Paula Beer) and falls for her. Transporting Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel into a ambiguously contemporary setting, Petzold has made a thrilling and thought-provoking film that is at once timely and timeless.
When can I see it? In selected cinemas nationwide from 16 August
Crawl
Sam Raimi produces Crawl, an enjoyable late-summer thriller from director Alexandre Aja. As a Category 5 hurricane lashes Florida, an aspiring champion swimmer (Kaya Scodelario) winds up defending her injured dad (Barry Pepper) from alligators in the flooded crawl space beneath their family home.
Effectively a two-hander, Aja’s film occasionally plays as Florida Man: The Movie, but in between its characters’ enjoyably daft decision-making and the down-and-dirty creature-feature mechanics, it plays especially well with a crowd. Like the similarly Raimi-produced Don’t Breathe, this is a perfectly timed shot of B-movie exploitation into a tentpole-strewn landscape.
When can I see it? In cinemas nationwide from 23 August.
Pain & Glory
August is usually a good time for UK-based fans of Pedro Almodóvar, with all of the director’s most recent films The Skin I Live In, I’m So Excited, and Julieta snuggling into late summer release dates in previous years. His latest, another of this year’s Cannes contenders, is a more autobiographical feature than usual.
Pain & Glory stars Antonio Banderas as Salvador Mallo, a film director who narrates a series of flashbacks from his life, spanning from his childhood in the 1960s to his present-day creative crisis. Other Almodóvar alums Penélope Cruz and Julieta Serrano play supporting roles in this thoughtful and rewarding character study.
When can I see it? In selected cinemas nationwide from 23 August.
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark
Arriving ahead of It Chapter Two in September, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark is another period-set horror film. Producer Guillermo del Toro and Troll Hunter director André Øvredal bring Alvin Schwartz’s short horror stories for children to the big screen with a deliberately PG-13 chiller that’s already been lumped with a 15 certificate in the UK.
Set in 1968, the film follows a group of teenagers who discover the horrifying inspiration behind a series of scary stories written by a local girl. If it sounds like a harder-edged Goosebumps, that might be exactly what we’re in for. Still, the market for films perched in between R.L. Stine and Stephen King has been underserved for a while now and there can be no doubting the genre cred of either del Toro or Øvredal.
When can I see it? In cinemas nationwide from 23 August.
Memory: The Origins Of Alien
Lastly, Alexandre O. Phillipe reflects upon Ridley Scott’s genre-defining film in a documentary that coincides with the film’s 40th anniversary. Memory: The Origins Of Alien gets to the bottom of the myriad creative influences that formed the outer-space horror classic, from Dan O’Bannon’s original screenplay for Star Beast to H.R. Giger’s iconic monster design.
Phillipe’s past form for films about films includes 78/52, a feature-length examination of Psycho’s famous shower scene, so you can be sure that his Alien doc will be just as thorough, and just as essential for fans of the original. And hey, at this rate, we’re only 25 years off somebody giving Alien Vs Predator the same treatment, right?
When can I see it? In selected cinemas nationwide from 30 August.
Coming back to cinemas this month…
Of course, if it’s only new blockbusters you’re fed up with, there’s a selection of older attractions returning to cinemas in August too. The big one among this month’s 4K-restored releases is Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now – The Final Cut, which comes to IMAX and selected cinemas nationwide on Tuesday 13 August, including a recorded Q&A between Coppola and Steven Soderbergh.
Elsewhere, there are 4K re-releases of Spike Lee’s seminal Do The Right Thing and Park Chan-wook’s mindbogglingly violent Oldboy from 2 August and Alfred Hitchcock’s classic spy noir Notorious returns to screens on 9 August.
If you’re feeling like you’ve seen it all before, it’s worth checking your local listings and trying to catch any of the above on the big screen for the first time.
