With July’s biggest blockbusters finally in theaters, August arrives to close out the summer movie season with a stranger, less predictable slate. There are still major studio swings and familiar franchises, but the month’s more promising offerings range from adult literary dramas and a dystopian romantic comedy to a self-reflexive slasher, a Southern crime fable, and not one but two claustrophobic science-fiction thrillers.
The month is also filled with intriguing returns. Ridley Scott heads back into post-apocalyptic territory, David Robert Mitchell expands his particular brand of suburban dread, Kent Jones delivers his first narrative feature in more than a decade, Jane Schoenbrun aims slasher mythology, and Claire Denis returns to West Africa. Meanwhile, Matt Johnson tackles the formative years of Anthony Bourdain, the long-shelved “Coyote vs. ACME” finally escapes the corporate vault, Greta Lee pulls double duty, and Matthew McConaughey returns to the big screen in one of the most distinctive roles of his career.
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“One Night Only”
Premarital sex is illegal in the dystopian world of “One Night Only”—except during one annual 12-hour window. Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner star as two strangers racing across town to find someone before the legally sanctioned night ends, only to repeatedly cross paths with one another. The premise sounds like an unusually high-concept vehicle for Will Gluck, the director of “Easy A,” “Friends With Benefits,” and “Anyone But You.” The best version will use its bizarre setup to explore shame, repression, desire, and the arbitrary rules societies construct around sex while still delivering the movie-star romantic chemistry Gluck’s films live or die by.
Release Date: In theaters August 7 via Universal Pictures.
“Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma”
Following “I Saw the TV Glow,” filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun returns with another movie about the porous boundary between entertainment, identity, and obsession. Hannah Einbinder plays a filmmaker hired to revive a deteriorating slasher franchise, leading her to seek out the reclusive star of the original “Camp Miasma,” played by Gillian Anderson. What follows is described as an increasingly dangerous game between the two women, folding desire, bloodshed, celebrity, and fandom into the familiar rituals of the summer-camp slasher. Eva Victor, Jack Haven, Quintessa Swindell, Patrick Fischler, and Zach Cherry co-star in what promises to be one of August’s most provocative genre offerings.
Release Date: In theaters August 7 via MUBI.
“Late Fame”
Willem Dafoe plays Ed Saxberger, an aging postal worker and forgotten New York poet whose decades-old collection is suddenly rediscovered by a group of young artists. Their attention draws him back toward the literary ambitions he abandoned, while his relationship with an actress played by Greta Lee complicates the intoxicating fantasy of a second chance. Directed by Kent Jones and adapted by “May December” screenwriter Samy Burch from an Arthur Schnitzler novella, “Late Fame” sounds like a compact, distinctly adult story about artistic recognition, vanity, regret, and the uneasy realization that success may have arrived several decades too late.
Release Date: In theaters August 7 via Magnolia Pictures.
“The Fence”
Claire Denis returns to West Africa for an adaptation of Bernard-Marie Koltès’ play “Black Battles With Dogs.” Set at a foreign-operated construction site, the film follows a local man played by Isaach de Bankolé who appears outside the compound demanding the body of his brother, who died earlier that day under suspicious circumstances. Inside, a construction manager played by Matt Dillon, a young engineer played by Tom Blyth, and the manager’s newly arrived wife, played by Mia McKenna-Bruce, watch the situation deteriorate over the course of the night. It is severe, politically charged territory that brings Denis back to the questions of colonialism, exploitation, race, and power that have shaped some of her most essential films.
Release Date: In theaters August 7 via Independent Film Company; streaming August 21 on Sundance Now and AMC+.
