Summer is all about the big screen blockbuster and the cool summer movies. Here’s our pick of the very best films to hit the cinema this summer.
My Cousin Rachel
Rachel Weisz is wonderful as the disarmingly beautiful and endlessly suspicious Rachel, in this adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s 1951 novel. Sam Claflin plays young Englishman Philip, who inherits an estate when his cousin dies in Italy. Philip blames Rachel, the widow, for his cousin’s untimely death and vows to make her pay. That is, until he meets and falls in love with her.
In cinemas now
Hampstead
Based on the real story of the Hampstead hermit, Harry Hallowes (played by Brendan Gleeson), who occupied a tiny patch of land in north London’s leafy grounds for so long he won squatters’ rights. Diane Keaton stays true to character form - quirky, kooky, soul-searching and rocking one hell of a trouser suit - as an American, Alice, who’s lived in the same crumbling flat in Hampstead for years.
Released on Friday
The Beguiled
The Cannes favourite (it was nominated for several awards, including the coveted Palme d’or), the cast includes Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning, Kirsten Dunst and Colin Farrell and is directed by Sofia Coppola. An injured Union soldier arrives at an all-female Southern boarding school during the Civil War. Soon, sexual tensions lead to dangerous rivalries as the women tend to his wounds and offer him shelter and companionship.
Released 14 July
Atomic Blonde
Agent Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) is a savage spy willing to deploy any of her skills to stay alive on an impossible mission. Sent alone into Berlin to retrieve a priceless dossier , she partners with embedded station chief David Percival (James McAvoy) to navigate her way through a deadly game of spies. We're so into this, for the poster alone.
Released 9 August
Detroit
Kathryn Bigelow is at the directing helm of this drama, based on the infamous civil rights riots in 1967, and starring John Boyega.
Released 25 August
OKJA
Another Cannes big-hitter, Okja was met with applause and fiery debate when it was screened at the French film festival last month. The Korean film tells the story of Mija (Seo-Hyun Ahn), a young girl with a genetically-modified ‘superpig’ as her best friend. When the creature’s inventor, Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) demands she reclaims her for a PR stunt, so ensues Mija’s fight to give her buddie freedom. Think ET for millennials, in a dystopian world, on Netflix. Jake Gyllenhaal and Lily Collins also star.
Released 28 June, Netflix
The House
Because it’s not summer without a ridiculous comedy with a bunch our favourites. Amy Poehler and Will Ferrell team up (finally!) to play straight-laced parents struggling to cough up the $50k needed to put their daughter through college. So, what do they do? Turn their house into a casino, of course! Parks and Recreation’s Jason Mantzoukas co-stars, as does Veep’s Lennon Parham and, randomly, Jeremy Renner.
Released 30 June
Dunkirk
Christopher Nolan (Inception, The Dark Night) delivers his hugely-anticipated WWII epic based on the events in May 1940, when Germany advanced into France, trapping Allied troops on the beaches of Dunkirk. Nolan favourites Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy are joined in the cast by Kenneth Brannagh, Mark Rylance, rising Brit stars Jack Lowden and Kevin Guthrie. It also marks the Hollywood debut of another little-known Britboy, Harry Styles. We. Cannot. Wait.
Released 21 July
6 Days
In April 1980, six gunmen stormed the Iranian Embassy in south Kensington and took 26 people hostage. The story has been brought to the big screen and is told from three perspectives. Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot, Fantastic Four) is an SAS assault team leader, Mark Strong (Miss Sloane, Kingsman: The Secret Service) is hostage negotiator Max Vernon but, most interestingly of all W.E.’s Abbie Cornish plays a young Kate Aidie, one of the most well-respected and prolific pioneers of female war-reporting.
4 August
England is Mine
A portrait of Steven Morrissey and his early life in 1970's Manchester before he went on to become lead singer of seminal 80's band The Smiths. It’s named after after a lyric in the band's song Still Ill, and will have it’s premier as the closing film of Edinburgh International Film Festival on July 2, before a nationwide release in August. Jack Lowden takes the main role of Morrissey – and by the way this is an actor you NEED to watch out for.
4 August
