Summer may not officially kick off until June 21st, but the movies hitting theaters don’t know that. June brings with it films small (actor Seth Green’s directorial feature debut Changeland) and large (Men in Black: International), each competing for your dollars. As always, EoM pulls together a list of films you may want to keep an eye out for as you make your theater plans. This month, we have a list of 24 films coming to your local cineplex (some with immediate distribution online too) to help make those plans just a smidge easier to make.
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June 7th
Changeland
Director: Seth Green.
Cast: Seth Green, Rachel Bloom, Macaulay Culkin, Brenda Song, Breckin Meyer, Clare Grant, Rose Williams, Rob Paulsen, Randy Orton, Andrea Romano, and Rita Khori.
On the eve of his anniversary, Brandon (Green) discovers his wife is having an affair. Rather than confront her, he invites his childhood best friend, Dan (Breckin Meyer), to join him on the prepaid trip to Thailand that he intended to surprise her with as a gift. Brandon laments to his friend that though he doesn’t want to get a divorce, he isn’t sure how or if he can save his marriage. Once in Thailand, the pair go on a series of excursions and tours intended for a happy second-honeymooning couple. As they travel through beautiful caves and epic vistas, we discover Brandon and Dan’s friendship is potentially as strained as Brandon’s marriage. Throughout their brief three day trip, they encounter a series of eclectic, and often eccentric characters who unravel Brandon’s meticulous plans and show him that there is more than one way to do happy and live life to the fullest.
The Secret Life of Pets 2
Director: Chris Renaud.
Cast: Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Harrison Ford, Patton Oswalt, Eric Stonestreet, Jenny Slate, Lake Bell, Hannibal Buress, Nick Kroll, Dana Carvey, Ellie Kemper, Pete Holmes, Garth Jennings, and Bobby Moynihan.
Terrier Max (Patton Oswalt) is coping with some major life changes. His owner (Ellie Kemper) is now married and has a toddler, Liam. Max is so worried about protecting the boy that he develops a nervous tic. On a family trip to a farm, Max and mutt Duke (Eric Stonestreet) encounter canine-intolerant cows, hostile foxes and a terrifying turkey, all of which only elevates Max’s anxiety. Luckily, Max gets some guidance from veteran farm dog Rooster (Harrison Ford, making his animated-film debut), who pushes Max to ditch his neuroses, find his inner alpha, and give Liam a little more freedom.
Meanwhile, while her owner is away, plucky Pomeranian Gidget (Jenny Slate) tries to rescue Max’s favorite toy from a cat-packed apartment with a little help from her feline friend, Chloe (Lake Bell), who has discovered the joys of catnip.
And crazy-but-cute bunny Snowball (Kevin Hart) gets delusions of grandeur that he’s an actual superhero after his owner Molly starts dressing him in superhero pajamas. But when Daisy (Tiffany Haddish), a fearless Shih Tzu, shows up to ask for Snowball’s help on a dangerous mission, he’ll have to summon the courage to become the hero he’s only been pretending to be.
Can Max, Snowball, Gidget and the rest of the gang find the inner courage to face their biggest fears?
Dark Phoenix
Director: Simon Kinberg.
Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Evan Peters, and Jessica Chastain.
In Dark Phoenix, the X-Men face their most formidable and powerful foe: one of their own, Jean Grey. During a rescue mission in space, Jean is nearly killed when she is hit by a mysterious cosmic force. Once she returns home, this force not only makes her infinitely more powerful, but far more unstable. Wrestling with this entity inside her, Jean unleashes her powers in ways she can neither comprehend nor contain. With Jean spiraling out of control, and hurting the ones she loves most, she begins to unravel the very fabric that holds the X-Men together. Now, with this family falling apart, they must find a way to unite — not only to save Jean’s soul, but to save our very planet from aliens who wish to weaponize this force and rule the galaxy.
Late Night (Limited)
Director: Nisha Gantara.
Cast: Emma Thompson, Mindy Kaling, John Lithgow, Amy Ryan, Hugh Dancy, Reid Scott, and Ike Barinholtz.
Legendary talk-show host Katherine Newberry (Oscar® winner Emma Thompson) is a pioneer in her field. The only woman ever to have a long-running program on late night, she keeps her writers’ room on a short leash ― and all male. But when her ratings plummet and she is accused of being a “woman who hates women,” Katherine puts gender equality on her to-do list and impulsively hires Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling), a chemical plant efficiency expert from suburban Pennsylvania, as the first and only female on her writing staff.
With rumors swirling that Katherine is being replaced by a younger, hipper male host, she demands that the writers make her funny and relevant again. A lifelong fan, Molly is determined to prove she’s not just a diversity hire, but the one person who can turn her idol’s career around. Going against everything Katherine has staked her reputation on, she urges her to make the show more contemporary, authentic and personal, a move that could make Molly’s career ― or send her back to the chemical plant for good.
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Limited)
Director: Joe Talbot.
Cast: Jimmie Fails, Jonathan Majors, Rob Morgan, Tichina Arnold, and Danny Glover.
Jimmie Fails dreams of reclaiming the Victorian home his grandfather built in the heart of San Francisco. Joined on his quest by his best friend Mont, Jimmie searches for belonging in a rapidly changing city that seems to have left them behind. As he struggles to reconnect with his family and reconstruct the community he longs for, his hopes blind him to the reality of his situation.
A wistful odyssey populated by skaters, squatters, street preachers, playwrights, and other locals on the margins, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a poignant and sweeping story of hometowns and how they’re made—and kept alive—by the people who love them.
Chasing the Dragon II: Wild Wild Bunch
Director: Wong Jing and Jason Kwan.
Cast: Tony Leung Ka Fai, Louis Koo, Lam Ka Tung, Sabrina Qiu, and Sherman Ye.
Based on real-life crimes that terrorized Hong Kong in the 1990s, Logan (Tony Leung Ka Fai) is the head of leading a notorious human trafficking gang, abducting the children of Hong Kong’s elite. Police forces decide to send in Sky (Louis Koo), a Hong Kong undercover agent whose mission is to infiltrate and save the hostages, all while bringing the gang and their leader to justice in this action-packed thriller.
Pavarotti (Limited)
Director: Ron Howard.
From the filmmaking team behind the highly-acclaimed documentary The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years, Pavarotti is a riveting film that lifts the curtain on the icon who brought opera to the people. Academy Award winner Ron Howard puts audiences front row center for an exploration of The Voice… The Man… The Legend. Luciano Pavarotti gave his life to the music and a voice to the world. This cinematic event features history-making performances and intimate interviews, including never-before-seen footage and a special introduction from Ron Howard.
Funan (Limited)
Director: Denis Do.
Cast: Bérénice Bejo and Louis Garrel.
Cambodia, April 1975. Chou is a young woman whose everyday world is suddenly upended by the arrival of the Khmer Rouge regime. During the chaos of the forced exile from their home, Chou and her husband are separated from their 4-year-old son, who has been sent to an unknown location. As she navigates her new reality, working in the fields day and night under the careful watch of soldiers, and surviving the small indignities and harrowing realities of the increasingly grim work camps, Chou remains steadfast in her determination to reunite her family – even if it means risking everything. Winner of the top prizes at the Annecy Animation Festival and the Animation is Film Festival, Funan is a searing and remarkable debut from filmmaker Denis Do, who uses his own family history as inspiration for a thrilling story of love, loss and enduring hope in the most trying of times. Featuring the voices of Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) and Louis Garrel (The Dreamers).
Leto (Limited)
Director: Kirill Serebrennikov.
Cast: Teo Yoo, Irina Starshenbaum, Roman Bilyk.
Avant-garde Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov (The Student) returns to the big-screen with a tribute to the early years of Russian rock. Leningrad, in the summer, early eighties. Smuggling LP’s by Lou Reed and David Bowie, the underground rock scene is boiling ahead of Perestroika. Mike and his beautiful wife Natasha meet with young Viktor Tsoï. Together with friends, they will change the trajectory of rock n’roll music in the Soviet Union.
Loopers: The Caddie’s Long Walk
Director: Jason Baffa.
Cast: Bill Murray.
Loopers: The Caddie’s Long Walk is a visual tour de force shot on the iconic courses of Pebble Beach, Augusta National, St. Andrews, Carnoustie, Prestwick, Ballybunion, and Lahinch. Crafted in the spirit of documentaries like 20 feet from Stardom, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, and Step into Liquid, the film is a must-watch documentary of the game of golf as you’ve never seen it before.
June 14th
Plus One
Director: Jeff Chan and Andrew Rhymer.
Cast: Maya Erskine, Jack Quaid, Ed Begley, Jr., Beck Bennett, Rosalind Chao, Brianne Howey, Jon Bass, and Finn Wittrock.
Long-time friends Alice and Ben find themselves in that inevitable year that all late 20-somethings experience—in which seemingly every person they know gets married—and agree to be one another’s plus ones as they power through an endless parade of insufferable weddings.
Men in Black: International
Director: F. Gary Gray.
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Rebecca Ferguson, Kumail Nanjiani, Rafe Spall, Laurent Bourgeois, Larry Bourgeois, with Emma Thompson and Liam Neeson.
The Men in Black have always protected the Earth from the scum of the universe. In this new adventure, they tackle their biggest, most global threat to date: a mole in the Men in Black organization.
Head Count
Director: Elle Callahan.
Cast: Ashleigh Morghan, Isaac Jay, and Sam Marra.
Newcomer Evan joins a group of teens on a getaway in Joshua Tree. While exchanging ghost stories around the campfire, Evan reads aloud a mysterious chant from an internet site. From that moment, someone–or something–is among them. As unsettling, inexplicable events become more frequent, Evan realizes this summoned shape-shifting creature is targeting them to fulfill a deadly ritual.
Shaft
Director: Tim Story.
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Richard Roundtree, Regina Hall, Jessie T. Usher, Alexandra Shipp, Matt Lauria, Titus Welliver, and Cliff “Method Man” Smith.
JJ, aka John Shaft Jr. (Jesse T. Usher), may be a cyber security expert with a degree from MIT, but to uncover the truth behind his best friend’s untimely death, he needs an education only his dad can provide. Absent throughout JJ’s youth, the legendary locked-and-loaded John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson) agrees to help his progeny navigate Harlem’s heroin-infested underbelly. And while JJ’s own FBI analyst’s badge may clash with his dad’s trademark leather duster, there’s no denying family. Besides, Shaft’s got an agenda of his own, and a score to settle that’s professional and personal.
The Dead Don’t Die
Director: Jim Jarmusch.
Cast: Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop, Sara Driver, RZA, Selena Gomez, Carol Kane and Tom Waits.
In the sleepy small town of Centerville, something is not quite right. The moon hangs large and low in the sky, the hours of daylight are becoming unpredictable, and animals are beginning to exhibit unusual behaviors. No one quite knows why. News reports are scary and scientists are concerned. But no one foresees the strangest and most dangerous repercussion that will soon start plaguing Centerville: The Dead Don’t Die — they rise from their graves and savagely attack and feast on the living, and the citizens of the town must battle for their survival.
American Woman (Limited)
Director: Jake Scott.
Cast: Sienna Miller, Christina Hendricks, Aaron Paul, and Amy Madigan.
Set in rural Pennsylvania, Deb Callahan’s (Sienna Miller) life is changed forever when her teenage daughter mysteriously disappears. Deb is left to raise her young grandson and navigates the trials and tribulations of subsequent years, until a long-awaited discovery of the truth is revealed.
June 21st
Anna
Director: Luc Besson.
Cast: Sasha Luss, Luke Evans, with Cillian Murphy, and Helen Mirren.
Beneath Anna Poliatova’s striking beauty lies a secret that will unleash her indelible strength and skill to become one of the world’s most feared government assassins. An electrifying thrill ride unfolding with propulsive energy, startling twists and breathtaking action, Anna introduces Sasha Luss in the title role with a star-studded cast including Academy Award Winner Helen Mirren, Cillian Murphy, and Luke Evans.
Toy Story 4
Director: Josh Cooley.
Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Tony Hale, Jordan Peele, Keegan-Michael Key, Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks, Annie Potts, Timothy Dalton, Kristen Schaal, Wallace Shawn, Joan Cusack, Laurie Metcalf, and Don Rickles.
On the road of life there are old friends, new friends, and stories that change you.
Woody has always been confident about his place in the world and that his priority is taking care of his kid, whether that’s Andy or Bonnie. But when Bonnie adds a reluctant new toy called “Forky” to her room, a road trip adventure alongside old and new friends will show Woody how big the world can be for a toy.
Child’s Play
Director: Lars Klevberg.
Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Brian Tyree Henry, and Gabriel Bateman.
A contemporary re-imagining of the 1988 horror classic, Child’s Play follows Karen (Aubrey Plaza), a single mother who gifts her son Andy (Gabriel Bateman) a Buddi doll, unaware of its more sinister nature.
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
Director: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.
Cast: Toni Morrison, Angela Davis, Fran Lebowitz, Oprah Winfrey, Hilton Als, Walter Mosley, Sonia Sanchez, Robert Gottlieb, Farah Griffin, Russell Banks, David Carrasco, Paula Giddings, Richard Danielpour, and Peter Sellars.
After a stint as an editor early in her career, American writer Toni Morrison understood the publishing industry better than the ordinary writer—but she refused to be defined by the establishment. She wrote her books from a vital, underrepresented point of view. Morrison was one of the few who wrote for an African American audience, and she understood the way language could operate as an oppressive or uplifting force—she refused to let her words be marginalized. After years of fighting to be heard, Morrison was awarded a Nobel Prize for her writing, and her novels are now taught in schools around the world.
Through a trove of archival material, evocative works of contemporary art, and interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Angela Davis, and Morrison herself, we revisit her famed books and learn about the inspiration for her writing. Throughout, Morrison is effortlessly graceful, insightful, and candid, making this intimate, comprehensive portrait of her life and works an exploration of what it means to be a writer whose stories are so deeply intertwined with often-unrealized national truths.
June 28th
Annabelle Comes Home
Director: Gary Dauberman.
Cast: McKenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Kate Sarife, Patrick Wilson, and Vera Farmiga.
Determined to keep Annabelle from wreaking more havoc, demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren bring the possessed doll to the locked artifacts room in their home, placing her “safely” behind sacred glass and enlisting a priest’s holy blessing. But an unholy night of horror awaits as Annabelle awakens the evil spirits in the room, who all set their sights on a new target—the Warrens’ ten-year-old daughter, Judy, and her friends.
Yesterday
Director: Richard Curtis.
Cast: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Ed Sheeran, and Kate McKinnon.
Yesterday, everyone knew The Beatles. Today, only Jack remembers their songs. He’s about to become a very big deal. From Academy Award®-winning director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) and Richard Curtis, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and Notting Hill, comes a rock-n-roll comedy about music, dreams, friendship, and the long and winding road that leads to the love of your life.
Jack Malik (Himesh Patel, BBC’s Eastenders) is a struggling singer-songwriter in a tiny English seaside town whose dreams of fame are rapidly fading, despite the fierce devotion and support of his childhood best friend, Ellie (Lily James, Mama Mia! Here We Go Again). Then, after a freak bus accident during a mysterious global blackout, Jack wakes up to discover that The Beatles have never existed … and he finds himself with a very complicated problem, indeed.
Performing songs by the greatest band in history to a world that has never heard them, and with a little help from his steel-hearted American agent, Debra (Emmy winner Kate McKinnon), Jack’s fame explodes. But as his star rises, he risks losing Ellie — the one person who always believed in him. With the door between his old life and his new closing, Jack will need to get back to where he once belonged and prove that all you need is love.
Maiden
Director: Alex Holmes.
Cast: Tracy Edwards, Jo Gooding, Marie-Claude Kieffer Heys, Dawn Riley, Michèle Paret, Sally Creaser Hunter, Jeni Mundy, Tanja Visser, Mikaela Von Koskull, Claire Russell, Amanda Swan Neal, Nancy Harris, Angela Heath, Sarah Davies, and Howard Gibbons.
Maiden is the story of how Tracy Edwards, a 24-year-old cook in charter boats, became the skipper of the first ever all-female crew to enter the Whitbread Round the World in 1989. Tracy’s inspirational dream was opposed on all sides: her male competitors thought an all-women crew would never make it, the chauvinistic yachting press took bets on her failure, and potential sponsors rejected her, fearing they would die at sea and generate bad publicity.
But Tracy refused to give up: she remortgaged her home and bought a secondhand boat, putting everything on the line to ensure the team made it to the start line. Although blessed with tremendous self-belief Tracy was also beset by crippling doubts and was only able to make it through with the support of her remarkable crew. With their help she went on to shock the sport world and prove that women are very much the equal of men.
Ophelia
Director: Claire McCarthy.
Cast: Daisy Ridley, Naomi Watts, Clive Owen, George MacKay, Tom Felton, and Devon Terrell.
One of the world’s greatest dramas is turned on its head through a bold and new perspective in Ophelia. Set in medieval Denmark and spoken in a modern tongue with a poetic twist, it recalibrates the classic Shakespearean tragedy of “Hamlet” so that its unspoken, complex heroine may share her own story. As a rebellious and motherless child, Ophelia (Daisy Ridley) is taken into Elsinore Castle by Queen Gerturde (Naomi Watts) as one of her most trusted ladies-in-waiting. Soon enough, Ophelia captures the affections of the young Prince Hamlet (George MacKay). A passionate romance kindles between the two in secret as the kingdom is on the brink of war amidst its own political intrigue and betrayal. When Hamlet’s father is murdered and the prince’s wits begin to unravel into an insatiable quest for vengeance, Ophelia sharply navigates the rules of power in Denmark all while struggling to choose between her true love and her own life.
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