Though the summer movie season got off to a stronger start than last year, June is a bit lacking for promising tentpoles. Yet looking deeper, there’s plenty to seek out, from the best title to premiere at Sundance earlier this year to the anticipated return of a zombie franchise to formally thrilling documentaries to a shark thriller with bite.
10. F1 (Joseph Kosinski; June 27)

After his little-seen Top Gun: Maverick follow-up Spiderhead, Joseph Kosinski returns to large-scale entertainment with F1. While there’s something a little more dull about the proposition of branded entertainment with a sports league (as opposed to his previous outing of brashly unfiltered U.S. military propaganda), here’s hoping the $300 million budget was enough for Kosinski to properly deliver high-octane thrills.
9. Hot Milk (Rebecca Lenkiewicz; June 27)

While Emma Mackey is gearing up for a major year with Julia Ducournau’s Alpha and James L. Brook’s long-awaited return in the December-bound Ella McCay (not to mention future roles in the next films from J.J. Abrams and Greta Gerwig), she kicked the year off at Berlinale with Hot Milk, written and directed by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida, Disobedience) and co-starring Vicky Krieps, Fiona Shaw, Pasty Ferran, Yann Gael, Vangelis Mourikis, and Vincent Perez. Savina Petkova said in our Berlinale review, “Lenkiewicz, who felt very strongly about the source material when she was first approached to write the screenplay and wished to direct it as well, has an intuitive grasp on the dynamics and without a doubt found the perfect collaborators to bring this project from page to screen: cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt (frequent collaborator of Kelly Reichardt), Mark Towns (editor for Rose Glass), and the cast––Mackay, Shaw, and Vicky Krieps who portrays Sofia’s enigmatic love interest, Ingrid––fit like a glove. This adaptation places an emphasis on exteriorized emotions whose diffusion is felt throughout. They’re in the static long takes, the well-placed cuts that prevent the scene’s crescendo from spilling over, in the symphony of performances painting characters who otherwise wouldn’t fit naturally.”
8. Materialists (Celine Song; June 13)

Quickly following the success of her Best Picture-nominated debut Past Lives, writer-director Celine Song has a rom-com follow-up arriving this month: Materialists, which brings together the formidable trio of Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal, following a young, ambitious New York City matchmaker named Lucy (Johnson) who finds herself torn between the perfect match and her imperfect ex. A24 opted to skip a festival run, opting for a wide-release embrace; we’ll soon see if they succeed.
7. 7 Walks with Mark Brown (Pierre Creton and Vincent Barré; June 20)

One of the loveliest titles I saw at last year’s New York Film Festival was Pierre Creton (A Prince) and Vincent Barré’s tranquil, rejuvenating new documentary 7 Walks with Mark Brown. Following paleobotanist Mark Brown on seven walks through Normandy’s flora life, with an invigorating second-half formal shift best left unspoiled, the film has a U.S. release beginning on June 20 at NYC’s BAM.
6. Dangerous Animals (Sean Byrne; June 6)

With Jaws celebrating a 50th anniversary, it wouldn’t be the summer movie season without a shark picture. With his first feature in ten years, The Loved One‘s Sean Byrne delivers the best of its kind since at least Jaume Collet-Serra’s The Shallows, all while mixing in a serial-killer movie to boot. Dangerous Animals thrives on the intensely villainous performance from a never-better Jai Courtney, who finds novel ways to offer up his victims to the treacherous waters. If it doesn’t add up to much more than a 90-minute thrill ride, the direction is sharp enough to feel like you are in the hands of an accomplished entertainer, pulling the strings to deliver pure summer fun.
5. The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich; June 6)

A directorial debut as hypnotic as it is narratively destabilizing, The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire was one of my favorite discoveries from last year’s New York Film Festival. A post-biopic about Caribbean surrealist Suzanne Césaire, deconstructing the process of bringing a life to film, Cinema Guild has picked up Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s feature for a June 6 release beginning at BAM, kicking off a special 35mm print tour. David Katz said in his NYFF review, “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, the feature debut from artist and filmmaker Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, aims to foreground its primary literary material and historical context, but instead directs more attention to its oneiric touches and environmental phenomena––the ‘wind in the trees,’ so to speak. The title figure, together with her more widely known husband Aimé Césaire, were both at the forefront of the négritude movement, which sought to put Francophone literature by colonized peoples in greater dialogue with their African ancestry, and to depict this with a supple, surrealistic view of the world. Assembled from deep research, assistance from academic specialists, and consultations with the Césaire offspring, Hunt-Ehrlich’s bold formal schema still prevents us from fully absorbing these efforts: ‘feeling’ does outpace our full understanding. The vibrant Caribbean music and torch songs on the soundtrack make plain it’s a ballad, not a pedagogic Lecture of Suzanne Césaire.”
4. 28 Years Later (Danny Boyle; June 20)

After the 2000s brought us 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, get ready for a whole new trilogy of zombie features. Danny Boyle, returning six years since his Beatles-inspired trifle Yesterday, is back to large-scale filmmaking with 28 Years Later, co-written with Alex Garland, and starring Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, and Ralph Fiennes. Speaking to Nick Newman in a career-spanning interview, cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle said, “Danny’s very, very excited about how the camera moves. He knows light and stuff like that, but movement is the bloodstream for him––why it moves––and I’m very particular about why the camera moves in every single film I do and everything I watch here. That bonded us. He’d just come off The Beach with Darius, who is a master––a beautiful, beautiful master of many, many aspects of cinematography––and what Danny saw, at that time, he wanted to react to. That became two short TV productions utilizing multiple digital cameras––they thought I was some digital genius, which I’m not––and then it became 28 Days Later. Which became a historic film, right?”
3. Familiar Touch (Sarah Friedland; June 20)

Among the best first features in recent memory, Sarah Friedland’s wonderfully gentle Familiar Touch premiered at the Venice Film Festival where it picked up Best Director, Best Actress, and Best First Film in the Orizzonti section. After opening New Directors/New Films, the drama (starring Kathleen Chalfant, Carolyn Michelle, Andy McQueen, and H. Jon Benjamin) will now begin a theatrical run this month. Rory O’Connor said in his review, “It’s a wonderfully gentle piece of filmmaking––something of a low-key triumph that offers a novel perspective on a topic that had become, if not entirely worn out, at least clichéd. Friedland’s deceptively complex approach is to tell Ruth’s story from her perspective instead of a loved one’s, and without ever fully revealing what’s happening in there. The film features no lengthy monologues and is sparing with its character’s suffering––at least not beyond the realities of her situation. The experiences we witness in Villa Gardens are largely pleasant: finding some agency by helping out in the kitchen, allowing herself some playful moments in her check-ups with Brian, and making a genuine connection with Vanessa. Even in her most difficult moments, Familiar Touch stays rooted on her side, allowing Ruth to rally with dignity when despair seems the more likely outcome. All of this is filmed (by Friedland’s regular collaborator Gabe Elder) with an intimacy that never feels intrusive or merely observational.”
2. Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra; June 27)

Following up his career-best work with the mesmerizing Pacifiction, Albert Serra returns just a couple years later with a work of non-fiction. Afternoons of Solitude is a mesmerizing portrait of bullfighting star Andrés Roca Rey, set over just a handful of extended sequences in which we bear witness to the primal connection made between man and animal. Donning his majestic traje de luces (aka suit of lights), Rey spends all-consuming time in the ring that’s filmed with both a nervous calm and sense of transfixing beauty as his blood-splattered matador costume starts blending with the striking red ring to which he’s confined. With Serra’s formal conviction, what could have been a standard documentary on the process becomes something altogether transcendent. For more, read David Katz’s review.
1. Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor; June 27)

Agnes’ (Eva Victor) life is defined by a sense of stagnancy. Four years after completing grad school in rural New England, she’s living in the same house and going to the same building, only now as a professor. Whatever true joy she seems to experience is infrequent visits from her best friend and former roommate Lydie (Naomi Ackie), who has moved on, starting a family in New York City. As Victor assiduously peels back the layers of her sharp, unnerving, witty feature debut Sorry, Baby, the reason for being stuck in time becomes clear: in her final days of grad school she was raped by her advisor, who quickly deserted the town, leaving no culpability and even less sense of justice or closure. Continue reading my full review from Sundance.
More Films to See
- The Life of Chuck (June 6)
- Emmanuelle (June 6)
- Meeting with Pol Pot (June 13)
- Sex (June 13)
- Sally (June 16)
- Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore (June 20)
- The Queen of My Dreams (June 20)
- Ponyboi (June 27)