After the May movie season proved a paradigm-shifting testament to what truly attracts a large portion of the potential audience, we don’t expect such revelations this month. However, June has plenty of worthwhile options to seek out in theaters, from the return of the blockbuster maestro to favorites from Cannes, Sundance, TIFF, and beyond.
16. Jinsei (Ryuya Suzuki; June 5)
In quite a feat of DIY animation, Ryuya Suzuki crafted his century-spanning debut Jinsei over the course of 18 months as the sole animator, director, writer, editor, and musician. Premiering at the Annecy Film Festival to acclaim and now arriving this month, it follows a J-pop idol, an outcast, and an oracle in a 100-year chronicle of an extraordinary life, spanning the past, present, and future.
15. Jackass: Best and Last (Jeff Tremaine; June 26)
While, upon release, it was no wonder many thought 2022’s Jackass Forever would be the gang’s final outing—bodies put through the wringer to that extent have their breaking point. However, Johnny Knoxville and crew are returning with their fifth and final feature this month, which only recently wrapped filming. It looks like everyone has thankfully survived this outing, but we look forward to seeing what hijinks await in one of America’s last shining examples of masculine camaraderie.
14. The Gas Station Attendant (Karla Murthy; June 12)
Watch an exclusive clip above.
Director Karla Murthy examines her father’s past and their complicated relationship in the moving family portrait The Gas Station Attendant. Charting his life’s journey, from fleeing India and heading to America with hope, Murthy explores the heartbreaking disconnect of dashed dreams while still putting on a veneer of triumph for your family. It’s a remarkable feat of editing as disparate batches of home-video footage is given new life, conveyed with an emotional layer as Murthy tells the reality of the immigration experience for many.
13. I Am Frankelda (Arturo Ambriz and Roy Ambriz: June 12)
After getting much buzz on the festival circuit last year, Mexico’s first-ever stop-motion feature arrives this month on Netflix. Directed by Arturo Ambriz and Roy Ambriz, who worked under Guillermo del Toro, the fantasy tale I Am Frankelda was praised by Jared Mobarak in his review: “More than the similarly mythologized Monsters, Inc., the first stop-motion feature produced in Mexico (courtesy of the Cinema Fantasma studio) recalls an old childhood favorite from the ’80s: Little Monsters. Just like that Fred Savage vehicle, writers-directors Los Hermanos Ambriz (Arturo and Roy) have created a means to connect reality to nightmare so a human might embrace the latter’s mischief, mystery, and terror that the former rejects. The 19th-century-set I Am Frankelda is thus born from a young woman’s mind (Mireya Mendoza’s Francisca Imelda) as a manifestation of her aspiration to become a horror writer––a dream met with major pushback from publishers, society, and family alike.”
12. Promised Sky (Erige Sehiri; June 12)
Premiering to much acclaim as the opening of last year’s Cannes Film Festival sidebar Un Certain Regard, Promised Sky will now arrive in U.S. theaters this month. Kent M. Wilhelm said in his forthcoming review, “With Promised Sky, French-Tunisian director Erige Sehiri offers an intimate view from the diverse perspectives of those caught in the mess of systemic prejudice and how difficult it can be to play fair when the deck is stacked against you.”
11. The Little Sister (Hafsia Herzi; June 5)
Nearly two decades since breaking out as an actress in The Secret of the Grain, Hafsia Herzi returned with her latest directorial feature, The Little Sister, earning much acclaim upon its Cannes debut last year. Starring Nadia Melliti (who won Best Actress at the festival) and Return to Seoul‘s Park Ji-Min, the queer coming-of-age story will now arrive in theaters this June. It’s a sensitive tale of storied traditions clashing with newfound identity, with Melliti indeed deserving of the honors received thus far.
10. Mare’s Nest (Ben Rivers; June 24)
Ben Rivers’ universe of tactile, experimental cinema continues with the transportive Mare’s Nest. Leonardo Goi said in his review, “Long before they came to designate a state of hopeless confusion, the words ‘mare’s nest’ once meant something more electrifying: the excitement for that which doesn’t exist. That’s a good way of thinking about the cinema of Ben Rivers. Perched at the interstice between utopias and dystopias, his films unfurl across sequestered spaces populated by solitary drifters who’ve long abandoned the comforts of 21st-century life. In The Origin of the Species, an old hermit living in the woods of Inverness-shire muses on Darwin’s theories from the confines of his isolated house. Shuttling us from the Polynesian island of Tuvalu to Rivers’s native turf of Somerset, England, Slow Action repurposes these far-flung locales as futuristic civilizations, while Bogancloch caps a trilogy centered on a Scottish musician who’s set camp in a remote corner of Aberdeenshire. It can be difficult to tell whether Rivers’ characters have willfully abandoned modernity or survived the Armageddon, if the world beyond their secluded homes is still functioning or has long been ravaged. But even at its most apocalyptic, his cinema is never dour. Emanating from it is a childlike wonder for these uncharted lands and their residents; at best, the excitement is contagious.”
9. Leviticus (Adrian Chiarella; June 19)
While we wait and see if David Robert Mitchell gets around to making his planned It Follows sequel, Australian director Adrian Chiarella’s unnerving feature debut Leviticus brings a similar, memorable dose of nightmarish dread. When pair of Australian boys who live in a rural, conservative Christian community begin acting on their queer feelings, a religious-minded curse presents itself that finds them haunted by what their hearts most desire. Following premieres at Sundance and New Directors/New Films, it’ll arrive in theaters this month.
8. Carolina Caroline (Adam Carter Rehmeier; June 5)
After the punchy, entertaining Dinner in America and Snack Shack, director Adam Carter Rehmeier is back with his fifth feature, Carolina Caroline. Reteaming with Kyle Gallner and bringing Samara Weaving along for the ride, the crime romance premiered at TIFF, where Jared Mobarak said in his review, “Written by Tom Dean and directed by Adam Carter Rehmeier, Carolina Caroline plays on-screen as a love story first and foremost. It’s that sensibility which drew Rehmeier to the material, he and Dean working to turn a posher Oliver into the country western vagabond we see. We’re talking a love-at-first-sight romance, too––Caroline silently watches him scam her boss at the register while Oliver keeps looking over at her to make sure she’s paying attention. He likes her boldness to come out and demand the money he stole back. She likes that he complies with a smile before inexplicably dropping her name to stoke her intrigue further.”
7. The Invite (Olivia Wilde; June 26)
Bouncing back after Don’t Worry Darling, Olivia Wilde’s chamber comedy The Invite—written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, and starring Seth Rogen, Wilde, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton—was among the most well-received premieres at Sundance earlier this year. Kent M. Wilhelm said in his Sundance review, “Small in scale, yet so much greater than the sum of its parts, Wilde conducts her quartet of players to an orchestral performance. She builds the dramatic tension of a relationship-turned-powder-keg from years of complacency and poor communication over staccato strings until it reaches its summit, only for it to drop and rise again. Employing just four principal actors, including herself, and a single apartment, it’s an impressive feat to pull off and a testament to her progression as actor-turned-director.”
6. Bouchra (Meriem Bennani, Orian Barki; June 26)
If Hollywood’s animation offerings have been fairly stale of late, look no further than the independent-filmmaking side for one of this year’s most inventive offerings. Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki’s animation/live-action hybrid Bouchra is a debut feature that combines vulnerable storytelling, documentary techniques, and an anthropomorphized animated cast to portray a complex relationship between a queer, Moroccan filmmaker and her mother. Jared Mobarak said in his review, “Based on a real-life conversation shared by co-director Meriem Bennani and her own mother, Bouchra (co-directed with Orian Barki and co-written by them and Ayla Mrabet) opens with a phone call. Aicha (Yto Barrada) is checking in on her daughter from Morocco when Bouchra (Bennani) broaches a subject they’ve been avoiding for almost a decade. Stuck creatively, the latter has decided to find emotional catharsis through a script about the complex dynamic shared with her parents and seeks context from the opposite side.”
5. Rose of Nevada (Mark Jenkin; June 19)
After the impressive homespun fables Bait and Enys Men, Mark Jenkin returned last year with Rose of Nevada, a journey into the past starring George MacKay and Callum Turner that continues the Cornish director’s tactile sense of filmmaking. Leonardo Goi said in his review, “Even when ostensibly set in the present, Jenkin’s works all seem to exist in some undetermined past, and in Rose of Nevada, a few objects adorning Nick’s room––an old poster, a tape player, some cassettes––suggests a bygone era long before the boat catapults him back to the early 1990s. But nothing heightens that anachronism more than the film’s look. Jenkin shot Rose of Nevada on film with the same camera he used for Bait and its follow-up, Enys Men: a clockwork Bolex H16 with a maximum runtime of 28 seconds per take. Though a lot more polished than they were in the monochrome, hand-processed Bronco’s House and Bait, the images are similarly rife with scratches and red-light leak flashes. To call those aberrations, however, would be grossly misleading; these irregularities define Jenkin’s aesthetic, the main reason why his films feel so mysteriously alive.”
4. Maddie’s Secret (John Early; June 19)
In one of the most impressive tonal feats of the year, John Early’s directorial debut Maddie’s Secret––which finds the actor playing a woman juggling career dreams, marriage, and a traumatic secret––is both hilarious and heartfelt, a satire-meets-melodrama with an emotional core that sneaks up on the viewer. Jake Kring-Schreifels said in his review, “That Maddie’s Secret, his directorial debut, is Early’s biggest commitment to date isn’t just because he goes full drag as the titular heroine. But let’s start there. When he bursts onto the screen jogging around Los Angeles, Early gives the audience a few minutes to wrap their head around his transformation into a blonde aspiring chef. While this isn’t a cheap, shock-worthy gag, he knows he has to recontextualize the reality and humor of his new gender, providing an adjustment period to get on Maddie’s wavelength and see the character as more than one big cosplay. In a satire like this, the laughs start heavy, but Early’s best trick is ending this journey in an earnest, emotionally authentic place. He’s not playing a punchline so much as a humorous, painful truth.”
3. Drunken Noodles (Lucio Castro; June 26)
One of the most delightful surprises of last year’s Cannes Film Festival is now getting a release this month. Rory O’Connor said in his review, “The laws of time and space are met with frisky ambivalence in Drunken Noodles, Lucio Castro’s anticipated third feature and surely the hottest title in this year’s ACID lineup. Most people familiar with the New York-based, Argentinian-born director first encountered him through End of the Century, a film of similar temporal disregard: set in Barcelona, it followed two men who seemed to fall in love only to realize it wasn’t their first encounter. Upon release in 2019, critics were divided over some of the film’s more adventurous flourishes––the sense of overreach. There are a handful of moments in Noodles that do something similar, but it’s an otherwise sultry and strangely calming film, 82 minutes of late-night hookups and late-season ennui that passes like a summer breeze.”
2. Romería (Carla Simón; June 26)
After crafting one of the most deeply felt debuts of the prior decade with Summer 1993, Carla Simón followed up the coming-of-age drama with her Golden Bear winner Alcarràs, and last year she came to Cannes with her stirring, evocative third feature Romería. Rory O’Connor said in his Cannes review, “Continuing in the low-key register of her Golden Bear winner Alcarràs, Carla Simón returns with Romería, another tale of intergenerational dissonance. A film about the stories families choose to tell and the ones they bury deep inside, it unfurls on Spain’s Atlantic coast, where 18-year-old orphan Marina (Llúcia Garcia) hopes to reunite with her paternal family. It’s also a story about displacement and yearning for lost roots, themes that cut close to the bone for a director whose parents died of AIDS when she was still a child, and who reunited with her father’s family in the town of Vigo, Galicia, where the film is set, at the same age. Simón has always been an autobiographical filmmaker; Romería might be her most personal work yet.”
1. Disclosure Day (Steven Spielberg; June 12)
In one of the longest breaks of his career, it’s been four years since Steven Spielberg’s last feature, The Fabelmans, but he’s thankfully returning next week. Going back to the realm of extraterrestrial sci-fi after Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and War of the Worlds, the legendary director will explore alien contact with Disclosure Day, featuring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, and Wyatt Russell. With early word being remarkably strong, it’s certainly our most-anticipated blockbuster of the year.
More Films to See in June
- Underland (June 5)
- Stop! That! Train! (June 12)
- The Furious (June 12)
- The Death of Robin Hood (June 19)
- Couture (June 26)