Big Summer Movies

There was a terrifying moment there not so long ago when it seemed like we were all doomed to only ever watch new release films at home. With that scare long past us, however, it’s time to get back into theaters and watch stuff on gigantic screens the way our best and brightest filmmakers intended. Here’s a slate of notable movies dropping during the summer.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

(June 2, Not yet rated, but probably PG)

We’re recommending mandatory attendance for the sequel to the 2018 animated masterpiece Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. It’s already in theaters as you are reading this. We expect it to be a banger thanks to writer-producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Clone High), who know exactly what we want in a Miles Morales movie: weirdness and lots of it.

Flamin’ Hot

(June 9, PG-13)

Desperate Housewives alum Eva Longoria dons her director’s cap for this one, the tale of Mexican-American PepsiCo janitor Richard Montañez, who purportedly invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and became a business exec because of it. Turns out, according to the Los Angeles Times, Montañez was NOT the guy who invented the beloved snack, even if he did write a book or two about his story. Longoria’s movie (filmed in New Mexico) will probably be pretty fun all the same, disappointing though her lack of scrutiny may be. Oh, and we know we said all that theater stuff before, but this one’s streaming on Hulu. Tony Shalhoub is in it!

Asteroid City

(June 16, R)

Preposterously twee filmmaker Wes Anderson enlists every movie star ever (Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Hope Davis, Steve Carell, Maya Hawke and about a billion more) for his new pastel-flooded fantasy movie wherein people do cutesy little things and talk like precious fucking Emily Dickinson letters. The story, as far as we can glean, revolves around a stargazing club that winds up embroiled in some kind of atomic bomb test (or at least congregates near it). Rushmore is super good, though.

The Flash

(June 16, PG-13)

Even though embattled star Ezra Miller has spent their off-time harassing the people of Earth any chance they get, they’re hitting theaters this summer as the titular Flash so 40-year-old dudes can be like, “OHMYGOD! Michael Keaton’s back as Batman!” in their kicky little incel chatrooms. Haha! Actually, that Keaton part sounds cool, and we’re joking about nerds—but maybe Google Miller’s exploits and decide how you feel about throwing your money their way before you go? We don’t know what this one’s about, but we assume some peril is thwarted (or at least slowed down) when superheroes get together to do superhero stuff. The Flash likely runs fast and vibrates so hard he phases through dimensions.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

(June 30, PG-13)

If you’re out there acting like you’re too good for the fifth Indy movie with Harrison Ford because Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was dumb, you’re either lying to yourself, forgetting that Temple of Doom is so very stupid or both. This time, the eponymous hero joins forces with Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge to find some relic that does time stuff or something. It doesn’t matter, it’s Indiana Jones and every one of us will see it.

Joy Ride

(July 7, not-yet-rated, but probably PG-13; MAYBE R)

After Everything Everywhere All At Once won just about every award in existence, thereby proving to racist Hollywood ghouls that people will absolutely go see a movie led by Asian people, this-here movie about a quartet of Asian-American buds traveling across Asia in search of one bud’s birth mother oughta do big numbers. Crazy Rich Asians co-writer Adele Lim’s on screenplay duties alongside Family Guy alum Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Fresh Off the Boat scribe Teresa Hsiao. Lim even directed the dang thing, and Everything Everywhere powerhouse Stephanie Hsu stars, along with Ashley Park, Chris Pang, Alexander Hodge and Sherry Cola. We’d watch Hsu read the phone book at this point.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1

(July 14, not-yet-rated, but probably PG-13)

Tom Cruise is back as agent Ethan Hunt to perform stunts no one asked for in the seventh installment of the long-running Mission Impossible series. Even IMDb doesn’t have plot info about this one, so we assume Cruise will jump off some shit while co-stars Cary Elwes and Rebecca Ferguson say stuff like, “We’re running out of time, Ethan!” and, “The prime minister knows it’s a trap!” That “Part 1″ part makes us nervous there’s already a Part 2 in production somewhere.

Barbie

(July 21, PG-13)

Y’know, if it were anyone but director Greta Gerwig and powerhouse Margot Robbie behind this thing, we’d maybe be like, “Naw, dawg.” This one follows the titular doll out of her utopic Barbieland and into the real world, whatever that means. Oh, but Simu Liu stars in it, so that’s kinda cool. Ryan Gosling also appears, perhaps in a bid to prove he has more range than sad-eyed disaffectedness? Weirdly, Gerwig co-wrote the script with Noah Baumbach.

Oppenheimer

(July 21, PG-13)

Christopher Nolan drops his newest about the scientist who built the atomic bomb, loosely inspired by a Pulitzer-winning biography. Cilian Murphy (Peaky Blinders) plays Robert Oppenheimer in all his ethical conundrum’d-out glory, and we can all just hope it’s better than Tenet, which was, like, so dumb and confounding. Another made-in-New Mexico number, we bet this one’s pretty, though.

Gran Turismo

(August 11, PG-13)

Orlando “Legolas” Bloom joins David “Shitty Hellboy” Harbour and Djimon “Should Be a Much Bigger Star” Hounsou for this based-on-a-true-story film about a kid who was so sick at the video game Gran Turismo that he somehow became a real racecar driver. District 9′s Neill Blomkamp directs, which feels unexpected, but video games are cool, so maybe this will be cool?

Untitled Please Don’t Destroy Film Project

(August 18, not-yet-rated, but probably R)

Prolific comedy producer Judd Apatow joins with the SNL writers/Andy Samberg/Lonely Island spiritual successors of Please Don’t Destroy for a movie about friends/housemates in search of a treasure. It’s been a minute since we had an SNL movie, but if the current quality of the show is an indicator, this is going to be the worst you’ve felt about spending $30 since...well, since ever. Fake ones will wax philosophical about how there’s humor in the profoundly unfunny; real ones will long for the days of dumb but hilarious shit like The Ladies Man.

Blue Beetle

(August 18, not-yet-rated, but probably PG-13)

Director Angel Manuel Soto helms this DC movie (we know, we know) about a young Mexican-American lad (Xolo Maridueña) who gets superpowered with exoskeleton, um, superpowers after finding a superpowered bug or whatever. Susan Sarandon and What We Do in the Shadows’ Harvey Guillén (whom we LOVE) round out the cast, and we sure bet there’s some kind of beast or alien to fight or something.

Bottoms

(August 25, not-yet-rated, but probably PG-13; mayyyyybe R)

Those who’ve longed for the return of gifted Shiva Baby actor Rachel Sennott and director Emma Seligman need wait no longer—well, maybe a little longer: Bottoms is out this summer, and if the Sennott/Seligman mastery from their 2018 debut remains even slightly intact, we’re expecting magic. All we know about this one is that it’s a queer teen sex comedy, and we hear there’s shades of Wet Hot American Summer at play. In other words? We have big expectations. BIG.