Recently I walked into a Las Vegas movie theater with absolutely no idea of what to expect and was rewarded for it. It happened to me twice, actually: the first time at a Town Square IMAX screening of Jonathan Demme’s Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, where I was surprised by people getting up to dance in the aisles, and again at a Beverly Theater screening of Mike Cheslik’s riotously funny Hundreds of Beavers, which is … no, I don’t wanna tell you what is. Just go see it.

In both instances, we gathered in the lobby afterward and talked excitedly about what we’d just seen. In most instances, when we loiter after a screening, it’s to get a good look at the dude who wouldn’t stop texting during the film, or the woman who propped her shoeless feet on the seatrest next to ours. No, this was a different feeling, a good feeling. We looked at each other conspiratorially, gifted with insight others didn’t yet possess. We’d been somewhere we couldn’t fully explain, but we were ready to tell our friends and family to go there and report back. It’s a great feeling, and I hope to have it again very soon.

This summer at the movies is a bit subdued, compared to (non-pandemic) years past. A variety of factors—last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, Hollywood’s continuing efforts to make streaming happen—have chilled business at the multiplexes. There are only a handful of buzzy “event” pictures: an assortment of sequels (Furiosa, Deadpool & Wolverine, Inside Out 2, A Quiet Place: Day One), new installments of elderly franchises (Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Despicable Me 4, Alien: Romulus) and some “sure, why not?” remakes/reboots (The Crow, Twisters, The Garfield Movie). Compared to last summer’s crop of big budget audience-pleasers—Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Fast X, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the “Barbenheimer” juggernaut—it feels a bit thin.

But that may be a good thing. Looking back at previous editions of this summer movie preview, I see several surprise favorites—The Green Knight, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On and Past Lives, among others—that were initially relegated to the margins. (It’s not lost on me that these are all A24 films, just like that Stop Making Sense re-release. A24 makes a giant showing this summer, too.) We discovered them together, in theaters. And we remembered them, and talked about them, long after we’d forgotten Netflix’s expensive but mediocre Ghosted, Red Notice and The Gray Man. Those “margin” films stuck to us, in part because we shared them in theaters—treasures we discovered, together, huddled in the dark.

It feels weird to keep saying this, but movies belong in theaters. And Las Vegas has some terrific theaters—state-of-the-art “luxury” multiplexes, an independent arthouse cinema and one of America’s relative few remaining drive-ins. I’ll visit many of them in the weeks to come to visit with Furiosa, with Deadpool, with the colorful Inside Out crew. But I’ll hope, I’ll strive, to discover the unexpected. I hope you’ll join me at a theater of your choosing, with your phone off and your shoes on.

Action

The 2024 summer action movie caravan began its roll a few weeks back, with The Fall Guy and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes leading the way. But the first of summer 2024’s big-assed muscle cars, George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, peels out on May 24. A prequel to his 2015 masterwork Mad Max: Fury Road, this new installment happily looks like more of the same, with two charismatic leads in Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth. Hopefully, Bad Boys: Ride or Die’sWill Smith and Martin Lawrence have even half as much star power left in their tank; we’ll find out on June 7.

Twisters (July 19) seems tailor-made for 4DX—those crazy theaters with the motion seats and smell-o-vision decanters. That should make up for a story that looks nearly identical to the 1996 film it’s based on, but nobody saw the original movie for its script, either. It’ll have a good week to itself before Deadpool & Wolverine comes out on July 26 and probably dominates multiplexes for a solid month. Anticipation for the teaming of Ryan Reynolds’ “merc with a mouth” and Hugh Jackman’s X-Man is high, to put it mildly—and the result will probably put Marvel’s foundering cinematic brand solidly back on track.

An Eli Roth adaptation of a popular video game franchise, Borderlands, drops on August 9. The buzz around it is surprisingly muted, considering its stars (Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Jamie Lee Curtis) and fun trailer. And if The Crow (August 23), the very definition of an unnecessary remake, manages to get over, it’ll be because of its offbeat lead actors: It’s terrifying Pennywise Bill Skarsgård, and inventive singer-songwriter FKA twigs.

Comedy 

I nearly didn’t include this category. The major studios have all but given up on making comedies for theaters, instead dumping them on to streaming services, where they disappear from public consciousness after only a few days. (Alas, Jerry Seinfeld did all that Unfrosted press for nothing. Also, the movie is mid.) But Hundreds of Beavers—also last summer’s No Hard Feelings—reminded us that longform comedies need an audience full of people. Hearing other people laughing at stuff can be funny, too.

In that spirit, I wish good luck to the Diane Keaton/Kathy Bates/Alfre Woodard/Eugene Levy comedy Summer Camp (May 31), the June Squibb/Richard Roundtree caper Thelma (June 21) and to the stars of The Fabulous Four (July 26), Bette Midler, Susan Sarandon, Megan Mullally and Sheryl Lee Ralph. And I’ll definitely be in the house for August 23’s Between the Temples, which unites two of my favorite actors, Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane. May at least one of these find its way into our consciousness in a big way, so we can have comedies in theaters again.

Drama

Wow, there are a lot of dramas opening this summer. Reckon that’s what happens when studios become apprehensive about making and marketing dozens of $200 million-dollar movies a year and dropping them like they’re hot. Their reticence has created a summer marketplace rich with character-driven stories, which I’ll kinda speed-run here because there’s a lot of them.

May 31 brings Ezra, a father-son road trip movie with Bobby Cannavale, Robert De Niro and Rose Byrne; The Dead Don’t Hurt, an old west love story directed by and starring Viggo Mortensen; and Backspot, a competitive cheerleading thriller with Evan Rachel Wood and Reservation Dogs’ Devery Jacobs. Bowing on June 14 is Treasure, with the sure-to-be-witty combination of Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry, and A24’s Tuesday, a heart-rending fairytale with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

June 21 is a big deal. The Bikeriders, an honest-to-Harley motorcycle gang story with Austin Butler, Tom Hardy and Michael Shannon, drops on that day, as does A24’s Janet Planet, the directing debut of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker, and Kinds of Kindness, which reunites the Poor Things team of star Emma Stone and director Yorgos Lanthimos. On June 28, Daddio, a New York-based two-hander with Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson, and the first “chapter” of Kevin Costner’s expansive western Horizon: An American Saga, make their debuts. (Horizon’s “chapter 2” arrives less than a month later, on August 16.)

Didi, coming July 26, is an English/Mandarin coming-of-age story with Twin Peaks’ Joan Chen. On August 2, Academy Award nominee Colman Domingo stars in A24’s Sing Sing, a based-on-a-true-story prison film that may well return Domingo to the Oscars. August 9 sees the arrival of It Ends With Us, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s 2016 New York Times bestseller starring Blake Lively, and Good One, a family drama that made its critically acclaimed debut at Sundance. Finally, August 16 brings My Penguin Friend, with the great French actor Jean Reno (The Professional), and Close to You, starring Elliot Page—who, bringing things full-circle, is the executive producer of May’s Backstop.

Family

This year’s crop of summertime family films is dominated by too-big-to-fail sequels and reboots, but there may be some surprises in this category as well.

The Garfield Movie (May 24) is a new animated adaptation of the syndicated comic strip, replacing Bill Murray with Chris Pratt. On May 31, Robot Dreams, a dog-and-his-robot “tragicomedy” animated in a traditional 2-D style, makes its U.S. debut a year after showing at Cannes. The same day, Disney’s live-action Young Woman and the Sea tells the story of an American Olympic gold medal winner who swam the English Channel; Daisy Ridley stars. And Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle, based on the popular anime and manga series about competitive volleyball (the word translates roughly to “high jump”), digs in on May 31.

Disney/Pixar takes all of June for itself with Inside Out 2 (opening June 14), a direct sequel to its giant 2015 hit. Stars Amy Poehler and Phyllis Smith return, alongside franchise newcomers Maya Hawke and Ayo Edebiri. Not to be outdone, Universal claims July with Despicable Me 4 (July 3), the sixth film in the franchise, counting two Minions spinoffs.

And Harold and the Purple Crayon (August 2), a freewheeling adaptation of the beloved 1955 children’s book starring Shazam’s Zachary Levi, draws a circle around the dog days of summer. Two-time Oscar nominee Carlos Saldanha (2003’s Gone Nutty; 2018’s Ferdinand) directs.

Suspense & Horror

Fans of jump scares, creeping terror and lingering dread have a lot to digest this summer, beginning May 31 with Norway’s Handling the Undead, an atmospheric zombie film written by Let the Right One In’s John Ajvide Lindqvist, and In a Violent Nature, a reimagining of the slasher-in-the-woods trope that’s already racking up critical raves.

June 7 brings a visit from The Watchers, the directorial debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan—yes, the daughter of M. Night Shyamalan. (What a twist!) A Quiet Place: Day One, the third film in the series but a prequel to the two that preceded it, lands June 28. It stars Lupita Nyong’o and is helmed by Michael Sarnoski, director of the acclaimed Nicolas Cage drama Pig.

A24’s MaXXXine, the latest film of the X franchise, makes its mark July 3 with Mia Goth once again in the title role. And Cage, who’s made some incredible late-career horror movies (see Mandy, Color Out of Space and Willy’s Wonderland, in that order), has likely made another one in Longlegs (July 12).

Tightening the family’s grip on the season, M. Night Shyamalan springs his Trap on theaters on August 9, with Josh Hartnett as a serial killer who’s cornered at a concert by fictional singer-songwriter Lady Raven—played by another member of the family, real singer-songwriter Saleka Shyamalan. And speaking of big, ever-growing families, everyone’s favorite xenomorphs are a-steppin’ out in August 16’s Alien: Romulus, from Don’t Breathe mastermind Fede Álvarez. While we’re in that space where no one can hear us scream, let’s drop in on August 23’s Slingshot—a psychological thriller from director Mikael Håfström, who’s best known for the solid Stephen King adaptation 1408. It stars Casey Affleck as an astronaut succumbing to space madness.

And it wouldn’t be a proper scary movie season without a release from horror stalwarts Blumhouse, whose They Listen, a holdover from last summer, finally drops on August 30. It stars John Cho and Katherine Waterston and is directed by American Pie’s Chris Weitz. Truth: It was the final film mentioned in the summer movie preview I wrote last year, and I still can’t find out anything about its story. Guess we’ll all be surprised together.

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