Beetlejuice From Beetlejuice to The Wolf: 11 of the best movies to watch in September

In April 1970, an oxygen tank exploded on NASA’s Apollo 13 moon rocket. The incredible story of how the three astronauts got back to Earth was already told in a Ron Howard-directed film starring Tom Hanks as Captain Jim Lovell. (Incidentally, the screenplay changed Lovell’s understated line from “Houston, we’ve got a problem” to “Houston, we’ve got a problem.”) Now, a Netflix documentary tells the story in more detail from the perspective of the astronauts, their families, and mission controllers. According to Screen Daily’s Wendy Eide:The documentary is a “gritty viewing experience.” [that] “The film benefits from access to a wealth of previously little-known material, including the Lovell family’s home videos,” and director Peter Middleton “combines archival audio, film footage, photographs, later interviews with key figures, and some new footage to create a fascinating re-enactment from the cockpit side of the eventful mission.”

Released internationally on Netflix on September 5th

With summer vacation drawing to a close, this sadistic Blumhouse thriller suggests that might be for the best. Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy play an American couple traveling through Europe who befriend a British couple, played by James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi. The Americans accept the Brits’ invitation to stay in a secluded country cottage, but the stay quickly becomes very uncomfortable. The problem is, the Americans may be too polite to complain about their hosts’ overbearing attitude until it’s too late. Speak No Evil is a 2022 remake of the Danish film, Tomris Lafley featured in Harper’s Bazaar As a “tough (but in a good way), lean and mean-spirited genre outing” [that] “It will drive you insane.” Will the new version be even more vicious?

Opens internationally from September 13th

It’s the golden age of French courtroom dramas, with films like Anatomy of a Foll and Saint-Omer winning awards around the world. The latest film is based on the true story of Pierre Goldman, a far-left extremist convicted of a double murder in 1974. In 1975, Goldman (Arie Walthalter) returns to court to appeal his conviction, but this time he turns the trial into a campaign against the racism, anti-Semitism and corruption of the state. Directed by Cedric Kahn, The Goldman Affair was nominated for eight César Awards (the French equivalent of the Oscars), with Walthalter winning the award for Best Actor. The film is characterised by his “electrifying, almost wild leading performance”. Guy Lodge told Variety:“The drama reaches a fever pitch as Goldman’s blood boils in the courtroom and the trial moves beyond the question of his innocence into a scathing examination of systemic corruption and wrongdoing.”

Released in the UK and Ireland on 20th September

A live-action version of Lilo & Stitch is due to be released next year, but the original’s director, Chris Sanders, is busy with another sci-fi animated film about space-age visitors to a lush, beautiful place. Based on the children’s book by Peter Brown, Wild Robots tells the story of Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o), a robot who is shipwrecked on a deserted island (at least, uninhabited by humans). The animals who inhabit this untouched wilderness, voiced by Pedro Pascal, Catherine O’Hara, Mark Hamill and Bill Nigho, teach Roz how to survive in a technology-free environment. “This is something much more complex than just a machine that has acquired feelings,” says Sanders. Sanders told The Wrap:“It’s much more interesting and complex and emotional. Roz understands a lot of things, but she doesn’t really understand it in a multifaceted way. She knows the definitions of things, but she doesn’t have the experience of them. And gaining that experience makes her much more multifaceted.”

The film will be released in the US, Canada and Finland on September 27th, and in the UK and Ireland on October 18th.

Azazel Jacobs’ sharp, nuanced comedy-drama currently has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning all reviews have been positive. One reason for this is that Jacobs has given such layered roles to actresses who are well-suited to the roles: Carrie Coon from The Leftovers and Gone Girl, Elizabeth Olsen, best known for her role as Scarlet Witch in The Avengers series, and Natasha Lyonne from The Avengers. poker faceThey play a trio of estranged sisters forced to share a New York apartment to care for their terminally ill father. His Three Daughters is “a ruthless, humane and darkly funny story that wrestles with the ugliness of grief and gives as happy an ending as a heartbreaking death can possibly give.” Katie Puchko tells Mashable:“It’s chaotic, charismatic and ultimately cathartic. Don’t miss it.”

It will be released in the US on September 6th and internationally on September 20th on Netflix.

A mix of racy Hollywood satire and a delightfully uncomfortable body horror film, Substance is Demi Moore’s best role in decades. In a bold parody of her own public image, she plays Elizabeth Sparkle, a former Hollywood A-lister who is now a daytime aerobics show host. When her sexist boss (Dennis Quaid) fires her to hire a younger host, Elizabeth pays a mysterious company to create a clone of herself (Margaret Qualley) in her twenties. But like Dr. Jekyll, she soon learns that splitting yourself in two can have dire consequences. Written and directed by Coralie Fargeir, Substance is “a truly disgusting, yet highly entertaining and thoughtful… horror movie.” Phil de Semlien of Time Out magazine said:“The final scene in particular is meant to be a welcome relief to anyone who found the horrifyingly brutal climax of The Fly a little on the tame side.”

It opens in Australia on September 19th, and in the UK and US on September 20th.

Lee Miller was famous in New York as a fashion model and photographer, in Paris as a muse and collaborator for Picasso and Man Ray, and as a war photographer in World War II. So it’s no wonder that when her son wrote his biography of Miller, he used the plural in the title: Lee Miller: The Life of Lee Miller. Now that story has been turned into a biopic, produced by Miller lookalike star Kate Winslet. “In a life of well-chosen characters, this may be her richest work,” says the BBC’s Caryn James. “She shows us a restless, fierce, independent woman who found her voice as an eyewitness to war and paid a psychological price… Ellen Kuras [the director]John F. Kelley, her co-star in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, shapes the film with supreme authority and smart choices throughout.” Winslet’s co-stars include Marion Cotillard, Andrea Riseborough, Josh O’Connor and Andy Samberg.

Opens September 13 in the UK and Ireland, and September 27 in the US, Norway and Sweden

A must-watch for fans of middle-aged handsomeness, Wolves stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt, who previously teamed up for Ocean’s Eleven and its sequel. In this new comedy-thriller, Clooney plays an ultra-cool mercenary who specializes in cleaning up brutal crime scenes before the authorities find out. Clooney thinks he’s uniquely qualified for this particular job – a lone wolf, if you like – but when Pitt’s character is sent on the same mission, the two are forced to work together. Wolves is written and directed by Jon Watts, who worked on Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies and is apparently already gearing up for a sequel. “It was amazing to film, Jon is an incredible talent and a lot of fun.” Clooney told Deadline:“We had a lot of fun filming it, and then I saw it. It’s a damn good movie.”

It will be released in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada and Spain on September 20th, and on AppleTV+ on September 27th.

It’s been 36 years since Michael Keaton starred as a troublesome “bio-exorcist” from the afterlife in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. Since then, Betelgeuse (as he was given his real name) has appeared in video games, musicals and an animated TV series, but Keaton and Burton kept putting off a sequel. “We thought, ‘We’ve got to do this right.'” Keaton told People magazine:“They said, ‘If not, don’t do it. Get on with your life and do something else.’ So I hesitated and was cautious. [Burton] Perhaps Betelgeuse has been just as hesitant and cautious all these years.” Now, at last, Betelgeuse is back in another hilarious supernatural comedy, starring human best friends Lydia and Delia Deetz, played by Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara. Jenna Ortega joins the cast as Lydia’s teenage daughter Astrid, who accidentally brings the pesky demon from the afterlife back to our world.

Available worldwide from September 6th

It’s been over 40 years since Francis Ford Coppola first spoke to journalists about Megalopolis, but as the decades passed, most people assumed his philosophical sci-fi saga would never actually be made. Kudos to the 85-year-old writer-director for proving us wrong. Reportedly funding the film with $120 million of his own money, and featuring a cast that includes Adam Driver, Shia LaBeouf, Aubrey Plaza, and Dustin Hoffman, he’s finally completed his long-imagined fable of political intrigue and radical architecture set in the city of New Rome. But was Megalopolis worth the long wait and eye-popping costs? Personally, I’m not sure. I thought it was a disaster.But some critics loved it: “This is a work of art that actively practices what it preaches.” David Jenkins of Little White Lies says:“A celebration of unbridled creativity and visionary thinking, the work presents a heady blend of handcrafted neoclassicism as it races through a toe-tapping script of verbal jazz that dances joyously between raindrops of logic and coherence.”

Opens September 27 in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Spain and Sweden

Opens September 27 in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Spain and Sweden

Front Room

Robert Eggers is one of the most respected names in modern horror thanks to his uniquely creepy period dramas such as The Witch and The Lighthouse. He sometimes works with his brothers Max and Sam. Max co-wrote The Lighthouse. And now the brothers are writing and directing horror movies themselves. In The Front Room, an adaptation of a short story by Susan Hill (The Woman in Black), Brandy Norwood plays a pregnant woman who hopes that she and her husband (Andrew Burnap) will inherit some money from their elderly and infirm mother-in-law (Katherine Hunter). They invite the old woman to live with them and try to ignore the small fact that their new houseguest is a racist religious fanatic. But the evil mother-in-law may be a more dangerous and sinister character than that suggests…

It will be released in the US and Canada on September 6th, in Spain on September 20th, and in the UK on October 25th.

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