Summer 2018 Movie Release Schedule

MAY 11

BEAST Jessie Buckley, who earned raves for her performance at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, plays a young woman on the island of Jersey whose new crush (Johnny Flynn) may be a serial killer. Michael Pearce directed, in his first feature.

BOOM FOR REAL: THE LATE TEENAGE YEARS OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT Jean-Michel Basquiat has been the subject of other films (the documentary “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child”; Julian Schnabel’s biopic “Basquiat”). But Sara Driver, who as a filmmaker swam in the same downtown scene in the 1980s, is bound to bring something special to this account of how he discovered his sensibility as an artist.

BREAKING IN Gabrielle Union plays a mother who discovers that her late father’s house gives the apartment in “Panic Room” a run for its money in the security department. In keeping with Murphy’s law, the home comes under siege; Ms. Union’s character has to save her children after they are taken hostage. James McTeigue (“V for Vendetta”) directed.

CLASS RANK Miffed that she has wound up a mere No. 2 in her high school class rankings, a teenager (Olivia Holt) contrives to get a friend (Skyler Gisondo) elected to the school board to change the system. Eric Stoltz directed.

THE DAY AFTER The prolific South Korean director Hong Sang-soo (“Claire’s Camera”) varies his formula a bit: Instead of a philandering filmmaker, “The Day After” gives us a philandering book publisher (Kwon Hae-hyo) whose new assistant (Kim Min-hee, Mr. Hong’s muse of late) inadvertently gets caught up in adultery-related animosity.

FILMWORKER The longtime Stanley Kubrick associate Leon Vitali tells the story of how he went from playing Barry Lyndon’s stepson to serving as an all-purpose assistant and gopher for the director, performing tasks that ranged from the bizarrely personal (setting up surveillance so that Mr. Kubrick could monitor an ailing cat) to the essential (running print checks on “Eyes Wide Shut” after the auteur’s death).

I HAD NOWHERE TO GO The visual artist Douglas Gordon — perhaps best known for his cinematic installations (“24 Hour Psycho”) — here salutes another great experimentalist: Jonas Mekas, the Lithuanian-born filmmaker and writer and a founder of Anthology Film Archives, where the movie will screen. There’s only occasional imagery; the audio is of Mr. Mekas reading his memoir.

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LIFE OF THE PARTY Blazing new frontiers in helicopter parenting, a mother (Melissa McCarthy), who regrets not earning a college degree, enrolls alongside her daughter (Molly Gordon). Gillian Jacobs and Maya Rudolph also star, and Ms. McCarthy’s husband and co-writer, Ben Falcone, directed.

LU OVER THE WALL A mermaid who can toe-tap — yes, she grows toes — when a teenage rock band plays is the star of this anime feature.

MEASURE OF A MAN An overweight teenager (Blake Cooper) endures a trying summer in a coming-of-age film directed by Jim Loach (a son of Ken Loach). With Donald Sutherland, Judy Greer and Luke Wilson.

THE SEAGULL Annette Bening, Saoirse Ronan, Corey Stoll and Elisabeth Moss tackle Chekhov, here adapted by Stephen Karam, a Tony winner and Pulitzer finalist for “The Humans.”

TERMINAL Set against a stylized, artificial urban landscape that looks like a Las Vegas casino’s impression of film noir, this thriller casts Margot Robbie as a waitress leading a double life. Simon Pegg is also involved.

May 18

BOOK CLUB With four Oscars among them, Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen star as book club companions whose romantic lives are reinvigorated after they delve into “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

DEADPOOL 2 Since variety is the spice of life, take a break from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and enjoy this second outing with Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), a non-Universe Marvel hero whose chief attribute is cracking wise. Josh Brolin is the villain this time.

FIRST REFORMED Tipping his hat rather vigorously to Robert Bresson’s “Diary of a Country Priest” and Ingmar Bergman’s “Winter Light,” Paul Schrader tells the story of an upstate New York pastor (Ethan Hawke) whose worldview is thrown out of balance after he meets with a radical environmentalist. With Amanda Seyfried and Cedric Kyles, better known as Cedric the Entertainer.

ON CHESIL BEACH Ian McEwan adapts his own novel, the story of newlyweds (a superb Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle) in 1962 England whose apparently limitless affection and understanding hit a snag when it’s time to consummate their marriage. Dominic Cooke directed; Anne-Marie Duff and Emily Watson also star.

POPE FRANCIS — A MAN OF HIS WORD Wim Wenders tours the globe and sits down with Pope Francis, who isn’t the first pope to tweet, but is the first to star in a documentary by the director of the angels-in-Berlin classic “Wings of Desire.”

SAVING BRINTON Mike Zahs, a collector in Iowa, discovers nitrate reels from the early years of movies; they were brought to the state by a man named William Franklin Brinton. This documentary follows Mr. Zahs as he works to revive Mr. Brinton’s legacy and show the films where they were originally screened.

SHOW DOGS Remember “Miss Congeniality”? This is the same movie, except that instead of Sandra Bullock as an F.B.I. agent who goes undercover as a beauty pageant contestant, this has Chris “Ludacris” Bridges as the voice of a police dog forced to infiltrate a dog show. With Will Arnett (as his human partner), Natasha Lyonne, and the vocal stylings of Jordin Sparks and Gabriel Iglesias.

SOLLERS POINT McCaul Lombardi plays a recently released prisoner who lives with his father (Jim Belushi) in Baltimore — a regular setting for the Charm City-based filmmaker Matthew Porterfield, known for movies (“Putty Hill”) that blur the traditional boundaries of fiction and nonfiction.

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THAT SUMMER This assemblage by Goran Hugo Olsson presents what amounts to a dry run for the Maysles brothers’ classic documentary “Grey Gardens.” In 1972, Lee Radziwill commissioned the artist Peter Beard to make a movie about her aunt and cousin Big and Little Edie Beale; the Maysles were involved. Rediscovered footage has been fashioned into this film.

May 25

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ANDRÉ Kate Novack directs this documentary portrait of the fashion world fixture André Leon Talley. Fran Lebowitz and Anna Wintour are among the many talking heads.

HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES Returning to the campy sensibility of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” John Cameron Mitchell directs this adaptation of a Neil Gaiman story, about a group of teenagers in 1977 England who, in true punk spirit, stumble into a party full of aliens. Alex Sharp leads the cast, which includes Nicole Kidman (as a human) and Elle Fanning and Ruth Wilson (as extraterrestrials).

MARY SHELLEY The parallels between the life of Mary Shelley and the treatment of the monster in “Frankenstein” have been examined in ample scholarship and literary criticism. Now they’re the subject of a biopic. Elle Fanning plays the author and Douglas Booth her out-of-wedlock lover and eventual husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Haifaa Al-Mansour (“Wadjda”) directed.

THE MISANDRISTS Bruce LaBruce, the John Waters of Canada, writes and directs the story of a man who stumbles into the secret lair of the “Female Liberation Army.” (The trailer actually bills it as “a movie by the FLA and Bruce LaBruce.”)

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY Say what you will about George Lucas; he didn’t let these characters out of the gate too often. Seeing a second “Star Wars” movie in five months might be more exhausting than making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. On the other hand, Alden Ehrenreich — the movie cowboy in “Hail, Caesar!” — has the perfect looks and attitude to play the young Han Solo. Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover and Woody Harrelson also star. Ron Howard replaced Chris Miller and Phil Lord (“The Lego Movie”) at the helm.

SUMMER 1993 After her mother’s death, a young girl (Laia Artigas) moves in with her uncle and aunt. The Catalan writer-director Carla Simón based the movie on her own experiences.

June 1

ACTION POINT Facing new competition, the owner of an amusement park (Johnny Knoxville) vows to give the place an “excitement enema.” Since Mr. Knoxville’s “Jackass” days are over, what happens here is probably not quite as gross as that sounds.

ADRIFT Shailene Woodley plays Tami Oldham Ashcraft, who co-wrote the autobiographical book on which this is based. She and her paramour and boating partner (Sam Claflin) get caught in a hurricane and face long odds navigating to safety after the ensuing injuries and damage. Baltasar Kormakur directed.

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AMERICAN ANIMALS Continuing the truth-or-fiction gamesmanship that distinguished his documentary “The Imposter,” Bart Layton weaves real interviews into an otherwise dramatized true-crime heist movie, about the planning and unraveling of a robbery of a university library. Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner and Jared Abrahamson are embroiled in the scheme.

BREATH Young aspiring surfers (Samson Coulter and Ben Spence) in Australia in the 1970s learn from a master (Simon Baker, also the director) who teaches them their limits. Elizabeth Debicki and Richard Roxburgh also star.

A KID LIKE JAKE Claire Danes and Jim Parsons play parents coming to grips with the notion that their 4-year-old may not have a traditional gender identity. Silas Howard, a transgender filmmaker, directed.

June 8

EN EL SÉPTIMO DÍA An undocumented immigrant (Fernando Cardona) faces a choice between his job — and everything that stems from it — and playing in the finals with the soccer team he captains. Jim McKay (“Our Song”) directed.

HEARTS BEAT LOUD Nick Offerman and Kiersey Clemons play a father and daughter who start an improbable band together. Brett Haley (“The Hero”) directed.

HOTEL ARTEMIS The hotel is actually a front — it’s a hospital that treats reprobates in hiding in Los Angeles of the future. Jodie Foster is the proprietor, and Sterling K. Brown and Sofia Boutella are among the guests. Drew Pearce, who had a hand in scripts like “Iron Man 3” and “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation,” wrote and directed.

OCEAN’S 8 Sandra Bullock, as Debbie Ocean (of the Clooney Oceans), celebrates her release from prison as one does: by assembling an all-star cast (Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, Helena Bonham Carter et al.) to rob diamonds from the annual Met Gala.

WESTWOOD: PUNK, ICON, ACTIVIST Vivienne Westwood, the fashion titan who defined the Sex Pistols’ aesthetic and eventually became a global brand, tells her story in a documentary directed by Lorna Tucker.

WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? The documentarian Morgan Neville (the Oscar-winning “20 Feet From Stardom”) blows the lid off the tawdry secret history of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Just kidding! The movie celebrates Fred Rogers’s legacy, values and unlikely status as a TV pioneer. Festival audiences were said to be in tears by the end.

June 15

EATING ANIMALS If Jonathan Safran Foer’s book on factory farming didn’t unsettle your stomach, it’s now a documentary narrated by Natalie Portman (who, along with Mr. Foer, is one of the producers).

THE INCREDIBLES 2 “They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity,” Mr. Incredible warned in 2004 in “The Incredibles,” inadvertently setting a high bar for a sequel, which has to rise well above mediocrity to avoid running afoul of its own ethos. The director Brad Bird returns along with the vocal cast, which includes Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter and Samuel L. Jackson.

SUPERFLY Trevor Jackson steps into Ron O’Neal’s duds — or the 2018 equivalent — in this remake of Gordon Parks Jr.’s blaxploitation classic, reimagined for contemporary Atlanta. The filmmaker, known as Director X, has done music videos for Drake, Rihanna and Kendrick Lamar. Jason Mitchell and Michael Kenneth Williams also star.

TAG Ed Helms, Hannibal Buress, Jake Johnson, Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner are grown men who still spend one month a year participating in a game of tag (as in “You’re it!”) that has persisted since their playground years. Yes, tag. A version of this actually happened: A Wall Street Journal article inspired the movie.

June 20

SPIRAL The director Laura Fairrie investigates the escalation of anti-Semitic incidents across Europe.

June 22

BOUNDARIES Sure, Christopher Plummer could step in at the last minute and earn an Oscar nomination as J. Paul Getty, but “Boundaries,” which casts him as an aging pot dealer, might seriously stretch his range. With cannabis in tow, the character goes on a road trip with his daughter (Vera Farmiga) and her son (Lewis MacDougall). Also starring Bobby Cannavale and … Peter Fonda? Far out.

THE CATCHER WAS A SPY A catcher who hit only six home runs in 15 years in the major leagues, Moe Berg (Paul Rudd) fit the definition of “unassuming.” And just before and during World War II, he worked as an American spy, helping to uncover atomic secrets in Europe. Jeff Daniels, Mark Strong and Sienna Miller also star. Ben Lewin directed.

DAMSEL Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska and a miniature horse that was the talk of Sundance star in this tongue-in-cheek western from the brothers David and Nathan Zellner (“Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter”).

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JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM It’s been 25 years since “Jurassic Park.” Have we not learned anything? And by anything, I mean which aspect ratio dinosaurs look best in. The Spanish director J. A. Bayona (“The Orphanage”) takes over dino-wrangling duties from Colin Trevorrow, who directed the 2015 “Jurassic World.” Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard return from that film, along with Jeff Goldblum. Will Ms. Howard runs in heels again?

THE KING The documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki (“The House I Live In”) drives across the country in Elvis’s Rolls-Royce before the 2016 election, drawing connections between the singer’s life and the condition of the country.

UNDER THE SILVER LAKE Andrew Garfield plays a Los Angeles resident who goes looking for a mysterious blonde (Riley Keough) who disappeared shortly after they met. At 139 minutes, this tribute to film noir looks to be a huge leap in ambition for the writer and director David Robert Mitchell (the sleeper horror hit “It Follows”).

June 29

CUSTODY Xavier Legrand’s well-reviewed French drama concerns the fallout from a custody decision that an abusive husband exploits to maintain a presence in the life of his former wife.

LOVE, CECIL Returning to the milieu of her documentary “Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel,” Lisa Immordino Vreeland looks at the life of the British fashion photographer and costume designer Cecil Beaton.

SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO Crucial components of the first “Sicario” — Emily Blunt and the director Denis Villeneuve — are gone, but so are the rules, or at least that’s what Josh Brolin tells Benicio Del Toro in the trailer. The two set out to stoke wars among the Mexican cartels. Stefano Sollima (the “Gomorrah” TV series) directed.

THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS The director Tim Wardle pulls the rug out from viewers more than once in this cleverly structured documentary about the identical triplets Bobby Shafran, Eddy Galland and David Kellman, who were separated shortly after birth for adoption and found one another at college age. Comic, then tragic, it is likely to be among the year’s most entertaining nonfiction films.

UNCLE DREW The Boston Celtics point guard Kyrie Irving, in old-age makeup, plays an aging basketball player who reunites some fellow athletes (including the former N.B.A. stars Shaquille O’Neal, Chris Webber and Reggie Miller — also in old-age makeup) for a last hurrah on the court. With Tiffany Haddish.

WOMAN WALKS AHEAD Jessica Chastain plays the painter Catherine Weldon, who went west to paint a portrait of Sitting Bull (Michael Greyeyes) and became an activist for Native American rights. Sam Rockwell and Bill Camp also star. Susanna White directed.

July 4

THE FIRST PURGE We know that first purge — 12 hours during which all crime was declared legal — went well enough to become a repeat event. After all, this is the fourth movie in the series. But how did that inaugural evening go? Did anyone hesitate? Who drew first blood? The franchise turns back the clock to answer such questions.

July 6

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP Put a Marvel movie in theaters, and it’s like laying a trail of pheromones for fanboys. The colony continues to grow with this sequel to “Ant-Man” (2015), which once again shrinks Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly. Michael Douglas returns, too, along with the director Peyton Reed.

BLEEDING STEEL All hail Jackie Chan, who is now in his 60s and still dangling from high places. It doesn’t sound quite like a return to “Police Story” or its sequels, but he does play a cop in this futuristic thriller.

RYUICHI SAKAMOTO: CODA Stephen Nomura Schible directed this portrait of the Japanese composer. Whether playing a piano partly destroyed in the 2011 tsunami or musing on the relationship between nature and music, Mr. Sakamoto makes for fascinating company, and this film is markedly accessible when it comes to showing his working process.

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU In this Sundance hit, Lakeith Stanfield stars as an Oakland, Calif., telemarketer who rises through the ranks of a company and into the good graces of an unhinged entrepreneur (Armie Hammer). Your mileage may vary on whether the rapper Boots Riley’s feature writing-directing debut bites off more than it chews, satirically, but it has plenty going on. Tessa Thompson also stars.

WHITNEY The second Whitney Houston documentary in a year, after “Whitney: Can I Be Me,” is the estate-sanctioned version, so expect less muckraking and more music. Kevin Macdonald directed.

July 13

DON’T WORRY, HE WON’T GET FAR ON FOOT In a return to form and the realization of a long-gestating project, Gus Van Sant adapts the memoir of the cartoonist and Portland, Ore., fixture John Callahan (1951-2010), who became a quadriplegic after an alcohol-fueled car accident but retained his sense of humor. Joaquin Phoenix gives another fine performance, but Jonah Hill, as Mr. Callahan’s sponsor, is sensational in support. With Rooney Mara.

EIGHTH GRADE The comedian Bo Burnham makes his feature writing and directing debut with this Sundance charmer about an eighth-grader (Elsie Fisher) whose confidence dispensing advice in web videos belies her tentativeness in real life.

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3: SUMMER VACATION Since “Nosferatu,” at least, we’ve known that vampires and boats are bad news. But in the second sequel to “Hotel Transylvania,” Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler) and the other hotel residents go for a summer cruise. Any series that keeps Mel Brooks working can’t be all bad.

MCQUEEN Drawing on video footage and interviews with friends, family and collaborators, Ian Bonhôte’s documentary aspires to be a definitive portrait of the fashion designer Alexander McQueen (1969-2010), his sensibility and his working methods.

RELAXER The director Joel Potrykus returns to the star and basic thematic territory of his 2015 indie breakthrough, “Buzzard.” In the run-up to Y2K, Abbie (Joshua Burge) accepts a challenge to beat an impossible level in Pac-Man — without ever leaving the couch.

SHOCK AND AWE Rob Reiner returns to the historical dramatization mode of “Ghosts of Mississippi” for a movie about journalists (played, principally, by Woody Harrelson and James Marsden) who questioned the Bush administration’s argument that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

SKYSCRAPER Dwayne Johnson can’t catch any break time, can he? This time he plays a former F.B.I. officer who takes a job evaluating security for the world’s tallest building (in China — for this movie, at least). When the building catches fire, he is blamed even while the flames ensnare his family.

July 20

BLINDSPOTTING The second Oakland-set satire of the summer (after “Sorry to Bother You”) addresses the racial and economic fault lines of the city from a more grounded perspective. Daveed Diggs (of “Hamilton,” and also one of the film’s screenwriters) plays a mover who has only a few days left of probation when, while driving one night, he sees a white cop shoot a fleeing black civilian.

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THE EQUALIZER 2 The retired government assassin Denzel Washington played in “The Equalizer” (2014) evidently wasn’t so retired that he couldn’t return for a sequel and another round of violent revenge. Antoine Fuqua is back as the director.

FAR FROM THE TREE A documentary version of Andrew Solomon’s best-seller about families and how they adapted to children who didn’t meet their expectations — because of developmental disabilities, because of their actions or because of their identities.

GENERATION WEALTH In a recent exhibition and a book — both called “Generation Wealth” — the photographer and documentarian Lauren Greenfield (“The Queen of Versailles”) cast a critical eye on conspicuous consumption. This nonfiction movie expands the project.

MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN The songs of Abba skip Broadway this time for a sequel to the 2008 musical comedy. If you like the music, Greek island scenery and Meryl Streep, you surely already know what this movie is. If not, head for the mainland, pronto. Lily James and Cher are new to the cast.

THE THIRD MURDER In a change of pace, the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, best known for his domestic dramas, tries his hand at a courtroom mystery in which a man who has confessed to murder (Koji Yakusho) may not actually be guilty.

July 27

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE — FALLOUT Brian De Palma. John Woo. J.J. Abrams. Brad Bird. Christopher McQuarrie. Until now, each “Mission: Impossible” has been directed by a different filmmaker with a recognizable style or signature. Mr. McQuarrie becomes the first director to repeat with this installment. Has Hollywood run out of auteurs? Are women allowed to direct “Mission: Impossible” movies?

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SCOTTY AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD In this documentary, Scotty Bowers explains how he acted as a procurer for stars of Hollywood’s golden age. He chronicled his exploits in a memoir called “Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Live of the Stars.”

TEEN TITANS GO! TO THE MOVIES The Cartoon Network series takes a trip to the big screen with the added vocal talent of Will Arnett and Kristen Bell.

Aug. 1

NICO, 1988 Susanna Nicchiarelli’s portrait of the final years of the Velvet Underground singer and Andy Warhol superstar is an offbeat biopic shot in the squarish aspect ratio of Mr. Warhol’s Edie Sedgwick films. The Danish actress Trine Dyrholm does her own singing.

Aug. 3

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN An adult Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor) reunites with Winnie-the-Pooh (the voice of Jim Cummings) in a reboot that mixes actors and computer-animated favorites from the Hundred Acre Wood. The story is by Alex Ross Perry, the caustic filmmaker behind the Philip Roth tribute “Listen Up Philip,” which might be the strangest mix of sensibilities since George Miller (“Mad Max”) wrote “Babe.” Marc Forster directed.

THE DARKEST MINDS A detained teenager with special powers (Amandla Stenberg) escapes and joins a group of like-powered teenagers to form a rebellion. It sounds like an X-Men sequel, but it’s based on the Alexandra Bracken novel. Mandy Moore co-stars. Jennifer Yuh Nelson directed.

MILE 22 In the latest bang-’em-up derby from Peter Berg (“Deepwater Horizon”), Mark Wahlberg plays an intelligence officer charged with smuggling a police officer out of the country. Lauren Cohan, Iko Uwais, Ronda Rousey star as well.

THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST Set in the 1990s, the winner of the top United States dramatic competition prize at Sundance this year sends a high schooler played by Chloë Grace Moretz to a center for gay conversion therapy. Sasha Lane, John Gallagher Jr. and Jennifer Ehle also star. Desiree Akhavan directed.

SEARCHING When his daughter disappears, a widowed father (John Cho) searches for her using any clue he can find — and a lot of them are available online. Thanks to clever use of FaceTime-like videos and news broadcasts, every shot in Aneesh Chaganty’s movie is of a computer screen. With Debra Messing.

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THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME After one of them has a breakup with a C.I.A. operative, two friends (Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon) become embroiled in international intrigue. Susanna Fogel directed this comedy.

THE WIFE Tensions come to a head between a writer (Glenn Close) and the husband (Jonathan Pryce) for whom she shortchanged her career as he prepares to receive the Nobel Prize. Christian Slater also stars in this adaptation of the Meg Wolitzer novel.

Aug. 10

MADELINE’S MADELINE Helena Howard stars as a teenager who becomes untethered — or may already be that way — as she prepares for a theater role. Molly Parker plays her director, and a subdued Miranda July her mother. Loved by many at Sundance, this feature from Josephine Decker (“Thou Wast Mild and Lovely”) teeters right on the border between narrative and the avant-garde.

THE MEG The rules of Hollywood Mad Libs ensured that it would only be a matter of time before Jason Statham went, uh, fin to fin with a giant prehistoric shark.

SKATE KITCHEN A Long Island skateboarder joins up with a crew from the city. Crystal Moselle (the 2015 documentary “The Wolfpack”) turns to fiction filmmaking with this feature, although many of the skaters are played by members of a real-life collective. Rachelle Vinberg and Jaden Smith star.

Aug. 15

CIELO Shown in a sidebar at last year’s New York Film Festival, Alison McAlpine’s experimental documentary uses the skies above the Atacama Desert in Chile to pose philosophical questions about humanity and the universe.

Aug. 17

ALPHA Separated from his hunting group, a young man (Kodi Smit-McPhee) in the last ice age fights to survive with the help of a wolf he tames. Albert Hughes directed, without his brother Allen.

CRAZY RICH ASIANS After several whitewashing controversies and criticism of a lack of roles for Asian stars, anticipation is high for a Hollywood movie that puts an Asian story front and center. A New York economics professor (Constance Wu) accompanies her boyfriend (Henry Golding) to his native Singapore for the first time — and learns that he and his family are extremely wealthy. Jon M. Chu directed this adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s best-selling novel.

DOWN A DARK HALL Rodrigo Cortes — who has yet to match the Hitchcockian suspense of “Buried” (2010) — directs this adaptation of Lois Duncan’s young-adult horror novel. AnnaSophia Robb plays a girl sent to a strange boarding school. Uma Thurman plays the headmistress.

THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS A son of Jim Henson, Brian Henson directs a puppet story that sounds considerably darker than most of what his father is known for. This is a mystery in which the cast members of a puppet TV show called “The Happytime Gang” are murdered. Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, Joel McHale and Elizabeth Banks are in the cast.

JULIET, NAKED In this adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel, Rose Byrne plays a museum curator at an impasse in a relationship with an obsessed fan (Chris O’Dowd) of a rock star (Ethan Hawke) who disappeared. Inadvertently and without her boyfriend’s knowledge, she strikes up an email relationship with the musician. Jesse Peretz directed.

MEMOIR OF WAR Adapted from Marguerite Duras’ memoir, Mélanie Thierry plays the writer during World War II, when she and her husband were part of the French Resistance. After he is taken to Dachau, she must get close to a Vichy officer (Benoît Magimel).

PUPPET MASTER: THE LITTLEST REICH S. Craig Zahler, of the uncommonly good neo-exploitation movies “Brawl in Cell Block 99” and “Bone Tomahawk,” wrote this horror film about puppets who come to life at a convention. Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund directed.

Aug. 22

JOHN MCENROE: IN THE REALM OF PERFECTION Julien Faraut uses footage from the 1984 French Open to construct this meditation on the court style and inimitable personality of the tennis star.

Aug. 24

THE BOOKSHOP Emily Mortimer plays a widow who opens a bookstore in an English town in 1959 and scandalizes her neighbors with Vladimir Nabokov, among other authors. Patricia Clarkson and Bill Nighy co-star. Isabel Coixet directed.

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PAPILLON In another adaptation of the Henri Charrière novel “Papillon” — perhaps the best-known take is the 1973 version starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman — Charlie Hunnam steps in for McQueen and Rami Malek has the Hoffman role as allies at a penal colony. (This film also draws on “Banco,” Mr. Charrière’s follow-up to “Papillon.”)

SLENDER MAN This is probably the first horror movie inspired by a character created for a humor website. Slender Man, the work of Eric Knudsen, also known as Victor Surge, became an internet meme and the subject of art and fan fiction after he first appeared in 2009.

SUPPORT THE GIRLS Having explored the friction between personal trainers in “Results,” Andrew Bujalski examines the atmosphere of camaraderie at another type of workplace: a Hooters-like restaurant whose manager (Regina Hall) always looks out for her employees. With Haley Lu Richardson and Shayna McHayle.

Aug. 31

THE LITTLE STRANGER In his first feature since “Room,” Lenny Abrahamson directs this adaptation of Sarah Waters’s 2009 novel, about a doctor (Domhnall Gleeson) who pays a house call to a haunted estate (headed, of course, by Charlotte Rampling). Ruth Wilson and Will Poulter also star.

A PARIS EDUCATION Jean-Paul Civeyrac directs this black-and-white story about a film student in Paris working to refine his notions of cinema and of romance.