Not every summer movie needs to be a mystery that unfolds hallway after hallway, with a creature hiding around every corner ready to pop out. But maybe the best one is: “Backrooms,” opening May 29 and directed by 20-year-old phenom Kane Parsons. We chatted with him<\/a> about how he got to make his big debut for A24. Apart from that inspiring story, what can we hope for at the multiplex? We asked our staffers for their dreamiest expectations and they didn’t hold back: space epics, Matt Damon in a helmet and, yes, a “Jackass” movie. Read on and let this be your guide.<\/p>\n Pedro Pascal, left, and Sigourney Weaver in the movie “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” (Lucasfilm)<\/span><\/p>\n TV’s \u201cThe Mandalorian\u201d premiered in 2019 and was the first live-action series<\/a> in \u201cStar Wars\u201d history. Now, the next adventure of the fierce bounty hunter and his adorable young charge will be the franchise\u2019s first big-screen installment since the sequel trilogy wrapped with \u201cEpisode IX \u2014 The Rise of Skywalker.\u201d I, for one, am excited that Grogu, with all his snackish charm, has been promoted to title-character status along with Pedro Pascal\u2019s more stoic Din Djarin. The movie will also introduce Sigourney Weaver as Col. Ward, a former Rebellion pilot turned New Republic leader, and Jeremy Allen White<\/a> as grown-up Rotta the Hutt, Jabba\u2019s son, who debuted as an infant in the animated \u201cStar Wars: The Clone Wars.\u201d \u2014 Tracy Brown<\/i><\/p>\n Our opinions of Hollywood\u2019s dip into the nostalgia well may vary, but it\u2019s easy to want to feel the kind of joy that a game or toy brought us when the world felt less complicated. He-Man\u2019s best stories so far may have been on animated TV, but I have enough childhood memories of smashing the character\u2019s action figure against others that I\u2019m curious about how he’ll play in the big-screen sandbox. Starring Nicholas Galitzine as a wayward Prince Adam trapped on Earth, \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d adds a contemporary twist and some modern sensibilities to the lore. With Laika Studios vet and \u201cBumblebee\u201d<\/a> director Travis Knight at the helm, I\u2019m expecting a sweet balance of humor and heart. \u2014 Tracy Brown<\/i><\/p>\n Nearly half a century after \u201cClose Encounters of the Third Kind\u201d and decades on from \u201cE.T.\u201d and \u201cWar of the Worlds,\u201d<\/a> Steven Spielberg is still looking to the skies \u2014 and we still want to know whether to be excited or terrified by what he sees. His latest brings extraterrestrial life into the realm of \u201970s conspiracy thrillers. (Screenwriter David Koepp has compared it to paranoia pieces like \u201cThree Days of the Condor.\u201d) Emily Blunt plays a Kansas City meteorologist who begins receiving a signal from beyond Earth, while Josh O\u2019Connor is a government employee on the run with information that powerful people are trying to keep hidden. If Spielberg\u2019s earlier UFO movies gave us awe, comfort and catastrophe, this one feels like an encounter of a fourth kind: What happens when the cover story breaks? \u2014 Josh Rottenberg<\/i><\/p>\n Go to the beginnings of Hollywood and there are Robin Hood movies: Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn, some shorts from even earlier. And it\u2019s a safe bet that, as long as there\u2019s pull to the idea of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, there will be more to come. Quietly, writer-director Michael Sarnoski has made a niche for himself as a storyteller of regrets, of roads not taken. His 2021 restaurant memory drama \u201cPig\u201d<\/a> gave Nicolas Cage his subtlest dialogue in years, while \u201cA Quiet Place: Day One\u201d had no business being as believably haunted as it was. Sarnoski is the perfect person to do a retelling tilted toward the end of a rampager\u2019s life. Hugh Jackman<\/a> embodies the role with a rough dignity. \u2014 Joshua Rothkopf<\/i><\/p>\n Unlike many tales of demonic possession, Adrian Chiarella’s feature debut lingers in the mind for being so recognizably close to home; it doesn\u2019t need to crab-walk into the room, spin its head 360 degrees and announce itself as evil. In a small, backwards Australian community, coming of age and coming out evince fear in the Christian townsfolk. Two teenage boys (Stacy Clausen and \u201cTalk to Me\u2019s\u201d writhing standout Joe Bird) keep their attraction to themselves. Even so, a violent curse bedevils them, a sophisticated feat of careful writing and directorial sensitivity that sets Chiarella apart from the gorehounds. Let\u2019s also cheer the return of Mia Wasikowska, stepping back confidently. \u2014 Joshua Rothkopf<\/i><\/p>\n Read more:<\/b> Q&A \u2018Leviticus\u2019 at Los Angeles Times Talks at Chase Sapphire Reserve Lounge<\/a><\/p>\n An affectionate throwback to overly earnest TV movies (and a knowing send-up of over-the-top bad-girl flicks), this film marks the feature debut as writer-director for comedian John Early<\/a>, who also stars. With a cast drawn from comedy-scene friends such as Kate Berlant and Conner O\u2019Malley all tuned into a very specific wavelength, the movie somehow surpasses conventional notions of camp and irony to exist in a genuinely unique space all its own. As Maddie, an aspiring L.A. food influencer battling a secret eating disorder, Early\u2019s performance will undoubtedly remain one of the most distinctive and original of the year, by equal turns outrageously funny and tenderly vulnerable, often in the same moment. \u2014 Mark Olsen<\/i><\/p>\n Olivia Wilde\u2019s dinner-party dramedy made good on its considerable promise when it premiered at Sundance in January, earning a standing ovation and tears (of relief? joy?) from Wilde as she took the stage. Wilde and Seth Rogen play longtime marrieds harboring a laundry list of resentments who host their upstairs neighbors (Pen\u00e9lope Cruz, Edward Norton) for an evening of fun. At least it starts off that way, but of course, the gathering quickly sours, leaving us rubbernecking the damage. Wilde navigates the tonal shifts with authority, delivering surprises along the way, including an ending that somehow delivers hope for the institution of wedlock. Am I overselling it? Would I cry Woolf to you? \u2014 Glenn Whipp<\/i><\/p>\n Johnny Knoxville and his band of professional bad decision-makers are calling this one their final hurrah and, really, can you blame them? The original \u201cJackass\u201d crew are now in their 50s, long past the point when being shot out of cannons and zapped with tasers seems like a sensible career plan. Knoxville himself was hospitalized with a brain injury after being flipped by a bull during the filming of 2022\u2019s \u201cJackass Forever\u201d<\/a> and has said he can\u2019t risk another concussion. This send-off mixes new stunts with archival footage, promising the usual outlandish pranks and blunt-force impacts to sensitive bodily regions. If this really is the end for the franchise, it\u2019s hard to argue they didn\u2019t push it as far as it would go. \u2014 Josh Rottenberg<\/i><\/p>\n No diss to last summer’s charmingly square “Superman,”<\/a> but the funniest scene in the movie was Milly Alcock’s 45-second cameo as Kal-El’s cousin Kara, who stumbled into his Fortress of Solitude to collect her dog Krypto still hungover from an outer-space bender. (“This is why he has behavioral issues,” Superman said with a sigh.) Now, she and the mutt have their own movie and zero pressure to represent truth, justice and a better tomorrow. Ana Nogueira’s script appears to be a riff on the 2021 comic-book miniseries “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow,” in which the blond’s birthday bacchanal takes a U-turn after Kara aligns with an alien child (young Eve Ridley from “3 Body Problem”). It’s basically an intergalactic “True Grit.” My one concern is that director Craig Gillespie made the too-squishy “Cruella.”<\/a> Here’s hoping “Supergirl’s” tone is more sour than sweet. \u2014 Amy Nicholson<\/i><\/p>\n As the follow-up to his \u201cOppenheimer\u201d<\/a> \u2014 which won Oscars and made nearly $1 billion \u2014 Christopher Nolan has gone from an ambitious story about the creation of the nuclear bomb to an even more ambitious story rooted in the origins of literature. Adapting Homer\u2019s ancient Greek saga, Nolan has created an epic to end all epics: the tale of a king struggling to return home after years away at war. With an absolutely stacked cast and told at a massive scale, “The Odyssey” indicates that Nolan seems to trust that modern audiences will respond to a 3,000-year-old tale, and that some aspects of the human experience truly are eternal. \u2014 Mark Olsen<\/i><\/p>\n A new Gregg Araki movie loaded with sex and bad choices? What a rare and wonderful summer treat. (It\u2019s the indie provocateur\u2019s first feature in more than a decade.) An unhinged Olivia Wilde as the ultimate bad boss \u2014 an art star hoping to recapture some edge \u2014 gets you in the door. But Araki has shaded in the margins masterfully, with vivid supporting turns by Chase Sui Wonders, Daveed Diggs and the now-ubiquitous Charli XCX. And it\u2019s Cooper Hoffman, in a performance as flustered as his impresario in \u201cLicorice Pizza\u201d<\/a> was confident, who commands the movie, topping from the bottom. Araki\u2019s sensibility is, if anything, wiser now, though he\u2019d probably flinch at the word. Brace for inappropriateness. \u2014 Joshua Rothkopf<\/i><\/p>\n It\u2019s been five years since our friendly neighborhood webslinger\u2019s last big-screen adventure and a lot has changed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But it appears things have pretty much stayed the same for Peter Parker (Tom Holland). His last adventure involved him staving off a multiversal crisis by making everyone in the world forget him, including his best friends MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon). \u201cSpider-Man: Brand New Day\u201d picks up a few years later, with Peter still protecting the streets of New York as a masked superhero while his friends continue to live their lives unaware of what he once meant to them. Can some mutating DNA be the catalyst for a happy reunion? I hope so. \u2014 Tracy Brown<\/i><\/p>\n “The Purge”\u2026 but hot? That’s the pitch behind Will Gluck’s high-concept romantic comedy in which singles are eager to hook up on the one night a year when premarital sex is legal. The original story by Travis Braun was ranked No. 1 on the 2024 Black List of the best unproduced screenplays. While “that Gluck magic” doesn’t have quite the flow of the “Lubitsch touch,” he’s already directed one of the best modern rom-coms (“Easy A”<\/a>) and one of the most lucrative (“Anyone but You”). Those films crowned Emma Stone and Sydney Sweeney as official movie stars. I’d love to see this film’s ingenue, Monica Barbaro, ascend to their ranks. Barbaro excelled in the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,”<\/a> where her hard-to-impress Joan Baez earned her an Oscar nod for supporting actress. This is her chance to seduce the audience as well as her onscreen co-star Callum Turner. I’m eager to commit. \u2014 Amy Nicholson<\/i><\/p>\n Jane Schoenbrun<\/a> has become one of the freshest new voices in American independent filmmaking with 2021’s \u201cWe\u2019re All Going to the World\u2019s Fair\u201d and 2024’s \u201cI Saw the TV Glow,\u201d transforming pop-culture obsessions into emotional explorations of identity and self-discovery. Promising to turn the summer camp slasher movie inside-out, their latest effort is about an up-and-coming director (\u201cHacks\u201d star Hannah Einbinder) who entreats a faded scream queen (Gillian Anderson) to return to the horror franchise that once made her a star. Einbinder and Anderson locked into a psychosexual transference story already feels plenty potent. Put that setup in the anything-goes hands of Schoenbrun and it should make for a combustible combination of genre, persona, desire and fun. \u2014 Mark Olsen<\/i><\/p>\n Do you ever look out your window and, tired of the same old view, long that you could just pick up and live somewhere else? I don\u2019t know if Anne Hathaway\u2019s character in David Robert Mitchell\u2019s \u201cThe End of Oak Street\u201d has ached for that kind of change, but it sure seems to have found her and her family in this tale of a suburbia transported to \u2026 prehistoric times? To another dimension, a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind? I do not know. I do not want to know. I do know that there is a dinosaur giving chase. And Ewan McGregor looks alarmed. And Mitchell is the weirdo writer-director behind \u201cIt Follows\u201d and \u201cUnder the Silver Lake.\u201d<\/a> That\u2019s all I need. \u2014 Glenn Whipp<\/i><\/p>\n Director Ridley Scott long ago secured his place in film history with \u201cAlien,\u201d \u201cBlade Runner\u201d and \u201cGladiator.\u201d The fact that he\u2019s still at it at 88 makes each new film feel like an event. His latest adapts Peter Heller\u2019s 2012 novel set in the aftermath of a pandemic that\u2019s nearly wiped out humanity. Jacob Elordi<\/a>, hot off \u201cFrankenstein,\u201d plays Hig, one of the few immune survivors, a pilot living at an abandoned airfield with his dog and a heavily armed survivalist (Josh Brolin). Hig\u2019s days are spent flying perimeter patrols, scanning for signs of life \u2014 or trouble \u2014 until he encounters Margaret Qualley\u2019s Cima, a medic guarding her own small foothold in the ruined world. Scott has called the film hopeful, which may be the most intriguing part: a post-apocalyptic story about why anyone bothers to keep going. \u2014 Josh Rottenberg<\/i><\/p>\n\u2018The Mandalorian and Grogu\u2019<\/h2>\n
(May 22)<\/h3>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\u2018Masters of the Universe\u2019<\/h2>\n
(June 5)<\/h3>\n
‘Disclosure Day’<\/h2>\n
(June 12)<\/h3>\n
\u2018The Death of Robin Hood\u2019<\/h2>\n
(June 19)<\/h3>\n
\u2018Leviticus\u2019<\/h2>\n
(June 19)<\/h3>\n
‘Maddie\u2019s Secret’<\/h2>\n
(June 19)<\/h3>\n
‘The Invite’<\/h2>\n
June 26<\/h3>\n
‘Jackass: Best and Last’<\/h2>\n
(June 26)<\/h3>\n
‘Supergirl’<\/h2>\n
(June 26)<\/h3>\n
‘The Odyssey’<\/h2>\n
(July 17)<\/h3>\n
\u2018I Want Your Sex\u2019<\/h2>\n
(July 31)<\/h3>\n
\u2018Spider-Man: Brand New Day\u2019<\/h2>\n
(July 31)<\/h3>\n
‘One Night Only’<\/h2>\n
(Aug. 7)<\/h3>\n
‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’<\/h2>\n
(Aug. 7)<\/h3>\n
‘The End of Oak Street’<\/h2>\n
(Aug. 14)<\/h3>\n
‘The Dog Stars’<\/h2>\n
(Aug. 28)<\/h3>\n