Summer of Salvation

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The cinema is not a slice of life but a piece of cake," Alfred Hitchcock once said, and if that's true, then summertime is when we gorge — unhealthily, most of the time, on ear-splitting smash-'em-ups and nerd-filled sex comedies. This year's summer movie season is sure to contain its share of brain goo. But there are more satisfying things on the menu too. Gorging is the American way, but as we peruse the upcoming multiplex offerings, let's pledge to seek out the occasional rare delicacy. To help, we've narrowed down the season's gazillion releases, and what follows is our list of the best, most intriguing, and most promising films. All dates are subject to change. Happy summer.

Releases: May 21

Director: McG

It's 2018, and Christian Bale is John Connor, the resistance leader whose birth Gov. Schwarzenegger was trying to prevent way back in the day.

Releases: May 22

Director: Stephan Elliott

Jessica Biel moves up the social ladder in an adaptation of Noël Coward's 1920s comedy about an American bombshell about to marry into an aristocratic British family.

Releases: May 29

Director: Sam Raimi

Raimi returns to his horror-film roots for this tale of a young banker (Alison Lohman) who makes the fatal mistake of denying a loan to an old Gypsy woman.

Releases: May 29

Director: Sabbir Khan

Bollywood stars Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor head from India to Hollywood in this romantic comedy about a stuntman and a supermodel who become media sensations.

Releases: May 29

Director: Lee Isaac Chung

This debut feature from a New York-based Korean-American filmmaker follows two Rwandan boys out for a walk in the countryside. One boy is Hutu, the other Tutsi.

Releases: May 29

Director: Bruce McDonald

Veteran character-actor Stephen McHattie stars as a Canadian DJ trying to figure out what's going on when reports start coming in of townspeople viciously attacking one another.

Releases: May 29

Director: Yojiro Takita

An out-of-work cellist (Masahiro Motoki) lands a job for which he displays an unexpected aptitude — bathing, dressing, and grooming the dead before cremation. A comedy, with tears.

Releases: May 29

Director: Pete Docter

An animated movie about a depressed 78-year-old widower (voiced by Ed Asner) who doesn't like children. We trust all things Pixar, but don't expect a run on Ed Asner plush toys.

Releases: June 5

Director: Sam Mendes

Pregnant newlyweds (John Krasinki and Maya Rudolph) embark on a sweetly comic road trip across America. Allison Janney, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Paul Schnei­der costar as the friends and family who offer the couple temporary refuge.

Releases: June 5

Director: Martin Provost

Yolande Moreau stars as French painter Séraphine Louis, who worked as a servant girl before her gift for painting was discovered in 1912, in a film that won seven César Awards (the French Oscars).

Releases: June 11

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Coppola reportedly mined his own backstory for this tale of two Buenos Aires brothers (Vincent Gallo and Alden Ehrenreich) trying to come to terms with their complex family history.

Releases: June 12

Director: Robert Kenner

Moviegoers aren't likely to rush to the supermarket after seeing this disturbing exposé of the under-regulated, profit-mad American food industry.

Releases: June 12

Director: Duncan Jones

After three years alone on the moon, a spaceman of the near future (Sam Rockwell) begins hallucinating — and eventually wakes up to find that he's sharing the ship with an exact replica of... himself.

Releases: June 19

Director: Woody Allen

Allen returns to Manhattan after an extended European vacation and casts Larry David as a hypochondriac physicist whose spirits are lifted when he befriends and later weds a dippy 20-year-old (Evan Rachel Wood).

Releases: June 19

Director: Tatia Rosenthal

This acclaimed stop-motion comedy concerns the residents of an Aussie apartment building, including two boys who spent $9.99 on a book that promises the secret to life.

Releases: June 26

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Guy Pearce go to war in this intense drama about a bomb-defusing unit stationed in Baghdad at the height of the Iraq War.

Releases: June 26

Director: Antonio Grimaldi

Nanni Moretti stars as an Italian film exec devastated by the death of his wife. Left to raise a 10-year-old daughter, the man finds himself unable to part from her.

Releases: July 1

Director: Agnès Varda

Using the world's beaches as both backdrop and metaphor, Varda recalls the important people of her life, including her late husband, filmmaker Jacques Demy, as well as rock star Jim Morrison.

Releases: July 1

Director: Michael Mann

Johnny Depp is 1930s bank robber extraordinaire John Dillinger; Christian Bale is FBI superagent Melvin Purvis, hot on his trail, Tommy gun in hand. Bullets will fly.

Releases: July 10

Director: Larry Charles

Sacha Baron Cohen jettisons Borat for Brüno, a gay, hot-pants-wearing Australian fashion reporter. Beyond that, words fail us.

Releases: July 10

Director: Lynn Shelton

It seemed like a fun idea at the time: Ben (Mark Duplass) and Andrew (Joshua Leonard), lifelong buds, get high at a party where they agree, in front of witnesses, to "do it" (with each other) for a sex-tape film festival.