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.
Terminator Salvation
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.
Easy Virtue
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.
Drag Me to Hell
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.
Kambakkht Ishq
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.
Munyurangabo
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.
Pontypool
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.
Departures
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.
Up
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.
Away We Go
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.
Séraphine
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).
Tetro
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.
Food Inc.
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.
Moon
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.
Whatever Works
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).
$9.99
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.
The Hurt Locker
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.
Quiet Chaos
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.
The Beaches of Agnès
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.
Public Enemies
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.
Brüno
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.
Humpday
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.
Soul Power
Releases: July 10
Director: Jeffrey Levy-Hinte
In the days preceding Muhammad Ali and George Foreman's 1974 fight, musical giants James Brown, B.B. King, Bill Withers, and Celia Cruz put on a three-day concert in Zaire. Oscar winner Levy-Hinte restored a mountain of concert footage and the chaos that surrounded it.
500 Days of Summer
Releases: July 17
Director: Marc Webb
An L.A. greeting-card writer (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finds true love in the form of a beautiful coworker (Zooey Deschanel) in Webb's romantic comedy.
In the Loop
Releases: July 17
Director: Armando Iannucci
British satirist Iannucci goes to Washington in this fictional riff on the political scrambling that preceded the Iraq War. Starring Tom Hollander and featuring James Gandolfini as an American general.
Flame and Citron
Releases: July 31
Director: Ole Christian Madsen
Madsen tells the story of two resistance fighters, Flame (Thure Lindhardt) and Citron (Mads Mikkelsen), in Denmark during the Nazi occupation. The film has been a smash hit in its home country.
Lorna's Silence
Releases: July 31
Director: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Belgium's Dardenne brothers (La promesse, L'enfant), among the world's finest filmmakers, return with this story of an Albanian refugee (Arta Dobroshi) who finds herself going to extremes to gain Belgian citizenship.
The Cove
Releases: July 31
Richard O'Barry captured five dolphins and trained them to play "Flipper" on the popular 1960s TV show. He has since become obsessed with getting footage of the brutal slaughter of dolphins in Japan. Psihoyos tracks O'Barry's quest in this wrenching documentary.
Paper Heart
Releases: August 7
Director: Nicholas Jasenovec
In this faux documentary, comedian Charlyne Yi (Knocked Up) conducts interviews to see if anyone still believes in true love. Enter actor Michael Cera, playing himself (sort of) and falling for Yi, who, in real life, is already his girlfriend.
Julie & Julia
Releases: August 7
Director: Nora Ephron
Ephron adapts Julie Powell's memoir of the year she spent making all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Amy Adams portrays Powell, whose inner musings on Child's life are enacted by Meryl Streep.
District 9
Releases: August 14
Director: Neill Blomkamp
From first-time director Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson, a sci-fi epic about extraterrestrials that landed in South Africa 30 years ago only to be captured, segregated, and brutally mistreated by the government.
Ponyo
Releases: August 14
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Japanese animator Miyazaki offers his take on The Little Mermaid in which a goldfish named Ponyo longs to become human.
Taking Woodstock
Releases: August 14
Director: Ang Lee
Lee lightens up for a tie-dye-filled adaptation of Elliot Tiber's (Demetri Martin) terrific Woodstock memoir.
The Time Traveler's Wife
Releases: August 14
Director: Robert Schwentke
Henry (Eric Bana), a Chicago librarian, is forever bouncing around in time. This makes life/marriage hard for wife Clare (Rachel McAdams), who attempts to hold him still.
Inglourious Basterds
Releases: August 21
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Blame the bad spelling of the title on those infernal Nazis, who refer to the band of Jewish-American soldier-assassins led by Brad Pitt as "the basterds."
It Might Get Loud
Releases: August 21
Director: Davis Guggenheim
The Oscar-winning Guggenheim cuts loose in a documentary that finds rock gods Jimmy Page, the Edge, and Jack White singing the praises of their guitars. Then they jam.
The Boat That Rocked
Releases: August 28
Director: Richard Curtis
It's 1966, and Philip Seymour Hoffman leads a renegade band of disc jockeys as they broadcast the devil's music, AKA rock 'n' roll, from a boat off the U.K. shore.
Mesrine: A Film in Two Parts
Releases: August 28
Director: Jean-François Richet
Vincent Cassel moves up the crime ladder in this four-hour epic about the action-packed life (murders, kidnappings — the works) of modern-day French criminal Jacques Mesrine.
