6 Films To See This July That Are Worth Giving Up A Summer Evening Outside For

Directed by: Sofia Coppola

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning

What's it all about: Sofia Coppola's latest offering and for which she won the Best Director award at this year's Cannes Film Festival is a remake of a Clint Eastwood Civil War Movie, only framed from a female perspective and filtered through Coppola's hazy, dream-like lens. 

Based on Thomas P. Cullinan's Southern gothic tale of 1966, the film tells the tale of John McBurney, an injured Union soldier played by Colin Farrell, who takes refuge in a boarding school run by female staff, which becomes the centre of sexual tension and dangerous rivalries as they compete for his affections. Expect eerie tension and subtle touches of black humour.

Directed by: Marti Noxon

Starring: Lily Collins, Keanu Reeves

What's it all about: In this Netflix exclusive inspired by the writer/director's own experiences, Lily Collins plays an unruly, 20-year-old woman suffering from anorexia, who spends the better part of her teenage years being moved around from one recovery program to another with no success, before being sent to a group home led by a non-traditional doctor, in a last attempt to try and help her. 

Whilst this film isn't easy viewing and has faced ample controversy due to the sensitive nature of its subject matter, it was a hit at Sundance and being informed by both Noxon's and Collins' personal battles with the illness, it has been written and performed with real empathy. 

Directed by: Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes

Starring: David Lynch 

What's it all about:  If you've ever wanted to understand how the brilliantly dark Lynchian mind works, then this new intimate documentary chronicling his formative years, is your chance. 

The documentary, which is narrated by Lynch himself, is composed of old footage and unseen home videos of the filmmaker from his early years and time as a surrealist painter working in his studio in the Hollywood Hills, long before Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive, giving us a fuller picture of the idiosyncratic genius that is Lynch.

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy,  Harry Styles 

What's it all about:  Acclaimed Inception and Interstellar director Christopher Nolan's latest project about the 1940 evacuation of 400,000 soldiers on the beach at Dunkirk during the Second World War is one of the most anticipated cinematic releases of the year - not least because of its swoon-worthy cast, featuring none other than former 1D star, Harry Styles who makes his big screen debut. 

Nolan said that he chose to approach the film more as a suspenseful survival story than a war epic, and judging by the trailer, it looks as though it will offer plenty of suspenseful scenes.

Directed by: Malcolm D. Lee

Starring: Jada Pinkett Smith, Queen  Latifah, Kate Walsh

What's it all about:  In this heart-warming and up-lifting rom com, four lifelong friends travel to New Orleans for the annual Essence Festival and have their sisterhoods rekindled, and wild sides rediscovered. 

Expect dancing, drinking, brawling and a guaranteed barrel of laughs. 

Directed by: Michael  Showalter

Starring: Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter 

What's it all about:  Based on the real-life courtship between co-writers, Pakistani-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his American producer wife Emily V. Gordon, this film about an interracial couple who keep their relationship a secret from their families (cue hilariously awkward interactions) breathes new life into the moribund romantic comedy subgenre, and is being touted as the laugh-out-loud rom-com of the summer.

We can't wait to see it.