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For the first time in years, it feels like movies are really, truly back, with two major-studio films in particular breaking box-office records and bringing a welcome flush of excitement back to cinemas worldwide. But the summer’s biggest movies have also dominated the discourse, crowding out smaller films released this summer that also deserve to be seen—and that may need more of a push than before given the WGA and SAG strikes’ impact on the promotional campaigns of many projects.
So here are a few excellent films you may not have heard of that were released earlier this summer or will be landing in theaters in the upcoming weeks. All first features from thrilling new voices, these movies bring a startling freshness to what may seem like familiar storylines or tropes—with a few upending typically bleak or tragic identity narratives with humor, originality, and, above all, humanity.
Blue Jean
Set in northern England in 1988, Georgia Oakley’s impressive directorial debut, Blue Jean, takes place against the backdrop of Margaret Thatcher’s still-little-known efforts to stigmatize gays and lesbians. Rosy McEwen, in her first film leading role, stars as straitlaced Jean, who’s become adept at compartmentalizing: She’s a gym teacher by day who has recently joined a group of out-and-proud lesbians in their carousing at night. But the arrival of a new student shatters her carefully constructed double life. The film—shot on lush 16mm film and featuring Jean’s effortlessly cool ’80s wardrobe and some era-perfect needle drops—succeeds as a moving, grounded, and all-too-rare portrait of a fledgling community just finding its voice. Based on extensive interviews with lesbians from that period, Blue Jean underscores that, then as now, the personal is political. Available to rent on Apple TV, YouTube, Amazon, and other platforms.
The Lesson
The first feature from British TV director Alice Troughton is a twisty, clever dark comedy that keeps you on your toes. Following his star-making turn in last summer’s Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Daryl McCormack plays an aspiring writer who takes a job tutoring the teenage son of a revered British author (a withering Richard E. Grant). But living at the family’s grand country estate, he soon becomes enmeshed in their internecine power plays and learns exactly why they say to never meet your heroes. It’s always a delight (and an all-too-rare one) to see the Julie Delpy onscreen, and she’s at her imperious, calculating best here as the author’s wife. Grant, meanwhile, shows his range with a casual ability to toss off a cutting remark, and McCormack proves he’s much more than just a pair of bedroom eyes. Between the three, it’s a matching of wits with crackling chemistry. In theaters now.
Kokomo City
Shot in sumptuous high-key monochrome, Kokomo City is an eye-opening documentary about the Black transgender experience by Grammy-nominated producer turned filmmaker D. Smith. Four Black trans sex workers in New York and Atlanta bring viewers into their most intimate spaces to tell their own vivid stories, by turns harrowing and hilarious but always starkly, refreshingly candid. The result is a film that eschews melodrama to produce a loving portrait of a community too rarely represented in all their humanity on screen. In a devastating coda, one of the film’s most magnetic subjects was killed in April. In theaters now.
Mutt
Mutt, the outstanding debut feature from writer-director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz, feels like a milestone in trans cinema. Over the course of one hectic New York City day, Feña, a young trans guy, is forced to confront three people from their past and navigate obstacles large and small along the way. The propulsive story encompasses themes both broadly relatable and precisely specific, and star Lío Mehiel deftly weaves between strength and vulnerability in their feature-film debut, easily showing why they became the first trans actor to win the U.S. dramatic special jury acting award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. But it’s grander than any one identity or message; shot across dozens of locations around the city, Mutt is a sexy, handsome, thoroughly New York film that captures the many messy complexities of being human. In theaters August 18.
Scrapper
In music-video director Charlotte Regan’s debut feature, clever 12-year-old Georgie is secretly living on her own in a working-class London suburb following the death of her mother. When one day her estranged father (Triangle of Sadness’s Harris Dickinson) turns up, both realize they still have a lot of growing up to do. Comparisons to last year’s father-daughter breakout indie Aftersun are inevitable, but Scrapper is a heartwarming comedy with charm to spare and more than its share of laugh-out-loud moments. And Dickinson is shaping up to be among the most surprising and compelling young actors working today. In theaters August 25.
