What to watch, what to watch … we hear you wondering. Wonder no more: here is your ultimate list of what’s on in cinemas this August.
Be sure to check out the three Australian films hitting the big screen this month (more on that below).
To find out what’s streaming right now, check out our monthly streaming guide.
For upcoming film festivals in Australia, see our quarterly film festival guide. We also frequently publish handpicked selections from major film festivals all over Australia, so keep an eye out for those.
Australian films to watch out for in August 2024
- 200% Wolf
- The Blind Sea
- Take My Hand
New films in Australian cinemas this August:
1 August
A Place Called Silence
Chen Yutong, a girl’s middle school student, was bullied at school, but her mother Li Han was unable to save her daughter from the hell. Everyone around her turned a blind eye, and a collective silence brewed greater violence.
Director: Sam Quah
Cast: Jian-Wei Huang, Eric Wang
Classification: MA
Country: China
Runtime: 120m
Ezra
Bobby Cannavale leads this father-son road movie as a not-so-successful stand-up comic who goes on a potentially life-changing cross-country trip with his autistic boy.
Director: Sam Quah
Cast: Bobby Canavale, Robert De Niro, Rose Byrne, Whoopi Goldberg.
Classification: M
Country: USA
Runtime: 101m
In A Violent Nature
Sundance-selected horror following the enigmatic resurrection, rampage, and retribution of an undead monster in a remote wilderness.
Director: Chris Nash
Cast: Ry Barrett, Charlotte Creaghan, Liam Leone.
Classification: CTC
Country: USA
Runtime: 94m
Ka Whawhai Tonu – Struggle Without End
Aotearoa (New Zealand) feature telling the story of a pivotal 1864 battle in the country’s first land wars, a battle fought with impossible odds between Māori and colonial forces.
Director: Michael Jonathan
Cast: Temuera Morrison, Jason Flemyng, Cliff Curtis.
Classification: M
Country: New Zealand
Runtime: 115m
SKATEGOAT
Leandre Sanders was born in Venice Beach, LA, into a world of gangs and crime. The only thing that kept him out of trouble was his love of skateboarding.
Director: Michael Lawrence
Cast: Leandre Sanders
Classification: MA
Country: USA
Runtime: 85m
Sleeping Dogs
After undergoing a cutting-edge Alzheimer’s treatment protocol, a former homicide detective reexamines a decade old case involving the brutal murder of a college professor – and it’s as if he’s investigating the case for the first time.
Director: Adam Cooper
Cast: Russell Crowe, Karan Gillan
Classification: MA
Country: USA
Runtime: 110m
Successor
Ma Chenggang and Chunlan, who ‘have no oil in the soup and no money in their pockets,’ ride their donkey to work, living in poverty. Their son, Ma Jiye, is their only hope of turning their fate around. Ma Jiye is very promising, excelling academically every year, tough and determined. But as Ma Jiye grows up, he gradually perceives that the people around him are becoming more and more strange.
Director: Da-Mo Peng, Fei Yan
Cast: Teng Shen, Li Ma
Classification: CTC
Country: China
Runtime: 133m
The Fabulous Four
Three lifelong friends travel to Florida to be bridesmaids in a surprise wedding of their college girlfriend. Once there, sisterhoods are rekindled, the past rises up again in all its glory, and there’s enough sparks, drinks and romance to change all their lives in ways they never expected.
Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse
Cast: Megan Mullally, Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler
Classification: M
Country: USA
Runtime: 99m
The President’s Wife
When she arrived at the Elysée Palace, Bernadette Chirac expected to finally get the place she deserved, she who had always worked in the shadow of her husband to make him president. Put aside because she was considered too old-fashioned, Bernadette decided to take her revenge by becoming a major media figure.
Director: Léa Domenach
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Michel Vuillermoz
Classification: CTC
Country: France
Runtime: 94m
Trap
Josh Hartnett leads this M. Night Shyamalan thriller as an everyday dad who takes his daughter to a massive indoor concert featuring her favourite pop star—only to find out the police are secretly planning to lockdown the event and weed out a notorious serial killer.
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Josh Hartnett, Hayley Mills
Classification: CTC
Country: USA
Runtime: 105m
2 August
Boat
Indian survival drama centred on 10 people who narrowly escape a bombing on a small boat.
Director: Chimbu Deven
Cast: Yogi Babu, MS Bhaskar, Gouri Kishan
Classification: CTC
Country: India
Runtime: 126m
8 August
200% Wolf
A follow up to the Australian animated feature film 100% Wolf, in which the hero Freddy Lupin had to grapple with the shock revelation that he is destined not to be a mighty werewolf like all of his family, but a tiny pink poodle.
Director: Alexs Stadermann
Cast: Samara Weaving, Akmal Saleh, Ilai Swindells
Classification: PG
Country: Australia
Runtime: 97m
Borderlands
Eli Roth (Thanksgiving) helms this feature film based on the popular sci-fi looter shooter video game, set on the abandoned fictional planet of Pandora where people search for a mysterious relic.
Director: Eli Roth
Cast: Ariana Greenblatt, Cate Blanchett, Jack Black, Jamie Lee Curtis
Classification: CTC
Country: USA
Runtime: 101m
It Ends With Us
Though coming from a complicated past, Lily Bloom has always known the life she wants. While living in Boston, she meets neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid and believes she may very well have found her soul mate. Soon, however, questions arise about their relationship, and to complicate matters her high school love interest, Atlas Corrigan, comes back into the picture, putting her relationship with Ryle in jeopardy.
Director: Justin Baldoni
Cast: Blake Lively, Jenny Slate, Brandon Sklenar
Classification: M
Country: USA
Runtime: 126m
15 August
Alien: Romulus
Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), Isabela Merced (Madame Web) and Archie Renaux (Morbuis) star in this Alien by sequel director Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe).
Director: Fede Alvarez
Cast: Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, Archie Renaux
Classification: MA
Country: USA
Runtime: 119m
Iris And The Men
“They’re not”. This is how Iris (Calamy) answers her doctor when she is asked how things are going with her husband (Vincent Elbaz). The words slip from her mouth like a brutal realisation: how long has it been since they last made love? It is a stranger who whispers the seed of an idea: “Take a lover”. So she dares open Pandora’s box, and hesitantly registers herself on a dating app. Immediately, men start to appear, as if it were raining.
Director: Caroline Vignal
Cast: Laure Calamy, Vincent Elbaz
Classification: M
Country: France
Runtime: 98m
The Blind Sea
A documentary that follows elite Australian athlete Matt Formston and big wave legend Dylan Longbottom as they charge the biggest wave ever ridden by a blind surfer.
Director: Daniel Fenech
Cast: Dylan Longbottom, Matt Formston
Classification: PG
Country: Australia
Runtime: 95m
21 August
Seventeen Tour ‘Follow’ Again to Cinemas
K-Pop group SEVENTEEN’s first Seoul World Cup Stadium concert and encore tour comes to the big screen.
Director: Oh Yoon-Dong
Cast: Seventeen
Classification: CTC
Country: South Korea
Runtime: 103m
22 August
Blink Twice
Frida is a young, clever, Los Angeles cocktail waitress who has her eyes set on the prize: philanthropist and tech mogul Slater King. When she skillfully maneuvers her way into King’s inner circle and ultimately an intimate gathering on his private island, she is ready for a journey of a lifetime. Despite the epic setting, beautiful people, ever-flowing champagne and late-night dance parties, Frida can sense that there’s more to this island than meets the eye. Something terrifying.
Director: Zoë Kravitz
Cast: Channing Tatum, Alia Shawkat, Geena Davis, Kyle McLachlan
Classification: CTC
Country: USA
Runtime: 102m
My National Gallery, London (Exhibition on Screen)
Documentary on London’s National Gallery – giving voice to those who work at the gallery from cleaner to curator, security guard to director, who identify the one artwork that means the most to them and why.
Director: Ali Ray, Phil Grabsky
Cast: Claudia Winkleman, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam
Classification: CTC
Country: UK
Runtime: 90m
Strange Darling
A “go in blind” horror-thriller centred on one day in the twisted love life of a serial killer.
Director: JT Mollner
Cast: Barbara Hershey, Ed Begley Jr., Madisen Beaty
Classification: CTC
Country: USA
Runtime: 96m
Suddenly
Vincent and Laura are a passionate but volatile couple who embark on a round-the-world sailing adventure to give their relationship a new start. During their trip, they decide to explore a vast deserted island which they discover off the coast of Chile. Caught in a violent storm, they shelter in an abandoned whaling station for the night but wake up the next morning to find their boat has disappeared.
Director: Thomas Bidegain
Cast: Giles Lellouche, Mélanie Thierry
Classification: CTC
Country: Belgium/France/Ireland
Runtime: 114m
Take My Hand
Living in London, at the peak of her career, a mother of three is diagnosed with MS. Following the sudden death of her husband and the loss of her job, she moves back home to Australia; where a chance encounter with her high school sweetheart gives her renewed hope in love as she battles the disease.
Director: John Raftopoulos
Cast: Radha Mitchell, Adam Demos
Classification: M
Country: Australia
Runtime: 102m
29 August
Afraid
Katherine Waterston (Alien: Covenant) and John Cho (Star Trek) star in this horror from Oscar-nominated filmmaker Chris Weitz (About a Boy). The story centres on a family that introduces an AI helper into their lives. At first, this technological marvel feels like a blessing. But soon, it crosses a line that leads to fatal consequences.
Director: Chris Weitz
Cast: Katherine Waterston, John Cho
Classification: CTC
Country: USA
Runtime: 123m
Bookworm
In the midst of a family crisis, a washed-up American magician and his long-estranged precocious daughter, venture into the New Zealand wilderness in search of a mythical beast known as the Canterbury Panther. Stars Elijah Wood, reuniting with Come to Daddy director Ant Timpson.
Director: Ant Timpson
Cast: Elijah Wood, Michael Smiley, Nell Fisher
Classification: CTC
Country: New Zealand
Runtime: 94m
I Saw The TV Glow
A24 suburban horror centred on two teenage friends who bond over their shared love of a mysterious late-night TV show that presents a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, reality begins to crack.
Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Cast: Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Fred Durst
Classification: M
Country: USA
Runtime: 100m
Kneecap
There are 80,000 native Irish speakers in Ireland. 6,000 live in the North of Ireland. Three of them became a rap group called Kneecap. This anarchic Belfast trio becomes the unlikely figurehead of a civil rights movement to save the mother tongue.
Director: Rich Peppiatt
Cast: Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, Simone Kirby
Classification: CTC
Country: Ireland/UK
Runtime: 105m
Midas Man
Biopic about The Beatle’s first manager. On Thursday 9th November 1961 a man named Brian descended the stairs to a cellar in Liverpool and changed the world forever.
Director: Joe Stephenson
Cast: Eddie Marsan, Emily Watson, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd
Classification: CTC
Country: USA/UK
Runtime: 140m
31 August
André Rieu’s 2024 Maastricht Concert: Power of Love
Set against the backdrop of the historic Vrijthof square, André’s 2024 big-screen concert experience delivers iconic film scores, beautiful waltzes, tear jerking ballads and unexpected chart hits.
Director: André Rieu, Michel Fizzano
Cast: André Rieu, The Johann Strauss Orchestra
Classification: CTC
Country: Netherlands
Runtime: 180m
