August 2025 — Reviews Roundup

The August dog days of cinema’s summer season are typically filled with second-rate tentpoles and mid-sized studio fare designed to capitalize on undiscerning audiences looking for some old-fashioned theater-going comfort before summer ends, school resumes, etc. And indeed, there were second-rate tentpoles (The Naked Gun, surprisingly good!) and mid-sized studio fare (Freakier Friday, unsurprisingly not good!), amidst all manner of other disposable properties being marched into unenthusiastic three-weeks runs. But further amidst those categories of viewing, August 2025 also ushered in a surprising amount of auteurist cinema to theater screens, with new films from an exhaustive roster of international favorites like Ramon Zürcher, Victor Kossakovsky, Radu Jude, Hong Sang-soo, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Olivier Assayas, Julia Loktev, Siew Hua Yeo, Karim Aïnouz, and others. And that’s on top of new projects from Hollywood mainstays Ethan Coen, Darren Aronofsky, and Spike Lee (whose Highest 2 Lowest we’ll be catching up with for its streaming release in September).

Why such impressive counterprogramming this year? There are many potential answers. Could it be that Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy and contempt for the mid-sized film simply leaves studios more shorthanded than it used to? Maybe. Is it because the very meaning of “summer” has collapsed in our age of climate catastrophe that has elongated the solstice seasons, thereby blurring our cognitive capacity to sense summer’s bookends? Probably not… but possible. Is it mere coincidence borne of endless industry variables. Eh, probably. Regardless, the sheer balance on display this past month between studio releases and those from boutique distributors, between original properties and IP upchuck, between exceptional works of art and butt gutter cinema — we’re talking super blue moon stuff. For this, we are thankful.