The temperature rises this July as Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer prepare for battle. One is a family-friendly adventure in pink, the other is a three-hour historical drama. (You can figure out which is which.) While some might think it's poor planning with their releases, it's actually genius that Barbie and Oppenheimer are premiering on the same day. And if those two releases weren't enough to prove how epic the month is going to be, well Tom Cruise will also be back as Ethan Hunt for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. Patrick Wilson returns in Insidious: The Red Door, the latest installment in the horror franchise that's also serving as his directorial debut. Stephanie Hsu causes chaos in the new raunchy comedy Joy Ride, Molly Gordon makes her directorial debut with Theater Camp starring herself and Ben Platt, and Lizzy Caplan gets super freaky in the horror movie Cobweb.
Grab your popcorn and put fresh batteries in your remote! Let’s take a closer look at what movies will be hitting the big and small screens in July 2023.
RELATED: The 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2023
Insidious: The Red Door
Release Date: July 7 in Theaters
The Lambert family will guide you through The Further with Insidious: The Red Door, the fifth chapter in the beloved horror franchise created by James Wan. Besides returning as the Lamberts patriarch Josh, Patrick Wilson makes his directorial debut with Insidious: The Red Door, taking the franchise in a bold and bloody new direction. For the sequel, the Lamberts will face the demons they tried so hard to forget when dark forces threaten to tear the family apart again. Let's start July off on a terrifying note, shall we?
Joy Ride
Release Date: July 7 in Theaters
Starring Oscar-nominated Everything Everywhere All at Once's Stephanie Hsu, Joy Ride is a raunchy ensemble comedy following four friends who go on the trip of a lifetime through China. While the movie is about young people exploring their Asian roots, Joy Ride’s trailer underlines how Hsu, Sherry Cola, Ashley Park, and Sabrina Wu will get in all sorts of trouble involving drugs, sex, and the most unbelievable situations. This crazy ride never hits the brakes.
The Out-Laws
Release Date: July 7 on Netflix
The Out-Laws is an action-packed comedy starring Adam Devine, Nina Dobrev, Pierce Brosnan, and Ellen Barkin, which should be more than enough to keep this movie release on your radar. Furthermore, the upcoming Netflix release finds a clever way to make fun of how anxiety-inducing it can meet to meet your loved one’s parents for the first time. That’s because Devine plays a man whose dreams of a happily ever after are shattered after realizing his fiancé’s family might be international criminals.
Earth Mama
Release Date: July 7 in Theaters
It’s always great to welcome new voices into filmmaking, especially when that voice belongs to the Olympian volleyball player and Grammy-nominee Savanah Leaf. In her feature directorial debut, Earth Mama, Leaf explores the coming-of-age story of a pregnant single mother with two children in foster care. Set in the Bay Area of San Francisco, Earth Mama is an upcoming A24 release about the power of community and poor people's struggles to keep their families together.
Biosphere
Release Date: July 7 in Theaters
As Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown told Collider, the least you know about Biosphere, before watching it, the better. The post-apocalypse dramedy imagines how the two last members of humanity spend their days on a planet that can no longer host life. It’s an intriguing concept that explores our ecological anxieties and complicated relationship with routine.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Release Date: July 12 in Theaters
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go to theaters to catch the last globetrotting adventure of Tom Cruise's spy extraordinaire Ethan Hunt. Mission: Impossible 7 suffered multiple delays due to the pandemic, but the latest entry of the beloved action franchise is finally hitting theaters. And while the wait has been long, fans should celebrate that this is the first of a two-movie story, with Mission: Impossible 8 set to release in less than a year. The film also stars Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Pom Klementieff, Ving Rhames, and Hayley Atwell.
Theater Camp
Release Date: July 14 in Theaters
Readers looking for a feel-good comedy to fit in between the blockbuster movie releases should look no further than Theater Camp. Directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman in their directorial debuts, Theater Camp is set in a scrappy theater camp on the brink of bankruptcy in upstate New York. So, when the camp’s owner falls ill, his brother must join forces with students and teachers to save one of the last havens these young thespians can enjoy. The film stars Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, Jimmy Tatro, and Ayo Edebiri.
The Deepest Breath
Release Date: July 19 on Netflix
With The Deepest Breath, director Laura McGann delivers a thrilling documentary investigating why people risk their lives for extreme sports. The Deepest Breath tells the story of Italian free diver Alessia Zecchini and Irish safety diver Stephen Keenan as they try to dive into one of the most dangerous underwater sites in the world: the Blue Hole in Dahab, Egypt. For comparison's sake, it’s worth underlining how free diving in this blue hole is more dangerous than climbing Mount Everest. It would be a scary journey if we couldn't enjoy it from the safety of our couches.
Oppenheimer
Release Date: July 21 in Theaters
From Interstellar to The Dark Knight, everything Nolan touches becomes a cinematic spectacle that’s well worth your time. That only makes us more curious about Oppenheimer, a groundbreaking drama that had to create new technology to shoot some scenes in black-and-white for IMAX. Starring Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the biopic will retrace the history of the creation of the atomic bomb through the eyes of the man who made it possible for power-hungry nations to destroy the world. With a star-studded cast that includes Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., and Florence Pugh, Oppenheimer is one of this year’s biggest theatrical releases.
Barbie
Release Date: July 21 in Theaters
With Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken, Greta Gerwig’s next movie will take us on an existentialist adventure inspired by Mattel’s famous line of dolls. The film looks insanely good, with Gerwig recreating the Barbie universe and populating it with some of the biggest Hollywood stars, including Simu Liu, America Ferrera, Michael Cera, and even John Cena as a merman. And that’s not even scratching the surface of the immense talent list involved with the unexpected project. Add to that a family-friendly rating and a marketing campaign that’s absolutely killing it, and we have no doubt Barbie will break some box office records.
They Cloned Tyrone
Release Date: July 21 on Netflix
John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx join forces in Juel Taylor's intriguing sci-fi directorial feature debut, They Cloned Tyrone. Inspired by the 1980s soul aesthetics, They Cloned Tyrone leads its three protagonists into a wild investigation that involves kidnapping, surveillance, and cloning of Black people. They Clone Tyrone promises to deliver a wild adventure that isn’t afraid to laugh at the absurdity of its sci-fi concept.
The Beanie Bubble
Release Date: July 21 in Theaters | July 28 on Apple TV+
Remember the Beanie Babies craze? For a brief moment in history, it seemed like these cute toys were everywhere, either exhibited as precious collector's items or played with by children. Then, all of a sudden, Beanie Babies became a thing of the past. Starring the top comedy talent of Zach Galifianakis and Elizabeth Banks, The Beanie Bubble will tell the story of Ty Warner, the toymaker behind one of the biggest trends of the 1990s.
Stephen Curry: Underrated
Release Date: July 21 on Apple TV+
A24 and Apple TV+ have partnered to deliver a poignant and captivating documentary on basketball legend Stephen Curry. Instead of only focusing on the athlete's success, Stephen Curry: Underrated digs deep into the star’s failures, offering a touching story that can move people who don’t have a clue where to begin with sports. The Golden State Warriors' documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Cobweb
Release Date: July 21 in Theaters
After becoming a diabolical father in The Boys, Antony Starr will team up with Lizzy Caplan to play evil parents in a disturbing horror movie by Samuel Bodin. Cobweb follows eight-year-old Peter (Woody Norman), a timid boy who starts to hear mysterious sounds from his bedroom that lead him to question if their parents are hiding any dark secret. Cobweb’s trailer hits the mark when it comes to delivering a terrifying atmosphere, and the movie will be perfect for horror fiends looking for something more than blockbuster releases to pass the time.
Haunted Mansion
Release Date: July 28 in Theaters
From Pirates of the Caribbean to Jungle Cruise, Disney has successfully turned the company’s theme park rides into feature films. The Haunted Mansion remake marks Disney’s second attempt at tackling its most famous horror attraction after the first movie starring Eddie Murphy failed to meet box office expectations. Now, to achieve the sweet spot between funny and frightening, The Haunted Mansion is coming to theaters with a star-studded cast that includes LaKeith Stanfield, Owen Wilson, Rosario Dawson, Tiffany Haddish, Jared Leto, Winona Ryder, Dan Levy, Hasan Minhaj, and Jamie Lee Curtis. That’s a cast that should scare up a good time!
Sympathy for the Devil
Release Date: July 28 in Theaters
Helmed by The Secrets We Keep director Yuval Adler, Sympathy for the Devil stars Joel Kinnaman as a driver who unfortunately crosses paths with the most deranged passenger he could ever meet, and he's played by Nicolas Cage. For a night, this passenger will hold Kinnaman’s driver at gunpoint while they cross the city, spreading chaos and destruction. There’s something deliciously wicked about how Cage plays the Driver, guiding Kinnaman on an explosive descent into madness that will undoubtedly please moviegoers looking to end the month with a bang.
Talk to Me
Release Date: July 28 in Theaters
Talk to Me has become the unexpected hit of many film festivals before coming to theaters, and for a good reason. The debut film of filmmaking brothers Danny and MichaelPhilippou, Talk to Me puts a new spin on the demonic possession trope to deliver genuine scares and some of the most entertaining scenes ever conjured in horror. The stakes are high, and the violence is gruesome. Still, Talk to Me understands that horror should also be fun to watch, and it goes all-in. The movie stars Sophie Wilde, Joe Bird, Miranda Otto, and Alexandra Jensen.
Susie Searches
Release Date: July 29 on VOD and Digital
To wrap up July, Susie Searches brings a unique mystery-comedy to your living room. Starring Kiersey Clemons as the titular character, Susie Searches follows a college student obsessed with true crime who tries to solve a colleague's mysterious disappearance, hoping that the case will turn her podcast into a worldwide phenomenon. It’s a funny meditation on our true crime obsession, delivered right to our living room.
