MY WORLD OF TRUTH

It’s 1983, and communism is still riding high in Czechoslovakia. A new teacher arrives in a classroom full of pre-teen students, but instead of asking each of the children about themselves, she asks them about their parents: what do they do for a living? What follows in microcosm is a satire of how the communist state worked in Eastern Europe; the teacher asks for favours from each of her students, simply based on the nature of their parents’ employment. Director Jan Hřebejk and writer Petr Jarchovský follow up their previous Czech-language dramas Divided We Fall and Kawasaki’s Rose with this darkly comic film that Indiewire’s David Ehrlichsays is “A sardonic, richly seriocomic morality play that uses a delicate touch to explore why communism never seems to work out in the long run. This crowd-pleasing standout... leverages its hyper-specific setting to convey a universal story of fear and power.” Watch out for Zuzana Mauréry as a stealth awards season contender for her role as the power-made title character. Released 1 September in the US and Argentina and 7 September in Italy (Credit: Film Movement)

Tom Cruise has been playing a number of lovable rogues lately, whether his cowardly military officer in Edge of Tomorrow or his cursed grave-robber in The Mummy. American Made continues the pattern: in this true-life thriller he plays Barry Seal, an airline pilot asked by the CIA to run covert missions in Latin America who then becomes a drug courier for Pablo Escobar’s cartel before ultimately becoming a DEA informant to avoid jail time. So he’s a triple agent? Cruise reunites with Doug Liman, his director on the underrated Edge of Tomorrow, for this 1980s period piece that’s already getting strong reviews. Of particular note is the cocky swagger that Cruise brings to the character, something he’s been delivering on screen since Risky Business in 1983. Or as Guy Lodge puts it in Variety, “it’s a glibly entertaining escapade on its own terms, [but] American Made is more interesting as a showcase for the dateless elasticity of Cruise’s star power. It feels, for better or worse, like a film he could have made at almost any point in the last 30 years.” Released 7 September in Germany and Hong Kong, 8 September in Turkey, 14 September in South Korea and 29 September in the US (Credit: Universal)

Director David Gordon Green has been one of the US film industry’s great chameleons, shifting from austere, emotionally shattering indies like George Washington and Snow Angels to ‘bro-comedies’, such as Pineapple Express and The Sitter, to misguided attempts at starry awards-bait dramas like Our Brand Is Crisis, his most recent film. His latest falls into the last category, but feels much more promising than that dead-on-arrival Sandra Bullock vehicle from 2015 about the world of political consulting. Stronger stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Jeff Baumann, a real-life survivor of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing who lost both of his legs and then struggled with his very public role as the face of the victims of the tragedy – he was honoured at sports events, appeared on TV, and was lauded as a hero even as he struggled to deal with his own emotional trauma and bristled at the idea that anything he had done was particularly exceptional. The film is based on Bauman’s own memoir about his ordeal and Gyllenhaal became proficient using a wheelchair in an attempt to capture his experiences. Released 21 September in Singapore, 22 September in the US and Canada and 29 September in Estonia (Credit: Roadside Attractions)

JD Salinger remains the great literary enigma of the 21st Century. Why did this author of such prodigious talent ultimately choose to release only one novel and three short story collections in his lifetime? Why did he stop publishing 45 years before his death and become a virtual recluse? Rebel in the Rye attempts an answer. It shows Salinger (Nicholas Hoult) as he hones his craft at Columbia University in the late 1930s and develops the phony-hating character of Holden Caulfield before then fighting in World War Two for three years – an experience that profoundly unsettled the young author and cast a shadow over his subsequent work. Kevin Spacey plays Whit Burnett, the Columbia professor and editor of Story magazine who helped shape the young Salinger’s prose style, while Sarah Paulson is the literary agent who championed his work. Rebel in the Rye is the directorial debut of Danny Strong who cut his teeth writing films about recent history such as Recount, Game Change and Lee Daniels’ The Butler. Released in the US 15 September and in Estonia 22 September (Credit: IFC Films)

For many Stephen King fans, the definitive portrayal of It’s Pennywise, an evil clown that’s really a malevolent spirit that feeds off fear, was by Tim Curry in a memorable 1990 TV miniseries. So Bill Skarsgård has big clown shoes – and pantaloons – to fill. In this film version of the 1986 novel, It is much more clearly a metaphor for how powerful forces can divide and destroy a society, in this case the small town of Derry, Maine, by playing off people’s greed, ambitions, and fears – the evil spirit that manifests as Pennywise only appears to people in the form of something that will scare them the most. So for a group of children in Derry, the thing that scares them the most is an evil clown. And, like the children in Stranger Things, a TV shows clearly influenced by the original It novel and miniseries, these kids have to fight back against the evil facing them. If that sounds vague, it’s because twists abound, which are best left unspoiled here. Released 7 September in Australia and Brazil, 8 September in the US and UK and 15 September in Turkey and South Africa. (Credit: Warner Bros)

Very little is known about the plot of Darren Aronofsky’s new horror movie other than that you may have to watch much of it through your fingers. Looking like a hybrid of Rosemary’s Baby, Funny Games, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Mother! stars Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem as a married couple who, at any superficial glance, appear to be enjoying connubial bliss. But then the husband invites another couple, played by Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer to stay with them, and things go badly wrong. Things go very, very wrong. Mother! appears to have as many frights, if not more so, than Aronofsky’s previous foray into horror, Black Swan. Since that film was released in 2010, he’s only made one other, Noah (2014), an adaptation of the Biblical tale that polarised critics. What both of those films had in common was characters cast adrift by primordial forces over which they have no control and barely understand – and for at least Jennifer Lawrence’s ultimately suffering wife character in Mother! it appears to be much the same. Released 15 September in the UK and US, 21 September in Chile and Brazil and 29 September in Sweden and Taiwan (Credit: Paramount Pictures)

Matthew Vaughn won over critics with his spy thriller Kingsman: The Secret Service in 2015. Starring Taron Egerton as a street punk recruited by an elite covert intelligence agency dedicated to protecting Britain and wearing suits from Saville Row’s finest tailors, the first film managed both to send up spy film conventions (particularly Roger Moore-era Bond) and be an enthralling, suspenseful action film in its own right. In its sequel, Julianne Moore plays a criminal mastermind obsessed with the 1950s and dedicated to replicating that era’s aesthetic in her fashion and the design of her lair: a small-town Eisenhower-era ‘main street’ that just happens to be in the middle of a remote jungle. She’s part of The Golden Circle, a Spectre-like organisation that wants to remake the world. This time Egerton and his fellow Kingsmen team up with their US counterparts, the Statesmen, including Halle Berry and Channing Tatum, to take on this threat to the global order. Released in the UK on 21 September, in the US and Bangladesh on 22 September and in Russia on 28 September. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie grossed a combined $780m (£603m) worldwide. But this new instalment in the saga of bricks and blocks is going in a different direction. Whereas the first film satirised Hollywood and US business culture and the second made fun of the glut of superhero movies unleashed upon the world the past decade, The Lego Ninjago Movie will be an elaborate homage to Asian cinema, whether the swords-and-sorcery wuxia films of Hong Kong, kung fu movies, ninja thrillers from Japan, or Godzilla-style kaiju monster films. Whether that means the attitude of the film will be more loving, as opposed to the slightly acidic, satirical takes of the other Lego movies, remains to be seen. Jackie Chan is onboard voicing Master Wu, the leader of a band of warriors who are taking on the evil Lord Garmadon, played by Justin Theroux. Dave Franco voices Lloyd Garmadon, a young warrior who is trying to escape his vile inheritance as the son of the villainous Lord and wants to make a stand against his father. Whether it will succeed as well as the first two films, both with critics and at the box office, remains to be seen. Opening 21 September in Australia and Kazakhstan, 22 September in the US and Vietnam and 28 September in Hong Kong and Portugal (Credit: Warner Bros)

A full year after it played at the Toronto and London film festivals in 2016, Una is set to arrive in cinemas. Ben Mendelsohn plays a convicted paedophile, Ray, who is confronted by Una (Rooney Mara), now grown, who he abused when she was 12 years old. He’s changed his name and has abandoned his old life – we think – having taken a well-paying job and moved to the suburbs with a wife who’s totally unaware of his criminal history. Una wants to figure out what her abuse meant and whether or not Ray feels remorse. Theatre director Benedict Andrews makes his film debut with Una, an adaptation of David Harrower’s 2005 play Blackbird, which most recently ran on Broadway in 2016 with Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams playing Ray and Una. The film does feel stagebound as a result, with many dialogue-heavy scenes set in and around the labyrinth of an office/factory complex where Ray now works. Some of the staging is awkward, but the performances of Mendelsohn and Mara are so strong it hardly matters. Released in the UK and Ireland 1 September and in Portugal 7 September. (Credit: Thunderbird Releasing)

Lady Gaga is coming to Netflix. But not in a concert film. Rather, in this stripped-down, decidedly un-glam look at the personal life of Stefani Germanotta, the woman who would be Gaga. Directed by Chris Moukarbel, Gaga: Five Foot Two follows the popstar as she recovers from the mixed reviews critics gave her album Artpop and prepares to turn 30. The documentary will also explore Gaga’s interest in politics and her effort to create music that says something and is personally meaningful to her legions of fans, or “little monsters” as she calls them. And it gets dishy too, with Gaga talking about her tense relationship with Madonna, who she initially saw as a mentor but turned on her after Madonna, and many music lovers, noted the similarities between Express Yourself and Born This Way. How Moukarbel presents all this should be fascinating – his 2012 debut documentary Me @ The Zoo used found footage taken from social media to tell a story about connection in the age of Twitter and Instagram Released in the US and the Netherlands 22 September (Credit: Netflix)