MY WORLD OF TRUTH

A beloved childhood teddy bear comes to life and wants to rekindle his friendship with the grown man who, as a child, once played with him? You would be right to assume that foul-mouthed diatribes, toilet humour and randy situations are about to be had: this indeed sounds like another Ted sequel. But no, this is a tasteful Disney production and the bear in question is not a vulgar Bostonian voiced by Seth MacFarlane but Winnie the Pooh, and the boy who’s grown up is none other than Christopher Robin, played by Ewan McGregor. Christopher Robin is in a funk and has lost the whimsy of his youth, so of course his onetime nursery companion needs to step in and help him find some magic again. That may sound derivative and a tad depressing, but chin up: if Finding Neverland’s Marc Forster at the helm doesn’t make you think this story is in capable hands, then perhaps the three credited names on the screenplay will: an accomplished troika of Listen Up Philip writer-director Alex Ross Perry, Hidden Figures co-writer Allison Schroeder, and Tom McCarthy, the director of the best picture-winning Spotlight. Maybe the Silly Old Bear will have something new to say after all? Released 3 August in the US, Mexico, Sri Lanka and South Africa and 17 August in the UK, Iceland and Poland. (Credit: Walt Disney Studios)

Spike Lee’s last major feature, Chi-Raq, was one of his absolute best. That film was shockingly overlooked by both audiences and critics, but already this new work is getting more attention: BlacKkKlansman won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in May. It stars football player-turned-actor John David Washington (yes, Denzel’s son) as Ron Stallworth, a Colorado Springs police detective – the first black cop in the city’s history – who affects a “white”-sounding voice over the phone to dupe David Duke, the leader of the Ku Klux Klan, into letting him join the hate group. Adam Driver plays a fellow cop who assumes Stallworth’s identity for an in-person initiation into the KKK, where he’ll go undercover and find out about the group’s criminal intentions. Here’s the thing: it’s a true story. The real-life Stallworth published a book about this extraordinary exploit in 2014 and Lee optioned it for development the next year. Look for this one to be a hit. Released 9 August in Australia, 10 August in the US, 16 August in Saudi Arabia and 24 August in the UK, Ireland and Norway. (Credit: Focus Features)

“I wanted to introduce a contemporary Asia to a North American audience.” That’s what author Kevin Kwan told The Daily Beast not long after the publication of his novel Crazy Rich Asians, about the lifestyles of the rich and fabulous in his native Singapore. In this new film adaptation produced by the team led by producer Nina Jacobson that brought the Hunger Games books to the big screen, Constance Wu plays a US economics professor who discovers that her boyfriend’s family is one of Singapore’s richest and is caught in a web of schemes and secrets: more Dynasty than Fifty Shades of Grey. In the hands of director Jon M Chu, this should be a confection of colour and camp, every lushly appointed scene brimming with high-threadcount fun. It also heralds the arrival of a new star, Henry Golding, as Wu’s love interest – Golding is a presenter on BBC World News’ programme The Travel Show – along with established talents such as Michelle Yeoh, Awkwafina, Ken Jeong and Ronny Chieng. The fact that major studio Warner Bros is the distributor is a welcome sign that, after countless fits and starts, Hollywood may really be getting serious about diversity – although, according to reports, one Hollywood producer suggested to Kwan that the protagonist be reimagined as a white woman. Released 15 August in the US and Portugal, 22 August in The Philippines and Singapore and 31 August in Cambodia and Lithuania. (Credit: Warner Bros Pictures)

Sarah Waters’ Gothic thriller was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009. This complex story of a country doctor returning to the manor house he visited as a child when his mother worked there as a housemaid and finding it haunted by ghosts literal and figurative now becomes the latest in the “elevated horror” film trend. Lenny Abrahamson earned a best director Oscar nomination as the film-maker behind 2015’s Room – directing a horror movie may seem like a strange follow-up, but he does seem determined to lift the genre out of “things that go bump in the night” clichés. The most obvious sign of that is the cast he’s put together: Domhnall Gleeson as the doctor, whose work with a disfigured war veteran (Detroit’s Will Poulter) and his sister (Ruth Wilson), draws him into the family intrigue of matriarch Charlotte Rampling. Expect this adaptation to provoke some goosebumps – and some thoughtful reflection too. Released 30 August in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Portugal and 31 August in the US. (Credit: Focus Features)

August is full of adaptations of novels shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, because, along with The Little Stranger, here’s this new telling of Penelope Fitzgerald’s 1978 work. In 1959, a widow, played by Emily Mortimer, opens a bookshop in Suffolk in what was formerly an old house. The mere existence of this bookshop is unexpectedly threatening to a wealthy local woman (Patricia Clarkson) who had designs on turning the once-dilapidated house into an arts centre. She launches a fierce campaign to shut down the book store. But Mortimer’s widow gathers her allies, including Bill Nighy, and attempts to make a stand. Directed by Isabel Coixet, who previously made Learning to Drive, The Bookshop opened the Seattle International Film Festival in May where Seattle Times film critic Moira Macdonald said of this “quiet, gentle” film that “those who love books, picturesque English villages and getting lost in actors’ faces should be very happy”. Released 24 August in the US and 30 August in Hungary. (Credit: Celsius Entertainment)

How do you make a kid’s version of The Bucket List? Mexican director Pedro Pablo Ibarra is giving it a try in the Spanish-language film Ya Veremos. A few key changes were in order, however: the child in question, Santi (Emiliano Aramayo) is not actually dying but is on the verge of a surgery that may rescue his eyesight or induce permanent blindness. Just in case, his separated parents, Rodrigo (Mauricio Ochmann) and Alejandra (Fernanda Castillo), help him draw up a list of everything he could possibly want to see and do – a wrestling match in person, Rodrigo dyeing his hair blue, a paintball competition, swimming with dolphins – and then make those wishes come true. Of course, the thing Santi wants the most is to see his parents back together. This is a lighthearted, unsentimental approach to possible impending tragedy summed up in the title itself: Ya Veremos translates as “We’ll see”, the teasing, delayed-gratification answer parents give their kids the world over. Released 3 August in Mexico and 31 August in the US. (Credit: Pantelion Films)

Kate McKinnon is now one of the most respected and prolific comedians in the US: aside from the bevy of characters she assays on Saturday Night Live, she’s appeared in Ghostbusters, Office Christmas Party and Rough Night in just the past two years alone. Mila Kunis, on the other hand, is an actress with incredible untapped comedic potential – it’s been hinted at in movies like Friends With Benefits and Bad Moms, but hopefully her knack for hilarity will be fully unleashed in this new team-up with McKinnon, The Spy Who Dumped Me. Spy spoofs are a dime a dozen, but this one could be interesting for being a female buddy comedy: Kunis’s ex-boyfriend turns out to work for the CIA and baddies come after him by coming after her first. Only her pal McKinnon remains at her side as all manner of supervillainy threatens her: but the bad guys will find out that, together, they’re Double(-O) Trouble. Released 3 August in the US, Pakistan and Spain and 22 August in the UK and Ireland. (Credit: Lionsgate)

“Close is so extraordinary… that she lifts an otherwise ordinary movie,” writes The Hollywood Reporter’s Jon Frosch in his review of The Wife. He’s not the only one calling this one of Glenn Close’s finest performances in a career packed with stunning roles. She plays the wife of an author (Jonathan Pryce) who’s just been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature; for decades, she’s neglected her own calling as a writer to support her husband, a man who by all appearances lives up to the cliché that a great artist can’t be a good man. And after he becomes a Laureate, she may finally have had enough. Screenwriter Jane Anderson (It Could Happen to You) adapts Meg Wolitzer’s 2003 novel, with Sweden’s Björn Runge making his English-language directing debut. Released 17 August in the US and 24 August in South Africa. (Credit: Sony Pictures Classics)

When you hear “McEnroe documentary” you immediately think this must be a collection of his greatest overhead slams intercut with blooper-reel montages of his infamous antics; surely there must be talking heads analysing his infamous callout – “You can-not be serious!” – of a chair umpire at Wimbledon in 1981. Thankfully, there’s none of that here. Director Julien Faraut supervises the 16mm film collection at the French national sport institute, and in John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection he’s assembled an experimental documentary entirely from footage shot by one of his predecessors at the institute, Gil de Kermadec, of the tennis star’s 1984 season – in which he won every single match in which he played. That is until the final of the French Open at Roland Garros, which comprises the majority of the footage Faraut has edited together (its form calls to mind Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait), where he lost in five sets to Ivan Lendl – one match, his most important one, marring what was otherwise perfection. Narrated by Mathieu Amalric, Faraut’s achievement is one of curation, of editing as sculpting, trying to capture the beauty of McEnroe’s form. Released 22 August in the US. (Credit: Oscilloscope)