Witchy sequels, survival thrillers, and a Robert Pattinson awards contender lead this month’s cinema lineup
The summer blockbuster rush is over, but September has quietly become one of the most interesting months on the film calendar. This year’s lineup spans a long-awaited witchy sequel, two wilderness survival dramas, a video game reboot with a serious horror pedigree, and a Robert Pattinson performance already generating awards buzz.
Here are ten films worth your time at the cinema this month.
1. Practical Magic 2
Release date: September 11 (US, UK, Ireland), September 18 (Canada, Australia)
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Stockard Channing
Director: Susanne Bier
Nearly three decades after the original became a cult favorite, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman return as sister witches Sally and Gillian Owens. The 1998 film underwhelmed on release but found a devoted following over the years, drawn to its cozy, supernatural charm. Directed by Susanne Bier and adapted from Alice Hoffman’s novel The Book of Magic, this sequel picks up years later, bringing back Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest as the aunts and adding Joey King and Maisie Williams as Sally’s daughters, now grappling with the family curse that dooms any man they love. Expect atmosphere, warmth, and plenty of witchy nostalgia.
2. Resident Evil
Release date: September 16, 17, and 18 (international)
Cast: Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter
Director: Zach Cregger
Zach Cregger, fresh off the acclaimed horror hit Weapons, takes on the long-running video game franchise and promises something darker than the previous films. Working from an original screenplay he co-wrote with Shay Hatten, Cregger follows Bryan, a medical courier played by Austin Abrams, tasked with delivering an organ to a hospital in Raccoon City just as its residents begin turning into ravenous monsters. Cregger has stressed that this is a genuine horror film first and a game adaptation second, which should reassure fans wary of another lifeless spin-off.
3. Heart of the Beast
Release date: September 24 and 25 (international)
Cast: Brad Pitt
Director: David Ayer
Brad Pitt headlines this wilderness survival adventure, playing a wounded Special Forces veteran fighting his way back to civilization after a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness. His only companion is his loyal military dog, Odin. Director David Ayer has spoken of one of Pitt’s most raw and affecting performances in years, and for the anxious among us, the filmmakers have confirmed the dog makes it out just fine.
4. Primetime
Release date: September 25 (US and Canada)
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Anna Faris, Bokeem Woodbine
Director: Lance Oppenheim
Robert Pattinson’s remarkable run continues with this fact-based drama in which he plays journalist Chris Hansen, the face of the controversial mid-2000s reality show that used sting operations to confront online predators. Directed by documentarian Lance Oppenheim in his narrative debut and premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival, the film has positioned Pattinson as an early awards-season contender, capping a year that has kept him firmly in the spotlight across several major projects.
5. The Weight
Release date: September 18 (US and Canada)
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Russell Crowe, Julia Jones, Austin Amelio
Director: Padraic McKinley
Ethan Hawke stars in this Great Depression-era drama as a widowed father in 1930s Oregon who is taken from his young daughter and sent to prison. A ruthless warden, played by Russell Crowe, offers him freedom on one grim condition: he and a group of other prisoners must haul stolen gold across the country. After premiering at Sundance earlier in the year, the film arrives in theaters with early reviews singling out Hawke’s grounded, magnetic performance as its beating heart.
6. Hope
Release date: September 9 (US), September 10 (Australia), September 25 (UK)
Cast: Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Taylor Russell, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander
Director: Na Hong-jin
This genre-defying Korean epic from acclaimed director Na Hong-jin is part western, part creature feature, part action thriller, and part science fiction, all at once. Hwang Jung-min stars as a village police chief who must defend his coastal community from a mysterious creature after wildfires sever all communication. With a star-studded international cast and a runtime stretching past two and a half hours, it premiered at Cannes and is shaping up to be one of the month’s most ambitious spectacles.
7. The Uprising
Release date: September 11 (US and Canada)
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Woody Norman
Director: Paul Greengrass
Paul Greengrass swaps myth for history in this medieval epic dramatizing the English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Andrew Garfield plays a plague-stricken farmer known only as Ploughman, who rises to lead a rebellion against the forces of the teenage King Richard II. Greengrass frames it as a story about ordinary people stepping onto the stage of history for the first time, a theme that gives the sweeping action real weight.
8. Onslaught
Release date: September 4 (US and Canada)
Cast: Adria Arjona, Dan Stevens, Michael Biehn, Drew Starkey, Rebecca Hall, Reginald VelJohnson
Director: Adam Wingard
Released by A24, this action-horror hybrid stars Adria Arjona as a single mother and former army sniper living in a remote desert trailer park. When genetically engineered super soldiers escape a nearby research facility, her old skills are suddenly all that stand between her family and disaster. Directed by Adam Wingard, the film boasts an ensemble cast, and star Michael Biehn, a veteran of The Terminator and Aliens, has called it his best film in decades.
9. Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie
Release date: September 17 (US), September 30 (UK)
Cast: Documentary featuring Salman Rushdie and Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Director: Alex Gibney
This documentary from Alex Gibney adapts author Salman Rushdie’s memoir about the 2022 attack in which he was stabbed on stage in New York and his long recovery afterward. Drawing on intimate footage shot by his wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, the film revisits the ordeal while exploring Rushdie’s life, resilience, and enduring sense of humor. A moving portrait of an artist who refused to be silenced.
10. Forgotten Island
Release date: September 25 (US and Canada), October 16 (UK and Ireland)
Cast: H.E.R., Liza Soberano, Dave Franco, Manny Jacinto, Lea Salonga, Jo Koy
Director: Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado
DreamWorks Animation delivers something fresh with the first major Hollywood film built around Filipino folklore. Singer H.E.R. and Liza Soberano voice Jo and Raissa, two best friends in the 1990s Philippines who tumble through a portal into a magical realm of demons and monsters, where lingering too long threatens to erase their memories of each other. From the director of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, it is a visually inventive fantasy with real cultural heart.
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