Skip to main content

MEMBER LOGIN

Departures Logo Created with Sketch.

JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER

Departures Logo Created with Sketch.
  • City Guides
  • Travel
  • Fashion
  • Art + Culture
  • Home + Design
Departures Logo Created with Sketch.
  • City Guides
  • Travel
  • Fashion
  • Art + Culture
  • Home + Design

FOLLOW US

LOGIN

NEWSLETTER

More In City Guides

This Beachfront Paradise Will Debut Avra Miami—And a Lobby Designed by Karl Lagerfeld—This Year

A renowned restaurant, iconic design talent, and an idyllic stretch of private beach.

The Most Incredible Experiences to Give This Valentine’s Day, for Everyone Celebrating Love
Aman Properties Just Curated the Most Amazing Road Trips Available With a Luxury Car Included—Here's How to Book One
These are the Hottest Winter Happenings in Beaver Creek, Colorado This Year

More In Travel

  • Hotels
  • Travel Guides
  • Restaurants

Dior Launches New Bag to Pay Homage to the Late Designer's Sister

It is the pinnacle of craftsmanship and took over 18,000 stitches to create.

Tiffany & Co. Is About to Sell Its Largest Diamond Ever
Mechanical Watchmaking Was Just Made a Part of UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage List
This Reflective Parka Is Super Warm, Ultra Stylish, and My Favorite Piece of Winter Wear

More In Fashion

  • Style
  • Shopping

Zaha Hadid Architects Are Building a Park Into the Side of a Chinese Skyscraper

The famous firm won the competition to build Tower C at Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base.

The 23 Most Famous Gothic Buildings Around the World
 Zaha Hadid Architects Creates Brutalist-Meets-Futuristic Student Housing in Hong Kong
New York's Penn Station Now Features Stunning Contemporary Artwork

More In Art + Culture

  • Books
  • Philanthropy
  • Film

Can’t Travel? Get the Scent of Famous Destinations With These Luxe Candles

Bring Paris or Aspen into your home.

How to Turn Your Living Room Into a Luxurious Space to Entertain
Luxury Linens That'll Make You Never Want to Leave Your Bed
Pantone Releases Color(s) of the Year for 2021—And They're All About Being Optimistic

More In Home + Design

  • Art + Design
  • Architecture
LOGIN
NEWSLETTER
  • City Guides
  • Travel
    • Hotels
    • Restaurants
    • Travel Guides
  • Fashion
    • Style
    • Shopping
  • Art + Culture
    • Books
    • Film
    • Philanthropy
  • Home + Design
    • Art + Design
    • Architecture
  • MEMBER LOGIN
  • JOIN OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
  • Contact Advertise Sitemap
Home / Art & Culture / Film
Film

What to Watch in August 2017

By John Lopez on July 26, 2016

Your guide to the month’s must-watch movies, TV shows, and series to stream.

© Courtesy Epix

SHARE:

Finally, August: a veritable cornucopia of lazy days custom-made for lounging about and plowing through that Netflix queue. Plenty of time to catch up on The Handmaid’s Tale or Better Call Saul, right? Oh ye wide-eyed innocent of yesteryear! The parade of must-see shows (and films) never stops, and even the indolent end of summer is no exception. In truth, August often proves to be a time of unexpected hits and pleasant discoveries on screens both big and small. But lest you get overwhelmed, we’re here to offer up our suggestions so you don’t miss the next Stranger Things—or at least remember to add it to that ever-growing queue.

 
Courtesy Annapurna Pictures

Detroit

It’s been five years since Kathryn Bigelow, the first and so far only woman to win Best Director, released her operatic takedown of Osama Bin Laden, Zero Dark Thirty. Far from cutting lose with something fun, Bigelow found an even weightier subject matter for her latest film: race in America. In Detroit, Bigelow offers that rarest of late summer birds, a no-holds-barred, intellectually bracing look at police brutality and African American resistance by way of the 1967 Detroit riots. There are no super heroes saving the day here, just the tragic consequences and harrowing reality of our country’s original sin. In theaters August 4; detroit.movie.

Courtesy IFC

The Trip to Spain

What’s August without some picturesque foreign locales and waistline-expanding Mediterranean feasts? Thankfully, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon have reteamed for another round of their signature gastronomic repartee with the third entry in Michael Winterbottom’s  shaggy dog travelogue series. By now the team knows they have a winning recipe, and they don’t dare deviate from it: mouth-watering food porn and dry British wit topped off with some creative class mid-life crises. And don’t forget the dueling impressions: this round features Roger Moore, Anthony Hopkins, and the holy grail of impressions, Marlon Brando. Nothing revolutionary here, just pure cinematic comfort food. In theaters August 11; ifcfilms.com.

Courtesy A24

Good Time

While August sees the blockbuster bandwagon slow a little, that opening also gives up-and-coming filmmakers a shot at a wider audience. The big contenders this year are the Safdie brothers, whose intense, beautiful, and mesmerizing crime thriller Good Time apparently earned a standing ovation at Cannes. Robert Pattinson stars as a hard up thief who must keep his mentally challenged brother out of jail after a bank heist gone wrong. Pattinson has long yearned for a powerful role that sheds all those squeaky clean Twilight associations, and if early reviews are to be believed, he might finally have found it. In theaters August 11; a24films.com.

Photo courtesy of Fingerprint Release / Bleecker Street

Logan Lucky

Somehow when indefatigable auteur Steven Soderbergh claimed he was retiring from filmmaking after Behind the Candelabra, no one took him seriously. Sure enough, after two seasons working on Cinemax’s The Knick, Soderbergh is back on the big screen with this low rent heist caper that feels like a calculated riposte to the effortless glamour of his Ocean’s trilogy. Channing Tatum and Adam Driver star as two endearingly incompetent blue-collar brothers with an ingenious and ambitious heist idea: robbing a NASCAR race. This time around, Soderbergh eschews high-tech gadgetry and perfectly timed planning in favor of clueless bravado and Southern grit. In theaters August 19; loganluckymovie.com

 

USA Network Media, LLC

The Sinner

With shows like Mr. Robot and Queen of the South, USA long ago shed its reputation as cable’s home for frothy and forgettable series. Now it’s taking Jessica Biel along for the ride: in this closed-ended series, Biel plays an affluent mother living a seemingly perfect life in bucolic upstate New York who randomly stabs a man to death at the beach one day. Directed by Antonio Campos, the indie master of dread behind Simon Killer and Christine, the disquieting pilot piqued critical interest at Tribeca, with special notice for Biel’s unsettling turn as a woman driven to violence in a mystery whose biggest question isn’t “What?” but “Why?” Premieres on USA August 2; usanetwork.com.

Courtesy Epix

Get Shorty

Who could ever match the effortless grace of John Travolta and Gene Hackman in Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1995 adaptation of Elmore Leonard novel Get Shorty? Thankfully, Epix apparently doesn’t even try, veering far from the original’s breezy tone with Chris Dowd taking up the mantle of Travolta’s mobster-turned-movie producer. Created by Davey Holmes, an executive producer on Showtime’s raucous, rough-and-tumble series Shameless, the new show promises the down and dirty thuggery that Sonnenfeld’s original film only hinted at, but with Dowd as the anti-hero it should all go down smoother than a good Irish whisky. Premieres August 13; epix.com.

Courtesy Amazon Prime Video

Comrade Detective

Romanian Cinema, get ready for your close-up. Perhaps the most out-there series premiering this summer, Comrade Detective purports to be a slick, anti-capitalist 80s Romanian cop show, forgotten after the fall of the Berlin Wall and newly rediscovered with fresh dubbing by Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But, with a supporting voice cast that includes Jenny Slate, Jake Johnson, and Mahershala Ali, among many, many others, Comrade Detective is actually the kind of bold, comedic concept that becomes this summer’s guilty binging pleasure. However it may turn out, you can’t fault writers Brian Gatewood and Alex Tanaka for lack of originality. Available on Amazon Prime August 4; a24films.com.

Courtesy Netflix

Icarus

Given all the Russian hijinks dominating the headlines daily, Bryan Fogel couldn’t have picked a better summer for his debut documentary. His tell-all documentary earned raves at this year’s Sundance film festival, winning the fest’s inaugural Orwell award. Fogel formed an unlikely bond with Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the man at the center of Russia’s infamously state-sponsored Olympic doping regime, and together they revealed the full extent of Russia’s actions in one of the most astounding doping scandals ever to hit sports—guaranteeing that at least one Russian plot will be fully uncovered this summer. Available on Netflix August 4; netflix.com.

Courtesy Netflix

Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later

House of Cards may get all the glory, but unapologetic binge-watchers know that Netflix’s revival of cult comedy hit Wet Hot American Summer really put the streaming service on the map. Bizarre, insane, and addictive, the limited series proved a perfect example of what streaming could accomplish that regular T.V. couldn’t even conceive of. Now creators David Wain and Michael Showalter have returned to Camp Firewood yet again with the sequel to the prequel that trades in the 80s nostalgia for 90s gaudiness. Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later reunites the gloriously spastic nutcases when Janeane Garofalo’s camp director decides to sell the beloved Camp Firewood. Available on Netflix August 4; netflix.com.

Courtesy AT&T

Mr. Mercedes

Leave it to Stephen King to throw some serious shade on the dog days of August. After years as the King of Horror, King decided to try out the detective genre to predictably successful results. Now T.V. king David E. Kelley adapts this tale of a washed-up detective battling a psychopath responsible for an out-of-control Mercedes that plows into a crowd and kills eight people. As if King and Kelley weren’t reasons enough to watch, the criminally under-appreciated Brendan Gleeson plays the lead, gifted the kind of generous leading man screen time that he made a feast from in John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary. Premieres August 9 on AT&T AUDIENCE Network, available on DIRECTV and DIRECTV NOW.

Explore More in Film

tout-img

Stream Your Favorite Broadway Shows for Free Right Now

tout-img

Designing Suspiria: Meet the Woman Behind This Fall’s Most Elegant Horror Show

tout-img

The Final Season of ‘Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown’ Will Debut on September 23


Marketing Events & Promotions

Become a DEPARTURES VIP

Join our Weekly Newsletter

Privacy Statement
Join our Weekly Newsletter
Departures Logo Created with Sketch.
  • City Guides
  • Travel
  • Fashion
  • Art + Culture
  • Home + Design
FOLLOW US
Other Meredith Corporation Travel & Leisure Group websites: 
  • Travel + Leisure
  • Food & Wine
Related Websites for DEPARTURES International Editions:
  • DEPARTURES-International.com
Learn more about the American Express Platinum Card® benefits

View Terms of Service  and  Privacy Statement.   Ad Choices EU Data Subject Requests All users of our online services subject to Privacy Statement and agree to be bound by Terms of Service. Please review.

© 2021 American Express Company. All rights reserved. Departures® is published by Meredith Corporation Travel & Leisure Group, a subsidiary of Meredith Corporation. Departures is a trademark of
American Express Marketing & Development Corp. and is used under limited license. Meredith Corporation Travel & Leisure Group is not affiliated with American Express Company or its subsidiaries.

  • RSS
  • Advertise
  • Advertise
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Promotions
  • Site Map

Member Login

The current issue of DEPARTURES is available exclusively to American Express Platinum Card® Members.

Cancel