It's time: Barbie vs. Oppenheimer — or Barbie and Oppenheimer, depending on whether your interest is in a box office battle royale, or this year's most-anticipated and most unexpected double feature. (A.frame will be seated for both, of course.) Outside of plastic dolls and atom bombs, July boasts one of this year's most eclectic slates: This month is heavy on horror — with a new installment in the Insidious franchise and scarers from A24, Disney and more — plus, the summer of the R-rated comedy continues with a Joy Ride you won't soon forget.
Read on for all of the must-see films opening in theaters or streaming at home in July.
Thirteen years after the franchise began with James Wan's Insidious, the horror saga returns with its fifth installment. Directed by star Patrick Wilson, The Red Door is a direct sequel to 2013's Insidious: Chapter 2, following father and son Josh and Dalton Lambert (Wilson and Ty Simpkins) as they find themselves once again terrorized by the (literal) demons of their past. Rose Byrne, Andrew Astor and Lin Shaye also reprise their Insidious roles in the film.
Watch it: In theaters July 7
Crazy Rich Asians screenwriter Adele Lim makes her directorial debut with an "unapologetically explicit" (read: R-rated) comedy about four unlikely friends — played by Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Sabrina Wu, and Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once) — who travel across China in search of Park's character's birth mother. Hijinks ensue. The cast also features Crazy Rich Asians scene-stealer Ronny Chieng, Lori Tan Chinn, and Meredith Hagner.
Watch it: In theaters July 7
Nearly three decades after Tom Cruise accepted his original mission in 1996's Mission: Impossible, the seventh installment in the series sends Cruise's Ethan Hunt on his "most dangerous mission yet" — with an assist from M:I regulars Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, and Vanessa Kirby. Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie is at the helm of Dead Reckoning Part One and its follow-up, which is slated to hit theaters in summer 2024.
Watch it: In theaters July 12
One of the breakout titles at this year's Sundance Film Festival, this indie comedy follows the eccentric teachers and students at an upstate New York theater camp as they band together to save the program. Theater Camp marks the feature directorial debut of Nick Lieberman and Molly Gordon, who wrote the script with Ben Platt and Noah Galvin. Gordon, Platt and Galvin also star alongside Ayo Edebiri, Jimmy Tatro, Patti Harrison, Nathan Lee Graham, Owen Thiele, Amy Sedaris and Alan Kim.
Watch it: In theaters July 14
"To live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you're a Ken." That's the logline for Greta Gerwig's idiosyncratic spin on Mattel's most famous doll, starring Oscar nominees Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken, respectively. Issa Rae, Hari Nef, and Kate McKinnon also play Barbies, while Kingsley Ben-Adir and Simu Liu also play Kens. John Cena, naturally, plays a merman.
Watch it: In theaters July 21
In the most-discussed counterprogramming of the summer, opposite Barbie arrives Christopher Nolan's biopic about the theoretical physicist who became known as the "father of the atomic bomb," J. Robert Oppenheimer, and his work with the Manhattan Project during World War II. The movie marks Nolan's sixth collaboration with Cillian Murphy, who plays Oppenheimer, with a cast that also includes Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, and Gary Oldman.
Watch it: In theaters July 21
They Cloned Tyrone is billed as a "pulpy mystery caper" that pays tribute to the iconic Blaxploitation films of the 1970s. The feature directorial debut of Juel Taylor, the ambitious, tongue-in-cheek sci-fi flick follows three unlikely heroes (John Boyega, Teyonah Parris and Oscar winner Jamie Foxx) who find themselves at the center of a government conspiracy involving secret cloning. The cast also includes David Alan Grier, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and Kiefer Sutherland.
Watch it: On Netflix July 21
Another of the month's haunted house offering, Cobweb casts Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr as parents of an 8-year-old boy, Peter (Woody Norman), who is hearing bumps in the night. When mom and dad remain adamant that it's all in his head, Peter begins to suspect that the people who are supposed to be protecting him may be hiding a dangerous secret. Cobweb is directed by Samuel Bodin and also stars Infinity Pool's Cleopatra Coleman.
Watch it: In select theaters July 21
This Haunted Mansion isn't a remake of the 2003 comedy of the same name starring Eddie Murphy, but it is inspired by the same Disney attraction. Directed by Dear White People's Justin Simien, the supernatural comedy centers around a single mother and her son who discover that the mansion they've moved into is, well, haunted. And so, they enlist a psychic, priest, historian and tour guide to help them rid the house of its not-so-dearly-departed occupants. Rosario Dawson and Chase W. Dillon lead the ensemble, which includes LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Watch it: In theaters July 28
Talk to Me was unveiled in the midnight lineup at Sundance Film Festival, where early audiences vowed it would be the scariest movie of the year. The feature debut of twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, from a script by Danny and Bill Hinzman, the horror movie revolves around a party game that involves teenagers conjuring spirits using an embalmed hand. When one of the séances goes awry, a supernatural force is unleashed upon the world.
Watch it: In theaters July 28
Also out in July: Biosphere (in theaters July 7), Earth Mama (in theaters July 7), The Lesson (in select theaters July 7), The Out-Laws (on Netflix July 7), The League (in AMC theaters July 7, on digital July 14), Afire (in theaters July 14), Bird Box Barcelona (on Netflix July 14), Black Ice (in AMC theaters July 14), The Miracle Club (in theaters July 14), The Deepest Breath (on Netflix July 19), Stephen Curry: Underrated (on Apple TV+ July 21), The Beanie Bubble (on Apple TV+ July 28), Kokomo City (in theaters July 28), War Pony (in theaters July 28), and Sympathy for the Devil (in theaters July 28).