Spider-Man to The Odyssey: 10 of the best films to watch this July - BBC

Sam Raimi's Evil Dead franchise roared back to life in 2023 with the smash hit Evil Dead Rise. Now there's some more gleefully over-the-top comedy horror in Evil Dead Burn, directed by Sébastian Vaniček. Souheila Yacoub stars as a young woman who goes to dinner with her late husband's family shortly after he is killed in a car accident. It's the definition of an uncomfortable social situation – but it gets worse when the family starts mutating into demonic zombies known as Deadites. Vaniček believe that cinemagoers needn't have seen any previous Evil Dead films to enjoy this one. "My goal was to craft a powerful, singular – almost personal – story that could stand on its own," he said in Variety, "while still resonating deeply within the rich, complex world that Sam has built. I want people to feel physically drained when they leave the theatre, like they've been through an emotional and intense journey."

Released on 8 to 10 July internationally

The director of The Dark Knight, Inception, and the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan doesn't make small-scale films. But his latest epic looks set to be his grandest undertaking to date: a near three-hour adaptation of one of the most important works of literature ever written, Homer's Odyssey. Matt Damon plays Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, who is making the long and perilous journey back to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) after the Trojan War. The star-studded cast includes Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Tom Holland, Lupita Nyong'o and many more. And the whole thing is shot on 70mm IMAX film – the first feature film to do so. "I think what separates him from other directors is the stories he wants to tell are incredibly ambitious," Matt Damon said on 60 Minutes. "And the way he wants to tell them is incredibly ambitious. In this case he wanted to do it 100% in IMAX, which had never been done."

Released on 15 to 17 July internationally

3. Spider-Man: Brand New Day

This is the fourth Spider-Man film with Tom Holland in the red-and-blue costume, but, as the subtitle suggests, it's also a new start: the first film in a proposed trilogy. It has a new director, with Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) taking over from Jon Watts. And Peter Parker is in a new situation: following a spell cast by Doctor Strange in the last film, none of his friends remember that he exists. "It's that time in your mid-20s, when the harsh realities of life can sometimes slap you in the face," Cretton said in Screenrant. "Peter is dealing with some real grown-up problems both personally and professionally, and for the first time, he's learning how to deal with them completely on his own." If that weren't enough, he's got to deal with the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), the Punisher (Jon Bernthal), and a gang of ninja assassins.

Released on 29 to 31 July internationally

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Sherlock Holmes's younger sister (Millie Bobby Brown) is off on another fast and furious adventure – this one written by Jack Thorne and directed by Philip Barantini, the screenwriter and the director of Adolescence. Enola isn't an adolescent anymore, though, but a young woman who is due to marry her boyfriend, Lord Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge). The only snag is that Sherlock (Henry Cavill) has been kidnapped, so she has to rescue the great detective with the help of his sidekick Watson (Himesh Patel) and the siblings' mother (Helena Bonham Carter). "Millie's totally different to the Millie that I first met when first thinking about Enola Holmes," said Thorne in the Radio Times. And so [the new script] was trying to capture what it is to be a grown-up Enola Holmes." The films are also Victorian history lessons, added Thorne. "The first film was about land reform and vote reform, the second film was about the birth of the unions, and the third film looks at our colonial history."

Released on 1 July on Netflix