Summer's heavyweights already came and went. July delivered Minions & Monsters, Evil Dead Burn, the live-action Moana, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day — a month so stacked that August was always going to feel quiet by comparison.
Quieter is not the same as empty. The August 2026 movie releases trade scale for range: an Eli Roth slasher, a Jason Statham revenge picture, a Looney Tunes courtroom comedy that spent years locked in a vault and Ridley Scott's take on a post-apocalyptic survival novel.
Here is every movie hitting theaters in August 2026, organized by release date.
August 2026 Movie Releases at a Glance
The month is unmistakably back-loaded. The first two Fridays offer solid mid-budget fare. August 28 drops six wide releases into a single weekend — a traffic jam that will cost somebody real money.
One thing worth knowing before you plan anything: limited releases open in a handful of markets, usually New York and Los Angeles, before expanding based on performance. Dates also move constantly.
New Movies in Theaters — August 7, 2026
One Night Only is the month's date-night default. Will Gluck directs a romantic comedy built on a genuinely strange premise: in this version of New York, single people get one sanctioned night of intimacy per year. Allie (Monica Barbaro) and Owen (Callum Turner) feel a spark, then spend the rest of the night being pulled apart by the city. Molly Ringwald and Maya Hawke co-star.
Ice Cream Man is Eli Roth doing what Eli Roth does. A sun-drenched summer town curdles when a strange ice cream truck rolls in, and the kids who eat what he sells start turning homicidal. The survivors are the ones who said no to dessert. Lean, nasty and cheap — historically how August horror overperforms.
Tony is the month's most interesting gamble. Matt Johnson adapts Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, rewinding to 1975 to find a nineteen-year-old Bourdain (Dominic Sessa) taking a summer job in a Cape Cod kitchen. Emilia Jones and Antonio Banderas co-star. It opens limited on August 7 before expanding August 21.
Super Troopers 3 brings Broken Lizard back for a third round of highway-patrol chaos, with Brian Cox joining. Searchlight is releasing it limited.
What's Coming to Theaters — August 14, 2026
This is the busiest wide-release Friday of the month.
The End of Oak Street is the headliner. David Robert Mitchell — who made It Follows — sends an entire suburban street somewhere it should not be after a cosmic event, and the place it lands still has prehistoric creatures walking around. The Platt family has to hold together or die separately. Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella and Christian Convery star. Note the title change: this spent years in development as Flowervale Street, so older trailers are still filed under that name.
PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie is the only real family tentpole this month. The pups crash-land on an uncharted island full of dinosaurs, then have to stop Mayor Humdinger from strip-mining it into a volcanic eruption. Terry Crews, Jennifer Hudson and Snoop Dogg lend voices.
The Wrong Girls marks Dylan Meyer's directorial debut. Frankie (Kristen Stewart) and Molly (Alia Shawkat) are broke, codependent best friends who take an experimental drug and come out of it telepathic. The supporting cast is absurdly deep — LaKeith Stanfield, Geena Davis, Kate McKinnon, Seth Rogen and Cate Blanchett all appear.
The Rivals of Amziah King hands Matthew McConaughey a role built to his exact specifications: a charismatic Oklahoma honey magnate who also fronts a bluegrass band. His estranged foster daughter comes home and the honey trade turns out to be rougher than it sounds. Kurt Russell and Cole Sprouse co-star.
The Brink of War dramatizes a real hinge point in history: Jeff Daniels' Reagan races the clock to salvage a nuclear arms deal with Jared Harris' Gorbachev. J.K. Simmons supports.
August 21, 2026 Theatrical Releases
Mutiny is the month's most dependable action bet. Jason Statham plays Cole Reed, framed for his billionaire boss's murder and hunting the truth aboard a cargo ship that turns out to be hiding an international conspiracy. Jean-François Richet directs.
Insidious: Out of the Further is the franchise's sixth entry and a sequel to The Red Door. Gemma (Amelia Eve) discovers she can enter the Further, the purgatorial realm the series is built around. Worse, she can bring things back out. Once the demons work that out, the traffic starts running the wrong direction. Lin Shaye returns.
The Magic Faraway Tree adapts Enid Blyton for a new generation. A family relocates to the countryside and the children find a tree that opens onto impossible worlds. Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy and Nicola Coughlan star.
Spa Weekend puts Leslie Mann, Anna Faris and Isla Fisher in a Palm Springs retreat, then detonates it with a fourth friend nobody invited.
August 28, 2026 — The Month's Biggest Weekend
Coyote vs. ACME carries the best backstory of any release this year. Warner Bros. shelved the finished film in 2023 as a tax write-off, then faced enough pressure to let it shop elsewhere. Ketchup Entertainment picked it up, and after roughly three years in limbo it finally reaches theaters. It is a live-action and animation hybrid in which Wile E. Coyote sues ACME with help from billboard lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte), squaring off against corporate counsel Buddy Crane (John Cena).
The Dog Stars is Ridley Scott adapting Peter Heller's novel. Years after a superflu emptied the world, a man (Josh Brolin) lives in an abandoned airport hangar with his dog, flying perimeter runs in an old Cessna and grieving a wife and a river. Then a distant radio transmission suggests something better exists. Jacob Elordi and Margaret Qualley co-star.
Buddy takes the cheerful world of a children's television show and lets it rot from the inside. The kids on It's Buddy! sing and spread happiness right up until one child refuses to participate. Buddy does not take it well. Cristin Milioti and Keegan-Michael Key star.
Cliffhanger reboots the 1993 original in the Dolomites. A retired mountaineer runs a luxury chalet until kidnappers attack, leaving the daughter who escaped to climb after them. Pierce Brosnan and Lily James star for Jaume Collet-Serra.
Colony finally reaches US screens. Yeon Sang-ho, who made Train to Busan, traps biotechnology professor Kwon Se-jeong (Jun Ji-hyun) inside a sealed conference facility after a rapidly mutating virus gets loose. The infected keep changing, which means the survival rules keep changing too. It runs 123 minutes and opens in limited release.
Finding Emily rounds out the weekend with something gentler: a lovesick musician gets the wrong phone number for the woman he is chasing, then recruits a psychology student to help. Angourie Rice stars.
Re-Releases and Anniversary Screenings in August 2026
For many moviegoers this is the real reason to buy a ticket this month.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone returns wide on August 27 for its 25th anniversary. Expect it to do serious business regardless of what else is playing that weekend.
Train to Busan gets a remastered 10th anniversary run on August 14, two weeks ahead of Yeon Sang-ho's new film. Seeing them back to back is the best double feature the month offers.
La La Land and Point Break return in limited engagements on August 16, Terminator 2: Judgment Day follows August 28, and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory opens the month with a 55th anniversary run on August 2.
Which August 2026 Movie Should You Actually See?
- For horror fans: Ice Cream Man first, Buddy second
- For families: PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie
- For action: Mutiny
- For a packed house and a real crowd reaction: Coyote vs. ACME
- For something nobody else has seen yet: Colony
- For nostalgia worth the ticket price: Harry Potter at 25
The Bottom Line
August 2026 is a range month rather than a scale month. No Odyssey here, no Spider-Man. What there is instead: a slasher, a Statham vehicle, a Ridley Scott survival drama and a Looney Tunes movie that needed three years and a new distributor to escape a studio vault.
One practical note. Limited releases expand only if the numbers justify it, so a film opening in New York and Los Angeles on August 7 may not reach your city for weeks. FirstShowing's 2026 schedule is worth bookmarking.