One-line spoiler-free movie reviews for August 2026

This month featuring: populist pigs, duovision disaster, sexy fried chimken and Wile E Coyote finally gets his day in court.

Animal Farm (2025), Andy Serkis – One of my kids showed some interest in this, so I went along with low expectations, and I still think it may be the single worst movie I’ve ever seen. If you squint you can sort of glimpse that someone pitched “It’s Animal Farm, but updated to be a warning about populist narcissistic leaders” at some point, but dear lord.

[Picture caption: Animal Farm (2025), Andy Serkis]

Wicked, Wicked (1973), Richard L Bare – Bar Trash at Genesis Cinema, Bethnal Green – Bizarrely, the duovision gimmick, instead of leading to potentially incredible scenes where you are watching the same action from two points of view at once, mostly meant you felt like you were watching two bits of the same movie simultaneously which nobody had storyboarded enough to see if they worked together.

Bar Trash, run by Token Homo, presents “Queer cult & curious cinema” in relaxed screenings with alcohol, a raffle, a quiz and lots of laughs – find out more at tokenhomo.com/bar-trash.

David Byrne’s American Utopia (2020), Spike Lee – Clearly not as essential as Stop Making Sense but still an enjoyable watch and an opportunity to tap your toes to some Talking Heads songs in a cinema.

Eating Raoul (1982), Paul Bartel – Bar Trash at Beer Merchant’s Tap, Hackney Wick – This was wickedly funny as Bartel and the formidable Mary Woronov murder their way through the local swinging scene, although I was a bit distracted by Chakotay appearing to cosplay as a 1970s Orient player at times.

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (1964), Ray Dennis Steckler – Bar Trash at Genesis Cinema, Bethnal Green – Just genuinely, horrifyingly, ludicrously unwatchable, even when being presented with the lovely Loose Willis doing hypnotism and wry commentary. Hashtag Ragequit!

[Picture caption: Loose Willis was much more entertaining than the movie]

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026), Jane Schoenbrun – Featuring the sexiest ever scene to be built around fried chimken, this is horny and mystifying and at times tense and at times laugh-out-loud funny and at times maybe it was all just a masturbatory fever dream?

Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Roman Polanski – Bar Trash at Beer Merchant’s Tap, Hackney Wick – Absolutely adore Mia Farrow announcing twice – TWICE! – in this that her new haircut is by Vidal Sassoon. She is bewitchingly watchable as you can sense her dread and panic growing and the realisation that she literally can’t trust anybody around her.

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Sunny Dancer (2026), George Jaques – It had a few overly mawkish moments, and some awkward bits of dialogue that felt they had been focus-grouped among teenage cancer survivors, but it also wore its heart on its sleeve. That heart was in the right place and I very much enjoyed Neil Patrick Harris doing his bit as the gratingly enthusiastic camp president.

Coyote vs Acme (2026), Dave Green – Never mind all the back-story to the movie’s production, I laughed a lot. I’m a sucker for cartoon slapstick, so having cartoon slapstick happen to real people is ace. And a bold move to build a movie around one of the silent Looney Tunes characters paid off for me.

Lady (2025), Samuel Abrahams – It sort of goes from being an over-the-top Alan Partridge style mockumentary into something altogether more full of magical realism and emotional nuance, while Sian Clifford is absolutely magnetic in the title role throughout.

Read more of my one-line spoiler-free reviews of everything I’ve watched in the cinema in the monthly archive. Last time out I wrote about animated Minion slapstick, the profound sadness of Blue Heron, bleak Welsh decision-making and a Soviet drag-crone Baba Yaga (pictured below).

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