This week marks the first week of September, and it’s already looking packed with new releases on both the big and small screens. So if you’re looking for a little breathing room after a couple of months dominated by big box-office smashes and buzzworthy shows, just know that September isn’t exactly slowing things down.
New movies, new TV shows, returning favorites, and plenty of smaller releases are all competing for our attention this week. So once again, the bigger question isn’t what to watch, it’s where to start. Luckily, we’ve jotted down a list of some of the most notable releases coming out over the next couple of days. So, whether you’re heading to the cinemas this weekend or planning to kick off your shoes, plop yourself on the couch, and watch something at home, there’s plenty to choose from. So, scroll down and let’s see what you can add to your never-ending watchlist.
🎥 In Theaters This Week
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🎥 Fall 2: Deadpoint
(Wed, Sept 2nd — wide release)
Five thousand feet up, there’s nowhere left but down. In this sequel to 2022’s vertigo-inducing thriller, Harriet Slater stars as Jax, a grieving climber who heads to Mount Kwan with her late sister’s friend Luce (Arsema Thomas), hoping the dangerous trek will bring some kind of closure. Instead, a rockslide strands them high above the ground as the route collapses around them. Sometimes the best way to honor a recently departed loved one is simply to stay alive.
🎥 Katy Perry: The Lifetimes Tour – Live from Paris
(Wed, Sept 2nd — IMAX release)
Pop star Katy Perry brings Paris straight to the biggest screen she can find. Filmed from more than 60 camera angles across two sold-out performances at Accor Arena, this concert extravaganza captures the choreography, costume changes, crowd energy, and career-spanning hits of the Lifetimes Tour. From intimate fan moments to full-scale arena anthems, Perry turns two nights in Paris into a front-row seat built for IMAX.
🎥 Sara Bareilles: Good Grief
(Wed, Sept 2nd — limited release)
Seven years after her last studio album, Sara Bareilles heads back into the recording room with some of her closest musical collaborators. Filmed over a six-day session, Bareilles and her band work through new songs inspired by personal hardship and the long disruption of the pandemic. Rather than treating the process like a standard making-of, this music documentary focuses on the conversations, experiments, and relationships behind her new album, where sorrow and joy often sit side by side in the same song.
🎥 Onslaught
(Fri, Sept 4th — wide release)
Filmmaker Adam Wingard returns to his genre-mashup roots with this gonzo action throwback starring Adria Arjona as a former military sniper battling PTSD while raising her young daughter in a desert trailer park. But when genetically engineered super soldiers escape a nearby secret military base and invade her home, she’s forced back into combat for one more deadly battle. Locked and loaded, she’s about to remind everyone that some mothers are better suited for the battlefield than the sidelines.
🎥 By Any Means
(Fri, Sept 4th — wide release)
You can’t fight fire with fire, but you can definitely fight dirty when the other side refuses to play by rules. In this historical crime drama based on true events, Mark Wahlberg stars as notorious Mafia hitman Greg Scarpa, who is recruited to work alongside a Black FBI agent (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) investigating the murders of civil-rights leaders in 1960s Mississippi. It’s an unlikely alliance, with the FBI relying on a man whose methods are anything but by the book. The film revisits a dark chapter in American history, when activists were targeted and killed, and seeking justice meant crossing lines the law normally wouldn’t.
🎥 The Sun Never Sets
(Fri, Sept 4th — expands)
There comes a point in adulthood when the future we imagined starts to feel less certain. Joe Swanberg’s latest relationship drama explores that uncertainty, with Dakota Fanning as a woman reconsidering the life she thought she wanted. When her long-term boyfriend (Jake Johnson) asks for space, she returns home and reconnects with a former flame (Cory Michael Smith), creating a complicated love triangle between the future she was building and the past she thought she had left behind.
🎥 Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass
(Fri, Sept 4th — limited release)
As the Tom and Jerry franchise’s first fully computer-animated feature, this Chinese co-production sends the iconic rivals into unfamiliar territory. Tom and Jerry’s latest chase takes them farther than ever when a mysterious compass whisks the feuding duo from a museum into a fantastical world inspired by Chinese mythology. Surrounded by magical creatures and ancient lore, the longtime rivals must work together if they hope to find their way home.
🎥 Dear You
(Fri, Sept 4th — limited release)
Drowning in debt, a young Chinese man (Zheng Runqi) travels from Chaoshan to Thailand searching for the grandfather he believes abandoned his family. Instead, a trail of letters reveals years of sacrifice behind his absence. Filmmaker Lan Hongchun turns the journey into a moving drama about migration, devotion, and inheritance, where reconnecting with the past proves worth more than anything money could ever buy.
🎥 American Summer
(Fri, Sept 4th — limited release)
In this nostalgia-laden summer drama, Steve Guttenberg plays Mikey, looking back on the season when his younger self (Logan Gray) discovered baseball, friendship, and first love with Kelly, played by Mia Talerico and Christie Brinkley at different ages. Writer-director Michael W. Gray gives this coming-of-age story a bittersweet edge, looking back on those sunlit days when summers seemed endless and anything felt possible.
🎥 Ever After
(Fri, Sept 4th — limited release)
It’s a lineup of horror favorites, including Kane Hodder, Michael Berryman, and Malcolm McDowell, alongside Mark Sheppard and Bonnie Aarons. In this blood-soaked grindhouse chiller, a group of friends heads to a remote forest lodge for one last celebratory weekend, only to encounter violent fanatics who believe they’re characters from classic fairy tales. With Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, an evil witch, and Prince Charming transformed into murderous villains, surviving the night means refusing to play by their twisted storybook rules.
🎥 The Girl in the River
(Fri, Sept 4th — limited release)
Devon Sawa, Maggie Grace, Tiffany Haddish, and Ralph Macchio lead the cast of this twisty crime thriller, where the murder of one child and the disappearance of her twin draw two specialists into a small town. As the case grows more disturbing, a seasoned criminologist and forensic psychologist race to find the surviving girl and uncover the killer. What begins as professional curiosity soon becomes something more personal, as solving one murder may be their only chance to stop another.
🎥 Barbara Forever
(Fri, Sept 4th — limited release)
Experimental ’60s filmmaker Barbara Hammer left behind more than a body of work; she created an entirely new way of seeing the world. Drawing from her films, recordings, writings, and personal archives, this documentary traces the pioneering lesbian avant-garde artist’s five-decade career, exploring queer passion, aging, illness, and creativity. Guided by Hammer’s own voice and longtime collaborator Florrie Burke, the film might feel less like a biography and more like a conversation with an artist still speaking through her work.
🎥 Cocoon: One Summer of Girlhood
(Fri, Sept 4th — limited release)
A quiet island summer is shattered by war when best friends San and Mayu are taken from school and sent to care for wounded soldiers inside a cave hospital. As the casualties mount, their friendship becomes one of the few things they can still hold onto. Directed by Yukimitsu Ina and adapted from Machiko Kyo’s manga, this wartime anime drama follows two young girls as childhood gives way to the realities of conflict.
🎥 Akira: 4K Restoration
(Fri, Sept 4th — re-release)
Neo-Tokyo is calling again as Katsuhiro Otomo’s landmark anime returns to theaters in 4K. After Tetsuo is pulled into a military experiment and develops terrifying powers, Kaneda’s attempt to save him spirals into rebellion and destruction. Decades later, this cyberpunk classic still hits hard, reminding us just how much it changed what animation could be.
🎥 Cars: 20th Anniversary
(Fri, Sept 4th — re-release)
Lightning McQueen is taking another lap around the big screen. Owen Wilson voices the rookie racer whose Piston Cup dreams are interrupted when he gets stranded in Radiator Springs. There, Sally, Doc Hudson, Mater, and the rest of the town teach him there’s more to life than winning. Pixar’s road-trip favorite returns to theaters for its 20th anniversary.
🎥 The Nutty Professor: 30th Anniversary
(Fri, Sept 4th — re-release)
Eddie Murphy’s classic comedy celebrates its 30th anniversary with a return to theaters this weekend. A remake of the Jerry Lewis comedy, the film lets Murphy put his own comic spin on kind-hearted professor Sherman Klump, whose experimental weight-loss serum transforms him into the thin, wildly confident Buddy Love. But when Buddy begins taking over Sherman’s career and personal life, he must regain control before his increasingly powerful alter ego pushes him out for good.
🎦 Streaming This Week
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🎦 Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly
(Tues, Sept 1st — premiering on Netflix)
One Olympic routine became a global punchline almost overnight, turning breakdancer Rachael “Raygun” Gunn into an unlikely internet sensation. This standalone Untold documentary revisits her viral performance at the 2024 Paris Games and the memes, misinformation, and conspiracy theories that followed. Tracing Raygun’s road to Paris and the fallout afterward, the doc looks past the endlessly replayed clips to the person caught in the middle of an internet frenzy.
🎦 The Runner
(Wed, Sept 2nd — premiering on Prime Video)
Gal Gadot stars as a high-powered London lawyer whose morning run takes a terrifying turn when an anonymous caller reveals her son has been kidnapped. Ordered to stay on foot and kill one of her clients, she races to figure out who is behind the abduction and why she was chosen. Directed by The Last King of Scotland helmer Kevin Macdonald, this real-time thriller turns every step into a deadly ultimatum.
🎦 Turning Point: Generation 9/11
(Wed, Sept 2nd — premiering on Netflix)
Twenty-five years after September 11, this documentary looks at the generation that grew up in its aftermath. Director Brian Knappenberger follows children who lost parents in the attacks, journalists shaped by the War on Terror, and young Afghans and U.S. Marines affected by the withdrawal from Afghanistan, tracing how one day continued to shape lives, careers, wars, and memories decades later.
🎦 Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu
(Wed, Sept 2nd — streaming on Disney+)
A galaxy far, far away returns with Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s pulpy space-western adventure, as Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin and his Force-sensitive foundling Grogu track Imperial holdouts across a lawless post-Empire frontier. With Sigourney Weaver joining as a New Republic colonel and Jeremy Allen White suiting up via motion capture as Rotta the Hutt, this new feature film installment brings Star Wars back to its scrappy gunslinger roots.
🎦 Scary Movie
(Thurs, Sept 3rd — streaming on Paramount+)
The knives are out again, and no horror trend is safe. Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, and Regina Hall reunite for this long-awaited Scary Movie sequel, taking aim at reboots, legacy sequels, elevated horror, and modern hits like Sinners, Smile, M3GAN, Terrifier, and The Substance. After 13 years away, the franchise is back to prove horror may evolve, but parody never dies.
🎦 Mayday
(Fri, Sept 4th — premiering on Apple TV)
In this 1987-set Cold War action-comedy, Ryan Reynolds stars as a hotshot U.S. Navy pilot whose covert mission leaves him stranded behind Soviet lines. His unlikely way out is a gruff former KGB agent (Kenneth Branagh) with a soft spot for American culture. Directed by Game Night filmmakers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the film turns an international crisis into a mismatched buddy comedy about two men trying to get out alive.
🎦 Parasomnia
(Fri, Sept 4th — premiering on Shudder)
Sleep should be the one place you can escape. Jasmine Mathews stars as Riley, a young woman haunted by night terrors and unresolved tragedy who begins to suspect the demonic figure stalking her dreams has crossed into the real world. Written and directed by James Ross II and based on his short Don’t Blink, this supernatural chiller turns bedtime into something worth fearing.
🎦 Fuze
(Fri, Sept 4th — streaming on HBO Max)
As London shuts down over a newly discovered WWII-era bomb, a bomb disposal expert (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) races to defuse it while a calculating jewel smuggler (Theo James) uses the chaos as cover for a high-stakes diamond heist. With Hell or High Water director David Mackenzie at the helm, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Sam Worthington rounding out the cast, this British thriller suggests the real danger isn’t always the one everyone is watching.
🎦 Signal One
(Fri, Sept 4th — streaming on Hulu / Disney+)
First contact gets dangerous in this sci-fi mystery from writer-director Jonathan Sobol. Isabelle Fuhrman stars as a brilliant young scientist recruited by Dennis Quaid’s tech billionaire into a secret cosmic project, with Josh Hutcherson and David Thewlis joining a discovery that could change humanity’s place in the universe.
✅ On VOD This Week
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✅ The Wrong Girls
(Tues, Sept 1st — on VOD/Digital)
There are the right people for the job, and then there are Frankie and Molly. Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat star as bong-loving best friends whose latest scheme goes sideways after they swallow an experimental psychedelic drug. Suddenly they may be telepathic, their cats can talk, and dangerous people are after them. Written and directed by Dylan Meyer, this stoner comedy takes getting high to another level.
✅ I Want Your Sex
(Tues, Sept 1st — on VOD/Digital)
Desire comes with rules, and Elliot is about to learn what happens when they start to shift. Cooper Hoffman stars as a young man who lands a dream job with Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), a celebrated artist and provocateur who draws him into her world of fantasy, power, and BDSM. Gregg Araki’s erotic comedy thriller follows what happens when pleasure, control, and consent become increasingly difficult to separate.
✅ Just Play Dead
(Tues, Sept 1st — on VOD/Digital)
Samuel L. Jackson and Eva Green play a married couple whose insurance scam turns into a battle over who gets to survive it. Jack (Jackson) plans to fake his murder, collect $30 million, and frame his wife’s lover. Nora (Green) has another idea: kill Jack for real and keep the money herself. Casino Royale director Martin Campbell turns their competing schemes into a twisty crime caper fueled by betrayal, deception, and one very dangerous marriage.
✅ Confinement
(Tues, Sept 1st — on VOD/Digital)
A family welcome turns into a trap when Game of Thrones actress Nathalie Emmanuel stars as Stella, a pregnant widow who seeks refuge with her late husband’s estranged family at their remote estate. Their concern and well wishes soon become an unsettling fixation on her unborn child, leaving Stella with the growing sense that something is terribly wrong. As suspicion grows, she realizes she may have to fight her way out before the baby arrives.
✅ The Room Below
(Tues, Sept 1st — on VOD/Digital)
Grief takes a dark turn when imagination starts bleeding into reality. Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland stars as Mia Levine, a children’s author shattered by her son’s unexpected death who then kidnaps a young boy while being haunted by a mysterious creature inside her home; whether it’s real or not. Meanwhile, Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays the retired detective closing in on the truth. Writer-director Kurt Martin turns loss and obsession into psychological creature horror, where the real danger may be a grieving mother whose grip on reality is starting to slip.
✅ Dark Hollow
(Fri, Sept 4th — on VOD/Digital)
Something has crawled out of an Appalachian coal mine, and it’s heading toward home. Daniel Byers writes and directs this creature feature about a young mother forced to hunt the monstrous threat before it reaches her family. With abandoned mine shafts and the surrounding mountains becoming its hunting ground, protecting those she loves means confronting whatever has been hiding underground.
✅ Influence
(Fri, Sept 4th — on VOD/Digital)
In this indie psychological thriller from writer-director Ryan Moore, Cheyenne Perez stars as a budding filmmaker who kidnaps a social media influencer (Grace Kaufman) after she refuses to star in her movie project. What begins as a private act of revenge quickly becomes a battle over blame and perception. Perhaps those who can influence the narrative can ultimately control what feels true in your own mind.
✅ The Girl in the River
(Fri, Sept 4th — on VOD/Digital)
Devon Sawa, Maggie Grace, Tiffany Haddish, and Ralph Macchio lead the cast of this twisty crime thriller, where the murder of one child and the disappearance of her twin draw two specialists into a small town. As the case grows more disturbing, a seasoned criminologist and forensic psychologist race to find the surviving girl and uncover the killer. What begins as professional curiosity soon becomes something more personal, as solving one murder may be their only chance to stop another.
📺 On TV This Week
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📺 The Varnell Hill Show
(Tues, Sept 1st — on Paramount+)
Nearly three decades after swaggering through Martin, Varnell Hill finally gets the spotlight to himself. Comedian Tommy Davidson reprises the fan-favorite character as a veteran late-night host struggling to keep his show relevant while network executives demand changes, writers push back, and family drama spills onto the set. With Martin Lawrence set to return in a guest role, this spinoff brings an old favorite back for a new generation.
📺 Welcome to the Family: The Murder of Dan Markel
(Tues, Sept 1st — on Hulu / Disney+)
A bitter custody dispute sits at the center of a murder case in this ABC News Studios true-crime docuseries. Revisiting the 2014 killing of law professor Dan Markel, the series follows years of investigations, trials, and family conflict. Through interviews and archival footage, it traces the alleged conspiracy and unanswered questions that turned one murder into a saga that kept unfolding long after the crime.
📺 Chad Powers: Season 2
(Thurs, Sept 3rd — on Hulu / Disney+)
The Catfish finally have a superstar quarterback. The problem is, he’s still a disgraced player hiding behind a fake face. Glen Powell returns as scandal-ridden quarterback Russ Holliday and his alter ego, rising college star Chad Powers, whose success on the field only makes his increasingly suspicious behavior harder to ignore. Assistant coach Ricky (Perry Mattfeld) now knows the truth, and Russ and roommate Danny (Frankie Rodriguez) may need her help to keep the deception alive. Season 2 turns Chad’s improbable comeback into a pressure cooker, where every win gives the lie an even bigger audience.
📺 The Gentlemen: Season 2
(Thurs, Sept 3rd — on Netflix)
English aristocrat turned drug smuggler Eddie Horniman has developed a taste for the criminal life, and now he wants more. Theo James and Kaya Scodelario return as Eddie and Susie, looking to expand their operation beyond England while Ray Winstone’s mob boss Bobby Glass increasingly stands in their way. Guy Ritchie’s gangster series takes its mix of wealthy privilege and organized crime into new territory as ambition begins putting their partnership to the test.
📺 La Mesías
(Thurs, Sept 3rd — on MUBI)
One viral hymn is enough to drag the past back into the spotlight. Spanish actor Roger Casamajor stars as Enric, whose childhood memories of religious fanaticism and his mother’s messianic delusions resurface when Catholic pop group Stella Maris becomes an online sensation. This seven-episode Spanish psychological drama follows a fractured family across different periods as Enric and his sister Irene (Macarena García) confront secrets they thought they had buried.
📺 The Program: Texas Tech
(Fri, Sept 4th — on Paramount+)
There’s nothing quite like Texas football. Narrated by Texas native Dennis Quaid, this four-part docuseries goes behind the scenes with Texas Tech during the Red Raiders’ historic 2025 season. Following the players, coaches, university, and West Texas community, the series digs into the people and stories that turned a memorable season into something that meant far more than wins and losses.
📺 A Tale of Two Cities
(Sun, Sept 6th — on MGM+)
Game of Thrones star Kit Harington trades Westeros for revolutionary France in this four-part adaptation of Charles Dickens’s classic. He stars as troubled lawyer Sydney Carton, whose life becomes tangled with Lucie Manette (Mirren Mack) and French émigré Charles Darnay (François Civil). As love, loyalty, and sacrifice pull them closer together, revolution closes in, turning Dickens’s sweeping story into something more personal: three lives caught in the middle of history.
📺 Marble Hall Murders
(Sun, Sept 6th — on MASTERPIECE on PBS)
Lesley Manville returns as literary editor Susan Ryeland for one last mystery, and once again fiction proves dangerously close to real life. While editing a new Atticus Pünd novel, Susan uncovers a story tied to an actual murder and soon lands under suspicion herself. Meanwhile, Tim McMullan’s Pünd investigates a case in Corfu, as the series brings its layered mystery-within-a-mystery format to a final chapter.
