Trailer Blitz! Minions & Monsters, Maddie’s Secret and More
🎥 Here’s a list of films coming to screens soon!
🎥 “Minions & Monsters” Final Trailer: The Yellow Chaos Machines Go Full Kaiju in Illumination’s Latest Animated Franchise Adventure — Hitting Theaters July 1st
This summer is already shaping up to be crowded with family-friendly films, from the latest Toy Story installment to the live-action Moana movie. There will be plenty to choose from when it comes to big-screen entertainment for the whole family.
But one film that might not be getting enough attention just yet is Minions & Monsters, the seventh overall entry in the Despicable Me franchise and the third Minions movie that will almost certainly turn into another summer blockbuster. And honestly, we’re still not entirely sure why the Minions have become such a massive animated phenomenon, especially since the franchise has always leaned more into silliness and nonsense than polished animated storytelling.
Still, we can’t deny there’s something weirdly effective about that formula, especially since slapstick buffoonery has always played around the world, no matter the language barrier.
This time, Minions & Monsters takes the gang into full monster-movie mode. Hollywood comes calling, and the Minions somehow decide they’re ready to make their own kaiju-sized feature film. Naturally, that means heading out into the world to find the perfect monster to star in their epic production.
Of course, these are the Minions we’re talking about, so the mission quickly spirals into total cartoon disorder. Their global monster hunt unleashes pratfalls, gibberish, weaponized cuteness, and enough slapstick mayhem to make the whole thing feel less like a film shoot and more like a disaster movie happening in real time.
Pierre Coffin, who directed the first three Despicable Me films and the original Minions, returns to direct and once again provides the Minions’ signature gibberish voices. The screenplay comes from Brian Lynch and Coffin, with Illumination founder Chris Meledandri producing.
More than a decade later, the Minions remain everywhere, with the franchise earning more than $5.6 billion worldwide. Why have they lasted this long? That’s still a mystery we haven’t quite cracked. But maybe the answer is simple: people really like watching these little Twinkie-looking weirdos cause trouble. And now they’re taking that trouble straight into monster-movie territory.
Minions & Monsters opens in theaters July 1st.
🎥 “Maddie’s Secret” Trailer: John Early Goes Full Women-in-Peril Melodrama in His Absurdist Directorial Debut with Kate Berlant, Eric Rahill, Claudia O’Doherty, Conner O’Malley & Vanessa Bayer — In Theaters June 19th
There has always been a long history of comedians working in drag, from the golden TV days of Milton Berle and Flip Wilson to the blockbuster comedy era of Robin Williams, Martin Lawrence, and Tyler Perry. Maybe the art of drag allows a performer to push a character further, heightening the physicality, exaggerating the persona, and letting the audience know right away that nothing they’re about to see should be taken too seriously.
Well, comedian John Early, of Search Party fame, is the latest performer to take drag for a spin in Maddie’s Secret, an absurdist spoof of the recent wave of women-in-peril mystery thrillers like The Girl on the Train, The Woman in the Window, and A Simple Favor. Only this time, the woman at the center of the mystery has plenty of secrets and very little self-awareness about what kind of mess she’s actually in.
Written and directed by Early, the film stars him as Maddie, a plucky dishwasher whose life takes a bizarre turn when she suddenly leaps to viral superstardom at a trendy food-content creation company. On the surface, everything looks almost aggressively picturesque: an adoring husband, a loyal best friend, and apparently enough woman-owned, ethically sourced chili crisp to stock a boutique pantry.
But as Maddie’s professional life starts to heat up, the pressure begins to crack open something darker from her past. What looks like a glossy workplace success story quickly starts bending into melodrama, satire, and full-blown psychological unraveling.
Early is joined by Eric Rahill as Maddie’s devoted husband and Kate Berlant as her ride-or-die best friend, with Claudia O’Doherty, Conner O’Malley, Vanessa Bayer, Chris Bauer, and Kristen Johnston rounding out the cast. That lineup alone suggests the film won’t be playing its thriller beats straight, even if Maddie herself seems convinced she’s trapped in the most serious drama ever made.
Marking Early’s critically acclaimed directorial debut, Maddie’s Secret appears to be aiming for a very specific comic sweet spot: part food-media satire, part melodramatic identity crisis, part unhinged mystery thriller send-up. Think candlelit confessions, emotional spirals, and one woman’s desperate need to keep her curated life from going completely off the rails.
Maddie’s Secret opens in theaters June 19th.
{ Also check out this week’s new trailers }
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🎥 “Obsession” Film Clips: Horror Filmmaker Curry Barker Turns One Bad Wish Into a Nightmare of Love, Longing, and Fatal Attraction — In Theaters May 15th
As one of the most buzzed-about horror films of the summer, first-time feature filmmaker Curry Barker may have just found his big breakout moment, emerging as the latest online creator to make the leap from viral shorts to Hollywood features. Critics who caught the film’s premiere at TIFF last November have already been buzzing about Barker’s feature debut, helping turn it into one of those indie horror sensations that builds momentum through pure word of mouth. Some have also pointed to the star-making performance of Inde Navarrette, the woman at the center of the film’s increasingly twisted romantic nightmare. Check out a pair of clips, offering a look at the kind of unhinged, emotionally volatile performance from Navarrette that appears to be fueling much of the film’s early buzz.
🎥 “The Mandalorian and Grogu” New Promos: The Star Wars Franchise Returns to the Big Screen, Going Back to Its Space-Western and Alien-Monster Roots — In Theaters May 22nd
Check out a new batch of promos for this big-screen continuation of The Mandalorian, featuring the return of Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin, aka Mando, as he and his tiny Force-sensitive companion Grogu track down Imperial holdouts across a lawless galaxy still crawling with warlords, bounty targets, and familiar underworld trouble. Directed by Jon Favreau, this new Star Wars adventure looks ready to trade saga-sized mythology for pulpy space-western fun, practical creature work, and one very marketable found family.
🎥 “The Voices of Our Mother” Trailer: Filmmaker/Actor Mark O’Brien Turns a Family Health Scare Into a Supernatural Horror Thriller About Inherited Evil — Premiering June 19th on Shudder
Family reunions are already stressful enough before the matriarch starts showing signs of something far more sinister than illness. Written and directed by Ready or Not star Mark O’Brien, this supernatural horror thriller follows Harriet Scaflen (Sheila McCarthy), whose sudden health crisis brings her four estranged children back home, only for old resentments and buried secrets to claw their way back up. With Georgina Reilly, Carolina Bartczak, Alex Ozerov-Meyer, and O’Brien co-starring, this haunted-family chiller turns caregiving into a nightmare where blood ties may be the very thing that feeds the evil inside this creepy matriarch.
🎥 “Sunny Dancer” Trailer: Bella Ramsey Finds Friendship, First Love, and Summer-Camp Antics in This Coming-of-Age British Comedy — In UK Cinemas August 14th
Cancer recovery is hard enough without your parents packing you off to “chemo camp” for the summer. The Last of Us’ Bella Ramsey stars in this coming-of-age British comedy as 17-year-old Ivy, who arrives expecting the worst and instead finds friendship, romance, and a gloriously awkward group of teen misfits who turn a dreaded summer into something unforgettable. Written and directed by George Jaques, with Daniel Quinn-Toye, Neil Patrick Harris, James Norton, and Jessica Gunning rounding out the cast, this heartfelt teen cancer comedy looks ready to find humor, tenderness, and a little sunshine in the messiest places.
🎥 “Reckless” Trailer: Scott Adkins Races the Cops for His Cut of an Old Heist in This Darkly Comic British Action Thriller with Vinnie Jones & Nicole Deon — Arriving In Theaters and on VOD/Digital May 22nd
English action star Scott Adkins (John Wick: Chapter 4, The Rip) shows off his comedic chops as well as his bone-crunching action skills in this darkly comic British action thriller, playing a former convict trying to stay one step ahead of the law while chasing down his share of an old heist. With Vinnie Jones and Nicole Deon joining the trouble, director Elliott Montello sends Adkins barreling through a crooked second chance where freedom may be the hardest thing to steal.
🎥 “This Tempting Madness” Trailer: Simone Ashley Searches for the Truth After a Coma Shatters Her Memory in This Twisty Psychological Mystery-Thriller with Suraj Sharma & Austin Stowell — Arriving in Theaters and VOD/Digital June 12th
Memory can be a dangerous thing when it comes back in pieces. Simone Ashley (The Devil Wears Prada 2, Bridgerton) stars in this psychological British mystery-thriller as a severely battered woman who awakens from a coma with no clear memory of what happened and one terrifying problem: her husband (played by Austin Stowell) has vanished. With Suraj Sharma also starring and Jennifer E. Montgomery directing, this twisty puzzle turns love, guilt, and fear into a waking nightmare where reality may be the first thing to fade away.
🎥 “She’s the He” Trailer: Two Best Friends Fake a Coming-Out Before One Discovers the Truth in Siobhan McCarthy’s Queer Coming-of-Age Comedy — In Theaters June 5th
Coming out is complicated enough without accidentally getting there through a terrible plan. Written and directed by Siobhan McCarthy, this queer coming-of-age comedy follows Ethan (Misha Osherovich) and Alex (Nico Carney), two best friends who pose as trans women to shut down rumors about their sexuality, only for Ethan to realize the joke has uncovered something real. With Suzanne Cryer, Malia Pyles, Mark Indelicato, Emmett Preciado, Tatiana Ringsby, Kyle Butenhoff, Emma Orr, and Aparna Nancherla rounding out the cast, this sharp-edged high school comedy turns a wildly bad idea into a messy, heartfelt story of friendship, identity, and figuring yourself out before graduation.
🎥 “Find Your Friends” Trailer: Bella Thorne, Helena Howard, Chloe Cherry, Sophia Ali & Zión Moreno Take a Joshua Tree Trip That Turns Hostile in This Desert-set Horror Thriller — Streaming June 12th on Shudder
A girls’ weekend in Joshua Tree sounds relaxing, until the locals start acting like they’d rather bury the welcome mat. Written and directed by Izabel Pakzad, this desert-set horror thriller follows Amber and her four best friends as they escape the L.A. bubble for a weekend of partying, only to discover they’ve wandered into very unfriendly territory. Starring Bella Thorne, Chloe Cherry, Helena Howard, Sophia Ali, and Zión Moreno, this getaway-gone-wrong chiller turns vacation mode into survival mode fast.
🎥 “Penny Lane Is Dead” Trailer: Graduation Night Spirals Into Beach-House Bloodshed in Mia’Kate Russell’s 1986-Set Australian Horror Comedy — Coming to Australian Cinemas July 23rd
The summer of 1986 is about to get messy, bloody, and very poorly supervised. Bailey Spalding stars in this Australian dark comedy horror thriller as Penny Lane, a 17-year-old celebrating graduation and university acceptance with her friends at her family’s beach house, only for the party to go sideways when her troubled cousin Kat crashes the night. Directed by Mia’Kate Russell and co-starring Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn, Tahlee Fereday, Alexandra Jensen, Ben O’Toole, and Steve Le Marquand, this retro beach-house nightmare turns teen celebration into prank-gone-wrong mayhem with a body count waiting in the wings.
🎥 “Camp” Trailer: Grief, Witchcraft, and Female Friendship Twist Into a Cursed Summer in Avalon Fast’s New Horror Flick Starring Zola Grimmer — Coming to Theaters June 26th
Some summer camps are built for healing. Others seem designed to reopen every wound. Written and directed by Avalon Fast, this haunting new horror drama follows Emily (Zola Grimmer), a young woman carrying a traumatic past who finds refuge as a camp counselor, only to be pulled into a strange world of modern witchcraft, impossible redemption, and cursed cycles that refuse to die.
🎥 “Time and Water” Trailer: Icelandic Poet Andri Snær Magnason Builds a Cinematic Time Capsule in National Geographic’s Glacial Climate Documentary — In Theaters May 29th
As Iceland’s glaciers melt, poet and author Andri Snær Magnason turns memory into an act of preservation. From Academy Award-nominated director Sara Dosa (Fire of Love), this National Geographic documentary blends family archives, old photographs, traditional songs, and folktales into a deeply personal reflection on home, inheritance, and a world changing faster than we can hold onto it. Part climate meditation, part love letter to a disappearing landscape, this is a film about what we leave behind when the ground beneath us won’t stop shifting.
🎥 “Cookie Queens” Trailer: Girl Scout Cookie Season Gets the Coming-of-Age Documentary Treatment from Filmmaker Alysa Nahmias — In Theaters August 7th
Thin Mints, big dreams, and a whole lot of pressure. Directed and produced by Alysa Nahmias, this coming-of-age documentary follows four young women competing to become top Girl Scout Cookie sellers while navigating the joys, tensions, and expectations baked into one of America’s most familiar traditions. With Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, executive producing under Archewell Productions, this sweet-but-sharp look at girlhood suggests cookie season is about much more than knocking on doors and moving boxes.
🎥 “Kyle Larson vs. The Double” Trailer: NASCAR Champion Kyle Larson Chases Racing History in Amazon’s Behind-the-Scenes Documentary — Premieres May 21st on Prime Video
Kyle Larson isn’t exactly the kind of driver who eases off the gas when things get difficult. This new Amazon documentary follows the Hendrick Motorsports star as he attempts “The Double,” the punishing same-day challenge of racing the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600, a 1,100-mile test only a handful of drivers have ever dared to tackle. From the 230-mph pressure of Indy to the brutal endurance grind in Charlotte, this behind-the-scenes look captures Larson chasing history and proving that some racing dreams require more than just speed.
🎥 “Another World” Trailer: A Soul Keeper Battles Rage, Regret, and Spirit-Realm Destruction in This Hong Kong Animation Fantasy — In Theaters June 5th via GKIDS Films
Guiding souls is one thing. Saving one from total annihilation is another. Hong Kong animator Tommy Ng Kai Chung makes his feature directorial debut with this dark animated fairytale, following Gudo, a Soul Keeper who befriends a young girl named Yuri after her untimely death leaves her cursed with unresolved rage and regret. Based on Naka Saijo’s novel Sennenki, this visually striking animated fantasy turns forgiveness, grief, and reconciliation into a dangerous journey where one wounded soul could bring ruin to both the human world and the spirit realm.
🎥 “The Most Precious of Cargoes” Trailer: Michel Hazanavicius Turns a Wartime Fable Into a Haunting Animated Tale of Survival — In U.S. Theaters July 11th
From Oscar-winning The Artist filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius, this animated wartime drama follows a poor woodcutter’s wife who rescues a baby girl thrown from a train passing through the forest, changing the lives of everyone connected to the child’s survival. Adapted from Jean-Claude Grumberg’s 2019 novel, this haunting fable looks at war through the lens of innocence, cruelty, and compassion, where one tiny life reveals the worst and best humanity has to offer.
🎥 “Animals in War” Trailer: Sean Penn Appears in This Ukrainian Anthology Film Told Through the Eyes of Animals Caught in Wartime — Hitting VOD/Digital June 26th
War stories don’t get much more haunting than this. This Ukrainian anthology film brings together seven short stories from Ukrainian and international artists, each centered on animals suffering through the devastation of the war in Ukraine. Featuring Sean Penn, Andrey Isaenko, Olga Korotyayeva, and Maryna Koshkina, and directed by Sviatoslav Kostiuk, Andriy Lidagovskiy, Alexei Mamedov, Ivan Sautkin, Yuliya Shashkova, Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi, and Maksym Tuzov, this sobering drama looks at survival, cruelty, and compassion from a perspective rarely placed at the center of war cinema.
🎥 “The Champion” Trailer: Warsaw Boxing Champion Teddy Pietrzykowski Fights for Survival and Defiance in This Polish Auschwitz Drama Starring Piotr Witkowski — Arriving On VOD/Digital May 26th
Every punch becomes an act of survival in this harrowing wartime drama. Polish actor Piotr Witkowski stars as Teddy Pietrzykowski, the Warsaw boxing champion and one of the first prisoners sent to Auschwitz, where he is forced to fight for the entertainment of Nazi officers. Directed by Maciej Barczewski and co-starring Rafał Zawierucha, Marcin Czarnik, and Jan Szydłowski, this true-story-inspired drama turns the boxing ring into a brutal battleground where each victory gives fellow prisoners something their captors can’t control: hope.
🎥 “Promised Sky” Trailer: Erige Sehiri’s Tender Migrant Drama Follows Four Women Building a Makeshift Family in Tunisia — Opens in NY Theaters June 12th
Home becomes something fragile, necessary, and fiercely protected in this French-Tunisian-Qatari drama from director Erige Sehiri. Aïssa Maïga stars as Marie, an Ivorian pastor and former journalist who opens her home in Tunisia to three generations of migrant women, each carrying her own hopes, losses, and impossible choices. With Laetitia Ky and Debora Lobe Naney co-starring, this moving story of displacement, survival, and connection finds grace in the bonds formed when the world gives people nowhere else to turn.
