Labor Day weekend movies: 10 to see

What better way to celebrate Labor Day than to spend it not laboring at all?

The beginning of September means the end of the summer movie season, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of great films hitting theaters. Whether you’re looking for a way to spend your day off or just trying to escape the heat in a cool, dark cinema, we’ve rounded up your comprehensive guide to all hottest blockbusters and overlooked gems in theaters right now.

The Light Between Oceans

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Rating: PG-13

EW’s review: “It takes more than a little credulity to swallow the plot’s long string of improbabilities. Instead, Oceans aims to please in other ways: No stormy vista or rippling tuft of seagrass goes uncaressed by the camera, or profound feeling unexpressed by its disturbingly gorgeous cast. (Vikander ­especially is so luminous she might be the title’s actual source of light.) The whole thing is feverishly earnest and more than a little manipulative, but it’s also possibly the prettiest two hours of emotional ­masochism so far this year.” B+

Where to watch: In theaters, wide release

Morgan

Starring: Kate Mara, Anya Taylor-Joy, Paul Giamatti

Director: Luke Scott

Rating: R

EW’s review: “Ridley Scott’s son Luke has too keen an eye and is too skilled at mood setting to be written off as a beneficiary of nepotism. That said, for his feature debut, Morgan, it might have been smarter to venture a little further away from the chilly, futuristic turf that his dad previously tilled. Scott’s low-key sci-fi thriller zips along with a sense of creeping dread — at least until it sputters to a third-act twist that anyone who’s semiconscious will see coming down Broadway.” B

Where to watch: In theaters, wide release

Don’t Breathe

Starring: Jane Levy, Stephen Lang, Dylan Minnette

Director: Fede Alvarez

Rating: R

EW’s review: “After a home robbery gone horribly wrong, three young wannabe criminals find themselves trapped in a creepy derelict house with their intended target, a blind man (Stephen Lang) who — in an inventive twist — is way more vicious than they anticipated. But if a blind, armed, and dangerous Gulf War veteran isn’t enough of a monster to sustain an entire movie, director Fede Alvarez’s latest horror film, Don’t Breathe, packs in a few bonus horrors. There’s also a demonic dog capable of chewing through walls and vents, as well as the crushing destitution of modern Detroit, which forced the young burglars to choose a life of crime in the first place. Underlying it all are the discrepancies in criminal justice for the rich and the poor, which provide the blind man with his murderous origin story and give Don’t Breathe a contemporary edge that’s all the more unsettling.” B+

Where to watch: In theaters, wide release

Hands of Stone

Starring: Edgar Ramirez, Robert De Niro

Director: Jonathan Jakubowicz

Rating: R

EW’s review: “Jonathan Jakubowicz’s new [Roberto] Durán biopic has some nice performances and captures the complexity of the man with ‘hands of stone.’ But it also falls victim to too many trite boxing-movie clichés and is in way too much of a rush to cover too much narrative ground. It sometimes feels like you’re watching it with a finger on the fast-forward button.” C+

Where to watch: In theaters, wide release

Southside With You

Starring: Parker Sawyers, Tika Sumpter

Director: Richard Tanne

Rating: PG-13

EW’s review: “At 28, in fact, Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers) hasn’t even begun to consider a life in politics when he asks Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) to accompany him on what he calls a date and she firmly, repeatedly refers to as a platonic meet-up between two colleagues. … But because history has already told us where all this is headed, there isn’t much inherent mystery. That leaves writer-director Richard Tanne to build his narrative around something other than dramatic tension, and the route he chooses has the loose, discursive intimacy of indie cinema. (Southside has already earned comparisons to Richard Linklater’s 1995 walk-and-talk touchstone, Before Sunrise.)” B

Where to watch: In theaters, wide release

Florence Foster Jenkins

Starring: Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg

Director: Stephen Frears

Rating: PG-13

EW’s review: “Jenkins, a real-life 20th-century socialite famed — or infamous — for her unique singing voice, had a similar gift: Her talent was to make great music sound singularly, spectacularly bad. … Streep of course is impeccable at everything, including being awful, and Florence’s loopy narcissism gets some needed context when the more tragic aspects of her past are revealed. Grant’s tender, conflicted performance, though, is a small revelation; he’s been given a much quieter instrument, but he plays it beautifully.” B+

Where to watch: In theaters, wide release

Hell or High Water

Starring: Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges

Director: David Mackenzie

Rating: R

EW’s review: “Hell or High Water isn’t a flashy movie, but it has an undeniably resonant sense of small-scale justice, not to mention an authentic sense of place that will remind you of other Texas-set masterpieces like John Sayles’ Lone Star and the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men. See it, and then spread the word.” A

Where to watch: In theaters, wide release

The Hollars

Starring: John Krasinski, Margo Martindale

Director: John Krasinski

Rating: PG-13

EW’s review: “Is The Hollars an original, breathtaking dramedy that says anything new about middle-class suburbia and family? No. But with a brisk runtime and a terrific cast, it’s a pleasant and bittersweet look at one family struggling to keep it together.” B

Where to watch: In theaters, limited release

Kubo and the Two Strings

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Rooney Mara, Charlize Theron

Director: Travis Knight

Rating: PG

EW’s review: “What the ancient-Japan-set Kubo and the Two Strings offers is less Edward Gorey-esque than its predecessors, but often just as dark, or even darker; a callback to the bad old days of gothic fairy tales where boogeymen lurk, parents die, and children must be brave and strong and resourceful to survive. Young Kubo is all of those things: A clever, self-sufficient boy, he goes into the town square every day to earn spare change by strumming his shamisen — a sort of twangy, stripped-down guitar — and telling stories with his ingeniously fashioned origami figures, and returns in the evening to a dank cave to care for his mother. … A visually stunning, richly imagined oasis in a sea of candy-colored safety, and one of the first truly original movies of the year so far.” A-

Where to watch: In theaters, wide release

Little Men

Starring: Theo Taplitz, Michael Barbieri, Greg Kinnear

Director: Ira Sachs

Rating: PG

EW’s review: “Ira Sachs’ latest quietly touching slice of life, Little Men, effectively places both the adult and the adolescent on equal footing and weaves a simple story that feels rich and honest from any perspective. At the center are Jake (Theo Taplitz) and Tony (Michael Barbieri), two instant best friends who meet when the former’s parents (Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Ehle) move into the Brooklyn apartment above the storefront occupied by the latter’s mother (Paulina García). Each boy is weird in his own endearing way. Jake’s quiet and artistic personality makes him a target for his classmates. Tony, on the other hand, is a firecracker, fitting in anywhere and acting the pants off his drama teacher in one dazzling extended take that, in terms of spectacle, embarrasses every other movie this summer. Beyond that and a monetary disagreement among the parents, there isn’t much more to Little Men when it comes to plot, but Jake and Tony’s journey through early teendom never feels empty. Their scenes together are nuanced and joyful. The restrained script from Sachs and co-writer Mauricio Zacharias takes these boys seriously, without one whiff of condescension, and places value in life’s mundane miracles, like forgiveness and the love of a true friend.” B+

Where to watch: In theaters, limited release