It, mother!, and 20 other movies to see this September

With the fall festival season upon us, cinephiles starved for quality after a muted close to the summer movie season are in luck, as September offers plenty of auteurist fare (Victoria and Abdul, The Unknown Girl, mother!) and crowd-pleasing genre entries (It, Home Again). Here’s every movie that should be on your radar in the weeks ahead.

Tulip Fever

After nearly three years of teasing, The Weinstein Company is finally unleashing the period romance Tulip Fever — starring Alicia Vikander, Dane DeHaan, and Judi Dench — on Friday, Sept. 1, following countless canceled pre-screenings and delayed release dates. Here’s hoping it smells of a fresh bouquet instead of, well, the alternative.

Release date: Sept. 1 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

9/11

Charlie Sheen, who has publicly questioned the events leading up to 9/11, headlines this dramatic recreation of that fateful day in September, with a little help from Whoopi Goldberg, Gina Gershon, and Luis Guzman.

Release date: Sept. 8 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

Home Again

Hallie Meyers-Shyer carries on the legacy of her mother, acclaimed filmmaker Nancy Meyers, in the romantic comedy genre with the perfect companion: Reese Witherspoon. “It’s a modern rom-com,” the Legally Blonde icon previously told EW of the film. “I noticed women were feeling comfortable getting divorced earlier in life, and I wanted to explore that trend.”

Release date: Sept. 8 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

It

No Tim Curry here, but scares still abound in the second major adaptation of Stephen King’s It. “It truly enjoys the shape of the clown Pennywise, and enjoys the game and the hunt,” actor Bill Skarsgard has said of Pennywise, the film’s central monster, who inhabits the form of whatever frightens its prey most. “What’s funny to this evil entity might not be funny to everyone else. But he thinks it’s funny.”

Release date: Sept. 8 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

Rebel in the Rye

Nicholas Hoult and Sarah Paulson team for a dramatic retelling of Catcher in the Rye writer J.D. Salinger’s life.

Release date: Sept. 8 — get tickets here
Release type: Limited

The Unknown Girl

Renowned Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne return with their first film since the Oscar-nominated Marion Cotillard vehicle Two Days, One Night stormed the festival circuit back in 2014. Having traveled to TIFF and Cannes last year, The Unknown Girl sees the filmmakers applying their signature muted style to the tale of a doctor who grows increasingly invested in the death of a young woman after learning the victim had sought her help by ringing her doorbell moments before dying.

Release date: Sept. 8 — get tickets here
Release type: Limited

All I See is You

Blake Lively is a blind woman who regains her sight — to somewhat disastrous results after learning secret truths about her life and family — in this love story directed by World War Z filmmaker Marc Forster.

Release date: Sept. 15 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

American Assassin

Director Michael Cuesta assembled an all-star cast (Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, Taylor Kitsch) for his adaptation of Vince Flynn’s novel of the same name. “It was a huge international bestseller series of books. Irene Kennedy, the woman I play, is written as white in the books,”Sanaa Lathan told EW of the film. “The studio, Lionsgate, hired me. It’s those kinds of decisions that are encouraging because, for years and years and years, it’s been the other way around, with characters of color being whitewashed. I’m seeing the change in my own life, and I’m seeing it around the industry. It’s happening slowly, but I’m a very optimistic person, and I think it will continue to change for the better.”

Release date: Sept. 15 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

mother!

Darren Aronofsky ditches the big studio spectacle of Noah and, judging by the film’s trailers, gets back into Black Swan mode for this thriller starring Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Barden, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Kristen Wiig.

Release date: Sept. 15 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

Friend Request

After finding success with its Conjuring franchise in recent years, Warner Bros. unleashes another low-budget horror project in the weeks leading up to Halloween — this time centering on a young woman who unfriends a mysterious woman on social media, only to have a menacing force exact revenge on the lives of her closest companions.

Release date: Sept. 22 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Colin Firth and Taron Egerton are back for more Kingsman action, but they aren’t doing it alone; Julianne Moore, Halle Berry, and Channing Tatum enter the fray this time around.

Release date: Sept. 22 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

The LEGO NINJAGO Movie

Yes, there’s room for more than one LEGO-themed movie in a calendar year. A few short months after The LEGO Batman Movie grossed $175 million at the domestic box office, Warner Animation’s latest toy-centric title hits theaters with a robust voice cast (Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, Michael Peña, Abbi Jacobson, Jackie Chan, Kumail Nanjiani, Olivia Munn) in tow.

Release date: Sept. 22 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

Battle of the Sexes

The infamous 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs gets the big screen treatment in this festival-bound title starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell. “But there were all of these things that go into playing someone who really exists that I had never experienced before. It was such a thing to figure out how her hands moved, and her body’s so incredible and the way she moves within her body. I was a real creep,” Stone told EW of prepping to play the sports icon. “I still am with her a little bit. If we do an interview or we’re sitting and talking, I find myself just like staring at her and watching how she’s moving all the time — which I don’t need to do any more. But that’s how I relate to her. I’m like her creepy friend now.”

Release date: Sept. 22 — get tickets here
Release type: Limited

Stronger

Jake Gyllenhaal and Tatiana Maslany star in David Gordon Green’s emotional tale of survival and resilience set against the backdrop of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Release date: Sept. 22 — get tickets here
Release type: Limited

Victoria and Abdul

An unlikely bond forms between Britain’s Queen Victoria (Judi Dench) and her servant, Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal), in this period drama based on actual events.

Release date: Sept. 22 — get tickets here
Release type: Limited

Woodshock

Kirsten Dunst goes down the rabbit hole laced with trippy visuals and eye-popping fashions in the directorial debut from Rodarte designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy, about a woman who copes with an immeasurable loss by using a potent cannabinoid drug.

Release date: Sept. 22 — get tickets here
Release type: Limited

Our Souls at Night

Two legends of the screen, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, appear on screen together for the first time since 1979’s The Electric Horseman, here playing a widow and widower, respectively, who grow closer together after spending years living next door to each other.

Release date: Sept. 29
Release type: Streaming on Netflix

American Made

Explosions and punchy one-liners abound in American Made, but Doug Liman’s reunion with his Edge of Tomorrow star isn’t typical Tom Cruise action fare. “I love that there’s the ‘Tom Cruise movie’ label, because it gave me something to work against,” Liman says, not- ing his desire to cast the star as antihero Barry Seal, the real-life pilot whose flying skills (and greed) prompted him to double-dip as a drug runner for the Medellín cartel and an infor- mant for the CIA. “Barry’s the Federal Express of the underworld.”

Release date: Sept. 29 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

Flatliners

The 1990 cult hit of the same name, about a group of medical students who trigger near-death experiences as a means to explore the afterlife, gets a Hollywood reboot starring Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Kiersey Clemons, Nina Dobrev, and Kiefer Sutherland, who starred in the original film.

Release date: Sept. 29 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

Til Death Do Us Part

A married couple’s bond dissolves when a man’s controlling ways sour their union, prompting his ex to flee from his clutches and begin a new relationship. Life is good until her former husband discovers her whereabouts, and a dangerous game of cat and mouse ensues.

Release date: Sept. 29 — get tickets here
Release type: Wide

Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House

Liam Neeson stars in Mark Felt as the titular whistleblower (also known as Deep Throat) who assisted journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein break news of President Nixon’s attempt to conceal White House involvement in the scandal, which involved the arrest of five men apprehended after breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters. A large ensemble cast incorporates the talents of Diane Lane, Noah Wyle, Maika Monroe, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ike Barinholtz, Michael C. Hall, Martin Csokas, Kate Walsh, Josh Lucas, and Tom Sizemore.

Release date: Sept. 29 — get tickets here
Release type: Limited

Super Dark Times

In the vein of Jacob Estes’ 2004 drama Mean Creek, Super Dark Times follows a group of friends who attempt to cover up a gruesome accident that drives a wedge of paranoia between the seemingly close-knit teens.

Release date: Sept. 29 — get tickets here
Release type: Limited