--- title: Best New Movies of August 2024 description: From 'Between the Temples' to 'Good One.' canonical: https://time.com/7014850/best-movies-august-2024/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-08-31T12:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T18:12:28.398Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The Best New Movies of August 2024 og:description: From 'Between the Temples' to 'Good One.' og:url: https://time.com/7014850/best-movies-august-2024/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3824658bb2dc1680/698a5a3f9d83e83ba1b9a719/BTT.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Between the Temples og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Best New Movies of August 2024 twitter:description: From 'Between the Temples' to 'Good One.' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3824658bb2dc1680/698a5a3f9d83e83ba1b9a719/BTT.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Best New Movies of August 2024  by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Aug 31, 2024 12:00 PM CUT  Jason Schwartzman in Between the Temples Jason Schwartzman in Between the TemplesCourtesy of Sony Pictures Classics  by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Aug 31, 2024 12:00 PM CUT August is typically a slow month for [new releases](https://time.com/6980664/most-anticipated-movies-summer-2024/ "undefined"), and this year was no exception. But if you look a little closer at the [indies](https://time.com/4928404/best-indie-summer-movies-2017/ "undefined") and [international films](https://time.com/6242874/best-international-movies-2022/ "undefined") that made their way to audiences this month, there are still some gems to be found. Here are the three best movies to catch in theaters now and, likely in short order, on a streaming service near you. ## _Between the Temples_ Over the past 15 years or so, independent filmmaker Nathan Silver has made a number of odd but interesting little films, pictures that might be lacking in polish but bear a distinctive personal stamp. In his delightfully off-kilter sort-of [romantic comedy](https://time.com/6254600/best-tv-rom-coms-streaming/ "undefined") _Between the Temples,_ [Jason Schwartzman](https://time.com/6336296/ballad-of-songbirds-and-snakes-hunger-games-what-to-know/ "undefined") plays Ben Gottlieb, a depressed cantor who has lost both the will and the ability to sing. He serendipitously reconnects with the grade-school music teacher who’d always believed in him, Carla Kessler, played by [Carol Kane](https://time.com/3733894/jane-krakowski-on-unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt/ "undefined"), who has decided that at long last, even though she’s senior-citizen age, she wants the [bat mitzvah](https://time.com/6141804/tiffany-haddish-afterparty-interview/ "undefined") she never had. She persuades Ben to tutor her, but he’s the one who ends up reconnecting with the essence of his faith—and he also gets his voice back. Kane—adored by just about anyone who’s ever seen _Hester Street, The Princess Bride, Scrooged,_ or an episode of _Taxi_—is one of those performers we don’t get to see often enough. With her helium cackle and day-at-the-beach smile, she’s both dazzling and disarming—she can make you feel deliriously, marvelously dizzy, the way you get when you’ve looked at a sparkler too long. She and Schwartzman are wonderful together; their rhythms click into a single heartbeat. We have Silver to thank for getting them together. **Read more:** [Between the Temples _and the New Jewish Cinema_](https://time.com/7011581/between-the-temples-jewish-movies/ "undefined") ## _Good One_ Writer-director India Donaldson’s debut _Good One_ feels like a bracing discovery: it’s a delicate picture, but one that sticks with you long after the lights come up. Relative newcomer Lily Collias is superb as 17-year-old Sam, who’s headed for a weekend camping trip with her father Chris (James Le Gros) and his oldest friend, Matt (Danny McCarthy). Chris is divorced from Sam’s mother and has a new baby with his second wife; Matt is an underemployed actor who’s still reeling from a recent divorce. Sam has no reason to care about these guys’ man problems. But she listens sympathetically as they spin out their songs of late-middle-age woe around the campfire. And then, in a flash of time that can’t be reversed, everything changes. _Good One_ shows how having the gift of empathy can sometimes feel like a punishment. Yet what choice do we have? Especially if, as women, we’ve been raised to feel that it’s our job to nurture? Still, Sam is on the winning side: her generosity isn’t a mistake but a luminous quality, worth hanging onto. Collias captures something gossamer here, a quiet shift into adult womanhood that happens, literally, overnight. **\[**[**Read the full review.**](https://time.com/7009375/good-one-review/ "undefined")**\]** ## _Close Your Eyes_ Spanish master Víctor Erice has made only four feature-length films; his best known may be 1973’s _Spirit of the Beehive_. So when a new one arrives, run, don’t walk. His latest, _Close Your Eyes,_ is an enveloping, tender film about the nature of memory _and_ memories—they may conjoin at points, but they’re not the same thing. A famous actor, Julio Arenas (José Coronado), disappears mysteriously during the making of a film, sometime in the early 1990s. He never resurfaces and is presumed dead. Some 20 years later, the director of that film, Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo), now lives in a cozy beachside shack. He’s still writing, but the making of films is a whole other world, one that’s left him behind. He learns that Julio—who also happened to be his oldest and closest friend—may still be alive. What follows is partly a meditation on the nature of friendship: what we _think_ we know of a person never tells the full story. But mostly, it’s a poetic reflection on the way cinema feeds into the very essence of memory. Movies touch everything we know; there’s no hiding from them. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7014850/best-movies-august-2024/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7014850/best-movies-august-2024/"},"headline":"The Best New Movies of August 2024","datePublished":"2024-08-31T12:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T18:12:28.398Z","description":"From 'Between the Temples' to 'Good One.'","url":"https://time.com/7014850/best-movies-august-2024/","keywords":["movies","list","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3824658bb2dc1680/698a5a3f9d83e83ba1b9a719/BTT.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Stephanie Zacharek","jobTitle":"Film Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3824658bb2dc1680/698a5a3f9d83e83ba1b9a719/BTT.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Between the Temples","caption":"Between the Temples","creditText":"Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7014850/best-movies-august-2024/","name":"The Best New Movies of August 2024"}}]}] ```