Mesrine: Killer Instinct

Release Date: August 13, 2010 (LA, NY) 

Genre: Crime, Drama

"Mesrine: Killer Instinct" - the first of two parts - charts the outlaw odyssey of Jacques Mesrine (Vincent Cassel), the legendary French gangster of the 1960s and 1970s who came to be known as French Public Enemy No. 1 and The Man of a Thousand Faces. Infamous for his bravado and outrageously daring prison escapes, Mesrine carried out numerous robberies, kidnappings and murders in a criminal career that spanned continents until he was shot dead in 1979 by France's notorious anti-gang unit. Thirty years after his death, his infamy lives on.

Mesrine was helped along the way by beautiful and equally reckless Jeanne Schneider (Cécile de France), a Bonnie to match his Clyde. Mesrine made up his own epic, between romanticism and cruelty, flamboyance and tragedy. Both a thriller and a biopic, "Killer Instinct" explores the man behind the icon.

Studio: Music Box Films

Director: Jean-François Richet

Screenwriter: Abel Raouf Dafri

Starring: Vincent Cassel, Cecile de France, Gerard Depardieu, Roy Dupuis, Gilles Lellouche, Elena Anaya, Michel Duchaussoy, Myriam Boyer, Florence Thomassin

Animal Kingdom

Release Date: August 13, 2010

Genre: Crime, Drama

Welcome to the Melbourne underworld. Following the death of his mother, seventeen year–old Joshua 'J' Cody (newcomer James Frecheville) moves in with his hitherto–estranged family, under the watchful eye of his doting grandmother, Janine 'Smurf' Cody (Jacki Weaver), and her three criminal sons – the Cody boys. Eldest son and armed robber, Andrew 'Pope' Cody (Ben Mendelsohn) is in hiding from a gang of renegade detectives. Middle brother Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) is a successful but volatile drug dealer, whilst the youngest Cody, Darren (Luke Ford), naïvely follows his elder brothers' lead. Just as 'Pope's' business partner and best friend, Barry Brown (Joel Edgerton), decides that he wants out of the game, recognising that their days of old–school banditry are all but over, tensions between the family and the police explode. 'J' finds himself at the centre of a cold–blooded revenge plot that turns his family upside down and which throws him directly into the path of senior homicide detective, Nathan Leckie (Guy Pearce). "Animal Kingdom" is a powerful crime drama exploring the tense battle between a criminal family and the police, and the ordinary lives caught in the middle.  

Studio: Sony Pictures Classics

Director: David Michod

Screenwriter: David Michod

Starring: Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, Luke Ford, Jacki Weaver, Sullivan Stapleton, James Frecheville

Centurion

Release Date: August 27, 2010 (limited)

Genre: Thriller

AD 117. The Roman Empire stretches from Egypt to Spain, and East as far as the Black Sea. But in northern Britain, the relentless onslaught of conquest has ground to a halt in face of the guerrilla tactics of an elusive enemy: the savage and terrifying tribes known as the Picts.

Quintus, sole survivor of a Pictish raid on a Roman frontier fort, marches north with General Virilus' legendary Ninth Legion, under orders to wipe the Picts from the face of the earth and destroy their leader Gorlacon.

But when the legion is ambushed on unfamiliar ground, and Virilus taken captive, Quintus faces a desperate struggle to keep his small platoon alive behind enemy lines, evading remorseless Pict pursuers over harsh terrain, as the band of soldiers race to rescue their General, and to reach the safety of the Roman frontier.

From writer/director, Neil Marshall, "Centurion" is a gripping survival thriller set against a background of conquest and invasion; a pursuit movie in the vein of Deliverance, Last of the Mohicans and Apocalypto.

Studio: Magnet Releasing (Magnolia Pictures)

Director: Neil Marshall

Screenwriter: Neil Marshall

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Dominic West, Olga Kurylenko, David Morrissey, Noel Clarke, Riz Ahmed, JJ Field, Liam Cunningham, Imogen Poots

The Oxford Murders

Release Date: August 6, 2010 (limited) 

Genre: Crime, Romance, Thriller

When an elderly woman is viciously murdered in Oxford, her body is discovered by two strangers whose lives are immediately changed forever: Arthur Seldom (John Hurt), a prestigious professor of logic, and Martin (Elijah Wood), a young graduate student who has just arrived at the university hoping to be Seldom's pupil.

It quickly becomes clear that hers is the first in a series of increasingly bizarre murders, with each victim's corpse marked by strange symbols. Professor and student join forces to try and crack the code, setting into motion an elaborate game with the killer with ever-increasing stakes. As Martin gets closer to the facts, he grows increasingly unhinged from his grasp on the world around him.

Based on Guillermo Martinez’s award-winning novel, "The Oxford Murders" is an edgy and intelligent thriller from cult-favorite director, Álex de la Iglesia.

Studio: Magnolia Pictures

Director: Álex de la Iglesia

Screenwriter: Álex de la Iglesia

Starring: Elijah Wood, John Hurt, Leonor Watling, Julie Cox

Lottery Ticket

Release Date: August 20, 2010

Genre: Comedy

Kevin Carson (Bow Wow), a young man living in the projects, wins $370 million in a nationwide lottery. When his opportunistic neighbors discover he has the winning ticket in his possession, Kevin must survive their greedy and sometimes even threatening actions over a three-day holiday weekend before he can claim his prize.

Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures

Director: Erik White

Screenwriter: Abdul Williams

Starring: Bow Wow, Ice Cube, Brandon T. Jackson, Naturi Naughton, Keith David, Charles Q. Murphy, Loretta Devine, Terry Crews, Bill Bellamy

Nanny McPhee Returns

Release Date: August 20, 2010 

Genre: Comedy, Family

In "Nanny McPhee Returns," Oscar®-winning actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson returns to the role of the magical nanny who appears when she's needed the most and wanted the least in the next chapter of the hilarious and heartwarming fable that has enchanted children around the world.

In the latest installment, Nanny McPhee appears at the door of a harried young mother, Mrs. Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who is trying to run the family farm while her husband is away at war. But once she's arrived, Nanny McPhee discovers that Mrs. Green's children are fighting a war of their own against two spoiled city cousins who have just moved in and refuse to leave.

Relying on everything from a flying motorcycle and a statue that comes to life to a tree-climbing piglet and a baby elephant who turns up in the oddest places, Nanny McPhee uses her magic to teach her mischievous charges five new lessons.

Studio: Universal Pictures

Director: Susanna White

Screenwriter: Emma Thompson

Starring: Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rhys Ifans, Maggie Smith, Asa Butterfield, Ralph Fiennes

Tales from Earthsea

Release Date: August 13, 2010 

Genre: Animation, Adventure, Fantasy

An adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin's novel "A Wizard of Earthsea," the first book of the award-winning Earthsea cycle which includes "The Tombs of Atuan," "The Farthest Shore" and "Tehanu".

"Wizard of Earthsea" centers on Ged, who was the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea. He was once called Sparrowhawk, a reckless youth, hungry for power and knowledge, who tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world.

It's the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.

Studio: Studio Ghibli

Director: Goro Miyazaki

Screenwriter: Goro Miyazaki, Keiko Niwa

Starring: Bunta Sugawara, Mitsuko Baisho, Jun Fubuki, Teruyuki Kagawa, Kaoru Kobayashi, Yui Natsukawa, Junichi Okada, Yûko Tanaka, Aoi Teshima

Scoot Pilgrim vs. the World

Release Date: August 13, 2010 

Genre: Action, Comedy

Meet charming and jobless Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera). A bass guitarist for garage band Sex Bob-omb, the 22-year-old has just met the girl of his dreams...literally. The only catch to winning Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead)? Her seven evil exes are coming to kill him. Genre-smashing filmmaker Edgar Wright ("Hot Fuzz," "Shaun of the Dead") tells the amazing story of one romantic slacker's quest to power up with love in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World."

Scott Pilgrim has never had a problem getting a girlfriend. It's getting rid of them that proves difficult. From the girl who kicked his heart's ass--and now is back in town--to the teenage distraction he's trying to shake when Ramona rollerblades into his world, love hasn't been easy. He soon discovers, however, his new crush has the most unusual baggage of all: a nefarious league of exes controls her love life and will do whatever it takes to eliminate him as a suitor.

As Scott gets closer to Ramona, he must face an increasingly vicious rogues' gallery from her past--from infamous skateboarders to vegan rock stars and fearsomely identical twins. And if he hopes to win his true love, he must vanquish them all before it really is game over. 

Studio: Universal Pictures

Director: Edgar Wright

Screenwriter: Michael Bacall, Edgar Wright

Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Alison Pill, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman

Chain Letter

Release Date: August 6, 2010 (limited) 

Genre: Horror, Thriller 

When high school senior Jessie Campbell (Nikki Reed) and her tight-knit group of friends begin to receive a series of foreboding email chain letters, they have no idea the terror that awaits them. With a warning that if they break the chain, they will lose a life, the seemingly harmless email turns deadly when one-by-one the friends that do not forward the chain letter are hunted down and gruesomely killed by horror's newest villain, the Chain Man.

A terrifying horror film that will leave audiences wondering if modern technology is really as safe as we think it is, "Chain Letter" was directed by Deon Taylor and written by Taylor and Michael J. Pagan. 

Studio: New Films Cinema

Director: Deon Taylor

Screenwriter: Deon Taylor, Michael J. Pagan

Starring: Nikki Reed, Noah Segan, Keith David, Betsy Russell, Michael Bailey Smith, Clifton Powell, Matthew Cohen, Cody Kasch, Michael J. Pagan, Cherilyn Wilson

Piranha 3D

Release Date: August 20, 2010

Genre: Horror, Thriller

From director Alexandre Aja ("The Hills Have Eyes") comes the new action thriller "Piranha." Every year the population of sleepy Lake Victoria explodes from 5,000 to 50,000 for Spring Break; a riot of sun and drunken fun. But this year, there's something more to worry about than hangovers and complaints from local old timers; A new type of terror is about to be cut loose on Lake Victoria. After a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating fish, an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the area's new razor-toothed residents. 

Studio: Dimension Films (The Weinstein Company)

Director: Alexandre Aja

Screenwriter: Alexander Aja, Greg Levasseur, Pete Goldfinger, Josh Stolberg

Starring: Jessica Szohr, Steven R. McQueen, Elisabeth Shue, Jerry O'Connell, Ving Rhames, Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Lloyd