What to Watch

What to Watch in August 2026: Movies, Streaming and TV

Coyote finally sues ACME, Reacher comes back, House of the Dragon closes out its season, and Cliffhanger reboots without Stallone. Every date below, checked, with trailers. And if you're in Los Angeles, the Coyote premiere is here two days before anyone else sees it.

By LA Today·Updated Aug 5, 2026 Verified August 2026
Key art for Coyote vs. ACME: Wile E. Coyote holding a giant boulder above him on a desert slope at sunset

Coyote finally sues ACME, Reacher comes back, House of the Dragon closes out its season, and Cliffhanger reboots without Stallone. Every date below, checked, with trailers. And if you're in Los Angeles, the Coyote premiere is here two days before anyone else sees it.

August is usually where studios dump what they couldn't place. Not this year. Warner Bros. shelved a cartoon-rabbit legal comedy for a tax write-off, got shouted at, and sold it; it opens August 28. Reacher returns August 12. House of the Dragon closes its season August 9. Start here.

What We're Hyped For

Seven releases worth rearranging a week around, movies first. Trailers are embedded, so you can decide for yourself. The full calendar is below.

Movies

Coyote vs. ACME · August 28, Theaters

Coyote vs. ACME, official final trailer

Wile E. Coyote sues the ACME Corporation for selling him defective products. Dave Green directs, Will Forte plays his lawyer, John Cena plays the opposition. Samy Burch, who wrote May December, wrote the screenplay from a story she developed with James Gunn and Jeremy Slater.

The premise isn't why everyone's talking about it. Warner Bros. Discovery killed the finished film in November 2023 for a roughly $30 million tax write-off. The backlash was loud enough that WB reopened bidding, then turned down Netflix, Amazon and Paramount anyway. Ketchup Entertainment, not Warner Bros., finally bought worldwide rights for about $50 million in March 2025 and is the studio actually releasing it. Its marketing has trolled WB ever since.

It premieres in Westwood on August 26, two days before the country sees it, with Green and cast in the room. Details in Where to Watch in Los Angeles.

The End of Oak Street · August 14, Theaters and IMAX

The End of Oak Street, official trailer

David Robert Mitchell's first feature since Under the Silver Lake, and he made It Follows, so horror fans have waited nine years for this. A cosmic event tears an entire suburban street out of the world and drops it somewhere with dinosaurs in it. Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor are the parents, Maisy Stella and Christian Convery the kids. J.J. Abrams produces. Warner Bros., PG-13, and it is on IMAX screens.

Cliffhanger · August 28, Theaters

It's a reboot, not a legacy sequel, and Sylvester Stallone isn't in it. He was attached while it was being developed as a continuation, then the project was reconceived in October 2024 as a new female-led story and he left. Lily James stars as Naomi Cooper, Pierce Brosnan plays her father, and Nell Tiger Free her sister. Jaume Collet-Serra directs, which matters: he made The Shallows and Non-Stop, and he's good at one location and rising panic. The mountain has moved from the Rockies to the Dolomites, where a chalet weekend with a billionaire's son becomes a kidnapping. Row K Entertainment releases it with Decal.

Tony · August 7 limited, expands August 21

Tony, official A24 trailer

Matt Johnson, who made BlackBerry, directs Dominic Sessa from The Holdovers as a 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain in 1976, washing dishes through a Provincetown summer. That's the stretch Bourdain mythologised in Kitchen Confidential, so the film adapts a legend he wrote about himself. Antonio Banderas plays the restaurateur who takes him on, with Emilia Jones and Leo Woodall. A24. The reviews are the story here: it went into its wide expansion sitting around 94 percent, which makes it the best-reviewed small film of the month.

TV and Streaming

Reacher Season 4 · August 12, Prime Video

Reacher season four, official Prime Video trailer

Alan Ritchson is back, and this is almost certainly the most-watched thing anyone releases in August. Season four adapts Gone Tomorrow, Lee Child's thirteenth novel, in which Reacher clocks a woman on a New York subway matching a suicide-bomber profile and pulls a thread that runs into the Pentagon. Three episodes drop August 12, then weekly through September 16. Nick Santora still runs it.

Worth knowing: the spinoff Neagley, with Maria Sten, drops all eight episodes on September 16, the same day this season ends. Prime is running the handoff deliberately.

House of the Dragon, Season 3 finale · August 9, HBO

House of the Dragon season three, official final trailer

The biggest television night of the month, built around the Battle of Tumbleton. Eight episodes, and this is the eighth.

It's the season finale, not the series finale, whatever your feed says on Sunday night. HBO confirmed in 2024 that the show ends with Season 4, and showrunner Ryan Condal reconfirmed it before this season aired. So this is the penultimate season signing off, with one more to come, expected to film in 2027. Watch it as a setup, not a send-off.

The Simpsons: Yellow Mirror · August 26, Disney+

New on Disney+, August 2026. The only official footage of Yellow Mirror so far.

No standalone trailer yet. The clips above are the closest thing: Disney+'s own August sizzle reel. Re-checked August 5. The other two Disney+ Simpsons exclusives got proper trailers, so expect one closer to the 26th.

A full-length Disney+ exclusive episode, the third of three the studio commissioned this summer, and it is The Simpsons doing Black Mirror properly: two dark standalone tech stories with no wraparound. Disney's own synopsis is the pitch. A defective lamp reveals a heartbreaking truth about what Homer believes is reality, and an AI-powered tablet befriends and controls Maggie. Handing the show's silent character to an AI that "befriends and controls" her is the sharpest premise the series has had in years.

Every date above and below is checked against the release calendars. Where we couldn't verify a title, we say so instead of listing it. That calendar works from anywhere.

The second half doesn't. Where to Watch in Los Angeles covers premieres before wide release, filmmakers introducing their own films, the arthouse runs that only play at six addresses in this county, two Oscar-qualifying festivals, and two nights at the Hollywood Bowl where an orchestra plays the score live. If you're not here, skip it. If you're, it's why this page isn't like every other release calendar.

Bookmark it. We do this every month, and we fix the dates when studios move them. They moved three this month.

In Theaters: August 2026 Movie Releases

August splits into two loud weekends and a long quiet middle.

Week 1 (August 7) is the horror-and-indies weekend. Ice Cream Man is Eli Roth's summer-town horror about a vendor whose product turns people violent, and Roth in that lane has a good hit rate. Super Troopers 3 brings Broken Lizard back for people who were 19 in 2001. One Night Only is Will Gluck directing Monica Barbaro, Callum Turner, Molly Ringwald, Maya Hawke, and Julia Fox in a dystopian New York where single people get one intimate night a year, which is a strange premise and an even stranger cast. And Tony goes limited.

Week 2 (August 14) is the strongest slate of the month: The End of Oak Street, The Wrong Girls, The Brink Of War (Jeff Daniels, Jared Harris, J.K. Simmons and Hope Davis in the Reagan and Gorbachev nuclear negotiations, positioned squarely at awards season), and PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie, which will quietly out-earn several of them.

August 16 is the LA weekend, and it isn't on most calendars: La La Land and Point Break both return to theaters in limited re-releases.

Week 3 (August 21) belongs to Insidious: Out of the Further, the month's biggest horror opening, with Lin Shaye back and a mother who can enter The Further and drag things out of it.

Week 4 (August 28) goes wide and weird: Coyote vs. ACME, The Dog Stars (a post-plague pilot chasing a mysterious radio transmission), a Cliffhanger reboot (Lily James and Pierce Brosnan, no Stallone), and Colony, which is Yeon Sang-ho, the director of Train to Busan, doing a biotech-conference outbreak with Jun Ji-hyun and Ji Chang-wook.

Full Theatrical Calendar

DateTitleWhere
Aug 7TonyTheaters (limited, expands Aug 21)
Aug 7Ice Cream ManTheaters
Aug 7Super Troopers 3Theaters
Aug 7One Night OnlyTheaters (limited)
Aug 7OlmoTheaters (limited)
Aug 7Teenage Sex and Death at Camp MiasmaTheaters (limited)
Aug 7Cookie QueensTheaters (limited)
Aug 7JulianTheaters (limited)
Aug 7The RunLimited / VOD
Aug 7Late FameTheaters (limited)
Aug 7The Samurai and the PrisonerTheaters (limited)
Aug 7The Last HouseNetflix
Aug 14The End of Oak StreetTheaters
Aug 14The Wrong GirlsTheaters
Aug 14The Brink Of WarTheaters
Aug 14PAW Patrol: The Dino MovieTheaters
Aug 14The Rivals of Amziah KingTheaters
Aug 14Train to Busan, 10th Anniversary RemasteredTheaters (limited)
Aug 14The Birthday PartyLimited / VOD
Aug 14Union CountryTheaters (limited)
Aug 14NimrodsTheaters (limited)
Aug 14EvelVOD
Aug 14Do Us PartTheaters (limited)
Aug 14Don't Say Good LuckNetflix
Aug 14Camp Rock 3Disney+
Aug 16La La Land, Re-ReleaseTheaters (limited)
Aug 16Point Break, Re-ReleaseTheaters (limited)
Aug 21Insidious: Out of the FurtherTheaters
Aug 21MutinyTheaters
Aug 21The Magic Faraway TreeTheaters
Aug 21Spa WeekendTheaters
Aug 21Hot SpotTheaters (limited)
Aug 21It EndsTheaters (limited)
Aug 21How to Divorce During the WarTheaters (limited)
Aug 27Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, 25th AnniversaryTheaters
Aug 28Coyote vs. ACMETheaters
Aug 28The Dog StarsTheaters
Aug 28CliffhangerTheaters
Aug 28ColonyTheaters (limited)
Aug 28Finding EmilyTheaters
Aug 28Beyond BeliefTheaters (limited)
Aug 28Legend of the White DragonTheaters (limited)
Aug 28IdiotsTheaters (limited)
Aug 28BuddyTheaters
Aug 28Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Re-ReleaseTheaters (limited)
Aug 28The Whisper ManNetflix

Re-release corner, and it is a good one. Train to Busan gets a 10th-anniversary remaster on August 14, and the same director's new film Colony lands August 28, so you can watch the two back to back two weeks apart. La La Land and Point Break return August 16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone comes back August 27 for its 25th anniversary. And Terminator 2 returns August 28, which remains the correct answer to "what should I see on the biggest screen available."

Streaming and TV: August 2026 Premieres

The month's shape: one enormous finale, one enormous return, one goodbye.

The finale is House of the Dragon Season 3 on August 9. The return is Reacher Season 4 on August 12. The goodbye is Outer Banks, whose final season lands August 20 after four seasons of being far more popular than anyone at a dinner party will admit.

The prestige lane: Lanterns premieres August 16 on HBO, DC's Green Lantern series, and it's the swing of the month. Ted Lasso Season 4 (August 5, Apple TV) and Dark Matter Season 2 (August 28, Apple TV) bracket the month for Apple.

The LA one: The Shards premieres August 5 on FX, adapting Bret Easton Ellis's novel about a 1980s Beverly Hills private school and a serial killer. Set here, about here, and unsettling in exactly the way this city is unsettling.

The one nobody saw coming: The Simpsons: Yellow Mirror (August 26, Disney+), a Simpsons take on Black Mirror.

Full Streaming and TV Calendar

DateTitleWhere
Aug 1WWE SummerSlamESPN App
Aug 2Lioness Season 3Paramount+
Aug 2The Librarians: The Next Chapter Season 2TNT
Aug 2Grantchester, Series FinalePBS
Aug 3Futurama Season 14Hulu
Aug 4Hard Knocks Season 21HBO / HBO Max
Aug 4Betrayal Season 4Hulu
Aug 4Special Ops TRUEParamount+
Aug 5Ted Lasso Season 4Apple TV
Aug 5The ShardsFX
Aug 5Sterling PointPrime Video
Aug 5Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth JediDisney+ / Hulu
Aug 6My Life With the Walter Boys Season 3Netflix
Aug 6Monster of GodHBO
Aug 7Alley CatsNetflix
Aug 7Anna PigeonUSA
Aug 7Power Book III: Raising Kanan, Series FinaleStarz
Aug 9House of the Dragon Season 3 FinaleHBO / HBO Max
Aug 12Reacher Season 4Prime Video
Aug 13Tires Season 3Netflix
Aug 13My Brilliant CareerNetflix
Aug 16LanternsHBO / HBO Max
Aug 20Outer Banks, Final SeasonNetflix
Aug 21The Dynasty: UConn HuskiesApple TV
Aug 26The Simpsons: Yellow MirrorDisney+
Aug 27The Undeclared War Season 2Peacock
Aug 27Adults Season 2Hulu
Aug 27Tyler Perry's Beauty in Black Season 3Netflix
Aug 27Leanne Season 2Netflix
Aug 28Dark Matter Season 2Apple TV

Finale watch: three things end this month. House of the Dragon Season 3 (August 9), Power Book III: Raising Kanan wraps the whole series (August 7), and Grantchester ends after nearly a decade (August 2). Outer Banks joins them August 20.

Where to Watch in Los Angeles

Everything above is the same wherever you're reading this. This part is not.

Los Angeles is where a lot of what you scrolled past was made, and in August it is where several of those titles get seen first, introduced by the people who made them. Below is the layer you can only use from here, spread across Los Angeles County rather than only the Westside.

The Aero Theatre marquee on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica

LA Premieres and Q&As

Coyote vs. ACME premieres in Westwood on August 26, two days before the rest of the country sees it. American Cinematheque has it at Directors Village, 961 Broxton Avenue, with director Dave Green and cast introducing. The most-argued-about movie of the year, the one Warner Bros. shelved and then had to un-shelve, screening publicly for the first time in the city that made it. If you do one thing on this list, do this one.

The Wrong Girls takes over all three screens at the Los Feliz 3 on August 5, nine days before it opens wide, with writer-director Dylan Meyer, Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat in person at the 7pm show and the film running on a loop across the other screens until 10pm.

Eli Roth is at the New Beverly on August 10 and 11 presenting Ice Cream Man, three days after the wide release, in Quentin Tarantino's 35mm house on Beverly Boulevard.

The rest of the month's in-person calendar, all of it genuinely stacked:

  • Aug 8, Aero Theatre, Santa Monica. Only Murders in the Building with a recorded conversation between Martin Short and Lawrence Kasdan.
  • Aug 9, Directors Village. Project Hail Mary in 70mm with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.
  • Aug 13 and 14, Academy Museum. Adrian Lyne in person two nights running, for Fatal Attraction in 4K and Unfaithful on 35mm.
  • Aug 14, Aero Theatre. Free. An episode of The Diplomat Season 3 with creator Debora Cahn, Keri Russell, Allison Janney and Bradley Whitford.
  • Aug 15, Academy Museum. Director Yeon Sang-ho in person for Train to Busan and The Ugly.
  • Aug 18, Aero Theatre. Boorman and the Devil with Linda Blair, moderated by Bryan Fuller.
  • Aug 22, Aero Theatre. Mission: Impossible, Ghost Protocol with a live Q&A with Brad Bird.
  • Aug 26, Aero Theatre. 48 Hrs. introduced by Walter Hill.
  • Aug 23, Aero Theatre. Network, with Dan Harmon recording Visitations live.
  • Aug 8, The Autry, Griffith Park. The official Wet Hot American Summer 25th reunion, outdoors with Street Food Cinema. David Wain, Elizabeth Banks, Joe Lo Truglio and Marguerite Moreau in person for a panel, plus the Wet Hot Jam Band with Wain and Craig Wedren, MC'd by Scott Rogowsky. Doors 6pm, band 7:55pm, film 9pm. This is the best-cast night of the month and it is on a lawn.
  • Aug 7, Hammer Museum, Westwood. Free. Superfish: Salmon with Emmy-winning marine filmmaker Rick Rosenthal, Monterey Bay Aquarium's Jennifer Kemmerly, CalTrout's Curtis Knight, and Providence's chef Michael Cimarusti. A film panel with a two-Michelin-star chef on it is a very Los Angeles sentence.
  • Aug 23, Skirball Cultural Center. AFRO-PUNK director James Spooner in conversation with Henry Rollins, marking Spooner's new book.
The neon blade sign of the Art Theatre on Retro Row in Long Beach against a pink sunset sky

Oscar-Qualifying Film Festivals

HollyShorts, August 13 to 23, TCL Chinese Theatres and Ovation Hollywood. The 22nd edition is the largest program in the festival's history at more than 400 selections, and the lineup is not what "shorts festival" makes you picture: Renée Zellweger's directorial debut, They; Michael Keaton directing and starring in Sweetwater; Martin Freeman in Little Bug; Michael Caine voicing Bobby. Executive producers across the slate include Margot Robbie, Jordan Peele, Zoe Saldaña and Serena Williams. Oscar-qualifying, which means some of these will be back on your screen in January.

LA Shorts International Film Festival runs through August 12 at Laemmle NoHo 7 and Regal NoHo West in North Hollywood. Also Oscar-qualifying, and almost nobody outside the industry knows it is happening.

NewFilmmakers LA screens InFocus: International Animation on August 15.

Indie and Limited Releases

The wide slate plays everywhere. The interesting half of August only plays at about six addresses in this county.

Laemmle Royal, West LA. Late Fame, the Kent Jones film with Willem Dafoe, opens August 14 with screenwriter Samy Burch at multiple shows and Kent Jones joining on the 14th and 15th. Also White Nights in the Visconti restoration on August 7, and Let's Make Love on August 19 with Jack Cole biographer Debra Levine in person.

Laemmle NoHo 7, North Hollywood. The Gregg Araki restoration of Mysterious Skin from August 21, plus Olmo on August 8 with actor Aivan Uttapa and producers.

Laemmle Glendale. Dead Souls on August 5 with cast and crew, Memory of Princess Mumbi August 20 to 22 with director Damien Hauser, and Dreams in Nightmares August 28 and 29 with Shatara Michelle Ford.

Monica Film Center, Santa Monica. Mary Oliver: Saved By the Beauty of the World on August 13 with the director.

Laemmle Town Center 5, Encino carries the month's documentary slate, including David Hockney at the Royal Academy of Arts and Peter Asher: Everywhere Man.

Still from Clueless, screening on 35mm at the Autry Museum

Museum Screenings

This is the part of the LA calendar that even locals miss. Three museums program real film, and at two of them it costs nothing beyond admission.

The Autry, Griffith Park. August's sleeper repertory house. Clueless on 35mm on August 8, introduced by Rosanne Welch, as part of a series tied to their Life, Liberty and Los Angeles exhibition. Giant on 35mm on August 22 for its 70th, introduced by former Autry curator Jeffrey Richardson. And The Roping Fools, an LA premiere documentary on trick roping from vaquero origins through rodeo, on August 29. All free with museum admission. Two 35mm prints with academic introductions and nobody writes about the Autry as a cinema.

Hammer Museum, Westwood. Everything free, no ticketing. Family Flicks screens Turning Red on August 9 at 11am, and Flux returns August 18 with short films, live filmmaker presentations and a courtyard party afterward.

Academy Museum, Miracle Mile. See the repertory section below. Tickets from $5, free with same-day admission.

Still from Giant, screening on 35mm at the Autry for its 70th anniversary

Repertory and 70mm

Academy Museum, Presented in VistaVision, August 20 to 31. Sixteen screenings in the David Geffen Theater, including The Searchers and North by Northwest in 70mm, The Ten Commandments, To Catch a Thief and White Christmas. Tickets start at $5 and are free with same-day admission. Through August 17 the museum is also running Summer of Thrills, with The Prestige and In the Cut on 35mm, and Studio Ghibli continues with Ponyo on 35mm on August 17, 19 and 21.

Aero Theatre, Santa Monica. Still the best 70mm month in the county: Rambo: First Blood Part II on August 8. Plus the new 4K restoration of Letty Lynton on August 5, a 1932 Joan Crawford film out of circulation for over ninety years, and a new 35mm print of Tsai Ming-liang's The Hole on August 9.

Los Feliz 3. The densest programming in the city: a Douglas Sirk and Russell Metty melodrama series, a Sam Neill retrospective that is somehow mostly horror, Friend of the Fest from August 20 to 27, and the Twin Peaks: The Return series finale on August 13. Also Being There on 35mm on August 13 and The Night of the Hunter on 35mm on August 16.

New Beverly Cinema, August. The best repertory month on the calendar. Aug 6 to 9 Taxi Driver · Aug 8 Cartoon Club at 10am, School of Rock at 2pm, Cannibal Holocaust at midnight · Aug 10 to 11 Ice Cream Man with Eli Roth · Aug 12 to 13 My Dinner with Andre and Vanya on 42nd Street · Aug 14 to 15 Cabaret on an IB Tech print · Aug 16 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916) with a live music score · Aug 18 to 19 Ball of Fire and The Lady Eve · Aug 20 to 21 Moneyball · Aug 22 to 23 The Mummy (1999) matinee, plus War of the Worlds (1953) and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers · Aug 25 to 27 To Live and Die in L.A. and The Rip · Aug 28 to 30 The 39 Steps and Sabotage · Aug 31 The Blade and Love In The Time Of Twilight. And Pulp Fiction at midnight every Friday.

Vidiots, Eagle Theatre, Eagle Rock. Aug 5 Mysterious Skin · Aug 7 Jackass: Best and Last, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo · Aug 8 CatVideoFest 2026 (proceeds to local cat shelters), Woodstock on 35mm, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Ongoing: Phantom of the Paradise and The Third Man on 35mm.

The deep cuts, for people who already know all of the above. Los Angeles Filmforum turns 50 this year and celebrates it on August 8 with Floribunda, an outdoor screening in Arlington Garden in Pasadena: thirteen films about plants and growing things, almost all of them on 16mm and Super 8, including Stan Brakhage's Garden of Earthly Delights and Jodie Mack's Posthaste Perennial Pattern. Doors 7:30, projection at 8:30, $15 and free for members. There's nothing else like it in the county this month. Over at 2220 Arts + Archives in Historic Filipinotown, Acropolis Cinema has two Los Angeles premieres: Rob Tregenza's new feature Fast on August 18, and two films by Zhou Tao on August 31. Tregenza's 1988 debut Talking to Strangers plays the same room on August 20 under a different banner, which makes an accidental two-film retrospective of a cult figure who once shot for Godard.

Still the hardest ticket in town: Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey in IMAX 70mm, which was due to end August 19 and has been extended through September 16 after weeks of sellouts. Only twenty-five theaters in the country can project it. In LA that means TCL Chinese, the Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk and Regal LA Live. Reporting as of late July had it sold out through August, so check rather than drive.

Outdoor Movies

Hollywood Bowl, film with the orchestra playing it live. How to Train Your Dragon in Concert, Sunday August 9 at 7:30pm, the 2010 animated original with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra under David Newman. Then Top Gun: Maverick in Concert, Saturday August 15 at 8pm, Lorne Balfe conducting the Faltermeyer, Zimmer and Lady Gaga score. These are the two biggest movie nights in the county this month and they're not in a theater.

Cinespia at Hollywood Forever. Gates 6:45pm, film 8:30pm. Aug 8 The Mummy (1999), already sold out · Aug 15 slumber party double feature, X plus Pearl · Aug 22 Coming to America · Aug 29 Labyrinth.

Street Food Cinema. From $23, doors 6pm, dog friendly, parking included, which is the part nobody mentions. Aug 8 the official Wet Hot American Summer 25th reunion at The Autry, 9pm · Aug 15 The Princess Bride at LA State Historic Park · Aug 22 Obsession at The Autry · Aug 29 Michael at The Autry.

The Montalbán rooftop, Hollywood. Fridays, doors 6pm, film 8pm, 21 and over friendly with a full bar. Aug 7 Pulp Fiction · Aug 14 The Big Lebowski · Aug 21 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood · Aug 28 Say Anything.

Rooftop Cinema Club DTLA. 888 S Olive St, fourth floor, from about $21.75, lawn chairs and wireless headphones. Early August runs The Notebook (Aug 5, 21+), The Princess Bride and Sinners (Aug 6), Michael and Obsession (Aug 7), Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Hangover (Aug 8), and You, Me & Tuscany (Aug 9).

Also free or nearly free: Marina Movie Nights at Burton Chace Park on August 22 and 29, and The Sandlot on the outfield grass at Dodger Stadium on August 8.

Still from The Roping Fools, an LA premiere documentary at the Autry

Free Community Screenings

This is the biggest under-covered thing in LA summer. LA County Parks alone runs 108 free movie nights across 27 parks between July 9 and August 29. Every city in the county runs its own on top of that. A sample of what's actually verified for the rest of August, all free:

  • Beach Movie Nights, Dockweiler in Playa del Rey. Fridays at 8pm on the sand, parking $3 after 6pm. Aug 7 The Princess and the Frog · Aug 14 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs · Aug 21 Elf · Aug 28 The Nightmare Before Christmas. Yes, Elf in August. That's the whole charm.
  • Moonlight Movies on the Beach, Granada Beach, Long Beach. On the sand at sunset, food trucks, free parking after 6pm. Aug 18 a Grease sing-along.
  • Long Beach Movies in the Park. Ten screenings across ten parks through August 21, activities from 6:30pm, free popcorn and a bounce house. Goat the first week, Wicked: For Good the second, How to Train Your Dragon the third.
  • Classic Films Under the Stars, Brand Park, Glendale. Aug 29, My Man Godfrey (1936), curated by the Alex Film Society. Gates 6pm, picnicking encouraged.
  • Friday Movie Nights at Ovation Hollywood. Aug 28, School of Rock, 5pm to 9pm in the courtyard, with a complimentary blanket and popcorn voucher.
  • Movies in the Park, Victory Park, Pasadena. Aug 7, Hocus Pocus, 7pm.
  • City Cinemas in the Park, William S. Hart Park, Newhall. Aug 28, Jurassic Park, 7:30pm, food trucks an hour before.
  • Movies in the Park, Wilson Park Amphitheatre, Torrance. Aug 15, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
  • Movies & Moonlight, 2ND & PCH, Long Beach. Aug 14, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, seating from 5pm, leashed dogs welcome.
  • Third Weekends at LACMA. Aug 15, 7:30pm, The Toll of the Sea, free with RSVP.
The Paramount Drive-In on Rosecrans Avenue, one of two drive-ins left in LA County

Beyond Hollywood: LA County Theaters

The Art Theatre, Long Beach has more repertory density in August than most Hollywood venues. Scream on a rare 16mm print August 6 and 7. The new 4K restoration of Michael Mann's Manhunter: The Final Cut on August 14. Araki's The Doom Generation in 4K on August 15. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with a live score by the Invincible Czars on August 28. Rocky Horror with the Bit of Mustard shadow cast on August 22. Four filmmaker Q&As. Kids get in free for Kiki's Delivery Service on August 5 and The Iron Giant on August 12.

Gardena Cinema, single screen, family run, still standing. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory for its 55th on August 5, Run Lola Run on August 9, All the President's Men on August 16, The Life Aquatic on August 21 and 22, and Back to the Future closing out the month.

Paramount Drive-In Theatres, on Rosecrans in Paramount, is one of only two drive-ins left in the county and it is still running first-run doubles. $14 for anyone over 12, $7 for kids, free under 2, cash at the gate an hour before showtime, no advance sales. Late second features at 11:50pm.

The Nuart, West LA still runs The Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight every Saturday with the Sins O' The Flesh shadow cast, as it's since 1986.

Two absences worth naming, because nobody else is naming them. The Bay Theater in Pacific Palisades is still closed, nineteen months after the fire, with no reopening date posted. And Laemmle Claremont 5 closed in January after eighteen years. The county's arthouse map is smaller than it was a year ago, which is the argument for using the rest of it.

Also dark, and worth knowing before you drive: the Egyptian Theatre closed on June 8 for technical upgrades and doesn't reopen until the fall, so any Egyptian showtime you see listed elsewhere this month is a ghost. UCLA's Billy Wilder Theater is on summer intermission until early October. CGV Cinemas in Koreatown is gone, reopened as Regency Koreatown after CJ CGV exited the US entirely. And Eat See Hear, which still appears on half the outdoor-movie roundups on the internet, has not run a season since 2022.

A strip of 16mm film held against green foliage for Los Angeles Filmforum's Floribunda screening

Movies and Shows Set in LA

La La Land returns August 16 and it's the most Los Angeles film of the last decade: Griffith Observatory, the 105 interchange, Angels Flight. The Shards premieres August 5 on FX and is set in 1980s Beverly Hills. Nimrods (August 14) is a band driving to LA convinced they're opening for Green Day. Point Break comes back August 16. And in repertory: To Live and Die in L.A., Pulp Fiction, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Breakin' 2, all shot here.

Planning the rest of your month? Our Best Events in LA This August → covers everything off-screen, our guide to every restaurant that opened in LA this year covers dinner before the show, and Secret Gardens in Los Angeles covers the afternoon before it. More in Things to Do and Trending in LA.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the biggest movies coming out in August 2026?

Coyote vs. ACME (August 28) is the most-discussed, largely because of its history at Warner Bros. Insidious: Out of the Further (August 21) is the biggest horror opening. The End of Oak Street and The Wrong Girls (both August 14) are the strongest wide slate of the month. Tony, the Anthony Bourdain origin story, opens limited August 7 and expands August 21.

What's coming to Netflix, HBO and Prime in August 2026?

Netflix has The Last House (Aug 7), Don't Say Good Luck (Aug 14), Tires Season 3 (Aug 13), Outer Banks' final season (Aug 20), and The Whisper Man (Aug 28). HBO has the House of the Dragon Season 3 finale (Aug 9) and Lanterns (Aug 16). Prime Video has Sterling Point (Aug 5) and Reacher Season 4 (Aug 12).

When does Reacher Season 4 come out?

August 12, 2026, on Prime Video, with Alan Ritchson returning.

When is the House of the Dragon Season 3 finale?

August 9, 2026, on HBO and HBO Max.

Is La La Land back in theaters in 2026?

Yes. La La Land returns in a limited theatrical re-release on August 16, 2026, alongside Point Break. If you have only seen it on a laptop, this is worth fixing, especially in the city it was shot in.

Where can I see movies outdoors in LA in August 2026?

Cinespia at Hollywood Forever Cemetery runs every Saturday. Street Food Cinema plays The Autry and LA State Historic Park on Saturdays from about $23 with parking included. Rooftop Cinema Club runs nightly in DTLA and The Montalbán runs Fridays in Hollywood. The Hollywood Bowl plays two films with the orchestra performing the score live: How to Train Your Dragon on August 9 and Top Gun: Maverick on August 15. Marina Movie Nights at Burton Chace Park are free on August 22 and 29, and The Sandlot plays on the outfield grass at Dodger Stadium on August 8.

Are there any movie premieres in Los Angeles in August 2026?

Yes, two that are open to the public. Coyote vs. ACME premieres at Directors Village in Westwood on August 26, two days before its wide release, with director Dave Green and cast introducing. The Wrong Girls takes over all three screens at the Los Feliz 3 on August 5, with Dylan Meyer, Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat in person, nine days before it opens.

What film festivals are happening in Los Angeles in August 2026?

HollyShorts runs August 13 to 23 at TCL Chinese Theatres and Ovation Hollywood, with more than 400 selections including Renée Zellweger's directorial debut and Michael Keaton's Sweetwater. The LA Shorts International Film Festival runs through August 12 at Laemmle NoHo 7 and Regal NoHo West in North Hollywood. Both are Oscar-qualifying.

Where do independent and arthouse films play in Los Angeles?

Laemmle runs the Royal in West LA, NoHo 7 in North Hollywood, Glendale, the Monica Film Center in Santa Monica, Town Center 5 in Encino and Newhall in Santa Clarita. Beyond Laemmle, the Art Theatre in Long Beach, Gardena Cinema, Vidiots in Eagle Rock, the Nuart in West LA and American Cinematheque's Los Feliz 3 and Aero carry most of the county's specialty programming.

The Verdict

Save August 14 for the theater, because The End of Oak Street and The Wrong Girls is the best double bill of the month. Save August 16 for La La Land on a real screen. Save August 12 to 20 for your couch, because Reacher, Lanterns, and the Outer Banks finale land inside nine days.

And if you do one thing that only works because you're here, go to Westwood on August 26 and watch Coyote vs. ACME two days before the rest of the country, with the people who made it standing in front of the screen. That's the whole argument for living in this city, compressed into one evening.

See you next month. Same calendar, new chaos.

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