2017 Summer Movie Preview: 40 Must-See Films (With Exclusive Photos!)

Michael Bay bids goodbye to the robots in disguise with this time-hopping, space-traveling, FX-apalooza. Mark Wahlberg returns alongside franchise newbies Anthony Hopkins and Isabela Moner in a story that promises to reveal the secret history of the Transformers. | Watch trailer (Photo: Paramount Pictures)

Need a miracle? How about the first major documentary about the Grateful Dead? Amir Bar-Lev’s film, produced by music-doc aficionado Martin Scorsese, delves deep into the joys and sorrows of the groundbreaking jam band, including the drug-related death of guitarist Jerry Garcia in 1995. (Photo: Herb Greene/Amazon Studios)

Normally, the prequel to a horror spinoff wouldn’t exactly grab us by the throats, but this follow-up to the 2014 hit about a demonic doll (which launched from The Conjuring) has a key asset: Swedish director David F. Sandberg, who made his feature debut with last year’s slick and scary sleeper Lights Out. | Watch trailer (Photo: Warner Bros.)

Jason Momoa, Giovanni Ribisi, and Keanu Reeves welcome a new recruit (Suki Waterhouse) to their remote Texas clan of outlaw-biker cannibals in this striking-looking dystopian romantic drama from Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night). | Watch trailer (Photo: Neon)

Just as that July heat starts to get unbearable, Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Tiffany Haddish, and Regina Hall arrive to whisk audiences away to New Orleans. Co-scripted by Black-ish creator Kenya Barris, the naughty comedy reunites four friends for a hijinks-filled, ladies-only vacation. | Watch trailer (Photo: Universal)

After making waves with the haunting family drama Krisha (2015), writer-director Trey Edward Shults takes on a more traditional type of horror. Joel Edgerton holds down the fort as a rural father protecting his family from mysterious forces. It apparently comes at night, and it looks terrifying. | Watch trailer (Photo: A24)

Forbidden romance blooms between a portrait painter (Dane DeHaan) and his married subject (Alicia Vikander) in this drama set in 17th century Amsterdam. Based on the bestselling novel, the film boasts an A-list supporting cast that includes Christoph Waltz, Zach Galifianakis, and Judi Dench. | Watch trailer (Photo: The Weinstein Co.)

Amanda Lipitz’s vibrant portrait of a Baltimore-based high school step-dancing team left Sundance ’17 audiences stomping and cheering. Look for a similar reaction from mainstream moviegoers as Step seeks to become that most elusive of creatures: a summertime documentary blockbuster. | Watch trailer (Photo: Fox Searchlight)

In between helming tent poles Jurassic World and Star Wars: Episode IX, Colin Trevorrow returns to smaller-scale filmmaking à la his breakout, Safety Not Guaranteed. Naomi Watts is a mother of two whose family hatches a plot to save their young next-door neighbor from her abusive stepdad. | Watch trailer (Photo: Focus Features)

This Iraq War movie from Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow) is a cat-and-mouse thriller rather than a battlefield epic. Its tight focus lands on two U.S. soldiers (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and John Cena) who are pinned down by an unseen sniper, with only a rapidly crumbling wall to provide cover. | Watch trailer (Photo: Amazon/Roadside)

Twenty years after the first Captain Underpants book was published, the irreverent children’s series has become an animated film. Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch play two fourth-grade pranksters who accidentally bring their tighty-whitey-clad comics creation (voiced by Ed Helms) to life. | Watch trailer (Photo: DreamWorks Animation)

As in 8 Mile and Hustle and Flow, another scrappy rapper from the wrong side of the tracks takes her once-in-a-lifetime shot at spitting rhymes… and doesn’t miss a chance to blow. Breakout star Danielle Macdonald is a force to be reckoned with in this indie from writer-director Geremy Jasper. (Photo: Fox Searchlight)

Kyle Mooney becomes the latest SNL player to make the leap to feature-film stardom, playing a kidnapping victim readjusting to life outside the bunker where he grew up. His spirit animal in this quest? The titular talking bear, who resembles a demented cross between Teddy Ruxpin and Barney. (Photo: Sony Classics)

Co-starring Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, and Jake Gyllenhaal, Snowpiercer director Bong Joon-ho’s latest is this sci-fi import (debuting simultaneously in select theaters and on Netflix) about a young girl striving to protect her best friend — a giant monster — from an evil corporation. (Photo: Netflix)

This long-in-the-works biopic of Tupac Shakur (played by Demetrius Shipp Jr.) suffered a blow when director John Singleton departed, but it will finally hit the screen 21 years after the iconic rapper’s death. No doubt new helmer Benny Boom et al. will be hoping to duplicate the success of 2015’s hit Straight Outta Compton. | Watch trailer (Photo: Summit/ Codeblack Films)

Travel back to merry old medieval England for the latest retelling of the classic legend, this time with Charlie Hunnam as the lad who releases Excalibur from its stony prison. With Guy Ritchie at the helm, this almost certainly won’t be your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather’s King Arthur. | Watch trailer (Photo: Warner Bros.)

Gru (Steve Carell) returns for this threequel, where he faces off with his dashing long-lost twin brother, Dru, as well as former child star-turned-criminal mastermind Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker). And you can count on a bazillion banana-munching Minions to ratchet up the slapstick factor. | Watch trailer (Photo: Universal)

Stephen King‘s eight-novel magnum opus finally begins to reach the big screen courtesy of this eagerly anticipated adaptation, which stars Idris Elba as a parallel-universe gunslinger and Matthew McConaughey as his mysterious man-in-black adversary. (Photo: Sony)

A gender-flipped take on the “pre-wedding shenanigans” genre, this dark comedy (from two Broad City writers) stars Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, and Zoë Kravitz as college friends whose Miami bachelorette party takes a murderous turn. | Watch trailer (Photo: Sony)

Colin Farrell is a wounded Union soldier in the Civil War taken in by a group of alluring but dangerous women (led by Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning) in this Sofia Coppola-helmed remake of the 1971 film starring Clint Eastwood. | Watch trailer (Photo: Focus Features)

At Jack Sparrow’s next port of call, Javier Bardem plays a dead man with a lot to get off his chest when he rises to menace Johnny Depp’s saucy pirate. Old faves resurface, while newbies Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario get their sea legs. | Watch trailer (Photo: Disney)

Power comedy duo Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler are a suburban couple who, after squandering their daughter’s college fund, set up an illegal casino in their basement in this big-budget laugher featuring Jason Mantzoukas, Nick Kroll, and Jeremy Renner. | Watch trailer (Photo: Warner Bros.)

Jessica Williams (best known as a former Daily Show correspondent) received raves at Sundance for the title performance in this low-key yet hilarious comedy, about a young New York playwright struggling to move past a bad breakup. (Photo: Netflix)

Does the world really need a Baywatch movie? Probably not, but we’re not crazy enough to tell superstar muscleman Dwayne Johnson that. Besides, his promise that the movie will be “far dirtier” than the series, combined with funny early trailers, has us genuinely psyched to hit the beach … in superslow-mo, natch. (Photo: Paramount Pictures)

Brad Pitt plays a U.S. general bent on personally saving Afghanistan in this dark comedy from Animal Kingdom director David Michôd. Look for this one, with its clear absurdist take on the perils of military operations, to appeal to fans of Three Kings, that ’99 gem starring Pitt’s bro, George Clooney. | Watch trailer (Photo: Netflix)

Goldie Hawn makes her first movie appearance in 15 years, and Amy Schumer returns to the screen after her acclaimed breakout performance in Trainwreck; they play a mother and daughter whose vacation to Ecuador goes horribly awry when they’re held for ransom. | Watch trailer (Photo: Twentieth Century Fox)

Pixar’s series about anthropomorphic automobiles took a dark turn last year with a first teaser that showed Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) suffering a terrifying crash. Later clips looked less dire as the comeback story shows an aging Lightning matching wits and wheels against a new generation. | Watch trailer (Photo: Disney/Pixar)

Between helming 2014’s John Wick and the in-production Deadpool 2, director David Leitch found time to make this slam-bang spy saga about an American espionage badass (Charlize Theron, looking as fearsome as ever) on a mission in 1989 Berlin. | Watch trailer (Photo: Focus Features)

Kathryn Bigelow’s first directorial effort since 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty follows intersecting stories during the 1967 Detroit riot and features a stellar cast that includes John Boyega, Anthony Mackie, John Krasinski, Jason Mitchell, Will Poulter, and Jack Reynor. | Watch trailer (Photo: Annapurna)

After the rise and the dawn comes the war. The battle lines are drawn as apes, led by grizzled veteran Caesar (Andy Serkis), and humans, headed by a Col. Kurtz-like Woody Harrelson, clash in one final skirmish to decide the future of the planet formerly known as Earth. | Watch trailer (Photo: Twentieth Century Fox)

Kumail Nanjiani scored one of the biggest successes of Sundance when his romantic comedy, co-written by wife Emily V. Gordon (about their real-life coupling, involving a lot of standup and one scary coma), was gobbled up for $12 million by Amazon. This charming, tear-jerking crowd pleaser could be the next Juno. (Photo: Amazon/Lionsgate)

Those classic Universal monsters are getting Marvel-ized, with a shared universe that’s set to launch on the bandage-wrapped back of Sofia Boutella‘s mummified ancient Egyptian princess. For now, only Tom Cruise can stop her reanimated reign of terror. Russell Crowe and Jake Johnson co-star. | Watch trailer (Photo: Universal)

Former Veep Al Gore returns to movie screens in this follow-up to 2006’s Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. This time, Gore leaves the PowerPoint presentation behind to travel the world in his tireless conquest to unite the globe in its fight against climate change. | Watch trailer (Photo: Paramount Pictures)

Sure, the Guardians have visited some pretty weird places, but they haven’t witnessed a metropolis made up of a thousand different planets. That’s the setting for Luc Besson‘s comic book-derived space opera, which looks like it will provide some out-of-this world CGI eye candy. | Watch trailer (Photo: STX Entertainment Motion Picture)

Ridley Scott gets back to xenomorph-horror business with this second prequel to his 1979 sci-fi classic, which charts a crew of astronauts (including Katherine Waterston and Danny McBride) who discover a distant paradise that’s also home to acid-blood-dripping monsters. | Watch trailer (Photo: Twentieth Century Fox)

The greatest female comic character is ready for her close-up in this Patty Jenkins-helmed origin story that tells how Amazon warrior-princess Diana (Gal Gadot) became a star-spangled superhero — and hopes to win over critics after a string of DC disappointments. | Watch trailer (Photo: Warner Bros.)

Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright’s latest is a music-fueled crime saga about a getaway driver (Ansel Elgort) struggling to escape the criminal life that’s energized by a stellar cast, including Lily James, Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, and Kevin Spacey. | Watch trailer (Photo: Sony)

Marvel meets John Hughes in this latest reboot of the iconic web-slinger. Tom Holland is Peter Parker, juggling high school angst with his burgeoning crime-fighting game. Robert Downey Jr.‘s Tony Stark plays Spidey’s mentor, while Michael Keaton‘s Vulture is the big bad. | Watch trailer (Photo: Sony)

Christopher Nolan commands an army of stars — including Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, and One Direction alum Harry Styles — in his first stab at a sweeping war epic, which depicts the Battle of Dunkirk from three different angles: land, sea, and air. We’re enlisting, sight unseen. | Watch trailer (Photo: Warner Bros.)

Cue the mixtape and strap in for James Gunn’s laugh-a-minute romp that returns bickering heroes Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and pals as they battle new alien menaces — and meet Pete’s dad, the shape-shifting celestial being Ego (Kurt Russell). | Watch trailer (Photo: Disney)