September signals the beginning of the fall season and with it, the promise of quality movies crowding the multiplex. With less blockbusters like Deadpool & Wolverine and more esoteric fare like Speak No Evil, September is sure to see the release of movies that will be award contenders for next year’s Oscars.
There’s always the threat that some films might go unnoticed. Here at Digital Trends, we’ve rounded up three movies that are hovering under the radar that are worth your time and money.
Omni Loop (September 20)
Most time travel stories are, at their heart, wish fulfillment stories. Think Back to the Future, About Time, or even Avengers: Endgame; each film involves one or more people going back in time to correct past wrongs. Their dissatisfaction with the present, with how life has turned out, is the force that drives them, and makes the audience connect with them throughout their journey.
Omni Loop, a new film that premiered at South by Southwest earlier this year, focuses less on the sci-fi part of time travel and more on why its protagonist want to change her life in the first place. Zoya (Mary-Louise Parker) has a good reason: She’s about to die in five days due to a black hole in her chest. With the help of Paula (The Bear‘s Ayo Edebiri), Zoya hopes to solve time travel so she can buy more time to be with her loved ones.
The Substance (September 20)
Everybody wants to be younger … or at least look young. For Elisabeth Sparkle, her future depends on it. She’s just turned 50, and as the star of a once-popular aerobics show, she has to meet unrealistic beauty standards set by her employer and by American culture. After being fired, she becomes desperate and accepts an intriguing offer: inject “The Substance,” a mysterious new medicine that allows her to gain a new, younger body. There’s just one catch: She can only inhabit the body for seven days before she has to switch back. Otherwise, there will be consequences. Is it any surprise that she breaks this one rule?
When it debuted at Cannes in May, The Substance, produced, written, and directed by Revenge’s Caroline Fargeat, caused a sensation with critics and audiences being both impressed and grossed out by the movie’s extreme body horror scenes. As Elizabeth and her younger doppelganger, stars Demi Moore (Ghost) and Margaret Qualley (Poor Things) turn in career-best work, and the movie is guaranteed to be one of the most-talked-about of 2024.
Sleep (September 27)
We all do things that bother the ones we live with like leaving the toilet seat up or not making the bed every day. But for the newly married Soo-jin (Jung Yu-mi), she discovers a disturbing habit her husband, Hyeon-soo (Lee Sun-kyun), likes to do every night: sleepwalk. And when Hyeon-soo sleepwalks, he exhibits disturbing behavior like scratching his face until he bleeds and speaking in a weird, guttural voice that says they are not alone in their apartment. Does he have a sleeping disorder? Or is there something more sinister at play here?
Released late last year, Sleep became a sensation in South Korea due to its twisty narrative and almost unbearable tension. Now finally set to premiere in the United States in September, the film has been praised by Parasite director Bong Joon-ho as “the smartest debut film I’ve seen in 10 years.” Even viewing the trailer is enough to make you lose some, you guessed it, sleep.
