So which are the movies that should be on your July Must See List? Movie fundi Spling puts you on the inside track. 

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (11 July)

While it’s got one of the most awkward movie titles known to man and the trailer features apes on horseback, everyone’s biting their tongue. Rise of the Planet of the Apes outperformed our expectations and resurrected the Planet of the Apes dynasty after Tim Burton’s much-satirised 2001 version.

That’s why we hesitate to pass judgement, just in case Andy Serkis and Cloverfield director Matt Reeves manage to pull a primate out of the hat. It’s a jungle out there, and with the help of an underdog cast in Gary Oldman, Keri Russell and Jason Clarke, this pre-sequel just might make you go bananas.

Calvary (11 July)

If you enjoyed In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths or a little comedy crime caper called The Guard, you’ll want to see Calvary. Brendan Gleeson has teamed up again with writer-director John Michael McDonagh to bring us yet another darkly comic and scintillating Irish comedy drama.

This time around, Gleeson is a priest battling the dark forces that surround him after being threatened during a confession. Is it a grudge who wants him dead? We’re treated to a zany cast of actors including Chris O’Dowd, Dylan Moran, Aiden Gillen, Isaach De Bankolé, M. Emmet Walsh and even Gleeson’s son, Domhnall.

Bad Neighbours (18 July)

Unless you own the apartment block, complex or road, you can't choose your neighbours. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne play the disgruntled Radners, who find themselves on edge when a rowdy frat house moves in next door. Zac Efron, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Dave Franco lead the frat pack in a comedy that escalates into a tit-for-tat war, featuring strategically placed airbags.

If you're at university, expecting or both, Bad Neighbours has got something for you.

Life of a King (18 July)

If you enjoyed Ian Gabriel’s South African gangland crime thriller, Four Corners, you may be interested in Life of a King. Both dramas use chess as a central metaphor and a driving plot line about community upliftment. The connection is so strong that they both featured as part of a unique parallel screening in San Francisco.

Cuba Gooding Jr. stars as Eugene Brown, a felon whose 18-year incarceration for bank robbery, led him to learn and embrace the life lessons from the game of chess. He won an Oscar for saying “Show me the money” – by playing a bank robber, there’s a chance he’ll get to say it again.

Deliver us from Evil (18 July)

The Exorcist spawned a horror epidemic in its time and we’re still feeling the shockwaves years later with based-on-actual-events exorcism movies. Deliver us from Evil stars Eric Bana, is directed by Scott Derrickson and inspired by the actual accounts of a NYPD Sergeant. Bana isn’t known for horror, but neither was Ethan Hawke when he starred in Derrickson’s previous horror, Sinister.

Deliver us from Evil cleverly borrows its name from a searing 2006 documentary feature about the Catholic Church. Instead of building a case against a priest, this horror crime thriller sees a NY cop and an unconventional priest join forces to fight evil.