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 A dark suspense thriller for the age of Pokemon-Go, Nerve opens with nothing if not perfect timing. The augmented reality style game of the title features young people engaging in a social media based game of dare (“minus the truth” as the games site announces).

Lifetime’s UnREAL is a scathing look behind the curtain of a dating reality competition and for its very title makes clear what it thinks of what passes for real on certain shows. The story centers on the trials of Rachel Goldberg (Shiri Appleby) a producer on the show, who even as she grapples with her conscience, sets to manipulating contestants for maximum dramatic effect.

After being invited to open the Cannes film festival, Woody Allen is releasing his 52nd feature film. Café Society is another erudite farce, which gracefully melds slapstick and satire in a love letter both to Hollywood’s Golden Age and to his autobiographical middle class Jewish East Coast milieu.

“Listen, if I heard someone was doing it and it wasn’t me, I'd be nervous too” Paul Feig told us apropos of his highly anticipated reboot of Ghostbusters. Ever since the remake was announced 30 years after the 1984 classic made comedy history, fandom has been abuzz – and not all of the feedback regarding the new all-female cast has been positive.

The cocaine trade that peaked in the eighties and nineties and the ensuing drug wars have left a profound mark in the culture, reflected in a bona fide film genre which produced films such as Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, Oliver Stone’s Savages, Ted Demmes’ Blow and Denise Villeneuve’s Sicario. Not since the gangster movies inspired by prohibition has organized crime held such sway over Hollywood, it seems, as the Cocaine cowboys and the lawmen that tracked them.

There’s no dearth of top-quality series, which have been adapted from previous British versions, House of Cards and Broadchurch just to name a couple. HBO’s The Night Of is the latest “import” to cross the pond to critical acclaim.

Since his invention in 1912 by Edgar Rice Burroughs as a literary hero, Tarzan has inspired countless film, TV and radio adaptations – and at least one Los Angeles neighborhood (yes, Tarzana, in the San Fernando Valley was the site of Burroughs’ ranch). Now, almost a century after Tarzan of the Apes, the 1918 silent which is the first recorded film version, the story of Lord Greystoke the English nobleman raised by apes in the jungle, is revisited once more in David Yates’ The Legend of Tarzan with Alexander Skarsgård in the title role and Margot Robbie as Jane.

The Secret Lives of Pets take its cue for a simple and clever conceit: what do the little critters get up to all day while their urbanite humans go to work? It’s the perfect invitation to let the imagination run wild and Chris Renaud is more than happy to oblige. Backed by the team behind Illumination Studios’ Despicable Me franchise Renaud crafts a suspenseful whodunit that sees the pets set forth from their Manhattan apartments for an urban caper that plays like a Homeward Bound adventure for the Internet age.

From the shocking opening shot of a blood soaked model, languidly supine on a luxurious sofa, it’s clear that Nicolas Winding Refn’s Neon Demon is not your run-of-the-mill summer thriller. Since he established his reputation with the Golden Globe-nominated Drive (Albert Brooks for Best Supporting Performance), the Danish director has embraced his inner provocateur.

It’s not only that the ominous, vastly technologically superior and singularly ill-disposed Alien race seem bent on total human annihilation and domination of our home planet. What’s particularly distressing to the Americans is that they insist on timing their vicious attacks to coincide with the 4th of July.