THERE’S nothing better than enjoying some movies under the stars and Luna has some great flicks lined up this summer.

Their outdoor cinema will be showing a wide variety of family favourites and adult fare, and in classic Luna style, it will be a sophisticated alternative to the Marvel chum in the multiplexes.

THE HISTORY OF SOUND is a decades-spanning romance centred around the power of music, starring an electric Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor.

Lionel (Mescal) is a talented singer from rural Kentucky raised on the songs his father would sing on the front porch. In 1917, he leaves his family farm to attend the Boston Music Conservatory.

• The History of Sound

There he meets David (O’Connor), a charming composer who is soon drafted into World War I.

Crafted with breathtaking restraint, Oliver Hermanus’ film of quiet textures and haunting silences, sees landscapes echo memory and sound itself becomes a vessel of longing. The History of Sound is both an intimate love story and cultural elegy, a tender meditation on music, memory, and the ways love endures through loss.

The winner of the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes festival, SENTIMENTAL VALUE portrays the myriad repercussions of a once-great filmmaker’s effort to recapture his past glory.

• Sentimental Value

A man who’s always prioritised his work, Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) is long estranged from his daughters Nora (Renate Reinsve), a gifted stage actress, and the more grounded Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), now immersed in family life years after performing in one of her father’s most revered movies.

He finds a surprising source of support after a Hollywood star, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) discovers his films at a festival retrospective.

As preparation for Gustav’s new movie begins with Rachel in the role that Nora had rejected, the uniquely personal nature of his script—based on a tragedy that took place in the house that remains central to the Borgs’ lives—draws the family members together again in ways they could not predict.

If you need a break from all the feelgood Christmas fare, then check out WE BURY THE DEAD.

Filmed in the haunting landscapes of Albany and the Great Southern region of WA, Tasmania is turned into a corpse-strewn wasteland after a US military experiment goes wrong.

Wasteland

Ava (Daisy Ridley, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) volunteers for the grim army-led retrieval unit, clinging to the hope that her husband might still be among the living. But as the bodies she is tasked with burying begin to move in ways no corpse should, Ava discovers that survival may demand more than courage—it may demand confronting what it truly means to be alive.

• We bury the Dead

With Oscar-nominated practical effects from Jason Baird (Elvis) and the bone-chilling soundscapes of Duncan Campbell, every rustle, every shuffling step, every clattering tooth is a signal that the night is far from safe. 

Hilditch (These Final Hours) brings a philosophical edge to the genre, turning the familiar zombie story into an unsettling meditation on consciousness, memory, and the limits of human will.

For the full outdoor program and times check out lunapalace.com.au (the films are also showing at Luna on Sx in Fremantle if you prefer the indoors).