Everything coming to Netflix in July, Culture Whisper

From Spike Lee's furiously evocative detective movie BlacKkKlansman to Steven Spielberg's classic dino-drama Jurassic Park, Netflix in July has plenty to think about and escape from.

BlacKkKlansman

UK Netflix release date: 24 July

When the world grows dark and stupid and painful, filmmaker Spike Lee will confront it head on. Mere weeks after the release of his new film Da 5 Bloods, BlacKkKlansman – his brilliant and evocative detective movie – will finally arrive on Netflix.

Loosely based on the memoir by Ron Stallworth, the film follows a newly promoted black detective in the 70s (John David Washington) who’s intent on exposing the Ku Klux Klan. He leads the operation, using his white, Jewish colleague Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) to go in posing as a Klansman recruit.

Although Lee loves to steal from genre to augment his story, he never skirts away from harsh realities – delivering a painful conclusion that crashes into the present day.

Stateless

UK Netflix release date: 8 July

Horror stories from detention centres have shocked the world, especially those from the US-Mexico border. Although Stateless is a fictional drama, the new Netflix limited series with Cate Blanchett taps into some very harsh realities – following four characters struggling inside an Australian detention centre. All of them are escaping scandals, cults, and war zones – only to enter an equally horrible fate.

Yvonne Strahovski stars as Sophie, a German flight attendant, who abandons her job to join a dodgy dance-therapy studio led by Pat and Gordon Masters (Cate Blanchett and Dominic West). When her callous family remove her passport and bank account, she winds up in the detention centre fending for herself.