Scottish Film Events: August 2026

The Fringe is a bit much, isn’t it? You know, all that chaos, the queuing, the audience interaction (sometimes you don’t want to be dragged up on stage to be part of a clown show about the miners’ strike, ya feel me?). For introverts, there’s always the relative calm of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (13-19 Aug) to look forward to. My usual top ten will be online shortly but for now, here are a few EIFF titles and events I’ll be checking out.

Definitely dive into The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence competition. These films haven’t screened anywhere else in the world yet, and it’s always a thrill to be part of the first audience to see brand new work. Paul Wright’s Mission is proving to be the hottest ticket, but I also like the look of the formally daring horror Snapshot. Shot entirely in a 1:1 circle aspect ratio, the film presents as a found-footage film from the Victorian era that’s been shot on a pinhole-style camera; if the filmmakers pull that conceit off, it’ll be terrific.

EIFF is also a chance to see some of the most exciting films from the festival circuit. Top of my list are devastating Berlinale hit Queen at Sea, starring Juliette Binoche and Tom Courtenay; Goodbye Cruel World, a melancholic coming-of-age gem from Cannes’ Critics' Week section; The Peril at Pincer Point, a surreal comedy featuring pirates and a massive crab, which went down a storm at SXSW; and Molly Manners’ Extra Geography, another Berlinale fave that’s reportedly one of the most promising British debuts of the year. See EIFF's website for screening info.

Bruce Dern, one of the great icons of American cinema, is coming to EIFF: don’t miss his rare In Conversation talk (17 Aug). The brilliant, hardworking producer Christine Vachon is in town too; her industry talk is unmissable for anyone interested in independent cinema (14 Aug). And also on the 14th, Scotland’s biggest movie star, Ewan McGregor will be talking through his career. You can pair that with a screening of McGregor’s brand new movie, The End of Oak Street, from David Robert Mitchell, which, coincidentally, opens on general release the same day.

Robert Mitchell is best known for It Follows (1 Sep), and that’s part of GFT's Summer Screams, a season dedicated to hot and sweaty summertime horror movies. Also on the lineup are Jaws (until 6 Aug), Friday the 13th (10 Aug), I Know What You Did Last Summer (18 Aug) and Midsommar (25 Aug). Summer also means superhero movies, but forget Marvel and DC; GFT have much more idiosyncratic comic book movies in mind for Comics Come Alive. The lineup includes Joseph Losey’s Modesty Blaise (22 Aug), based on a 60s British comic, cult musical comedy Josie and the Pussycats (15 Aug) and Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs the World (8 Aug). Wright will provide a pre-recorded intro to the latter two films. 

The release of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, the third film from the talented Jane Schoenbrun, on 21 August is being celebrated in a big way at Filmhouse. The Edinburgh cinema has a preview on 9 August, and later in the month they’ll present a season of films, running from 21 Aug to 3 Sep, that are either inspirations for Camp Miasma (Sleepaway Camp, In the Mouth of Madness) or directly referenced within it (Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Sunset Boulevard). GFT have their own preview on 16 August, and earlier in the day you can watch Schoenbrun's previous films, We're All Going to the World's Fair and I Saw the TV Glow, as a double bill.

Throw away your watch this month at DCA, because they’re presenting Sculpting in Time (7-30 Aug), a retrospective dedicated to the mighty Andrei Tarkovsky; time seems to work differently in that moving-image poet's meditative cinema, as you can discover with all seven of his features screening, from Ivan's Childhood to The Sacrifice. 

Falastin Film Festival, the festival celebrating film, culture and art from Palestine and raising awareness of the Israeli occupation, is back for its third edition, with screenings in Edinburgh from 27 to 30 August; highlights include Ahmad Ghossein's heart-in-mouth thriller All This Victory and a launch party at Leith Cricket Club featuring tunes spun by Mo’min Swaitat, Hajar Ibrahim and Eclair Fifi. And finally, get yourself to Glasgow’s Grosvenor this month for a nifty little season of neo-noirs. The four-film lineup includes John Boorman’s Point Blank (6 Aug), Paul Schrader’s Cat People (13 Aug), Brian de Palma’s Body Double (20 Aug) and Jane Campion’s In the Cut (27 Aug) – bangers all!