The best new books, films, museums and albums in June

The most exciting cultural releases of June include a dance floor-ready album, the first short-story collection from a beloved American author and a film from the master of the summer blockbuster. 

Music 

Nova Bossa: Aquele Abraço aos Ratos Vivos
Pedro Mizutani 
A Monocle Radio mainstay, Brazilian musician Pedro Mizutani pays tribute to the pioneers of bossa nova on this new album. The sunny collection of songs, reflective of his hometown of Rio de Janeiro, not only pays tribute to the history of the genre but also plays with bossa nova trademarks to reimagine them for a younger generation. We like the suave tones of the breezy “Dia Azul” and the melancholic “Colchão”. This spring, Mizutani enjoyed a successful tour of Europe – let’s hope that he makes it back for summer.
‘Nova Bossa: Aquele Abraço aos Ratos Vivos’ is out now

If This Is It
DJ Seinfeld
Right in time for summer, Malmö’s DJ Seinfeld is back with a euphoric collection of tracks made for the dance floor. The velvety “U Can’t Come Here”, featuring TS Graye, is a highlight, while on “The Right”, Seinfeld partners with the Australian electro-pop band Confidence Man. The emotional, trance-like “Of Joy” promises to sound particularly good live at one of Seinfeld’s many performances across the world in the next few months.
‘If This Is It’ is released on 5 June

So Help Me God
Kelsey Lu
Seven years since critically acclaimed debut album Blood, singer and classically trained cellist Kelsey Lu returns with this delightful new record. The cinematic, synth-ballad “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and the dark electronica and distorted guitars of “Running to Pain” are particular standouts. The 10-track album was produced by Lu alongside Jack Antonoff and Yves Rothman, with contributions from Kamasi Washington and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon. It’s a haunting album that deserves to be listened to again and again.
‘So Help Me God’ is released on 12 June

Books 

The Typing Lady and Other Fictions
Ruth Ozeki 
American author Ruth Ozeki returns with her first collection of short stories. The tales in The Typing Lady and Other Fictions follow her intricately written characters as they move through ever-changing worlds. From a Yale student’s quietly unravelling relationship with a friend to a struggling writer caring for an elderly couple, Ozeki’s deft storytelling offers intriguing perspectives on morality, relationships and what it means to be human.
‘The Typing Lady and Other Fictions’ is published on 28 May

Twenty Minutes of Silence
Hélène Bessette
The latest edition to Fitzcarraldo’s Classics series ditches the prosaic in pursuit of the abstract. A synopsis initially suggests a typical crime fiction: a slowly splintering family hears a gunshot inside their villa that overlooks the English Channel. Who was the murderer? Who was the victim? The titular length of time follows. Bessette’s story, more akin to a fragmentary poem than a novel, rivetingly dissects the whodunnit form in a constellation of language.
‘Twenty Minutes of Silence’ is published on 18 June

Depraved: The Story of Dangerous Art
Daisy Dixon 
We are afraid of finding out that our favourite artists are horrible people – but why are their works so alluring? And, crucially, what does this say about us? Art philosopher Daisy Dixon explores theories behind why the volatility of status and controversy attracts us to certain artists and simultaneously proposes a new history surrounding these “cancelled” works.
‘Depraved: The Story of Dangerous Art’ is published on 18 June

Art 

Ettore Sottsass: Design Begins Where Magic Begins
Artizon Museum, Tokyo
It’s fitting that the late Italian designer Ettore Sottsass’s playful homeware and objets d’art found a spiritual home in the land of postmodern Bubble Era design. The Ishibashi Foundation has amassed more than 100 pieces, from his red typewriter for Olivetti to later collaborations with the Memphis Group. This first Japanese retrospective based on that collection is sure to raise a wry smile.
‘Ettore Sottsass: Design Begins Where Magic Begins’ runs from 23 June to 4 October

Willem de Kooning Drawing
Art Institute of Chicago
As a New Jersey decorator and academy-trained draughtsman in Europe, Willem de Kooning created abstract art that often resembled an attempt to reconcile those two poles. This collection of “drawing” showcases traditional sketches alongside paintings, prints and even sculptures, highlighting his desire to rework and refine every line, whatever the media. The exhibition also travels to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum in October.
‘Willem de Kooning Drawing’ runs from 14 June to 20 September

Abdulhamid Kircher: Rotting from Within
Deichtorhallen, Hamburg
Berlin-born Abdulhamid Kircher moved to the US at the age of eight while his father served time for selling drugs and attempted murder. After a teenage reconciliation, Kircher’s camera became a powerful tool for exploring family trauma. First published by Loose Joints, Rotting from Within is a harrowing portfolio rendered with cinematic intimacy and an unflinching gaze. Echoes of Wolfgang Tillmans and Nan Goldin are evident, yet Kircher provides a captivating new voice in photography.
‘Rotting from Within’ runs from 5 June to 1 November

Film

Enzo  
Robin Campillo
There is a certain kind of Cannes-adored European coming-of-age drama that’s almost aggressively tasteful – but Enzo has enough grit to sustain itself. Following a teenager drifting through one long, overheated summer, the film is less interested in neat revelations than in the awkwardness of becoming yourself. Its strength lies in its atmosphere: sun-bleached streets, stolen glances and the quiet devastation of realising that the life you imagined might not be the one that is waiting for you.
‘Enzo’ is released on 5 June

Disclosure Day
Steven Spielberg 
Steven Spielberg returns to territory that he has always made uniquely his: the moment when wonder tips into terror. Disclosure Day imagines a world on the brink of learning that alien life exists and has already made contact – unleashing panic, conspiracy and some spectacularly Spielbergian set pieces. Josh O’Connor plays a young man determined to reveal the truth, while Emily Blunt’s weather reporter begins speaking in an eerie extraterrestrial language and Colin Firth stalks the edges of the film with delicious menace. With David Koepp, Janusz Kamiński and John Williams aboard, this looks like the summer’s essential blockbuster.
‘Disclosure Day’ is released on 12 June

Blue Heron 
Sophy Romvari
Blue Heron is the sort of film that restores one’s faith in the possibilities of understated drama. Set in a weather-beaten fishing town on the coast, it follows a woman returning home after her father’s death to confront the family that she abandoned years ago. Director Sophy Romvari handles the material with remarkable assurance, allowing every silence and sidelong glance to land. By the time that the titular bird appears in the film’s final act, Blue Heron has achieved something rare: genuine emotional grace.
‘Blue Heron’ is released on 26 June

TV 

Cape Fear
Apple TV 
A primal terror bleeds from the pages of John D MacDonald’s 1957 novel The Executioners – a sense that our private little castles aren’t as fortified against the world’s evil as we might think. Filmmakers keep circling back to it: first, in 1962’s Gregory Peck-led Cape Fear, then Martin Scorsese’s remake in 1991 and now a new 10-episode riff starring Amy Adams, Patrick Wilson and Javier Bardem that promises to blend both adaptations into a paranoia-laced portrait of true-crime obsession.
‘Cape Fear’ is released on 5 June

Sugar
Apple TV 
When Sugar premiered in 2024, it was an easy sell: Colin Farrell as a slick-haired private investigator, snooping around modern-day Tinseltown with old-world elegance. Then came the twist – one of the wildest in recent televisual history. Season two, then, offers a fascinating proposition: how will Farrell’s John Sugar balance daily detective work with the wider questions of his strange existence?
‘Sugar’ is released on 19 June

Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness
HBO Max 
This year’s most unexpected collaboration partners comedian Larry David with Barack and Michelle Obama and the couple’s production company Higher Ground for a seven-episode sketch series commemorating the US’s 250th anniversary. David, returning to television for the first time since Curb Your Enthusiasm, will crop up at key moments in the country’s history and inevitably commit a heinous faux pas – or five.
‘Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness’ is released on 26 June