After a stellar 2025, with still a few titles to see, I thought I would take a look at what is in store for us in 2026.
As usual, the early part of the year there are the remaining awards contenders that have already been released in the US. The most notable of those is Hamnet from Chloe Zhao who already has an Oscar for Nomadland. For a while, it looked like this drama about the death of Shakespeare’s son may offer stiff competition for the top prizes to One Battle After Another, but now it seems that only Jessie Buckley is a favourite, with an adapted screenplay win the other possibility.
On the subject of best actresses, The Testament of Ann Lee, about the founding of the Shaker movement, should arrive in February with a lot of buzz around Amanda Seyfried’s performance. Wagner Moura is likely to bag a best actor nomination for the 1970’s set The Secret Agent. He plays an ex-professor who tries to escape persecution from the Brazilian military dictatorship.
Probably the most keenly awaited 2026 movie is an adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey. Christopher Nolan’s follow up to the exceptional Oppenheimer, is an epic, star studded, affair. Whilst, I have a natural aversion to Greek, and all other, mythology, Nolan’s track record will have me seeing it at the earliest opportunity. On the subject of directing giants, Steven Spielberg has a summer release for his return to the Sci Fi genre with Disclosure Day. Again there is a packed cast that includes Josh O’Connor, Emily Blunt, Colin Firth and Colmon Domingo.
Continuing on this theme, there are a number of potential goodies from directors I like. Paul Greengrass follows the terrific The Lost Bus with an action drama about The Peasants’ Revolt called The Uprising, with Thomasin McKenzie the highlight of a great cast. The making of 1960’s French new wave classic Breathless is documented in Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague. The prolific Steven Soderbergh is back again with the black comedy The Christophers. Brad Pitt’s character from the brilliant Once Upon a Time in Hollywood returns in The Adventures of Cliff Booth which was written by Tarantino and directed by David Fincher. Danny Boyle directs the, hopefully scathing, Rupert Murdoch biopic Ink and veteran Sam Raimi has a survival story about two people stranded on an island, Send Help. Someone who has been away even longer than Raimi is Peter Greenaway, so let’s hope his Tower Stories is more like his classics like The Draughtman’s Contract and Drowning by Numbers than the unwatchable The Pillow Book. Pedro Almodovar is much more consistent, so Bitter Christmas should be an end of year treat. Someone at the other end of their career is Jane Schoenbrun, and her follow up to the excellent I Saw the TV Glow, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma has the intriguing premise of being a horror film set during the making of a horror film. Kenneth Branagh steps away from Poirot with The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde, a psychological thriller that he also wrote with Jodie Comer, Patricia Arquette and Michael Sheen in the cast.
Andrew Haigh’s All of us Strangers was powerful stuff in 2024, and his follow up, A Long Winter will be keenly anticipated, as will Joel Coen’s Jack of Spades that boasts a cast that includes Josh O’Connor, Damian Lewis, Frances McDormand and Lesley Manville.
I would not have a remake of Stallone’s Cliffhanger in this preview if it was not directed by the action movie master Juame Collet-Serra. Finally in this section, Jeremy Saulnier follows up Rebel Ridge with what has been described as a horror-action-thriller, October.
There will be the usual raft of animations, super hero and franchise movies/sequels that I will not go into here as I probably will not see them, but there are some exceptions. Dwayne Johnson will try to arrest his box office decline with Jumanji 3, Ready or Not 2 will hopefully benefit from retaining its creative team from the inventive first film and the second part of the 28 Years Later trilogy, Bone Temple, will explain the weird Jimmys who arrived during the bizarre ending of the previous entry. I am also curious about the re-boot of Resident Evil, largely because Weapons director Zach Creggar is helming it. Scream 7 has had a troubled pre production but I remain hopeful as I have liked every instalment so far. There is also a new version of The Mummy, my favourite of the classic monsters, from Lee Cronin who wrote and directed the entertaining Evil Dead Rise. There is also going to be a new take on the Bride of Frankenstein story in The Bride!, set in the 1930’s with Jessie Buckley in the title role. I am not the biggest fan of The Social Network but the sequel The Social Reckoning, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin looks promising as it concentrates more on the dark side of social media.
Brad Pitt may have a second release in 2026. The Riders, directed by Edward Berger, is about a man searching for his missing wife. Other actors who will get me watching no matter what the subject matter is include Andrew Scott, who will be seen in the thriller A Place in Hell and, in what is perhaps my most anticipated film of all, Pressure. A drama depicting the 72 hours leading up to D-Day is right up my street, plus it has Kerry Condon and Damian Lewis co starring. Ryan Gosling has his first starring role for some time in Project Hail Mary. In that, he plays an astronaut who wakes up with no memory of how he got there, or why he is on a mission to save earth. The great Saorise Ronan should have a belated release of her drama Bad Apples, where she plays a teacher who has to deal with a disruptive pupil.
Robert De Niro has been more miss than hit recently, although I was the one person who liked Alto Knights in 2025! I have reasonably high expectations for serial killer thriller The Whisper Man, especially with Michelle Monaghan, Michael Keaton and John Carroll Lynch in the cast as well.
Juliette Binoche and Isabelle Huppert have had stellar careers and they each have a starring vehicle in 2026, with Queen at Sea and Parallel Tales respectively. Not much is known about the latter but its cast also includes Vincent Cassell and Catherine Deneuve and is written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, so is likely to be a festival favourite.
Moving onto less cerebral fayre, there are action movies from some of my favourite stars from the genre on the horizon. Jason Statham is on a good run, so I am looking forward to his Shelter in January. The supporting cast is impressive as it includes Bill Nighy and Daniel Mays. I am hoping that Liam Neeson’s Cold Storage will get a rare cinema release. The story of a retired bioterrorism agent being brought back to combat a dangerous fungus has been written by David Koepp so it has a decent pedigree. Aaron Eckhart has two films scheduled but the most promising seems to be Deep Water, even if the plot of a plane crash landing in shark infested waters was used in No Way Up last year.
If you enjoyed Nosferatu in 2025, director Robert Eggers Werwulf, with much the same cast should appeal. Albert Serra’s Out of this World has one of the most interesting premises of the year ahead: an American delegation travels to Russia during the Ukraine war to negotiate an economic dispute and an eclectic cast that includes Riley Keough and F. Murray Abraham.
Lastly, a quick run through some other promising titles. Shiver is yet another sharks terrorising humans movie but the cast is headed up by Phoebe Dynevor who was so good in Inheritance. Dead Man’s Wire is a true life hostage drama featuring Al Pacino and I Play Rocky tells the story of the making of Rocky. I am always up for a heist movie, so I am hoping that Crime 101, with Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghan, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Nick Nolte, fits the bill. Glenn Powell will headline a loose update of Kind Hearts and Coronets, How to Make a Killing and Ryan Reynolds heads a cast including Kenneth Branagh in cold war survival thriller Mayday. John Carney is back in musical territory with Power Ballad and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are back together in crime thriller Rip. The Death of Robin Hood is a self explanatory different take on the mythical outlaw and Jo Nesbø’s thriller Blood on Snow has been adapted, with Benedict Cumberbatch starring. Indie crime drama The Only Living Pickpocket in New York boasts a cast including John Turturro, Tatiana Maslany and Steve Bescemi, who will also be in Martin McDonagh’s new drama, Wild Horse Nine. Renate Reinsve should be another who follows up an Oscar nomination with a potential award worthy follow up in Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord.
That is a lot of films to look forward to, and this may look comprehensive but odds are there will be plenty of great ones that will surprise me.