Hamnet
Jessie Buckley delivers a stunning performance in the film adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, likely to earn her a shelf full of awards. She plays Anne (or Agnes) Hathaway, wife of William Shakespeare, mourning the tragic death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet, in 1596. The story suggests this loss inspired Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Paul Mescal stars as Shakespeare, with Emily Watson as his mother, Mary.
9 January
The Voice of Hind Rajab
This docufiction recounts the final hours of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was killed in Gaza in 2024 along with six family members and two paramedics. Trapped in her uncle’s car, Hind stayed on the phone for hours with the Palestinian Red Crescent, pleading for help. The film uses the real audio recording of her calls and dramatizes the response at the call center, with actors portraying the real people who heard her voice.
16 January
H Is for Hawk
Can training a goshawk heal grief? Philippa Lowthorpe’s film, based on Helen Macdonald’s bestselling memoir, explores whether bonding with a hawk—keeping it hooded indoors, then hunting with it—can reconnect us with nature in ways city dwellers might not grasp. Claire Foy stars and learned to handle a goshawk for the role, bringing raw authenticity to her scenes.
23 January
No Other Choice
Korean director Park Chan-wook presents a gripping, layered film based on Donald Westlake’s satirical thriller The Ax. It follows a salaryman who, humiliated by unemployment, decides his only option is mass murder. What begins like a darkly comic caper evolves into a study of family dysfunction, fragile masculinity, and a national crisis.
23 January
Saipan
This film delves into the “Saipan incident,” which sparked a culture war over rebellion and team loyalty in Irish football. Ahead of the 2002 World Cup, outspoken star Roy Keane clashed with manager Mick McCarthy during training on the Pacific island of Saipan. After a furious rant—reportedly including, “You’re a fucking wanker and you can stick your World Cup up your arse!”—Keane was sent home. The story questions whether athletes should voice dissent or prioritize team unity. Éanna Hardwicke plays Keane, with Steve Coogan as McCarthy.
23 January
Is This Thing On?
Bradley Cooper returns to comedy with this film, which he directs and appears in. The title refers to the classic stand-up line when jokes fall flat, but also hints at miscommunication in relationships. Will Arnett plays Alex, a divorcé who accidentally discovers a knack for stand-up, adding a bittersweet twist to his single life. The story is inspired by British comic John Bishop, who stumbled into comedy during his own marriage breakdown.
30 January
Wuthering Heights
Oscar-winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell (Saltburn, Promising Young Woman) tackles her most ambitious project yet: an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic. Margot Robbie stars as Catherine Earnshaw, with Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff.The brooding, intense alpha hero Heathcliff is at the center of a mild culture war. Director Emerald Fennell has cast a white actor in the role, despite Emily Brontë describing the character as “dark-skinned.” This contrasts with Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation, which featured mixed-race actor James Howson. (It wasn’t a concern for William Wyler in 1939, who cast Laurence Olivier.)
February 13: The Secret Agent
Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film is set in 1970s Brazil under dictatorship. It follows an academic on the run after uncovering high-level corruption. The film blends visual brilliance, sensual big-city intrigue, shaggy-dog comedy, gruesome lowlife cameos, and an epically languorous mystery into something special. It evokes Antonioni’s The Passenger with hints of Elmore Leonard, Quentin Tarantino, and the style of City of God.
February 20: If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Rose Byrne is winning awards and praise on the festival circuit for this drama from writer-director Mary Bronstein. She plays a therapist whose life seems to be collapsing more catastrophically than those of her patients. With a disabled daughter and a useless absentee husband (Christian Slater), her own emotional and behavioral issues surface when she seeks therapy from a colleague.
February 20: The Testament of Ann Lee
This vehement, fervent drama from Mona Fastvold, co-written with her Oscar-winning partner Brady Corbet, stars Amanda Seyfried as Ann Lee. She endured religious persecution in 18th-century England as the leader of the fundamentalist Shaker movement. The film sometimes resembles a Lars von Trier nightmare or Robert Eggers’ The Witch, and at other times a weird but spectacular Broadway musical melodrama. The ecstatic shaking of the faithful is choreographed into something reminiscent of the musical Stomp.
February 20: The Bride!
Titles with exclamation marks often signal extra comedy, melodrama, or craziness, so the tone of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s remake of The Bride of Frankenstein is hard to judge. The 1935 original starred Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester; now Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley take on the roles. Hopefully, Gyllenhaal will avoid the classy solemnity of Guillermo del Toro’s recent Frankenstein film.
March 6: A Private Life
This is a genially preposterous psychological mystery caper from filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski, channeling De Palma or Hitchcock. Jodie Foster plays an American psychoanalyst in Paris (speaking elegant French) who suspects a patient’s reported suicide was murder. Things get weirder when a hypnotherapist regresses her into a past-life dream where she and the patient were lovers during the Nazi occupation.
March 6: Sound of Falling
A mysterious and uncanny prose-poem about guilt, shame, and yearning in 20th and 21st century Germany. This drama of intergenerational trauma unfolds in four different time frames on a farm in northeastern Germany. Connections between characters gradually reveal themselves, hinting at more uncanny and foretold events to come.
March 6: La Grazia
Paolo Sorrentino has rediscovered his voice, his wan humor, and his flair for the surreal and sensational set piece. This wintry, elegant study of grief and regret, starring veteran Italian actor Toni Servillo, wears its dreamy melancholy and ennui like a well-tailored, if fussily old-fashioned, suit.
March 20: Project Hail Mary
Phil Lord and…Christopher Miller, known for offbeat comedies like The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street, now tackles a high-concept sci-fi mystery based on a novel by Andy Weir (whose The Martian was adapted by Ridley Scott). Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland, a high-school teacher who wakes up in the future aboard a spaceship called the Hail Mary, hurtling through the galaxy with no memory of how he got there and all his crewmates dead. Ryland must now piece together his mission and find a way to save Earth.
20 March
Two Prosecutors (dir. Sergei Loznitsa)
An icy chill of fear and justified paranoia radiates from this stark, gripping film by Sergei Loznitsa, set in Stalin’s Russia in the late 1930s. With slow, extended scenes shot from single camera positions, it mirrors the zombie-like existence of the Soviet state—evoking shades of Dostoevsky’s The House of the Dead and Kafka’s The Castle.
27 March
The Drama
Zendaya and Robert Pattinson star in what promises to be a tense romantic dramedy from Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli, who scored a hit with Dream Scenario, featuring Nicolas Cage as a dull professor who keeps appearing in people’s dreams. Here, a glamorous couple prepares for their wedding, only to face a shocking revelation just before the big day. The film will test Pattinson’s comedic skills.
3 April
Michael
A musical biopic of Michael Jackson directed by Antoine Fuqua, starring Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson (son of Jermaine) in his acting debut. Like the stage show MJ the Musical, the film is expected to tactfully avoid the later controversies of the King of Pop’s life, tracing his journey from the Jackson 5 to global superstardom.
24 April
The Devil Wears Prada 2
One of the most anticipated sequels in years, this follow-up to the sensational fashion comedy reunites the original cast. Meryl Streep returns as the fiery magazine editor Miranda Priestly—a character cheekily inspired by Vogue’s Anna Wintour (which may explain why Streep has never attended Wintour’s Met Gala). The film also made stars of Anne Hathaway as Miranda’s nervous intern Andie, Emily Blunt as her haughty assistant Emily, and Stanley Tucci as the witty designer Nigel. They all return for more fashion crimes and misdemeanors.
1 May
The Odyssey
No director thinks or films on a grander scale than Christopher Nolan, so it’s no surprise he’s taken on Homer’s The Odyssey. (What’s next—the Book of Genesis?) This is his interpretation of the epic poem that has shaped Western storytelling for millennia. Matt Damon leads an all-star cast as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca condemned to wander the world after the fall of Troy, longing to reunite with his wife Penelope.
17 July
The Social Reckoning
Aaron Sorkin, who famously warned of social media’s dysfunctional origins in The Social Network (directed by David Fincher, starring Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg), now writes and directs this conceptual follow-up based on a true story. Jeremy Strong plays an older, more subdued Zuckerberg, while Mikey Madison portrays Frances Haugen, the former Facebook integrity head who blew the whistle on the platform’s practices.
9 October
Focker In-Law
The latest installment in the enduring Meet the Parents series, which continues to mine comedy from the “Focker” surname—though the name “Martha Focker” alone earns this entry a place in the franchise hall of fame. Robert De Niro and Blythe Danner reprise their roles as the disapproving in-laws, with Ben Stiller, Teri Polo, and Owen Wilson returning as well—though they’re now edging toward becoming the older generation themselves. Beanie Feldstein and Ariana Grande are also part of the cast.Dune: Part Three – November 25
Denis Villeneuve’s epic Dune series, adapted from Frank Herbert’s sci-fi masterpiece, launched in 2021 as a cinematic event that helped revive theaters after the pandemic. Part Two followed last year, and now the saga concludes with its final chapter. Timothée Chalamet returns as Paul Atreides, alongside Zendaya as Chani and Rebecca Ferguson as Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica. Anya Taylor-Joy appears as Paul’s sister, Alia, and Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan—though it remains to be seen whether their roles extend beyond brief appearances.
Bitter Christmas – December 18
Pedro Almodóvar returns to his comedic roots with this Spanish-language film starring Bárbara Lennie. She plays Elsa, an advertising executive who has a panic attack after her mother’s death during a December holiday. Elsa escapes to Lanzarote while her partner stays in Madrid. In classic Almodóvar fashion, her story unfolds alongside a parallel narrative involving a director and screenwriter.
Digger – Release date TBC
Hollywood has long wondered when Tom Cruise might step away from blockbuster action films like Mission: Impossible and return to the daring independent projects that defined earlier stages of his career, such as Magnolia and Collateral. That moment may have arrived. Cruise stars in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new film, described as “a comedy of catastrophic proportions.”
I Love Boosters – Release date TBC
Following her career resurgence in The Substance, Demi Moore joins another futuristic adventure, this time from satirist Boots Riley. Set in a stylized future, the story follows a group of young thieves who steal luxury fashion—but they may have met their match when they target Moore’s formidable fashion CEO.
Ink – Release date TBC
After previous portrayals of media mogul Rupert Murdoch by actors like Malcolm McDowell and Ben Mendelsohn, Guy Pearce now takes on the role in Danny Boyle’s film adaptation of James Graham’s award-winning play. The story focuses on the turbulent rebirth of The Sun newspaper in the late 1960s, with Jack O’Connell as editor Larry Lamb. It explores how a British institution was born from the sensationalist blend of sex and crime.
Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew – Release date TBC
The Narnia film series seemed poised for success fifteen years ago but stalled after 2010’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Now, with director Greta Gerwig and stars Emma Mackey and Carey Mulligan, the franchise is set to return with The Magician’s Nephew—the prequel that reveals the creation of Narnia by Aslan, a thousand years before the events of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man – Release date TBC
Following six acclaimed TV seasons, Tommy Shelby returns in a feature-length film written by Steven Knight. Cillian Murphy reprises his role as the interwar Birmingham gang leader whose iconic flat cap left a lasting mark on British pop culture. Will this be a leap too far for Tommy, or his greatest triumph?
The President’s Cake – Release date TBC
This heartfelt Iraqi film from debut director Hasan Hadi has charmed festival audiences, supported by producers Chris Columbus and Marielle Heller.Hollywood veteran Eric Roth. Lamia, played by nonprofessional actor Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, is a young girl living with her grandmother in 1990s Iraq under Saddam Hussein. She is given the task of gathering rare ingredients for a special cake to celebrate the president’s birthday. To afford them, she must sell her late father’s watch. In classic neorealist fashion, she faces a series of harrowing encounters along the way.
Date tbc
Untitled Jesse Eisenberg Musical Comedy
Jesse Eisenberg has transitioned from fast-talking roles like Mark Zuckerberg and Lex Luthor to directing, with his comedy A Real Pain becoming last year’s indie hit. He has now written and directed an untitled musical comedy—composer still unannounced—starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti. The story follows a shy woman who is cast in a local theater’s musical production and becomes swept up in the world of small-town showbusiness.
Date tbc
Whitney Springs
Trey Parker, known for anarchic and iconoclastic comedies like South Park and The Book of Mormon, now ventures solo into what can only be described as provocative territory, co-producing with Kendrick Lamar. The film centers on a young Black man working at an educational reenactment event in a slavery museum, who makes an unsettling discovery about his white girlfriend’s ancestors and their historical connection to his own.
Date tbc
This article was amended on 1 January 2026 because an earlier version mistakenly referred to “Japan’s Saipan island.” Saipan is in fact part of the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth of the United States.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about Get ready for 2026 a year of epic romance daring fashion and legendary journeys on the big screen
General Beginner Questions
1 What is this 2026 movie event all about
Its a preview of the major film trends and highly anticipated blockbusters scheduled for release in 2026 The tagline highlights three key themes expected to dominate that years biggest movies grand love stories bold costume and style and massive adventure films
2 Are these actual movie titles for 2026
Not specifically The phrase describes a trend or theme for the year While some announced films will fit these categories its more about the overall cinematic vibe studios are planning for
3 Where can I see a list of the actual movies coming out in 2026
Official complete lists are still being formed The best places to check are movie news websites and official studio announcement schedules As 2025 approaches more titles and release dates will be confirmed
4 What does daring fashion mean in movies
It refers to films where costume design is a central eyecatching element Think of historical dramas with extravagant period clothing scifi with innovative futuristic outfits or characterdriven stories where a characters style evolution is key to the plot
Advanced Detailed Questions
5 Which studios or directors are likely to drive these epic romance and legendary journey trends in 2026
Look toward directors known for spectacle for the legendary journeys For epic romance watch for auteurs who blend intimate stories with grand settings or studios reviving classic romance genres on a big scale Streaming services may also invest heavily in these areas
6 Is this a marketing strategy or is there evidence these genres are actually being produced for 2026
Its both The statement is a marketing hook to generate excitement but its based on Hollywoods long production cycles Major films starting preproduction now
