The year is again coming to a close, and that once again means it’s time for us to take a close look at the films that look interesting next year. I’ve divided these 2026 movies up into five handy categories. and this year those categories are Remakes, Sequels, Superheroes, Actually a Fresh Idea, and My Picks. Yes – I’m saving the movies I’m most excited about for the very end.
Remakes
The remakes are just inescapable at this point. Let’s see which four I’m pointing out to be worth a look.
June 5th: Masters of the Universe
He-Man: Masters of the Universe is going to star Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man and Jared Leto as Skeletor. I was never a huge fan of the franchise, but when I saw that Alison Brie, Idris Elba, Morena Baccarin, and Kristen Wiig would also be in the film, I took interest.
January 23rd: Return to Silent Hill
I’m always up for a decent horror film. And Return to Silent Hill has pyramid head.
July 17th: The Odyssey
The Odyssey. A story that’s literally older than The Bible. Christopher Nolan’s new film will start Matt Damon as Odysseus, and alongside him we’ll see Tom Holland, Zendaya, Mia Goth, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal and John Leguizamo. What a cast!
Sequels
If there’s one category of film that’s actually more inescapable than remakes, it’s sequels. That said, there are a few coming up that I actually have some interest in.
December 18th: Dune Part 3
Although the first of the Dune remakes was decent, I prefer the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries. I’m sure I’ll watch Dune 3: Messiah eventually, but I didn’t really love the second one. The book was better.
June 19th: Toy Story 5
One of the more venerable animated series out there, Toy Story has somehow managed not to feel played out. I’ve enjoyed every one of them, although they’re not the kind of movies I rewatch over and over.
May 22nd: The Mandalorian and Grogu
The Disney Plus Star Wars television series are not all created equal. And I do have to admit that The Mandalorian is amongst the best of them. I don’t know if I’ll see The Mandalorian and Grogu when it’s in the theaters, but color me interested.
April 10th: Ready or Not 2
I really loved Ready or Not. I’ve seen the movie at least three times over the years, and Samara Weaving is excellent in it. The premise of the first film was our protagonist meets her new husband’s family on their wedding day and learns that everyone who marries into this “board game magnate” family must play a game, and if you draw the wrong card, the whole family hunts you down and kills you. Yeah, it’s a horror-comedy.
Given the ending of the first movie, I’m not sure where they’ll go with a second, but given that they’re not really able to rehash the exact same plot a second time, they’ll need to be creative with a sequel, and I love that.
Superheroes
Since the onset of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Superhero films have become prevalent, pervasive, and otherwise ubiquitous. And while the Marvel good, Sony bad has been my general rule of thumb, James Gunn has been doing some interesting things with DC properties lately.
June 26: Supergirl
Given the character’s lone drunken appearance at the end of this summer’s Superman reboot, I’m not certain what her future holds. But between Superman‘s helper robots and bad haircuts and Peacekeeper‘s eagle-hunters and Nazi dimensions, James Gunn’s keyword seems to be “weird”, in a very Silver-Age kinda way. But if he can keep coming up with characters as amazing as Vigilante and The Polka Dot Man, James Gun can have my movie ticket dollars.
September 11th: Clayface
Starring unknown (to me) actor Tom Rhys Harries, Clayface will be the third film in the new DC Universe, following Superman and Supergirl. It’s being billed as a body horror film, and I’m not sure how to react to that.
While I’ve enjoyed some shows that include some aspects of body horror, such as The Substance or Slither, watching gross things happen to people generally isn’t my bag. I skipped the 2025 film Together, and I will never willingly watch The Human Centipede. Some movies should not exist.
I’m not completely sure how much of an overlap there is in the Venn diagram of superhero movie and body horror movie fanbases. I’m sure it’s not zero. In any event, I’m hopeful that Clayface is a good film.
July 31: Spider-Man: Brand New Day
While the bulk of Sony’s Marvel properties have been absolute garbage (yes, I’m talking about Morbius, Madam Web, and all the Venom movies) the Spider-Man films have been excellent. The most recent, Spider-Man: No Way Home, folded in Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman, and both previous Spider-Man actors. This amongst other things arguably made it the best Spider-Man film in a field where there are some very good Spider-Man movies.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day begins in a world in which there is no longer anyone who remembers Peter Parker. MJ and Ned have forgotten who he is, Aunt May is gone, and even Dr. Strange will have forgotten him. It was a great set-up for a reset. This new film will add Michael Mando, whom I loved in Orphan Black and Better Call Saul, as The Scorpion. It will also include The Hulk and The Punisher in some fashion and will introduce new characters for Sadie Sink and Tramell Tillman.
December 18th: Avengers: Doomsday
It’s still a long way off. But one of these big Avengers movies has never yet let me down. It’s been a long time since the last one – heck, we haven’t had an Avengers movie since Avengers: Endgame. And the current crop of Avengers is pretty sad. At this point, I’m thinking that Earth’s mightiest heroes might need the help of The Fantastic Four and The Young Avengers to get anything done against Doctor Doom.
Actually a Fresh Idea
Alright. Now that I’ve covered the mandatory big box office drek, I can get to the good stuff. I couldn’t rightfully write up this kind of article without covereing the sequels, superhero films, and reboots that dominate the theaters, but I’m thinking that the following is what you really came here for – new upcoming movies that you actually may not have heard of. And given Hollywood’s typical batting average, these won’t all be home runs. But I’m hopeful that there’ll be some good stuff in here. Let’s jump in.
October 23rd: Remain
A “romantic supernatural thriller” by M. Night Shyamalan starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor, Remain is an upcoming film starring actors with superfluous Y’s in their names. Shyamalan co-wrote the script with author Nicholas Sparks, who novelized the script into a book which is currently on bookstore shelves.
Remain‘s premise is simple enough:
New York architect Tate Donovan heads to Cape Cod to design a summer home for his best friend, seeking a fresh start after being treated for acute depression. Still mourning his sister’s death, he meets Wren, a young woman who disrupts his carefully ordered world.
But nobody who’s seen a film by M. Night Shyamalan expects this film to come without some twist, be it a time traveler who wants him to architect the Taj Mahal or an international cabal of dyslexic albino vampire hunters and classic car enthusiasts.
Everyone loved The Sixth Sense, and I’ve got some appreciation for Lady in the Water, The Village, and The Happening. But in my mind, Shyamalan’s best film is Signs. I know that not everyone loves it, but the tension-laced humor in the film gets me every time.
I’m hoping that Remain is one of the good ones.
September 4th: How to Rob a Bank
Not to be confused with the 2024 Netflix documentary How to Rob a Bank, this film is an upcoming heist film starring Nicholas Hoult, Zoë Kravitz, Pete Davidson, John C. Reilly, and Christian Slater.
The premise I’ve seen is that a group of bank robbers have been posting their robberies to social media, which is a downright wacky concept. There’s very little information available online about the movie, and I see no mention of it being a comedy despite the premise sounding like nothing but. Still, heist films are always intriguing to me, so I’ll be staying tuned.
January 23rd: Mercy
Because it’s coming out so soon, we actually have a trailer for Mercy. It feels like a mash-up of 2002’s Minority Report, 2021’s Oxygen, and 2011’s Source Code, but I’m always a sucker for a Sci-Fi story. The premise:
In 2029 Los Angeles, a detective stands on trial accused of murdering his wife. He has 90 minutes to prove his innocence to the advanced AI judge he once championed, before it determines his fate.
2025 being what it is, of course there’s a film about the dangers of entrusting too much to AI. And making the AI a judge that’s literally determining whether people live or die is so on-the-nose that it’s likely broken said nose. Broken noses aside, the premise is interesting enough that I’ll watch this film on whatever streaming service hosts it. Not one I’m likely to catch in the theater though.
January 30th: Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is wacky action sci-fi comedy stars Sam Rockwell, Michael Peña, and Zazie Beetz who you may know as Domino from Deadpool 2.
A “Man From the Future” arrives at a diner in Los Angeles where he must recruit the precise combination of disgruntled patrons to join him on a one-night quest to save the world from the terminal threat of a rogue artificial intelligence
The quotation marks around “Man from the future” in the description make me immediately skeptical of Sam Rockwell’s character’s origins, but I’m up for the wild ride.
August 14th: Flowervale Street
Details on Flowervale Street are scarce, but from what I’ve gathered, it takes place in the 1980s, Anne Hathaway plays a mother looking for her missing children, and dinosaurs are somehow involved. The title gives me Cloverfield vibes, but the movie has been described as “a Quiet Place mystery thriller”.
October 2nd: Judy
With the film not out until October 2026, there isn’t presently much information about it to be found. It’s apparently a dark comedy, and I’ve always enjoyed Tom Cruise science fiction films.
The most powerful man in the world causes a disaster and embarks on a mission to prove that he is the savior of humanity
The brief description we do get is a bit over-the-top, but intriguing nonetheless. The film will also have Jesse Plemons, and that’s always a plus.
My Picks
Here we go. These are the three 2026 films that I’m most excited about. I mean – realistically, I should probably be including Avengers: Doomsday in the most-excited camp, but it’s part of an established franchise, and its existence isn’t exactly news.
March 20th: Project Hail Mail
Nearly a year ago, I read Project: Hail Mary by Andy Weir, and it was hands-down the best book I’ve read in years. It’s up there with The Martian, and possibly an even better book. And similarly to how the original novel The Martian is a better book than it is a movie, I don’t expect this film to hold up to the greatness of the novel. Still, I’m very much looking forward to seeing it on the big screen.
June 12th: Untitled Steven Spielberg film
This film doesn’t yet have an announced title. But it’s a “UFO film”, Spielberg’s directing it, and John Williams is scoring the film. That alone is enough to put it in my top three.
This untitled film will star Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, and Wyatt Russell.
October 9th: The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender
When I heard about this film, I just about lost my mind.
Aang is coming back, and we get to see his adventures after the events of the original series.
A few years back, I made a list of my favorite 20 TV shows of all time, and I put a lot of thought into it. Avatar: The Last Airbender was number two on that list. I often reference the show as the prime example of a well-built plot which evolves over three seasons. It has fantastic characters with satisfying multi-season arcs, and I’m ecstatic to see more from the show’s original creators.
I love that Dante Basco is again voicing Zuko, but I’m disappointed that my favorite character (Sokka, after whom I named my cat) is no longer voiced by Jack De Sena. Much of the original voice cast isn’t participating, but given that the characters are supposed to be decades older, I suppose that’s fine.
Fonte: GeekDad - Leia mais