The best movies of 2026 (so far)

With To Die For (1995), Elephant (2003) and Milk (2008) behind him, Gus Van Sant has been a long-time chronicler of America’s dysfunctional relationship with guns and the media. So this tragicomic true-life story about a strung-out Indianapolis man (Bill Skarsgård) who took his mortgage broker (Dacre Montgomery, impressive) hostage in 1977 using a gerryrigged shotgun is firmly in his wheelhouse. The indie auteur conjures Sadfie-ish levels of anxiety from this funny-stressful scenario, inviting sympathy will all parties and condemnation of a system that continues to cause desperation and despair. An Al Pacino cameo solidifies those Dog Day Afternoon parallels. 

A world in which Sam Raimi is making demonically over-the-top horror comedies is a good place to be – and the Evil Dead legend has found two willing cohorts in Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien for his deranged version of Cast Away. The table-turning premise sees an egregious boss and his down-trodden underling washed up on a remote island where the latter has the survival skills and the former just the lingering sense of entitlement. Cue a blood-soaked and deliriously nasty battle of wills. We knew McAdams had the chops but Maze Runner star O’Brien is a revelation as a man whose ego trumps his survival instincts.

Unscrew your skullcap, remove brain and surrender to this gloriously gory one-man-army thriller that plays like a lost gem from the VHS era. What starts as a snowbound Fargo-esque mystery explodes into a blizzard of bullets as Bob Odenkirk’s deadbeat sheriff takes on a town armed up to the armpits. Ben Wheatley directs the carnage with unabashed gusto and Odenkirk’s a blast as the ragged, grizzled cop. 

Max Keegan’s striking film dramatises a man-made conflict in the natural world. In the Ariège uplands of France, rural communities are at loggerheads with ecologists who are introducing brown bears back in the wild, an act of preservation that is putting the local livestock at risk. Providing a balanced portrait between the opposing camps, Keegan delivers an exquisite portrait of nature and those who love it and those who rely on it, always keeping the humanity alive among the picture postcard landscapes.

It’s not a doc but Richard Linklater’s gorgeous monochrome making-of story for Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless is a sparkling, if respectful, document for that unique era in filmmaking. A revolutionary act that tore up the rulebook on editing, camerawork, narrative structure and people looking cool on screen, the French new wave classic is a holy text for Letterboxd devotee and Criterion Collectionistas alike – as well as filmmakers, natch. Linklater assembles a cast of doppelgangers to play Godard (Guillaume Marbeck), Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch) and Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) and recreate that ciggie-puffing creative alchemy in all its punky glory.

A movie spun off from a Canadian cult comedy show that aired a decade ago would seem meant for the most niche of audiences, but you don’t have to be in on every joke to appreciate what Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol pull off. The series, which mixed scripted bits with hidden-camera stunts, tracked the Torontonian musical duo’s fruitless efforts to land a gig, and so it goes here, only scaled up – the movie starts with an Ethan Hunt-esque guerrilla skydive then transitions into a full-on Back to the Future meta-spoof. Seamlessly blurring what’s real and what’s staged, it plays like an absurdist magic trick, while also being an oddly sweet ode to unconditional friendship.

Will Arnett and Laura Dern bring laughs and depth to a kind of unofficial (and much less traumatising) companion piece to Marriage Story. Based on the story of British comedian John Bishop, it follows a man faced with divorce (Arnett) who stumbles onto the stage of a New York stand-up club and finds freedom and therapy firing out relatable gags to crowds of strangers. Dern is her usual sparkling self, and director Bradley Cooper steals scenes as a struggling actor who thinks he’s Brando, but it’s the laconic Arnett who makes off with the movie. It’ll be the best of kind of therapy for anyone going through similar tribulations. 

Three killer roles in two months is not bad going for Dylan O’Brien, a one-time YA star finally getting to show his full range. One of them was in Sam Raimi’s gonzo survival thriller Send Help and the other two come in James Sweeney’s peppery, moving and outrageously funny comedy-drama. He’s Roman, the brooding twentysomething struggling to cope with the death of his twin and – in flashback – Rocky, that extrovert gay twin. Enter Dennis (Sweeney), a lover of Rocky’s who inveigles his way into Roman’s life claiming to be a twin. It sounds like a cuckoo-in-the-next thriller; instead, it’s one of the year’s most unusual, unexpected gems.

Hands up who’s in the mood for a grown-up, ’70s-feeling crime thriller set in the City of Angels? The home turf for electrifying, car-chase-led genre pieces like The Driver, Drive and To Live and Die in L.A. reverberates again to the crackle of gunshot and the squeal of tyres in a stacked character piece that also doffs its balaclava to Michael Mann’s Los Angeles masterpiece Heat. The impressive Chris Hemsworth shows another side to his game as a meticulous jewel thief whose code of conduct goes out the window when Barry Keoghan’s psycho stick-up man enters the scene. Halle Berry and Mark Ruffalo triangulate the gripping drama as an insurer and detective caught up in the crossfire. 

One of the martial arts genre’s most imaginative fight choreographers, nearly every new movie involving Yuen Woo-ping (True Legend) is worth anticipating, and this Chinese comic adaptation finds him squarely in his zone. A traditional wuxia swordfighting epic updated with 21st century production, it boasts a stacked multigenerational cast, including Jet Li, and a classic story of a bounty hunter (Wu Jing) transporting a wanted criminal across dangerous terrain. Woo-ping uses everything at his disposal – intricate in-camera combat, ‘wire-fu’, CGI and, unfortunately, a dollop of AI – to orchestrate a nonstop barrage of headspinning action sequences that are at once visceral and fantastical, highlighted by a battle in a violent sandstorm that redefines ‘dust-up.’

Documentary-maker Morgan Neville has investigated the complicated relationship between fame and music from different vantage points in 20 Feet From Stardom and Piece by Piece. His warm and fuzzy depiction of Paul McCartney in his immediate post-Beatles era follows a musical savant starting over in the full glare of the spotlight, opening himself to ridicule and the possibility of tarnishing his Fab Four own legacy. Instead, Wings became another global success story. Man On The Run tells its story as a double romance: for his wife and bandmate Linda, and for music itself. 

Part-British indie drama, part-Nollywood period piece, Akinola Davies Jr’s first feature film somehow became the first Nigerian film to enter competition at Cannes last year. It walked away with awards recognition, too, and deservedly so. With His House and Gangs of London star Sope Dirisu as an absentee dad who appears one day to take his two young sons on a mysterious journey into Lagos, it’s a family drama that’s backdropped by political turmoil – a film that asks how you protect your kids in a world where everything is turned upside down and finds a deeply touching answer.

A toddler, who believes herself to be God, finds her earliest experiences of the world are equally marked by joy and the threat of death. If that sounds a bit heavy for a candy-coloured cartoon, in the hands of first-time feature directors Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han it’s anything but. Like its animation style, it initially seems sweet and simple, but it reveals beautiful depths in a story that’s thoroughly charming and surprisingly profound.

About as far from your usual rock doc as it’s possible to be, this tender, charming and occasionally rather weird treatise on the life of Marianne Faithfull takes as much from George Orwell’s 1984, as it does seminal Dylan doc Dont Look Back. Filmed before the iconic singer and cultural whirlwind’s death at the start of 2025, Broken English places Faithfull firmly in the pantheon of 20th century legends.

As a cultural sensation and Japan’s all-time highest-grossing live-action film, few were surprised when Kokuho took home 11 Japanese Academy Prizes in 2026. But could the appeal of this story of a dead gangster’s son who becomes a national kabuki (traditional dance theatre) icon possibly translate overseas (beyond the chin-stroker’s pen of Cannes)? The Oscars said yes, nominating Lee Sang-il’s film for Best Make-up and Hairstyling, but the movie’s phenomenal technical attributes also extend to the masterful costuming, cinematography, lighting, and art direction – all of which combine for a breathtaking on-stage finale that makes Billy Elliot look like Step Up.

Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa constructs a Kafkaesque labyrinth into which bright-eyed lawyer Kornyev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) stumbles in his chilling, compelling political thriller. Set during the Stalinist purges of the 1930s but germane to the current moment, it’s a deft exploration of repression – a Pilgrim’s Progress in which the young idealist wades into a mire of increasing despair as it becomes clear that the Soviet state is not the beacon of light he took it for. Double bill it with The Death of Stalin for the ultimate communist takedown.  

Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly is still eating interns for breakfast, only now she has to do it in the – shudder – Elias-Clarke canteen and flying in coach. The post-9/11 optimism of the superior first film has been washed away in the uncertainty of the tech, private equity and AI dominated mid-2020s, but there’s a winning honesty to a bittersweet superior that finds space for all the fan-pleasing menu items you’d expect (chic fashion, celeb cameos, big pop cues) and belting performances from all your old favourites. You don’t have to be a journalist to care about Runway mag’s travails, any more than you need to be a nanny to enjoy Mary Poppins. 

Taking the reins of Danny Boyle’s zombie franchise, Nia DaCosta (Candyman) turns down the ruminations on grief, amps up the gore and cranks the Iron Maiden, delivering a brutally entertaining sequel. Arriving just six months after its predecessor, the focus shifts to its two most compelling characters: Jack O’Connell’s malevolent cult leader and Ralph Fiennes’ iodine-slathered doctor. Fiennes, in particular, is spectacular in a performance as physical as it is soulful. If only there were an Oscar for Best Heavy Metal Interpretive Dancing.

Amanda Seyfried is Mother. That’s the honorific bestowed upon her as the founder of the Shaker religious sect in Mona Fastvold’s strange, rhapsodic musical, but it works in the Gen Z sense of the term, too. Impassioned and unwavering, she’s the anchor for what’s effectively an immigrant story, as she leads her flock out of oppressive 1700s England to the alleged promised land of America. Fastvold, meanwhile, renders their convulsing, caterwauling expressions of devotion like Busby Berkeley directing a tent revival. A truly singular experience.

Seaside auteur Mark Jenkin completes his self-proclaimed ‘Cornish trilogy’ (Bait, Enys Men) with an absolute mindbender. Set in a fishing village, it time leaps from the drab present day to a more vibrant recent past, conjuring up a mesmerising parable of entropic decline. Despite working with bigger stars (George MacKay and Callum Turner), Jenkins’ DIY filmmaking aesthetic is very much alive. Hand-cranked 16mm cameras and post-synced sound provide an ethereal atmosphere lacking in the majority of recent mainstream releases. And if that sounds too arty, come for the ‘Back to the Future with mackerel’ vibes and stay for one of the best films of the year.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, take a bow. The dynamic duo have given us a LEGO movie that worked – and then some – as well as an unlikely big-screen reboot of 21 Jump Street and a re-spinning of Spider-Man into a dazzling fresh animated franchise. So can they pull of a man-on-a-mission sci-fi that sends Ryan Gosling into the heavens to team up with an alien rock critter and lift all our spirits at a gloomy time in human existence? Naturally. Like Silent Running on a sugar high, Project Hail Mary follows The Martian as the latest of Andy Weir’s smart, humanist sci-fi novels to light up the screen. Gosling has rarely been better and Greig Fraser’s cinematography proves that, in space, it’s always magic hour.  

François Ozon does justice (and then some) to Albert Camus’ literary landmark in a sultry, sophisticated adaptation that puts the sexy into existentialism. As any literature student or will tell you, ‘L’Etranger’ always felt like an unadaptable novella but the French filmmaker cracks the code. Enigmatic colonial clerk Meursault (Benjamin Voisin), whose cold-blooded murder of an Arab man in 1940s Algeria is one of 21st century literature’s most iconic moments, is framed in ridiculously cool monochrome cinematography, a man at odds with a world of bourgeoise conventions and colonial hypocrisy. Sex, violence and the fine art of not giving a f*ck come together in a period piece that shimmers like a desert mirage. 

Paola Sorrentino went off the boil with his male-gazy misfire Parthenope, but he relocates his fire with a soulful, often exquisite political character study. It helps having his long-time muse Toni Servillo (Il Divo, The Great Beauty) bringing his canny, hangdog presence to the part of a soon-to-retire Italian president pondering weighty matters – two pardons and an assisted dying legislation – and suspicions that his much-mourned wife wasn’t entirely faithful. The writer-director leavens it all with his usual quirky wit and the gilded touch of a stylist.

Having tackled a challenging aspect of child psychology with her first film, Mascha Schilinski applies for a place among the pantheon of great German filmmakers with this ambitious, artistically assured and supremely cinematic examination of the lives of young women and girls living on a farm in rural Bavaria. Decades separate them, yet transgenerational trauma echoes and rhymes through the ages, offering a bleak yet profound glimpse into the darkest recesses of the human condition.

Pressing on a vivid bruise, Mary Bronstein’s semi-autobiographical motherhood tale will be an uncomfortable watch for many parents. Rose Byrne turns in a career-best performance as a psychotherapist and mum struggling to stay afloat as her daughter suffers through a debilitating feeding disorder. Motherhood is stripped right back to its most primal essence: a daily fight to provide for your child and yourself – all while trying to stay sane and dealing with snooty colleagues (Conan O’Brien) and absent partners.

If Burning Man is your personal vision of hell, then Óliver Laxe’s mid-apocalyptic thriller will hit like the most disturbing horror movie of the year. What starts as a mystery involving a father (Sergi López) searching for his missing daughter at a desert rave in Morocco becomes a slo-mo death crawl that evokes Mad Max: Fury Road if it were paced like William Friedkin’s Sorcerer. Sensorially, it’s a total nerve-shredder. Laxe harnesses the inherently sinister thump-and-screech of bass music to twist the phrase ‘dance like there’s no tomorrow’ into a self-fulfilling prophecy.  

Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania (Four Daughters) tunes into a heartbreaking frequency with the story of a six-year-old Palestinian girl caught in the path of the IDF. Using real audio of Hind’s final calls to the Palestinian Red Crescent, reenacted by Palestinian actors, this devastating docudrama presents a portrait of life and death in Gaza more piercing than any political commentary. Released amid the ongoing crisis, it transcends documentation and becomes an urgent act of intervention.