The Best Movies of 2026 – Updated February 2026

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.