With Christopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig returning months apart, and studios lining up franchises, literary adaptations and auteur-led films, 2026 promises to be a great year for cinema
The year 2023 belonged to the double-bill delirium of Barbie vs Oppenheimer. Both films, before they even released in theatres, were the talking points among cinema lovers, and later, upon release, became the huge pop culture moment billed as ‘Barbenheimer’; both films filled theatres worldwide, broke box office records, and swept through awards season.
In 2026, Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan return with literary adaptations, but without the head-to-head frenzy of 2023, instead landing months apart, almost like bookends to the year. Nolan opens the big conversation in July with The Odyssey, and Gerwig closes it in November with Narnia, giving audiences time to breathe between two of the year’s most anticipated releases.
2026 barrels toward us with a stack of films that suggest Hollywood — and cinema at large — is done licking post-pandemic wounds and ready to throw everything at the wall, giving the viewers plenty of options to pick from, argue about, and return to cinemas for. With franchise tentpoles, literary adaptations, auteur passion projects and long-gap sequels arriving almost month by month, it feels like a year designed to test attention spans, streaming loyalties and box-office muscle all at once.
Spoilt for choice
On one end of the spectrum, we have the heavyweights: besides Nolan and Gerwig, there is Steven Spielberg returning to UFO territory in Disclosure Day, and the Russo brothers detonating the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) with Avengers: Doomsday, with Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Victor von Doom. Also playing in a theatre near you will be franchise films like Spider-Man: Brand New Day, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Toy Story 5, Minions 3, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, Dune: Part Three, and even The Mandalorian & Grogu.
For counterweight, 2026 will see the release of literary adaptations like Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility and Taika Waititi’s Klara and the Sun. What’s more, there will be Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Tales, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride, M. Night Shyamalan’s Remain and Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas. Add auteur curios like David Fincher and Quentin Tarantino’s The Adventures of Cliff Booth, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger, Warner Herzog’s Bucking Fastard, and Robert Eggers’ Werewulf, and you and I will be spoilt for choice.
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January itself will have a slew of films that you can’t afford to miss. If you are interested in post-apocalyptic thrillers, there is Ric Roman Waugh’s disaster sequel Greenland 2: Migration (Jan. 9), alongside in the horror genre, Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the fourth instalment in the 28 Days Later series, which explores the dark nature of humanity where survivors, not the infected, become the primary threat. There is another anticipated film, Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut The Chronology of Water, releasing on the same day.
Two-time Oscar nominee Gus Van Sant, known for films like Good Will Hunting and My Own Private Idaho, is back with his first feature since Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (2018), a biographical comedy-drama starring Joaquin Phoenix as cartoonist John Callahan. Dead Man’s Wire, a crime thriller, is based on the real-life 1977 Indianapolis hostage case of Tony Kiritsis, who wired a shotgun to his mortgage broker’s neck after feeling financially ruined by the company. It stars Bill Skarsgård as Kiritsis and features an ensemble cast, including Al Pacino and Colman Domingo. Horror enthusiasts could look out for Dracula: A Love Tale, directed by Luc Besson and starring Caleb Landry Jones as Dracula and Zoë Bleu as his wife, with Christoph Waltz as a priest hunting him, which releases on February 6.
Literary adaptations
Fennell’s Wuthering Heights (to release on February 13, Valentine Day’s eve) casts Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as Catherine and Heathcliff, stormy rather than star-crossed; others include Hong Chau, Alison Oliver, Isabella Linton, Shazad Latif, and younger doubles Owen Cooper and Charlotte Mellington. Any new screen version of Wuthering Heights inevitably arrives with a set of expectations attached to it. Emily Brontë’s fever dream of a novel has been adapted enough times and it will be interesting to see how Fennell handles it. We still remember the romanticism of the 1939 Laurence Olivier-Merle Oberon film and the physical intensity of the 1992 Ralph Fiennes-Juliette Binoche version.
A still from Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, his most expensive film yet
Its grittiest adaptation was by Andrea Arnold in 2011, which chucked the traditional gothic romance in favour of a social-realist aesthetic characterised by sparse dialogue and handheld cinematography. It was the first major adaptation to cast Black actors (James Howson as adult; Solomon Glave as child) as Heathcliff to underline his ‘otherness’ in the harsh, windswept Yorkshire moors. Fennell, British actress-filmmaker-writer, in her last two films as a director — Promising Young Woman (2020) and Saltburn (2023) — has shown her flair with the dark side of the British upper class, its love, desire and obsession. In that sense, Wuthering Heights seems a fit in Emerald Fennell’s wheelhouse.
Zhao’s Hamnet (February 19), with Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley, is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel of the same name, which explores the tragic death of William Shakespeare’s 11-year-old son, Hamnet, and its profound impact on his wife, Agnes (Jessie Buckley), and his creative process, which ultimately inspired the play Hamlet. China-born Zhao, who is helming Hamnet, shot to fame with Nomadland (2020), based on Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century.
The film follows Fern (Frances McDormand), a woman in her sixties who, after the gypsum plant closure in her rural Nevada town leaves her a widow and jobless, embarks on a new life as a modern-day, van-dwelling nomad. Fern’s physical journey across the American West is deeply intertwined with her emotional journey of processing the loss of her husband and her former stable life. The film received six nominations at the 93rd Academy Awards, and won three major Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director for Zhao (which made her the second woman and first Asian woman to win the award), and Best Actress for McDormand.
With literary adaptations releasing throughout the year, classic and contemporary novels will hold a noticeable space in cinemas throughout 2026. In 2025, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic novel, starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as the Creature, and featuring a visually stunning and typical aesthetic associated with the director, was critically acclaimed. In 2026, we will see more of Frankenstein in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride (March 6), set in 1930s Chicago, and starring Jessie Buckley as the resurrected figure, Christian Bale as the creature and Annette Bening as Dr. Euphronius.
Project Hail Mary (March 20), one of the most anticipated sci-fi films of the year, based on the novel by Andy Weir (The Martian), stars Ryan Gosling as an astronaut who wakes up on a spaceship with no memory and must use his scientific knowledge to save Earth from a solar catastrophe. Releasing on the same date is Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, which will mark the big-screen return of Tommy Shelby, set during World War II, with Cillian Murphy reprising his iconic role.
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Oakley’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (Sept. 11) marks a reunion for Focus Features and Working Title Films, who previously collaborated on acclaimed Austen adaptations like Pride & Prejudice (2005) and Emma (2020). Written by Diana Reid, the film follows the Dashwood sisters’ journey through financial instability and romance in 18th-century England after their father’s death. The cast features several notable actors, some of whom have shared the screen in previous high-profile projects, including Daisy Edgar-Jones (she plays Elinor Dashwood), who had her breakout role in Normal People.
Other adaptations will include The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (Nov. 20), based on Suzanne Collins’ own 2025 prequel novel of the same name. Francis Lawrence explores Haymitch Abernathy’s origins with Joseph Zada, Whitney Peak, McKenna Grace and Elle Fanning, amid speculation about Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson. Days later, Gerwig releases Narnia (Nov. 26), an adaption of The Magician’s Nephew, the sixth in C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia series. Waititi’s dystopian sci-fi Klara and the Sun, an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, stars Amy Adams, Jenna Ortega and Mia Tharia.
Franchises and auteur’s fares
Animated franchises will take centre stage in April. Nintendo’s universe expands further with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (April 3), which brings back Chris Pratt and Charlie Day’s Mario and Luigi, joined by Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Kevin Michael Richardson, with Benny Safdie and Brie Larson entering as Bowser Jr and Rosalina. Michael Jelenic and Aaron Horvath return to direct. On the same day, Danny Boyle’s Ink — a drama tracking Rupert Murdoch’s rise — releases with Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy.
David Frankel reunites with Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway for The Devil Wears Prada 2 (May 1), bringing back Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci, now joined by Kenneth Branagh, Simone Ashley, Justin Theroux and Lucy Liu. Later in the month, Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian and Grogu reopens the Star Wars corridor on the live-action calendar, positioning itself as a key summer release. In June, Spielberg returns with Disclosure Day (June 12), a UFO-focused science fiction project written by David Koepp, starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, Eve Hewson and Wyatt Russell. Pixar is back with Toy Story 5 (June 19) and Illumination doubles down on reliable family audiences with Minions 3 (July 1).
A still from Werner Herzog’s Bucking Fastard
Nolan’s The Odyssey (July 17), an ode to Homer with a budget of $250 million, stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, alongside Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, Elliot Page and more. Two weeks later, Destin Daniel Cretton’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day (July 31) places Tom Holland back in the suit with Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Sadie Sink, Jon Bernthal, Mark Ruffalo and others. Tom Holland’s fourth solo outing and the 38th film in the MCU, it is set after the emotional erasure that closed No Way Home, and is expected to deal with a Peter Parker who has been cut loose from his old life and forced to rebuild from scratch.
Anthony and Joe Russo release Avengers: Doomsday (Dec 18) with Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Paul Rudd, and Robert Downey Jr returning as Doctor Doom. On the same day, Denis Villeneuve continues his sand-opera with Dune: Part Three, an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah with Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Florence Pugh. Robert Eggers’ Werewulf (Dec. 25), described by him as “the darkest thing I’ve ever written,” stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Lily-Rose Depp, and Willem Dafoe.
Outside the American studio slate, there will be Iñárritu’s Digger, starring Tomas, a powerful man seeking redemption after causing a global disaster, which has been described as a ‘brutal, wild comedy of catastrophic proportions.” Herzog’s Bucking Fastard, inspired by the true story of Freda and Greta Chaplin, British identical twins who gained notoriety in the 1980s for their extreme co-dependence and synchronous behaviour, stars real-life sisters Rooney Mara and Kate Mara in their first-ever on-screen collaboration. Herzog has said that this project completes an ‘operatic triptych’ (thematic trilogy) along with his previous films Fitzcarraldo and Grizzly Man.
Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s tenth feature film, Parallel Tales (Histoires Parallèles in French), stars Isabelle Huppert, Vincent Cassel, Virginie Efira, Pierre Niney, and Adam Bessa, with a special appearance by Catherine Deneuve. While officially a French-Italian-Belgian-American co-production, it marks Farhadi’s return to France over a decade after 2013’s The Past, following his 2024 declaration that he would no longer produce films in Iran due to government restrictions on women’s rights. It draws on the sensitive aftermath of the November 2015 Paris terrorist attack.
Shyamalan’s Remain (October 23) stars Jake Gyllenhaal as an architect who arrives in Cape Cod to design a summer home while coming to terms with the loss of his family. As is typical of Shyamalan, the setup sounds simple but it will have its fair share of psychological unease, with Phoebe Dynevor and Ashley Walters playing characters who unsettle the protagonist’s sense of reality. Bitter Christmas, Almodóvar’s latest, a ‘tragic comedy about gender,’ stars Bárbara Lennie as Elsa, an advertising director who suppresses her grief through work after her mother’s death during the December holidays, eventually suffering a crisis that leads her to travel to Lanzarote with a friend.
Meanwhile, The Adventures of Cliff Booth brings together Fincher and Tarantino in an unexpected collaboration. The Netflix-backed film, written by Tarantino and directed by Fincher, spins off Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to focus entirely on Brad Pitt’s stuntman, with Timothy Olyphant, Elizabeth Debicki and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II joining the cast. With such a vast and varied line-up, 2026 spreads its bets widely. The result is not one defining moment in the mould of Barbenheimer, but a string of releases that ask audiences to keep coming back to theatres for the sheer range of cinema on offer.
