From large-scale fantasies from blockbuster titans Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve to arthouse films from Japanese master Hirokazu Koreeda and genre filmmakers Gregg Araki, Jane Schoenbrun and more, 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most exciting film years of the decade. Here are the films the A Rabbit’s Foot team are looking forward to the most.
Dune: Part Three/The Odyssey (dir. Christopher Nolan/Denis Villeneuve)
Two titans of the modern blockbuster are set to go head to head this year in a battle of the epics. Dune: Part Three will see Denis Villeneuve return to the sandworm-infested Arrakis alongside his Lisan al-Gaib Timothée Chalamet, while Christopher Nolan, still fresh off his best picture win for Oppenheimer in 2024, trades atom bombs for wooden horses in his large-scale retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey.
Release date: 18th December, 2026 (Dune: Part Three)/17th July, 2026 (The Odyssey)
Zi (dir. Kogonada)
Kogonada’s recent studio feature Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025) didn’t exactly measure up to his previous films (the arthouse gems Columbus and After Yang), but his next feature Zi, premiering at Sundance, promises a return to his indie roots. Set in Hong Kong over the course of one night, the film follows an isolated young woman whose life is changed after a chance meeting with a mysterious stranger. Starring Kogonada alumni Michelle Mao and Hayley Lu Richardson.
Release date: 24th January, 2026 (Sundance Film Festival)
Look Back (dir. Hirokazu Koreeda)
Beloved Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda will be adapting Kiyotataka Oshiyama’s Look Back (itself an adaptation of the web manga of the same name), a tender but powerful coming of age drama about fate and friendship that follows two young animators who, despite vastly different styles, form an unlikely partnership. It’s hard not to groan at news of animated films getting the live-action treatment, but the prospect of seeing arguably Japan’s greatest contemporary filmmaker put his spin on one of the best animated flicks of the last few years is too good to pass up.
Release date: TBC
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (dir. Jane Schoenbrun)
We still get chills looking back at Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw The TV Glow, which has cemented itself as one of the great horror films of the decade so far. The filmmaker’s latest sees them turn their sights from the psychological to the slasher, with Schoenbrun paying homage to the “sleepover classic” with a grisly tale about a queer filmmaker hired to direct the latest installment of a long-running slasher franchise.
Release date: TBC
Moonglow (dir. Isabel Sandoval)
We’ve been longtime fans of Filipino-American auteur Isabel Sandoval (Lingua Franca, Senórita), who is premiering her long-anticipated neo-noir Moonglow at the International Film Festival Rotterdam this February. Set in 1960’s Manila, the film follows a jaded detective hiding a double life as a criminal mastermind, who must partner with her former lover, a relentless, truth-obsessed detective himself, to solve a heist that she committed.
Release date: February, 2026 (International Film Festival Rotterdam)
I Want Your Sex (dir. Gregg Araki)
We hope Gregg Araki never changes, and with I Want Your Sex, it looks like we’ll be getting more of the same darkly funny, raunchy and punkish treatment that made us fall in love with him in the first place. His first film since White Bird in a Blizzard in 2014, I Want Your Sex will see Araki playing with an updated arsenal of stars, including Cooper Hoffman, Charli XcX and Chase Sui Wonders, and follows Hoffman as a young man who lands a job as assistant (and, soon, sexual muse), for provocative artist Olivia Wilde.
Release date: 23rd January, 2026 (Sundance Film Festival)
Digger (dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu)
Though Tom Cruise has remained one of Hollywood’s most beloved blockbuster stars thanks to recent additions in the Mission:Impossible franchises and Top Gun: Maverick, long have the true Cruise-heads wanted to see the action star return to the arthouse sensibility we saw in films like Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia. With Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s black comedy Digger—starring Cruise as “the most powerful man in the world [who] embarks on a mission to prove that he is the saviour of humanity”—it looks like we’ll finally get our wish.
Release date: 2nd October, 2026
The Adventures of Cliff Booth (dir. David Fincher)
A crossover of American auteurism that sounds as if it was plucked right out of a film-bro’s fantasy, The Adventures of Cliff Booth will see Brad Pitt reprise his instantly iconic role from Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood in this sequel to the film that is penned by Tarantino and helmed by David Fincher (The Social Network, Vertigo).
Release date: Summer, 2026
Blue Heron (dir. Sophy Romvy)
Canadian-Hungarian director Sophy Romvy’s feature debut Blue Heron shot to the top 10 of our most anticipated movies of 2026 after it stunned audiences at Locarno last year, with Romvy leaving the festival with the award for best first feature. Loosely based on Romvy’s own childhood, the 1990s-set drama is told through the eyes of eight year old Sasha (Eylul Guven), the youngest of a Hungarian family of six who relocate to Vancouver Island and must navigate the trials and tribulations of their new life.
Release date: TBC
I Love Boosters (dir. Boots Riley)
The ever-outspoken and sharply political filmmaker Boots Riley is back with a new feature after first wowing audiences with the delightfully rumbunctious Sorry To Bother You in 2018 and the TV series I’m a Virgo in 2023. Starring an ensemble cast including everyone from Keke Palmer and Lakeith Stanfield to Don Cheadle and Demi Moore, the film revolves around a group of professional shoplifters who decide to take revenge on the cutthroat fashion maven (Moore) that had previously wronged them.
Release date: 22nd May, 2026
Disclosure Day (dir. Steven Spielberg)
What if we weren’t alone in the universe? It’s a question that director Steven Spielberg has asked more than a few times over the course of his monolithic career, and with his mysterious new feature Disclosure Day, he’s seemingly still finding new ways to bring the age-old obsession to the big screen. Starring Emily Blunt, Josh O. Connor and Colin Firth, the film explores humanity’s reaction upon discovering proof of extra terrestrial life.
Release date: 12th June, 2026
The Devil Wears Prada 2 (dir. David Frankel)
In some circles, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is the most anticipated movie by a country mile—and for good reason. A sequel to the beloved comedy-drama classic that will see Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway reprise their roles as influential fashion editor Miranda Priestly and her assistant-turned-right hand woman Andy Sachs. Get your heels out for this one.
Release date: 1st May, 2026
Wuthering Heights (dir. Emerald Fennell)
Love her or hate her, a new film by Emerald Fennell is bound to court controversy. Her third feature, following the polarising Saltburn and Promising Young Woman, is an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic 1847 novel, with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi playing the iconic roles of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. Expect this to dominate the conversation when it releases in February.
Release date: 11th February, 2026
The Social Reckoning (dir. Aaron Sorkin)
The Adventures of Cliff Booth isn’t the only semi-sequel to premiere in 2026. David Fincher’s The Social Network is also getting the same treatment, with the original movie’s screenwriter Aaron Sorkin stepping into the director’s chair this time around to tell the story of how Facebook engineer Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) blew the whistle on the social network’s most guarded secrets. More a spiritual sequel than anything, this time around we’ll see Jeremy Strong as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Release date: 12th June, 2026
Continue Reading
