The Best Movies of 2026 (So Far)

Director: Daniel Chong
Starring: Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, Dave Franco

Hoppers is the kind of movie that reminds you why Pixar became Pixar in the first place. It’s a feel-good adventure that pulls at every heartstring, balancing memes and laughs with genuinely emotional moments that sneak up on you. The film’s greatest strength is its cast of lovable characters, who somehow make a world of talking animals feel completely believable. If you have even a little bit of a heart, there’s a good chance this one leaves you reaching for a tissue by the final act. More importantly, Hoppers feels like a major win for original storytelling at a time when sequels dominate the box office. It captures the creativity, warmth, and emotional punch that defined Pixar’s golden era, signaling a welcome return to the studio’s greatest strengths and proving there’s still plenty of magic left in original animated films. —James Granados

Director: Kane Parsons
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell

At the time of this writing, Kane Parsons has taken the 22-episode YouTube series based on an insanely viral 4chan meme and turned it into A24’s first $300 million film. How? Part of it is Parsons as a visionary; the series he created in Blender became the film he storyboarded in Blender before bringing it to life, all 30,000 square feet of set created to bring the Backrooms concept, where folks can unknowingly transport into an endless liminal space that constantly changes (and has evil lurking in the midst). At times, it felt like the Backrooms party was just getting started, but for a film like Backrooms, it’s really about being on the edge of your seat, anticipating what horrors could be awaiting you around the corner. Parsons captured that perfectly, leaving true believers wanting to book a return to the Backrooms. —khal

Director: Olivia Wilde
Starring: Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penélope Cruz, Edward Norton

The 2020 Spanish comedy The People Upstairs gets its latest remake, this time an English language remake written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones (who wrote 2012’s Celeste and Jesse Forever and have a “story by” credit on Toy Story 4) directed by Olivia Wilde (who directed 2019’s Booksmart and 2022’s Don’t Worry Darling). This version stars Wilde and Seth Rogen as a married couple who fight a lot; one day, Angela (Wilde) invites the upstairs couple (Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton) over. Joe (Rogen) doesn’t particularly like the couple, mostly due to how, um, loud they get at night, until a particular proposition arises that could be the spark Joe and Angela need…or the thing that can rip them apart. It’s a wonderfully acted film, with Norton in particular fully embracing a character you don’t normally see from him. —khal

Director: Sam Raimi
Starring: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O'Brien, Edyll Ismail, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang, Dennis Haysbert

From James Gunn’s The Belko Experiment to the rise of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, people will always love a story where the roles are reversed, and they are on a seemingly even playing field with their boss. In Sam Raimi’s first original film since 2009’s Drag Me to Hell, we get to see a toxic boss (Dylan O’Brien) belittle his assistant (Rachel McAdams), but then see how that dynamic is tested when they are suddenly stranded on a deserted island. Part Cast Away, part Misery, Raimi thrives in realms like this, where he can deliver gruesome visuals while keeping the comedy front and center. Before Obsession and Backrooms, Send Help was the early-2026 horror favorite. It didn’t last long, but the film stood tall as an examination of what happens when the name of the game is survival, no matter what insufferable prick you’re in the predicament with. —khal

Director: Kristoffer Borgli
Starring: Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Alana Haim, Mamoudou Athie, Hailey Benton Gates

A24’s The Drama became A24’s fifth film to make $100 million, with much of that credited to the buzz generated by the film's marketing campaign, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as a couple soon to be wed. Early on, the couple is going over plans for their wedding with another couple when a game of “tell me the craziest thing you’ve ever done” comes up, and Emma (Zendaya) tells the group…a secret that we won’t spoil here because, well, your reaction to the reveal can color how you view the rest of the film. Charlie (Pattinson) spends the rest of the film wrestling with how he feels about the reveal, making for some of the most awkward moments we’ve seen committed to film. It’s hilarious at times, can make you feel awful at others, and examines a particularly poignant “what if” for American society. Also, and let’s be clear here: it allows Zendaya and Pattinson, two modern masters at work, to fully lean into an awfully awkward ordeal. —khal

Director: Boots Riley
Starring: Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza González, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, Don Cheadle, Demi Moore

For his follow-up to 2018’s Sorry to Bother You, Boots Riley took a 20-year-old song from his group The Coup about boosters and turned that into an anti-capitalist live-action Looney Tunes cartoon, starring Keke Palmer as Corvette, the leader of the Velvet Gang, a group of boosters who end up pissing off the wrong designer. Only that designer Christie Smith (Demi Moore) ends up ripping off Corvette’s designs, a “never forgive” action in Corvette’s eyes that translates into all-out war on Smith’s empire, which turns into a much bigger ordeal when you look at the scope of taking on that kind of organization. Nothing is that straightforward in a Boots Riley film, though, where Corvette’s struggles follow after her in a massive ball of bills while she has to navigate Christie’s room, which is entirely slanted. It’s a vibrant, funhouse-mirror film that Keke puts on her back. Love it or can’t get into it, you cannot deny that Boots is coming up with exciting ways to deliver revolutionary tales for the masses. —khal

Director(s): Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, James Ortiz, Lionel Boyce

Project Hail Mary was one of the biggest and best surprises of 2026. Based on the novel by Andy Weir, we follow the exploits of school teacher and former molecular biologist Ryland Grace, who is tasked with saving the world from a substance called “astrophage” that would dim the sun, bringing on a new Ice Age. Ryland is recruited by an international coalition bent on figuring out how to stop the end of the world; the good news is he figures it out, but the bad news is he’s forced into a no-return mission millions of miles away from Earth. Ryan Gosling gives a heartwarming, honest performance as a man who initially wants nothing to do with saving the world but, after being forced to do so, gathers the courage to fight for the greater good. Along the way, Ryland meets a being from another planet with the same mission, as his planet is also being threatened by the same substance. Comedy, drama, heartbreak, adventure; you get everything in this film, and the relationship Ryland makes with his rock creature alien friend “Rocky” is one that will tug at your heartstrings. Two beings from totally different worlds coming together for a common good is the story the world needs right now, and this movie succeeds at that task in spades. —Jamie Iovine

Director: Aleshea Harris
Starring: Kara Young, Mallori Johnson, Janelle Monáe, Erika Alexander, Mykelti Williamson, Josiah Cross, Vivica A. Fox, Sterling K. Brown

An intoxicating revenge road film like no other, Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is, based on her award-winning 2018 play, finds twin sisters Racine and Anaia (Kara Young and Mallori Johnson) on a quest from their mother (Vivica A. Fox) to find—and kill—their father (Sterling K. Brown). Along the way, we get to learn about the two sisters, both disfigured in the horrific fire that also badly injured and disfigured their mother…and was set by their father (hence their mother’s quest). Young and Johnson pull off a dazzling display of twin magic, showcasing a lived-in bond on-screen. The cast of characters, which includes appearances from legends like Erika Alexander and Mykelti Williamson, adds some color to such a dark, sad tale while preparing the sisters (and us viewers) for what becomes a truly violent, cathartic end. A truly one-of-a-kind film, and an inspiring debut from Harris. —khal

Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo

If we’re being real, “Spielberg’s back” may not mean what it used to mean for modern theater audiences. In an era where Backrooms and Obsession (more on that later) have critics championing audiences’ desire for original IP while Hollywood execs are looking for the next Curry Barker, Spielberg’s latest epic, about terabytes’ worth of information on extraterrestrials that is being hidden from the public, is released. It’s a return to form for Spielberg, who has been making films about what’s out there since the 1970s with Close Encounters of the Third Kind; Disclosure Day very much feels like an updated take on that topic, right down to the question of where alien lifeforms fit when it comes to religion. If you aren’t a true believer, this may be a hard film to take in, as the whole point is driving towards the disclosure of this information, which means sitting shotgun with Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), who has an awkward moment during a live TV weather broadcast that suddenly takes her down a life-changing path. How much of this film’s payoff hits you depends on how much you truly believe. —khal

Director: Curry Barker
Starring: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richter

The true cinema success story of 2026 (so far), Curry Barker’s Obsession is a simple film: a guy named Bear (Michael Johnston) has a crush on a woman, Nikki (Inde Navarrette), but doesn’t have the courage to tell her that. On a whim, he uses a gift he bought for Nikki, a One Wish Willow, which looks like a gag gift that markets that it will grant your wish forreal, to have Nikki fall in love with him. It works like a charm, with something taking hold of Nikki the instant the wish is made. The rest of the film shows you what happens when you make such a selfish wish, and, like all phenomenal horror, the key is how it highlights real ills in society. It doesn’t help that Bear knows that something isn’t right with Nikki after his wish, but he decides to roll with it anyway. Barker, who is best known for his YouTube sketch channel that’s a bad idea, which he co-created with Obsession star Cooper Tomlinson, and while their style of YouTube videos is drenched in comedy, he knows a thing or two about building some truly frightening scenes. It helps that Navarrette’s stellar performance brought such a horrific ordeal to light; at one point, Bear tells Nikki to stay while he goes out to work. After a long day, one that he plans to spend further without the fully-obsessed (possessed?) Nikki, he is shocked to find out that she stayed… in the same position he left her in all day. The way Navarrette can bounce from that kind of tragic state to bouncing around the house, getting ready to go out with her “man,” is what made this terrifying scenario work. The execution was so good that instead of releasing the film digitally like originally planned in early June, Focus Features kept Obsession in theaters, where it’s not only become Focus Features' highest-grossing film of all time worldwide, but it became one of the few original films over the last decade to make $200 million at the box office; the only recent film to that was Ryan Coogler’s Oscar-winning Sinners, already putting the young filmmaker in rarefied air. —khal