10 movies we can't wait to see in 2026

As a new year of cinema beckons, we look to the upcoming releases inspiring the most excitement.

Norwegian writer/director Joachim Trier received rapturous plaudits for his wonderful, humanist comedy drama The Worst Person in the Worldthree years ago, and his follow-up movie has been getting a similar reception since premiering at Cannes earlier this year.

It sees Trier reunite with Worst star Renate Reinsve for a story about two sisters dealing with their estranged filmmaker father, played by the great Stellan Skarsgård. January 8.

Timothée Chalamet's ascension to major leading man status continues with this odd-sounding movie that has already been hailed by many as the best of 2025. Like many would-be Oscar contenders, the international rollout is somewhat delayed to benefit from buzz, so we get it this year.

Chalamet plays an aspiring ping pong champion in New York in the 1950s. We've all been waiting for a ping pong movie, we just didn't know it. January 15.

Despite the punishingly generic title, all the elements are in place for this crime thriller: it's adapted from a novella by acclaimed crime writer Don Winslow (City on Fire, Cartel), and features a heavyweight cast in the form of Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffallo, Barry Keoghan and Halle Berry.

It concerns a career criminal (Hemsworth) eyeing one last score, naturally. February 12.

New Zealand-born, England-based filmmaker Taratoa Stappard makes his feature directorial debut with this “Māori gothic” film set in 1859 England (but filmed in New Zealand), and follows the titular young Māori woman (played by Ariana Osborne) as she fights to reclaim her identity and culture in the midst of Aotearoa's colonial upheaval. The chills-inducing trailer bodes very well. February 12.

Stars Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci, director David Frankel and screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna all return for this twenty years-later sequel to the beloved comedy hit.

I am most intrigued to see how they factor in the massive reduction in the power of magazines in our culture. April 30.

Based on a UFO-centric original idea by Steven Spielberg, which was then turned into a screenplay by one of his go-to-guys, David Koepp (Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds), this mysterious project stars Josh O'Connor, Emily Blunt and Colin Firth and remained unnamed until just recently. The prospect of Spielberg being back in popcorn blockbuster mode is very exciting indeed. June 12.

Although I'm generally against Disney's live action remakes of its own animated titles, the pure Aotearoa New Zealand-iness of Moana means I can't help but be excited to see this Pacific Island fairy tale come to vivid life. July 9.

After showing that a biopic about a physicist could make a billion dollars at the box office, Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) has chosen to follow that up by adapting one of the most iconic stories in human history.

Matt Damon plays Odysseus, who just wants to go home, and is surrounded by a horse-load (sorry) of major stars that only Nolan could attract. With Nolan's refreshing emphasis on the physical filmmaking (as opposed to digital), the epicness here is guaranteed to be epic indeed. July 16.

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin takes on directing duties as well for this follow-up to his (and director David Fincher's) acclaimed origins-of-Facebook drama The Social Network (2010).

This one apparently...reckons...with how Facebook/social media resulted in the rise of you-know-who and helped propel the world into its current state of rapidly escalating chaos. Succession's Jeremy Strong plays Mark Zuckerberg this time. October 8.

The first two Dune movies covered only the first book, so this third film will take its cues from the second book, Dune Messiah, when things started to get really weird, and author Frank Herbert's points about leadership really began to coalesce.

So it's, you know, timely. Robert Pattinson joins the cast as the villain. It's impossible to imagine anyone but Denis Villeneuve pulling off the first two, so thankfully, the Canadian director is returning. December 17.