There’s this prevailing attitude that the movie business is chopped. Last year, AI ate it, and then Netflix ate Warner Brothers, even though Paramount wanted a bite. Everything that wasn’t Zootopia 2 flopped. Good movies would never be made again.
Well, guess what? There’s more of them. So many more. 2026 feels like less of a wildcard than last year: the big movies sound more huge than ever, but they will almost certainly make enough money for the studio fat cats to not fire people. And despite the fact that some indie studios are in crisis, the auteurs themselves persevere.
As we look ahead to a year in movies, here are all the things I think will shape it—from The Beatles movie series taking some of the It Boys out of commission, to Zendaya saying “hold my beer,” to the maybe overly hopeful prospect of a Frank Ocean movie.
The Great Internet Boyfriend Hiatus
Spare a thought for Jacob Elordi. As the only white boy not cast in The Beatles, it’s his job to carry cinema for his kind this year, with Wuthering Heights, Euphoria (TV is the new movie, after all), and the summer sci-fi movie The Dog Stars, co-starring Margaret Qualley, on his roster. Timothée Chalamet will be in hiding until Dune 3 all the way in December. Nothing new from Harris Dickinson, and the same for Paul Mescal. No Joseph Quinn until he’s strong-armed into showing up in the new Avengers movie, which is currently set to debut on the same date as Dune 3. Nothing from Jonathan Bailey.
Josh O’Connor, who just dropped three movies in a row, is the closest man to joining Elordi, I’d say, and that’s only because he’s also doing the summer sci-fi blockbuster thing. If that seems incredibly against type for a guy who likes gardening and loathes attention, it’s because Steven Fucking Spielberg is directing it, and you’d be a fool to say no to him. That movie’s called Disclosure Day.
Everyone Will See The Odyssey
It’s funny… why, in our reductive Internet BF conversations, do we never mention Tom Holland? Is it because he wholeheartedly belongs to Zendaya? Anyway, he’s also one of the few white men showing face in a major way this year, in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which feels like the kind of behemoth project that swallows up everything else this summer. There is currently no opportunity for a Barbenheimer situation, because every other studio filmmaker is terrified to go up against it. It has two weekends all to itself from the 17 July.
Speaking of Which, It’s Zendaya’s Year
In lieu of 100 white boys filling up our screens all year, we have the queen who famously dommed two of them in Challengers. If that movie feels like it happened long ago, that’s because it did. Challengers is practically two years old by now. And while Luca Guadagnino has made two films since then, with a third, Artificial, set to arrive later this year, Zendaya has released zilch.
2026 changes that: She has five projects lined up: The Odyssey, Euphoria, Dune 3, a new Spider-Man movie, and The Drama, a weirdo romantic comedy of sorts, co-starring Robert Pattinson and made by A24, which comes out in April. It feels like we’ve been flirting with the idea of calling her the movie star for a long time, in the same way we talked about the big hitters of the ’90s. Maybe 2026 is the moment it finally falls into place.
The Pop Star’s Non-Music Movies Might Materialize
Charli XCX’s position in film, as a producer and actor, has been a hit-or-miss subject for some. But I feel like The Moment, which starts hitting movie theaters on 30 January, will be what clinches her cinephile clout for many. I haven’t seen it yet, but there are folks who have approved of this so-called 2024 period piece.
We know that one is coming, but with the news that Gracie Abrams is set to make her acting debut in the next film from the director of Babygirl, it made me think about those percolating cinema projects from titans of music that have yet to materialize.
First off is Taylor Swift’s directorial debut, announced back in 2022 but, as far as we’re aware, hasn’t even started shooting yet. Many are predicting this is the year she’ll decide to put a pause on music, partly because we’ve been pummeled with it for the last half-decade. It makes sense, then, that she’ll turn her focus to film. You would think if Searchlight Pictures—who madeThe Favourite and Poor Things—had put their name behind it, they would have her script ready to go. Apparently Normal People co-writer Alice Birch gave Swift’s writing a once-over (her team has denied that), but either way, this feels like the right time for her to actually make the thing. She has a tendency to do things in secret. Maybe it’s already finished and we’re acting like dumbasses for no reason.
While we’re here, what’s happening with that Frank Ocean movie? We got “casting announcements” in the form of David Jonsson and Taylor Russell that felt like reticent reveals of information. Until it’s done, it seems like Ocean’s the kind of guy who would have probably liked to keep everything under wraps. But based on what Jonsson has said already, it seems like that movie’s at least been shot. 2026, king? Can we see it?
These Indie Movies Will Eat
Okay, we know The Odyssey will slay, and that everyone who gives a shit about the Avengers franchise will see the last-gasp attempt to revive it in December. There are inevitabilities in this industry, but they are boring. What’s more fun is picking out the movies we currently know little about that could become the best of the year.
- The Entertainment System is Down (Ruben Östlund)
The director of Triangle of Sadness makes a new disaster movie set on a plane, with Keanu Reeves and Kirsten Dunst.
- Coward (Lukas Dhont)
A Belgian soldier “discovers love and art in the trench” during WWI. From the director of the film that fucked me up most in 2023: Close.
- If Love Should Die (Mia Hansen-Løve)
The coolest woman in France directs this slightly dry-sounding biopic of the 18th-century writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft. Maybe she’ll sex it up a bit!
- Bucking Fastard (Werner Herzog)
Our boy Werner makes his narrative comeback with a Rooney-x-Kate Mara link-up about freaky twins.
- I Love Boosters (Boots Riley)
A fashion expert is the main opp of Boots Riley’s next movie, which is apparently a sci-fi comedy. Keke Palmer’s in it too.
- Tony (Matt Johnson)
Dominic Sessa plays young Anthony Bourdain in his first biopic, produced by A24.
- The Chaperones (India Donaldson)
Robert Pattinson produces this crime movie starring David Jonsson, Cooper Hoffman, and Quentin Tarantino fave Paul Dano (<3). It’s most interesting because its director made one of 2024’s best indie movies: Good One.
- Her Private Hell (Nicolas Winding Refn)
All we know is that A24 are calling this Charles Melton-starring movie “sexy, hypnotic, and unhinged”. Will it be more like Drive or The Neon Demon, though?
- The Man I Love (Ira Sachs)
The best gay sex on screen was in Ira Sachs’ Passages. TBC if the same can be said for this ’80s NYC fantasy musical, in which he’s cast Rami Malek (boo!) and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (yay!).
- Rosebush Pruning (Karim Aïnouz)
This movie has changed its cast about eight times, but seems to have finally landed on Elle Fanning, Pamela Anderson, and Callum Turner. It’s about a family plagued by illness and is written by Yorgos Lanthimos’ go-to guy.
- Look Back (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
The Japanese director of movies like Monster has made a coming-of-age story about two guys who bond over their shared love of making manga. It’s based on a popular manga series of the same name.
- An Untitled Musical (Jesse Eisenberg)
That’s not its actual title, we’re still waiting to find out what its actual name is. All we know is that Jesse Eisenberg is directing an original musical starring Julianne Moore—and for that we’re sat!
- The Long Winter (Andrew Haigh)
Expect some kind of tearjerker from the director of All of Us Strangers, with this story about grief. The novel it’s based on is set in the snowy Pyrenees, and it also stars Ebon Moss-Bachrach (busy guy!) and Heartstopper’s Kit Connor.