The 10 must-see films in 2026 from $250,000,000 epic to sought-after sequel

This year has been a jam-packed one for movies, with the blockbuster success of family film continuing thanks to Lilo & Stitch, Zootropolis 2 and the irrepressible A Minecraft Movie.

Plus, let’s not forget that an animated sequel barely anyone would have seen in the UK has ended up the fifth highest-grossing film of all time.

Meanwhile, superheroes struggled to soar with James Gunn’s Superman just about taking flight while Marvel’s Thunderbolts* ended up the studio’s second lowest-performing release ever at the box office.

Snow White ended up an expensive PR disaster for Disney too, as Oscar winner Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite follow-up Mickey 17 sank without trace and Dwayne Johnson’s best actor Academy Award hopes aren’t as healthy as hoped after The Smashing Machine’s poor performance.

But we also had unexpected gems like The Ballad of Wallis Island and Pillion, showing the British film industry still thrives against the odds, while One Battle After Another seemed to give the 2026 awards season a boost – and we’ve ended it all with the one-two spectacle punch of Wicked: For Good and Avatar: Fire and Ash.

But with Christmas over and done with and our thoughts turning to January, here’s a look at some of the biggest, boldest and most talked about films set for release in 2026…

Wuthering Heights

It’s the most fervently discussed movie of 2026 after fans were stirred up first by director Emerald Fennell casting Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in the lead roles, and then by the decidedly raunchy first trailer for Wuthering Heights.

And did you clock the inverted commas around the title on the poster – internet sleuths demand to have their theories confirmed.

But coming from the same mind that brought you Saltburn and it looks like (from the very small snippet we’ve seen so far) this adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel will be anything but your average staid period drama.

And I, for one, can’t wait for it to rip up the rulebook – who wants to see what we’ve seen before already, several times on screen, from this new interpretation?

Wuthering Heights is in cinemas from February 13.

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man

Peaky Blinders has become one of the biggest TV shows of the 21st century, as well as a general cultural phenomenon, thanks to the writing of creator Steven Knight (now busy penning the next James Bond movie) and mesmerising acting of leading man Cillian Murphy.

This made Murphy an international star long before his Oscar-winning turn in Sir Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, and now he’s back to finish the story of brutal Birmingham gang leader Tommy Shelby.

Moving the action on from the 1920s and ’30s to the chaos of WW2 Britain,Tommy is set to face ‘his most destructive reckoning yet’ according to an official synopsis, as he returns from self-imposed exile to choose whether to confront his legacy – or burn it to the ground.

Stephen Graham, Sophie Rundle, Packy Lee and reprise their roles from the series alongside franchise newcomers Rebecca Ferguson, Barry Keoghan and Tim Roth.

The Immortal Man hits cinemas on March 6 before streaming exclusively on Netflix from March 20.

Project Hail Mary

Flying slightly more below the radar for next year but still absolutely worthy of your time is Project Hail Mary, a big screen adaptation of the novel by Andy Weir.

He also wrote The Martian, the film of which Sir Ridley Scott directed, so we know his stories have major cinematic potential.

Ryan Gosling stars as a schoolteacher and former microbiologist in the near future, who is recruited by former European Space Agency worker Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller) to help with a last-ditch mission to save Earth from a catastrophic ice age thanks to the Sun’s dimming.

Waking up alone in space with amnesia, the trailer also reveals to us that he makes an extremely useful alien engineer friend.

Project Hail Mary releases in cinemas on March 20.

The Devil Wears Prada 2

Photos from the set of this highly anticipated sequel have made fans just as giddy as the announcement that we would finally be getting a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, 20 years later.

One of the most popular comedy-dramas/book adaptations of the noughties following Anne Hathaway’s hapless fashion magazine intern Andy also gave birth to the cinematic icon that is Meryl Streep playing ice queen editor Miranda Priestly (nabbing her 14th Oscar nomination in the process).

While very little has been officially confirmed so far, we do know that Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci are reprising their roles alongside Hathaway and Streep, and the story is expected to follow that of author Lauren Weisberger’s 2013 follow-up novel Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns.

The first trailer has simply teased Andy and Miranda’s reunion to the strains of Madonna’s Vogue as the power-dressed former assistant joins the industry titan in a lift, where Miranda announces casually: ‘Took you long enough.’

A promising start!

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is set to launch in cinemas on May 1.

Disclosure Day

So little was known about legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s next movie that we didn’t even have a confirmed title until the first trailer for Disclosure Day dropped earlier this month.

Featuring some creepy-sounding stuttering and clicking from Emily Blunt as she struggles to deliver a weather bulletin, the voice over asks: ‘If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you – proved it to you – would that frighten you?’

Disclosure Day has thrilled fans as Spielberg returns to the sci-fi genre (and aliens specifically) with an original idea (not a sequel, reboot, spin-off or adaptation!) after E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The trailer also features animals approaching humans, a nun grappling with her faith in the light of current events and glimpses of Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth and Colman Domingo.

Disclosure Day is in cinemas from June 12.

Toy Story 5

Disney is determined to hammer away at its relentless strategy of live-action remakes and sequels with mixed artistic success, but Toy Story 5 will hopefully prove worth it.

Seven years on from road trip movie Toy Story 4 with new owner Bonnie and her homemade toy Forky (Tony Hale), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack) and the gang face the greatest challenge yet to playtime – electronics.

Bonnie is enamoured with her new tablet, Lilypad (Greta Lee), while Woody (Tom Hanks) has been busy helping abandoned toys.

The teaser trailer didn’t reveal much and fans expected Toy Story 4 to be this classic Disney Pixar franchise’s final movie, but the series has yet to dip below a huge 96% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes – long may it continue.

Toy Story 5 hits cinemas on June 19.

The Odyssey

It’s not a bold statement to declare The Odyssey the biggest film of next year, given that it’s directed and written by Sir Christopher Nolan, following on from his Oscar-winning success with Oppenheimer, and reported to have a $250million (£184.9m) budget.

Add to that it’s the first big-budget adaptation of Homer’s epic poem, featuring one of the most famous heroes of Greek mythology, and stars the likes of Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland and Zendaya, and I for one am frothing at the mouth in anticipation.

Yes, we’ve already had criticism of its costumes from the historical accuracy brigade, given its specific period setting, as well as the film’s dark hue – but I’m ready to give Nolan the benefit of the doubt.

As with Wuthering Heights, we’re probably in for a bold interpretation – and we’ve got all manner of mythical beast and creature to look forward to, from the Cyclops and the six-headed sea monster Scylla to the Sirens.

The Odyssey releases in cinemas on July 17.

Digger

Now he’s finished exhausting himself with death-defying spectacle in the Mission: Impossible franchise (allegedly), Tom Cruise is back with an unexpected bang.

Another movie we knew almost nothing about, this is the Hollywood mega-star’s collaboration with Oscar-winning director of The Revenant and Birdman, Alejandro G. Iñárritu.

It was revealed to be called Digger just this month, with the tagline ‘a comedy of catastrophic proportions’, as the teaser trailer dropped, showing Cruise in silhouette and wearing shorts and cowboy boots dancing with a shovel.

This is absolutely not what anyone would have predicted, and all the more intriguing for it, as is the film’s supporting cast, which includes Jesse Plemons, Sandra Hüller, Riz Ahmed, Emma D’Arcy and John Goodman.

Digger is set to launch in cinemas on October 2.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping

Fans were already buzzing for this return to the franchise, based on author Suzanne Collins’ prequel novel of the same name published just this year.

Sunrise on the Reaping boasted an impressive cast already, including Mckenna Grace, Jesse Plemons and Ralph Fiennes supporting rising stars Joseph Zada as a young Haymitch Abernathy and Whitney Peak as his love interest, Lenore Dove Baird, during the 50th Hunger Games.

But now it’s been confirmed that Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson will also be reprising their respective roles from the original four films, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark.

I’m expecting Hunger Games to have a moment all over again, 14 years after the first adaptation – and more so than 2023’s Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes managed, despite its respectable box office haul of $349m (£258m) on a $100m (£74m) budget.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is in cinemas from November 20.

Dune: Part Three

Denis Villeneuve concludes his epic space opera, starring Timothée Chalamet, with Dune: Part Three.

The first two films received a lot of attention from the Academy Awards, winning gongs for best sound, editing, visual effects, score, cinematography and production design.

This third instalment, based on Frank Herbert’s 1969 sequel novel Dune Messiah, sees Robert Pattison (likely as the villain) join a sprawling cast that already includes Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin and Anya Taylor-Joy.

Dune and Dune: Part Two made a lot of sci-fi nerds and cinephiles extremely happy (me more so the second time around), so expect more of the same.

Dune: Part Three hits cinemas on December 18.

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