My Most Anticipated Films of the Rest of the Year

Now that we find ourselves right in the midst of the summer movie season, and people have started to reflect on the notable 2026 movies that have come out so far, I figured it’d be a good time to look ahead and talk about the movies coming out in the last four months of the year, basically encompassing the fall movie season and the start of the winter.

This is the period when the awards season truly starts, as some of the most popular film festivals around the world (Venice, Toronto, Telluride, etc.) typically begin in September, and these festivals maintain the reputation of premiering some of the more prestigious films every year, whether it be a new masterwork from a legendary filmmaker or an impressive debut from a first-time director.

Similar to my previous anticipatory post, I’m gonna talk about five upcoming films that I’m particularly excited to see, and there’s a significant number of honorable mentions at the end as well. What’s exciting too is that there’s always a bunch of films that are not on my radar; they start to gather excitement largely through word-of-mouth buzz, and oftentimes at least one or two of those films end up near the top of my favorites of the year. The sheer number of movies that come out during this period is inevitably overwhelming, as there is a palpable sense that every studio wants at least one of its films to participate in the festival run and thus qualify for awards consideration. In other words, it’s hard not to feel that the release schedule tends to leave the very best films for last.

Resident Evil (September 18th)

On the surface, it might seem a bit strange to be so excited about a new Resident Evil movie. After all, this is the franchise with the most live-action film adaptations of a video game. The first six films notably focused on Milla Jovovich’s character Alice (an original character that did not exist in the games), as she survives a zombie apocalypse brought upon by the Umbrella Corporation. These films were known for not particularly trying to resemble the video games in any meaningful way, apart from retaining the basic concept of a zombie apocalypse, so fans of the games tended to show disdain for these films. After the sixth installment officially concluded Alice’s story, the series was then rebooted with the film Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021), which was a much more straightforward attempt to faithfully adapt the first two Resident Evil video games, featuring a bunch of the most beloved characters that fans of the games wanted to see on the silver screen (such as Jill Valentine, Claire Redfield, and Leon Kennedy). But while its faithfulness to the source material was appreciated, the film didn’t really make much of an impact with audiences, as it was considered a fairly pedestrian take on a zombie outbreak, further indicating that perhaps the franchise had run its course and thus needed to rest in peace at last.

So again, why am I excited for the eighth installment of this tired franchise? The second reboot of the series? The answer is that the writer/director at the helm of this film is Zach Cregger, one of the most exciting horror filmmakers working today. His films Barbarian (2022) and Weapons (2025) have already been rightfully considered modern classics of the horror genre, as they showcased some astonishing craftsmanship, impeccable tonal balancing of humor and terror, unforgettable performances, fascinatingly open-ended themes, and a truly rare sense of unpredictability. That’s perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of a Zach Cregger film, the fact that you never really feel certain about what’s coming next, and usually the answer to that question is a lot more disturbing and absurd than anyone could have imagined.

The other thing that’s really exciting about this newest rendition of Resident Evil is that Cregger is a self-professed fan of the video games, and he has said that his main goal was to evoke the spirit and the mechanics of the games while telling a self-contained original story. He’s also made it clear that zombies won’t be the only creatures featured in the film, as there will be all kinds of terrifying monsters that audiences can look forward to seeing and fearing. In effect, Cregger has essentially chosen the middle ground in terms of adapting the source material, which I honestly think is the best approach for taking a video game’s concept and bringing it to vivid cinematic life.

Along with the great lead actor Austin Abrams (who memorably played the drug addict James in Weapons), and the talented cinematographer Dariusz Wolski (known for his work on the Pirates of the Caribbean films and for being Ridley Scott’s most frequent collaborator), Resident Evil is shaping up to be a real treat for both fans of the games as well as general fans of the horror genre. It is the closest thing I have to a birthday film (as my birthday is on September 20th), and much to my petty chagrin, my good friend Jake has his birthday coinciding precisely with the film’s release on September 18th.

So Jake, if you’re reading this, I sincerely hope you enjoy celebrating your birth by watching this frightening, hellish nightmare featuring grotesque creatures 😂, and I can’t wait to watch it with ya.

Digger (October 2nd)

Digger is a particularly interesting film because not much has been revealed about it, very little footage has been shown, and yet the few things that have been disclosed sound quite intriguing. The writer/director is Alejandro G. Iñárritu, mainly known for his back-to-back Oscar-winning films Birdman (2014) and The Revenant (2015). Being described as a satirical dark comedy of “catastrophic proportions,” the film revolves around the titular character Digger Rockwell, a billionaire oil tycoon (who is apparently considered the most powerful man in the world) forced to save humanity from an ecological disaster caused by his very own company. With a high budget of $125 million and a scheduled release in IMAX, it’s pretty insane that a dark comedy with an entirely original concept is being given this kind of large scope, although the element that surely helped Iñárritu gather such considerable resources is the fact that the actor playing Digger is none other than Tom Cruise, who is also producing the film.

For the last two decades, Cruise has primarily been known as an action star, most notably due to the Mission: Impossible films, which is arguably the most acclaimed action franchise in cinematic history. But despite the tremendously enjoyable action movies that Cruise has made as of late, many fans of his work have admittedly found themselves longing for the sheer range of roles he chose in the 90s, as there was a lot of versatility and risk-taking in his best performances, as seen in A Few Good Men (1992), Interview with the Vampire (1994), Jerry Maguire (1996), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), and Magnolia (1999). Those are five entirely different kinds of performances, each of them remarkable in its own way, and there are many more great performances to choose from his inimitable filmography, which is why it always felt like a bit of a shame that Cruise had chosen to mainly make action movies during the 21st Century.

All that being said, now that he has officially finished his run of Mission: Impossible films, Cruise has apparently been expressing a desire to showcase his range once more, and his role of Digger Rockwell certainly seems like a good opportunity to do so, as he is wearing extensive old-age prosthetics and speaking in a cartoonish Southern accent. Anyone who saw Cruise’s supporting turn as the irate studio executive Les Grossman in the comedy classic Tropic Thunder (2008) can attest to the fact that Cruise is nothing if not committed to the bit, so it’ll be interesting to see him in a more absurdist mode, working alongside an incredibly ambitious filmmaker like Iñárritu, as well as the supremely gifted cinematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki (whose stunning work has been sorely missed by films fans), and a stacked supporting cast that includes the likes of Jesse Plemons, Sandra Hüller, John Goodman, Emma D'Arcy, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Sophie Wilde.

The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth (November 25th)

One of the most extraordinary films of the last few years was Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), a hilariously irreverent yet heartbreakingly reflective piece of historical fiction that depicted the fading stardom of the seasoned TV actor Rick Dalton (played with piercing vulnerability by Leonardo DiCaprio) in 1969, serving as the perfect outdated symbol for the end of an era, while the film simultaneously offers an alternate, much more optimistic fate to the life of the up-and-coming actress Sharon Tate (played with an infectious radience by Margot Robbie). And amongst all the great characters that the film contains, both real and fictional, the standout was arguably Cliff Booth, the mysterious and fiercely loyal stunt double (played with pure calm charisma by Brad Pitt, in his first and only Oscar-winning performance).

Most fans of the film assumed that Tarantino was only going to provide audiences with further tales of Cliff Booth in the form of his novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and this was indeed the case. After all, given Tarantino’s strictly insisted and frankly ludicrous claim that he’ll only direct 10 films (I remain fairly confident in my belief that he’ll end up directing more than 10, but then again he might just be annoyingly stubborn enough to be true to his word), it is still widely assumed that his last film will be an original project rather than a sequel or prequel to any of his previous works.

That’s why it was so genuinely shocking when the news came out last year (on April Fool’s Day no less, which made matters considerably more confusing given that this is decidedly not a prank) that Tarantino had written a standalone sequel to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood called The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, that Netflix had given the film a $200 million budget, and that it would be directed by David Fincher, the meticulous mastermind known for making Zodiac (2007), The Social Network (2010), and Gone Girl (2014). Not much is known about the film itself, other than it is set in 1977, Booth has reportedly become a Hollywood “studio fixer,” and he is accompanied by an ensemble cast of characters played by Elizabeth Debicki, Scott Caan, Carla Gugino, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Peter Weller, Holt McCallany, and Timothy Olyphant (who is reprising his role as James Stacy from the previous film).

It goes without saying that the most exciting aspect of this film is the unexpected collaboration between Tarantino and Fincher, two completely different filmmakers with very distinctive sensibilities. As far as I can tell, the only connection I can find between their two filmographies is that they both have a fondness for witty mile-a-minute dialogue and visceral violence, but their visual styles couldn’t be further apart. That’s why it’ll certainly be interesting to see the marriage of their sensibilities on the silver screen, and I couldn’t be more relieved that Netflix has given the film an IMAX release on November 25th (which is almost a whole month before its streaming release on December 23rd), because this is the kind of special cinematic event that film fans deserve to watch in the best viewing format available.

Ray Gunn (December 18th)

Something that’s always exciting and worth celebrating is whenever a passion project that has languished for years in development hell finally comes to fruition. That is very much so the case with Brad Bird’s Ray Gunn, an animated neo-noir science fiction film that Bird has been trying to make since the early 90s, even before he started working on his incredible (pun retroactively intended) directorial debut, The Iron Giant (1999).

This throwback to the film noirs and sci-fi films of the 30s and 40s revolves around the titular character Ray Gunn (voiced by Sam Rockwell), the last human private detective in a futuristic, Art Deco-style city named Metropia. We watch as he’s drawn into a high-stakes case involving murder, aliens, and a world-famous pop star named Venus Nova (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), whose scandals threaten her life.

It’ll surprise no one that I’m a huge fan of Brad Bird, as his Pixar run of The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), and Incredibles 2 (2018) cemented his reputation as one of the most accomplished animation filmmakers in the history of the medium. He’s also showcased his ability to make energetic live-action films in the case of the gloriously entertaining Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) and the underrated plea for optimism that Tomorrowland (2015) offers. But beyond the reliably high quality that Bird brings to each of his projects, I’m also inevitably drawn to this movie because of its genre mixture of noir and sci-fi, which happens to be a subgenre that I have a lot of fondness for. That rain-soaked, shadowy aesthetic of films like Blade Runner (1982), Dark City (1998), The Matrix (1999), and Minority Report (2002) has always felt to me like the coolest look that a movie could possibly have, so the notion of an animation master utilizing that irresistible style to spin a mystery yarn that he’s been wanting to make for over 30 years is tremendously thrilling.

Now, at this current moment, Netflix is distributing the film and they have not given it a theatrical release, so I really do hope that it gets at the very least the week-long theatrical engagement that most high-profile Netflix films receive. As much as I appreciate that Netflix tends to fund a lot of passion projects for acclaimed filmmakers, I do wish that they had more of an interest in the theatrical experience and that they were less stubbornly reliant on their streaming model, which is inevitably going to make Ray Gunn feel like one of countless animated movies on their platform rather than a special work of art that deserves to be seen on the silver screen.

But regardless of how it winds up being released, I’m still just happy that Brad Bird finally got to make this passion project, and since his longtime collaborator Michael Giacchino is composing the score, you know we’re gonna get some impeccably jazzy music to complement the old-school milieu of the film.

Dune: Part Three (December 18th)

And lastly, this year is truly ending with a bang, as we are getting the much-anticipated conclusion to the Dune Trilogy, one last foray into the desert sands of Arrakis.

On every conceivable front, Dune: Part Three has the potential to go down in film history as a significant achievement. It is the last time that the visionary writer/director Denis Villeneuve will make a film for this franchise, and given the fact that the narrative is essentially the conclusion of Paul Atreides’ tragic character arc, it feels like the perfect installment for Villeneuve to end on a high note. The Dune films represent my favorite version of the Chosen One narrative, as they approach the notions of predetermined fate and omnipotence with a cautionary tone, offering audiences a truly rare experience in which the main character of a blockbuster space opera goes from being a well-meaning, naive, idealistic prince to a tyrannical, all-seeing, regretful emperor.

It’s worth noting that this is the first Dune film to be primarily shot on 65mm film, as the previous films were shot on IMAX-certified digital cameras, and that digital footage was then printed onto 35mm film stock. Given that Greig Fraser (the brilliant cinematographer of the first two films) is currently busy filming the four Beatles movies, he has been replaced by Linus Sandgren, another excellent cinematographer known for his vibrantly colorful work on La La Land (2016), No Time to Die (2021), and Saltburn (2023).

Along with what is sure to be a typically thunderous score by Hans Zimmer, and a murderers' row of actors that includes Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Florence Pugh, Rebecca Ferguson, Isaach de Bankolé, Charlotte Rampling, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert Pattinson, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin, Dune: Part Three is going to deliver the kind of big-screen world-building spectacle that has not been seen in such a fully realized, artistically accomplished manner since Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which is the ultimate complement I can give to a film within the sci-fi/fantasy realm.

Now here’s a bunch of honorable mentions, films that I’m looking forward to seeing sometime during this packed season of releases:

• Hope (September 9th)

• The Weight (September 18th)

• Primetime (September 25th)

• Animals (October 9th)

• Fjord (October 9th)

• Whalefall (October 16th)

• The Only Living Pickpocket in New York (October 16th)

• Clayface (October 23rd)

• Wildwood (October 23rd)

• Godzilla Minus Zero (November 6th)

• La Bola Negra (November 6th)

• Wild Horse Nine (November 6th)

• Paper Tiger (November 13th)

• The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (November 20th)

• Behemoth! (December 4th)

• The Debut (December 11th)

• Avengers: Doomsday (December 18th)

• Werwulf (December 25th)

There are also a few intriguing films that are currently undated but supposedly coming out sometime this year, such as Anton Corbijn’s A Talent for Murder, Casey Affleck’s Company, and Jeremy Saulnier's Slayground.