Now that the long and exhausting awards season is finally over, we can get back to the films that will actually shape the conversation this year. More than that, it’s worth saying: there’s always something playing at a theater near you, new or old. Supporting theater chains like AMC and indie venues alike is essential year-round, not just when a blockbuster drops or when Emerald Fennell decides to make an extremely sexual adaptation of a 19th-century classic. Cinema moves pop culture, and this year, it’s going to be very hard to look away.
The Odyssey by Christopher Nolan
Nolan movies feel like a great ladder. An actor starts as a supporting player in one of his films, helps a slightly bigger-name actor get their flowers, and then (if the stars align) becomes the chosen one when he adapts a book or a period piece. In The Odyssey, Nolan checks all three boxes at once, finally crowning longtime collaborator Matt Damon as the lead in his retelling of the Greek king Odysseus’s journey home.
But in all seriousness, it is genuinely admirable how Christopher Nolan manages to generate a frenzy around his films as films but not around the source material, not around the cast. Few directors can pull that off. Here, the Oscar-winning director of Oppenheimer makes it clear that the stellar ensemble (Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, and Robert Pattinson, among others) and the challenge of adapting one of Western literature’s foundational texts are almost beside the point — the audience simply wants another monumental Nolan experience.
The first film shot entirely on IMAX has been the most anticipated release of the year, even with scarce footage and a single trailer offering very little. A six-minute clip, emphatically not a trailer, showing Damon and company infiltrating Troy via the famous wooden horse has been screened exclusively at IMAX presentations.
Release date: July 17, 2026
Digger by Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Is Tom Cruise really the “president of movies,” as Twitter once crowned him? Probably yes. Is he also a somewhat, let’s say, controversial figure? Also yes. Could this be his long-overdue shot at an Oscar? Absolutely. In Digger, Cruise plays the most powerful man in the world, racing to save humanity from a catastrophe he himself set in motion.
Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the filmmaker behind Birdman and The Revenant, has a track record of guiding his leads straight to the Best Actor podium, as he did with Michael Keaton and Leonardo DiCaprio, respectively. On top of that, Cruise is rumored to be wearing a prosthetic nose and a bald cap, which doesn’t mean much except that he will absolutely look unhinged in the best way.
Digger also stars Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall), Jesse Plemons (Bugonia), and Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal). The Warner Bros. release hits theaters in October.
Release date: October 2, 2026
The Invite by Olivia Wilde
Sundance Institute
Olivia Wilde has had quite the journey. Booksmart was a genuine triumph. Don’t Worry Darling was — let’s say — a lot of things. The Invite feels like a piece from a filmmaker with something to prove, and if Sundance is any indication, she proved it. The film follows a married couple whose dinner party with their upstairs neighbors spirals into an evening of unexpected revelations—the neighbors, it turns out, are swingers. Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton round out the cast, which is already reason enough to show up.
A24 acquired the film after a bidding war that reportedly surpassed $12 million. Critics at Sundance compared it to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which is either the highest compliment or a lot of pressure, depending on how you look at it. Either way, the film hits theaters in June and feels like the kind of adult comedy that Hollywood keeps saying it doesn’t make anymore.
Release date: June 26, 2026
Fjord by Cristian Mungiu
The best part of any cinematic year is the chance to champion films outside the North American circuit. Even better when Renate Reinsve is in one of them. The hypnotic Norwegian actress stars in Fjord alongside Sebastian Stan, the Winter Soldier of countless Marvel films, as a binational couple who relocate to rural Norway and become the center of a narrative of intense scrutiny involving their children. You can’t get more European than that.
Reinsve starred in Sentimental Value last year, which won Best International Film at the 2026 Oscars. She is also the star of The Worst Person in the World, for which she won Best Actress at Cannes. Stan, beyond being a globally recognizable name, has been quietly building a remarkable arthouse résumé with films like A Different Man and The Apprentice, the latter earning him the Silver Bear for acting at the Berlin Film Festival.
Do awards equal great acting? Not necessarily, but in this case, it’s genuinely exciting to see two actors with such different trajectories venturing into auteur territory without sacrificing their mainstream appeal. Fjord is expected to compete for the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year. It’s a model that proves you don’t have to live and die by Hollywood.
Release date: August 19, 2026
Backrooms by Kane Parsons
This is not an article about how incredible Renate Reinsve is. I promise. But Reinsve alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor in an A24 adaptation of Backrooms? Count me in. The found-footage phenomenon started just four years ago on the YouTube channel of Kane Pixels, but the response was so overwhelming that it spawned its own sub-genre of creepypasta, an expanding video series, and eventually a deal with A24. The casting of Ejiofor and Reinsve only raised the bar further. Parsons, who signed on to direct the film at just twenty years old, has inspired equal parts admiration and envy from cinephiles worldwide.
For a long time, the whole thing was shrouded in mystery. But the teaser released in January sparked real conversation — not just about the project’s potential, but about whether this is a genuine artistic endeavor or Hollywood capitalizing on the hype around a niche and genuinely bizarre corner of internet folklore.
Release date: May 29, 2026
Untitled Sam Altman Film by Luca Guadagnino
David Fincher already proved that making a film about a living tech mogul is not only possible but can be done with extraordinary skill: The Social Network, a biopic about Facebook’s founder, came out in 2010. More than that, a new film based on Zuckerberg’s life is coming later this year, starring Mikey Madison, and it deserves its own article entirely. But in an era of misinformation and algorithm-generated content, an even more elusive figure is reigniting the curiosity that Zuckerberg sparked fifteen years ago: Sam Altman, the creator of OpenAI.This untitled film, directed by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name), has everything it needs to demystify a figure who is actively shaping the age of artificial intelligence while still living behind smoke and mirrors.
Guadagnino is a prolific director, releasing three films in the last year and a half alone: Challengers, Queer, and After the Hunt. He is drawn to stories about repressed and sometimes obsessive human desire, and his characters tend to operate from a place of cynicism. Andrew Garfield, who played Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network, will now step into the role of Altman himself. The screenplay is by Simon Rich, who, perhaps not coincidentally, was Zuckerberg’s classmate at Harvard. A project full of full-circle moments for Silicon Valley.
Release date: Unconfirmed date (2026)
Cry to Heaven by Tom Ford
Now, we have Adele making her acting debut in a period drama about castrated opera boys. Oh, and directed by Tom Ford. Are you not sold yet? This is the fashion mogul’s first film in almost ten years, returning to a world he understands best: fashion, art, desire.
Cry to Heaven is an adaptation of the Anne Rice novel of the same name, and Ford self-financed the whole project to retain full creative control. Expected to release in the fall, this one will make noise regardless. Want more? Joining Adele are Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hunter Schafer, Colin Firth, and a cast that reads like an awards season fever dream. Don’t know how else to convince you.
Release date: Autumn 2026
Poetic License
There is something quietly radical about Maude Apatow’s directorial debutshe cast her mother, Leslie Mann, and made a better Apatow film than her father has in years. Poetic License follows two college best friends who unravel as they compete for the attention of a middle-aged woman auditing their poetry workshop. Cooper Hoffman and Andrew Barth Feldman star alongside Mann, and by all accounts, the three of them are the reason the film works as well as it does.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025 to strong reviews and arrived in theaters in May. It won’t dominate the cultural conversation the way some entries on this list will, but sometimes the best thing a film can do is be exactly what it set out to be.
Countless films will headline the next awards season, and some on this list may disappoint. But in the end, what matters is being in the room, or rather, in the theater, for the creators who make it all happen.
