The Best Films of 2026 (So Far)

2026 has been the year cinema stopped apologising for itself. A Nolan epic shot entirely on IMAX film, a Ryan Gosling space caper that filled multiplexes, and a run of arthouse debuts good enough to make you cancel plans.

This list mixes the films critics have rated highest with the ones audiences have actually turned up for. Everything here had its main cinema or streaming release between January and mid-October 2026. A few played festivals in 2025, but this is the year most of us could finally see them.

The 12 best films of 2026 so far

1. The Odyssey (dir. Christopher Nolan)

Nolan’s take on Homer is the year’s undisputed event. It is the first feature shot entirely on IMAX film cameras, made without green screen across six countries, with Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Tom Holland as Telemachus. It opened to $264 million worldwide, the biggest live-action debut of the year, and tops Letterboxd’s community ranking for 2026. See it on the largest screen you can find.

2. Blue Heron (dir. Sophy Romvari)

The best-reviewed film of the year, with a Metascore of 92. Romvari’s debut follows a Hungarian family of six settling on Vancouver Island, seen through the eyes of the youngest child, Sasha, as her older brother’s behaviour grows harder to read. It is quiet, personal and devastating, and it announces a major new filmmaker.

3. Project Hail Mary (dirs. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller)

The crowd-pleaser of the year. Ryan Gosling plays a science teacher who wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there, then strikes up an unlikely partnership with an alien he names Rocky. Adapted by Drew Goddard from Andy Weir’s novel, it scored 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and passed $300 million globally in two weekends, proof that an original-feeling blockbuster can still fill cinemas.

4. La Bola Negra (dirs. Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi)

Los Javis’ Cannes prize-winner borrows its title from an unfinished play by Federico García Lorca and spins it into a queer epic told across three timelines. Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close appear alongside Guitarricadelafuente in his acting debut. Some critics found it overlong and solemn; most found it monumental. It opened in Spanish cinemas in October and reaches Netflix in the US on 4 December.

5. Silent Friend (dir. Ildikó Enyedi)

Three lives across more than a century, connected by one ginkgo tree in a German university garden. Each era has its own visual language, from 1908 to 1972 to 2020, when Tony Leung’s neuroscientist tries to experiment on the tree itself. A Metascore of 90 and a rare film that makes plants feel like protagonists.

6. Sound of Falling (dir. Mascha Schilinski)

Four girls, one farmhouse in northern Germany, four periods spanning roughly a century. Schilinski’s second feature tied for the Jury Prize at Cannes and is experimental, unsettling and hard to shake. Streaming on MUBI.

7. The Invite (dir. Olivia Wilde)

An English-language remake of Cesc Gay’s Sentimental: a dinner party between two couples, played by Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton, that peels apart course by course. Sharp, uncomfortable and very funny. It arrives on HBO Max on 23 October.

8. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (dir. Nia DaCosta)

The year’s first great studio film. DaCosta takes the franchise somewhere stranger and darker than its predecessor, with Ralph Fiennes returning as Dr Kelson. Proof that a sequel can still surprise.

9. Late Fame (dir. Kent Jones)

Willem Dafoe plays a postal worker and forgotten poet whose decades-old collection is suddenly rediscovered by a circle of young New York artists. Written by Samy Burch (May December), it is a wry study of flattery, ambition and the hunger to be read. Required viewing for anyone who writes.

10. A Useful Ghost (dir. Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke)

A dead woman returns to her grieving husband as a ghost possessing a vacuum cleaner. It sounds like a sketch; it becomes a furious satire of pollution, bureaucracy and political violence in Thailand. Winner of the Grand Prize at Cannes Critics’ Week and the most original debut of the year.

11. Magellan (dir. Lav Diaz)

Gael García Bernal plays the Portuguese explorer as his fleet reaches the Philippines and slides towards madness. By Diaz’s standards it is short at 160 minutes, and it is in colour. A patient, beautiful reckoning with colonialism.

12. The Furious (dir. Kenji Tanigaki)

The action film of the year. A mute handyman teams up with a journalist to rescue their abducted families, and the fight choreography never lets up. Pure, kinetic cinema from a stunt director turned filmmaker.

Still to come before the end of 2026

The list will change. Autumn is when the heaviest hitters land, and these are the ones most likely to break into it:

You Can See Everything (Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, 16 October): Elizabeth Holmes lets the cameras into her home for the first time since Theranos collapsed.
Possible Love (Lee Chang-dong, cinemas 23 October, Netflix 6 November): the Korean master’s first film in years, already hailed as a fall-festival highlight.
Closure (Michal Marczak, 28 October): a Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary about a father searching for his missing son.
Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three: the two franchise giants still due later this year.

FAQ

What is the best film of 2026 so far? Critics rate Sophy Romvari’s Blue Heron highest, with a Metascore of 92. Audiences on Letterboxd rank Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey first.

What is the highest-grossing film of 2026? Project Hail Mary was the first film of the year to pass $300 million worldwide. The Odyssey later had the year’s biggest live-action opening, at $264 million worldwide.

What is the best Spanish film of 2026? La Bola Negra, directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi (Los Javis), won a prize at Cannes and is now in Spanish cinemas. Carla Simón’s Romería is the other essential pick.

Where can I stream the best films of 2026? The Invite lands on HBO Max on 23 October. Sound of Falling is on MUBI. La Bola Negra reaches Netflix in the US on 4 December.