2026 Arts Preview: The year ahead in film
From blockbusters from Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg to more undead action from Danny Boyle, these are the films to look out for in 2026, writes Alistair Harkness
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (16 January) Jack O’Connell’s arrival as a Jimmy Savile-inspired cult leader with a Scottish accent in the closing minutes of 28 Years Later was one of the stranger moments of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s excellent third instalment of their decades-spanning zombie apocalypse saga. Expect much more of O’Connell’s intriguingly named Sir Jimmy Crystal in this twisted-looking follow-up from Garland and Candyman director Nia DeCosta.
Nouvelle Vague (30 January) The mercurial Richard Linklater returns with this playful behind-the-scenes movie dramatising the making of Breathless, Jean-Luc Godard’s industry-revolutionising debut. Shooting in black-and-white as if he was on set at the time, it’s a perfect marriage of filmmaker and subject – and a real cinephile’s delight.
The Bride! (6 March) Guillermo del Toro’s dream Frankenstein project may have been a self-indulgent slog, but this re-imagining of 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein looks like it might deliver a proper cinematic shock to the system. Written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, it relocates the story to 1930s Chicago and casts Jesse Buckley as the Bride and Christian Bale – replete with massive staples in his head – as Frankenstein’s Monster.
California Schemin’ (10 April) James McAvoy’s directorial debut – soon to receive its UK premiere as the closing night film of the 2026 Glasgow Film Festival (25 February to 8 March) – explores the bizarre true life story of a Scottish rap duo (Seamus McLean Ross and Samuel Bottomley) who pretended to be American 24/7 so they could dupe the London-based UK record industry for ridiculing their initial attempts to perform in their own accents. Set in the Eminem-dominated hip-hop scene of the early 2000s, it’s a cautionary tale of music industry hypocrisy and fame’s false allure, with McAvoy taking a supporting role as a grizzled mogul caught out by their lies.
Disclosure Day (12 June) Steven Spielberg has made some fine films of late, but he’s not done a decent sci-fi blockbuster since his early 2000s run of AI, Minority Report and War of the Worlds (Ready Player One was a long way from classic Spielberg). That’s hopefully about to change. Though the details remain scarce, Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp has penned a UFO-themed script based on an original idea from the great man himself. Which is reason enough to get excited.
The Odyssey (17 July) Christopher Nolan returns with the ultimate epic: a large scale-adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey, starring Matt Damon and Tom Holland, and shot partly in Scotland. Having once been in the frame to direct 2004’s Troy – he did Batman Begins instead – Nolan has been contemplating a movie about Greek mythology ever since, so expect an old-school blockbuster full of gods and monsters (Nolan grew up on Ray Harryhausen) but shot with the customary verve, seriousness and IMAX visuals that have transformed the likes of The Dark Knight, Dunkirk and his Oscar-winning Oppenheimer into jaw-dropping spectacles.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day (31 July) Tom Holland and Scotland also play starring roles in this fourth instalment of the Spider-Man franchise, with Holland reprising his role as Peter Parker and Glasgow doubling for New York for what promises to be one of the film’s biggest set-pieces. Of course, superhero films have also lost some of their lustre in recent years, but Marvel will be banking on this and Robert Downey Jr’s return to the MCU in Avengers: Doomsday (18 December) to reinvigorate the genre.
Flowervale Street (14 August) This mysterious new movie from It Follows director David Robert Mitchel looks set to be one of the more intriguing blockbusters of 2026. Produced by JJ Abrams, it’s a sci-fi horror set in the 1980s about a family who start to notice unusual happenings in their neighbourhood. Ewan McGregor co-stars with Anne Hathaway, who can also be seen in The Odyssey and alongside Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada 2 (1 May), the belated sequel to their 2006 comedy smash.
READ MORE: 2026 Arts Preview: The year ahead in books
Untitled Alejandro G Iňarritu/Tom Cruise Project (2 October) “A wild comedy of catastrophic proportions.” That’s how Oscar-winning Birdman director Alejandro G Iňarritu has been describing his new Tom Cruise film. Marking Iňarritu’s first English language film since bagging a second Oscar for The Revenant, he’s also promised it will be more character-driven than recent Cruise outings.
The Social Reckoning (9 October) The title of Aaron Sorkin’s latest echoes his and David Fincher’s earlier Facebook origins story for good reason: it’s essentially a sequel to The Social Network, albeit this time focussed on Frances Heugan, the Facebook engineer-turned-whistleblower whose first-hand knowledge of the tech company’s inner workings led to a series of explosive Wall Street Journal articles exposing Facebook’s damaging effect on the world. Starring Anora Oscar-winner Mikey Madison as Heugan and The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, expect this to be the talking point film of the autumn.
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