Narnia! Sand dunes! Charli XCX! The most exciting films of 2026 according to The Guardian writers | film

Narnia: The wizard’s nephew

I doubt very much that 2026 will see anything in Marty Supreme’s league, but I’m hoping one of the decade’s more bizarre sidesteps turns out to be as interesting as we hope it will be. Barring Christopher Nolan signing on for a new Mr Men movie, I didn’t think much would throw the industry for a loop like when Greta Gerwig decided to follow up her hugely successful Barbie movie with…the Narnia movie. More specifically, Gerwig — previously a skilled purveyor of haunting alternative comedy with Lady Bird, Frances Ha, and Damsels in Distress — is rebooting the Narnia series, which went through three C.S. Lewis series before Netflix acquired the rights. In my opinion, The Magician’s Nephew, Lewis’s Origins/Prologue to the Wardrobe/Caspian/Treader of the Dawn, is the most interesting in the entire Narnia canon, with its Edenic fall, the “wretched word” and the mysterious apple. We know some of the cast: Emma Mackie is the future White Witch, Carey Mulligan is the terminally ill mother of one of the main children, and Daniel Craig could be Aslan or crazy inventor Uncle Andrew – or both, or neither. Naturally, all eyes will be on Gerwig, but I’m confident she’ll pull it off in style. Andrew Pulver

Dune: Christ

After claiming that he would focus on other projects and perhaps abandon Dune after two arduous half-book adaptations, Denis Villeneuve was inspired by the way the sequel, the quickly released Dune: Messiah, was received by cinephiles around the world. The final chapter of the epic sci-fi trilogy is now scheduled to drop in December (although since it’s set to compete against the newest Avengers, that’s likely subject to change.) And thank goodness for that — as The Guardian’s resident Dunehead, I have to report that I’ve been counting down the days to Messiah since Zendaya’s heartbroken Chani escaped her boyfriend’s strange genocidal metamorphosis via the sandworm. Never mind that Frank Herbert’s more bizarre sequel may actually be as unadaptable as some have accused the first book; The plot turns on zombie warriors and worm gods being resurrected and Timothée Chalamet being asked to shave his head. Villeneuve’s vision for the first two films – wonderfully strange and wonderfully expansive, from Infrared Black Sun to Desert Mouse – is so commanding and so thrilling on the big screen, that I simply have faith that he will land the spaceship and give us another round of interplanetary escape in 2026. Adrian Horton

The moment

It feels like an eternity since then, but just 18 months ago, Charli xcx turned summer lime green and dared us all to find our inner brat. Now, the eyeliner-smeared pop princess promises to reign supreme again in 2026 — she has an original soundtrack for the re-imagined Wuthering Heights film arriving in February and this charming mockumentary due out at the end of January. Detailing a wonderfully deranged alternate history of the artist’s 2024 summer tour, “The Moment” is said to have been born out of a confessional text of “word vomit” that the singer gave to her music video collaborator Aidan Zamiri (who is directing his first feature film). Hopefully the film will channel the crazy energy of the delightfully cracking visuals the duo put together for 360 and Guess (with Billie Eilish), giving us all something that doesn’t lose its luster after an hour. With a starring role by Alexander Skarsgård and music from long-time Charli collaborator AG Cook, the promise is there – we hope he delivers with The Moment. Veronica Esposito

A place in hell

Back at Sundance 2023, I was lucky enough to secure a seat for the world premiere of the Fair Play thriller “Battle of the Sexes,” a question mark for a film that had suddenly become popular enough to see crowds turning away at the door. It was the kind of communal experience I crave at festivals: an electric wave of anger and audible excitement that has become depressingly common, one that very few people have been able to replicate in the real world. It was bought by Netflix and thus an interesting and exciting film was thrown to fans on smartphones, a fate that was set to be avoided for writer-director Chloe Dumont, another thriller called A Place in Hell. Starring Michelle Williams, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Andrew Scott, the film was picked up by Neon, and although little is known about the plot (although the title suggests the fight this time will be between two women), we at least know we’ll all be seeing it on the big screen. Benjamin Lee

Flowerville Street

In the past 16 years, David Robert Mitchell has made only three feature films. Perhaps it was the third film, 2019’s psychedelic thriller Under the Silver Lake, that ensured those numbers didn’t continue to grow. Silver Lake, a dark comedy about a disturbing conspiracy mind, was a barely released bomb for A24, an embarrassment just as the company was finding its footing as the most sought-after independent studio of the new century. It’s also a great movie and made me want to see what Mitchell does next. The most interesting thing about Flowervale Street, Mitchell’s fourth film, is that I’m still not sure exactly what it is. It’s supposed to be an uncharacteristically family-friendly project, as well as a film with a bigger budget than he’s made previously. (It has held several different high-profile release dates, and is now scheduled to open in August 2025.) The film will almost certainly co-star Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor. May include dinosaurs. But if it is even remotely a strange and evocative tonal piece then it follows; Beautiful American Sleep Myth. Or the hilarious and cruel Beneath the Silver Lake, it will be one of the most distinctive big studio fantasies of the year. Jesse Hassinger

The Adventures of Cliff Booth

Quentin Tarantino’s films are fun and indulgent, confronting you with the writer-director’s verbiage, his personality dripping from every syllable. By contrast, David Fincher prefers calm, mystery and intelligence. His trademark is what appears to be an invisible hand in complete control. Both are among the most respected auteurs in the United States and have such distinct styles that you wouldn’t think they could exist in the same universe, which is why having Fincher act as the understudy shepherding Tarantino’s project to the screen is as puzzling as it is mystifying. Brad Pitt brought Tarantino’s script for The Adventures of Cliff Booth, a sequel to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, to Fincher, when the former decided he didn’t want his tenth (and final, he insists) film to keep him in familiar territory. (Or maybe he’d rather spend his free time on a podcast, ranting about Paul Dano while thinking about what the curtain call would be.) Whatever the reason, I can’t wait to see Fincher’s bootleg version and what he makes of the house of Cliff Booth, a Hollywood hot man who doesn’t quite fit into the old guard or the counterculture, his penchant for violence and masculine swagger at delicious odds with his Zen-like calm and strange taste for free love and LSD. Cliff Booth is a nice contrast, which is what I’m counting on in Fincher’s Tarantino project. Radian Simonpillai

I love the boosters

Boots Riley has a knack for writing stories that live in my mind well after I’ve seen them play out on screen. I keep wondering what happened to Sorry to Bother You, and I think about I’m a Virgo using its 13-foot-tall protagonist to embody the American fascination with black genetic wonders from difficult backgrounds. All the while, I was holding space for Riley’s next mental statement: I like reinforcements. Described as a “sci-fi heist comedy,” I Love Boosters follows a crew of professional shoplifters who go from peddling luxury goods to taking down a ruthless fashion designer. Keke Palmer, Demi Moore and Sorry to Bother lead star Lakeith Stanfield in what amounts to a scathing, if trippy, commentary on the fashion industry and consumerism in large part — and the timing (read: this perilous economic moment) couldn’t be better. Andrew Lawrence

digger

Almost nothing is known about the plot of this film, but it ranks high on my most anticipated list because of the people who made it. Alejandro González Iñárritu directed and co-wrote the film, and while I don’t always like his work — not the aggressive brutality of The Revenant, not the warped arrogance of Birdman, and certainly not whatever Bardo — they’re nonetheless ornate, meticulously crafted stuff worth competing with. But the film’s star, Tom Cruise, is the real attraction here. It’s been nine years since Cruise has made an unlicensed film, and even longer since he’s worked with a famous auteur like Iñárritu. That Cruise is starring in a $125 million studio-backed black comedy from an Oscar-winning director — alongside Jesse Plemons, Sandra Holler, Riz Ahmed and others — seems like something that would have happened 20 years ago, not in 2026. It’s very exciting. Richard Lawson

Untitled Jesse Eisenberg musical comedy

“Real Pain” was the actual best picture of last Oscars season; Probably the best film of the season is Jesse Eisenberg’s untitled musical project. Funded by A24 and set in the “high-stakes world of community theater,” his third film as writer-director stars Julianne Moore as a shy housewife who takes acting lessons, gets into it, then goes the full route and takes a job as an apartment building superintendent so she can better her performance. Paul Giamatti plays her unlikely mentor. Eisenberg has a small part, as do Halle Bailey and Bernadette Peters. A leaked report from a test screening this summer said: “What starts out as an eccentric character study quickly turns into a black comedy – imagine a Woody Allen version of Black Swan. The audience exploded with laughter.” It’s not at Sundance — which is a bit strange, given how great a launching pad A Real Pain proved to be. However, wherever this takes me, I’m in it. Catherine Shourd