Wuthering Heights to The Odyssey: 16 of the most exciting films coming up in 2026
From Emerald Fennell’s divisive new adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights to Christopher Nolan’s wildly anticipated ancient Greek epic, here are BBC critics’ picks of the films to see in the year ahead.
1. Wuthering Heights
Emerald Fennell’s bold take on Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel is already one of the year’s most divisive films. The trailer alone evoked both fascinated anticipation and pearl-clutching resistance. On social media, Brontë purists have objected to everything from the film’s raw sexiness to its casting, complaining that Margot Robbie is too old to play the teenage Cathy and Jacob Elordi too white to play Heathcliff, described in the book as “dark-skinned”. But Fennell, who proved herself to be a daring original with Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, knew she was taking an iconoclastic approach. “I wanted to make something that was the book that I experienced when I was 14,” she has said, describing it as “primal, sexual”. Her version of those two doomed, passionate lovers is also stylised, with bright-red costumes and red-orange skies. Owen Cooper of Adolescence plays the young Heathcliff and Hong Chau is Cathy’s loyal maid, Nelly. And if you don’t feel like channelling your inner teenage girl, the year brings a more traditional adaptation of a 19th-Century classic, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Daisy Edgar-Jones stars as Elinor Dashwood in the story of marriageable sisters and their pursuit of love. (CJ)
Wuthering Heights is released on 13 February. Sense & Sensibility is released on 9 September
2. Practical Magic 2
Adapted from Alice Hoffman’s 1995 novel, Practical Magic is a supernatural romantic comedy drama starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as two sisters descended from a long line of witches. It was a flop when it was released in 1998, but it has since conjured up a cult following: the film has been adopted by “younger audiences who turn to [it] for its witchy aesthetics and cottagecore inspiration”, according to Donnalyn Xu in the Guardian, while for Tove Danovich in Country Living, it “was a movie that made you want to reach out to people you loved and share it with them too”. As a result, Bullock, Kidman and two of their co-stars, Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest, are all reuniting for a sequel, also based on a novel by Hoffman. The 28-year gap may seem extreme, but it’s beaten by another Hollywood franchise about sorcerous sisters in today’s Massachusetts: there was a 29-year gap between Hocus Pocus and Hocus Pocus 2, so Practical Magic 2 could still cast a spell on viewers.
Practical Magic 2 is released on 18 September
3. The Mandalorian and Grogu
Star Wars was last on the big screen a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away – well, 2019, anyway. Since the release of JJ Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker, several other films have been announced and then shelved, and it’s been left to the Disney+ television series to keep the franchise alive. Surprisingly, the most popular of these series was The Mandalorian, which didn’t revolve around such fan favourites as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Boba Fett, but two new characters: Din Djarin, a bounty hunter played by Pedro Pascal, and Grogu, the cute, green “Baby Yoda”. After three series of the show, The Mandalorian and Grogu now have their own film, directed and co-written by the series’ creator, Jon Favreau. The trailer promises swashbuckling action, not to mention Rotta the Hutt (voiced by Jeremy Allen White), the blubbery son of Jabba the Hutt, although Favreau says that the film is also about parenthood: “As Star Wars fans who are my age, who grew up with the original films, grow up and have kids of their own, I think it’s nice that there’s a hero that is going through what they’re going through.” (NB)
The Mandalorian and Grogu is released on 22 May
4. The Dog Stars
Ridley Scott, at 88, is turning out films faster than ever. After Gladiator II in 2024 and Napoleon in 2023, he returns to the sci-fi genre, which delivered some of his best films, including Blade Runner and Alien. The Dog Stars is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which a flu pandemic has wiped out almost the entire population. Jacob Elordi plays Hig, a civilian pilot who has lost everything and everyone except his dog, and Josh Brolin is a former US Marine. Together these two survivors have to fight off roaming bands of marauders called Reapers. Margaret Qualley, Guy Pearce and Benedict Wong also star. The cast and director are reason enough to be intrigued by the film, which was co-written with Mark L Smith (Twisters) based on a 2012 novel by Peter Heller. And there is Scott’s own amusingly immodest take on the film and its superfast shooting schedule of 34 days. “It’s the speed of [making] a TV show but maybe my best movie.” he has said.
The Dog Stars is released on 28 August
5. The Bride!
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s audacious film relocates the bride of Frankenstein’s monster to the criminal underworld of 1930s Chicago. Jessie Buckley (an Oscar favourite with Hamnet) has a Jean Harlow bob of platinum hair as the bride, a reanimated murder victim. Christian Bale has stitches across his forehead as the monster, who asks Dr Euphronius (Annette Bening) to create a mate for him. There is a Bonnie and Clyde feel to their story, as newspaper headlines blare “Killer Monsters Wanted!” This is Gyllenhaal’s second film as writer and director, following the Elena Ferrante adaptation The Lost Daughter (2021), and she has said she was inspired to make it after watching the 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein and realising that the title character is only on screen for a few minutes and never speaks. Gyllenhaal’s version gives the bride a voice and an outsized personality. Buckley has called the bride and monster’s relationship “the punkest love that’s ever existed”. Penelope Cruz has a supporting role, along with Maggie’s brother, Jake Gyllenhaal, and her husband, Peter Sarsgaard. (CJ)
The Bride is released on 6 March
6. Digger
Tom Cruise has devoted the last decade or so to becoming Hollywood’s premier action hero, showing off his daredevil stunts – and his very energetic running – in Mission: Impossible, Jack Reacher and The Mummy. Top Gun: Maverick gave him a bit of non-stunt-related work to do, but his next film, Digger, still looks set to be a major change. Not many details have been revealed so far, but it’s directed and co-written by Alejandro G Iñárritu, the Mexican director of Amores Perros, Birdman and The Revenant, and its tagline is: “A comedy of catastrophic proportions.” The intriguing cast includes Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall), John Goodman and Jesse Plemons, but it’s the thought of Cruise in an offbeat Iñárritu comedy that’s really exciting. And let’s not forget that Leonardo DiCaprio won an Oscar when he starred in The Revenant. Cruise has never won one – although he was given an honorary Academy Award last year. Could Hollywood’s biggest superstar finally triumph Oscar night in 2027?
Digger is released on 2 October
7. Toy Story 5
Pixar has had more luck with sequels than originals lately: Inside Out 2 was the biggest film of 2024, whereas Elio was definitely not the biggest film of 2025. Perhaps that’s why, seven years on from Toy Story 4, Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) are back for another animated adventure, this time directed by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL-E). The concept is far sharper than the one Toy Story 4 had. Until now, the series has ignored any playthings more high-tech than battery-operated action figures, but in Toy Story 4, the gang’s owner is entranced by her new tablet, Lilypad (Greta Lee). The ingenious thing is that this scenario brings the franchise up to date at last, while also getting right back to the first film’s core idea of toys being made to feel redundant by their shiny replacement. It’s bound to toy with our emotions once again. (NB)
Toy Story 5 is released on 19 June
8. The Drama
The Drama provides a dark comic twist on a standard romcom, with Robert Pattinson as Charlie, a British art historian and museum director in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Zendaya is his fiancée, Emma, a bookshop worker originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The week of their wedding, a terrible secret about one of them is revealed, which somehow leads to Emma in her wedding dress swigging from a bottle of bourbon, and Charlie in his tuxedo with a bloodied nose. In addition to its stars, the film is notable because it was written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, who made the weird, and wonderfully surreal Dream Scenario (2023) with Nicolas Cage. If anyone can flip a romcom into a winning black comedy, this would be the team to do it. Alana Haim has a supporting role in a film that looks breezy, smart and fun. (CJ)
The Drama is released on 3 April
9. Mother Mary
It’s a big year for eccentric films with pop music. In this spooky, musical revenge story featuring high fashion, Anne Hathaway plays a singer known as Mother Mary. Michaela Coel plays Sam, her former costume designer and friend, whom Mary begs to create a new dress for a performance even though they have been estranged for a decade. “You can’t really hate me,” Mary says in the trailer, to which Sam replies, face-to-face, “Oh yes I can,” by far the best answer for the thriller plot. Writer and director David Lowery has made enigmatic films such as A Ghost Story along with mainstream projects like Pete’s Dragon, and this one definitely falls on the unconventional side, with its blend of horror tropes and on-stage pop. Hathaway’s full-blown concert scenes include music by Jack Antonoff, FKA Twigs and Charli XCX, who continues her big move into film. In addition to creating the soundtrack for Wuthering Heights, she stars in The Moment, a promising satire based on a story she created. She plays a fictionalised version of herself, but also says that the famous Brat Summer meme is “cringe”. (CJ)
Mother Mary is released in April. The Moment is released on 30 January
The Social Network was one of the best films of 2010. Written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher, it was a fast-talking, sparklingly intelligent drama about how Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook, and all the legal wrangles that followed. Now comes a sequel of sorts. Once again scripted by Sorkin, who has also taken over as director, The Social Reckoning tells the true story of Frances Haugen, a Facebook employee who leaked an internal document revealing the harm caused by social media. Haugen is played by Mikey Madison, in her first role since she won the best actress Oscar for Anora, and while it’s disappointing that Jesse Eisenberg won’t be returning as Zuckerberg, Jeremy Strong from Succession is a fascinating replacement.
The Social Reckoning is released on 9 October
11. The Devil Wears Prada 2
Arriving 20 years after the original, this sequel has the kind of bland title the imperious Miranda Priestly would never have stood for, but everything else seems polished and ready in one of the year’s most hotly anticipated films. Meryl Streep once more plays the iconic fashion editor Miranda (inspired by Vogue’s Anna Wintour). Anne Hathaway returns as her former lowly assistant, Andy, now a successful editor herself, along with Stanley Tucci as Nigel, the magazine’s art director, and Emily Blunt as former assistant Emily, now a rival executive whose advertising money Miranda’s magazine needs. New cast members include Kenneth Branagh as Miranda’s husband, Patrick Brammall (Colin from Accounts), Lucy Liu and Justin Theroux. The original film’s writer, Aline Brosh McKenna, and director, David Frankel, are behind the sequel, which had paparazzi trailing the production all over New York City. They might as well have waited for Milan Fashion Week, when Streep and Tucci, in character, sat in the front row at the Dolce and Gabbana show, and Priestly and Wintour stood side-by-side. (CJ)
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is released on 1 May
12. The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
With or without Jennifer Lawrence’s heroic archer, Katniss Everdeen, audiences can’t get their fill of The Hunger Games, so 2023’s The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is being followed by another prequel adapted from one of Suzanne Collins’s novels. This one is set 24 years before the first set of Hunger Games films, so it features younger versions of several of the main characters from the Katniss saga. It should be fun to see how well the new actors match the old ones. Ralph Fiennes plays President Snow, who was played as an older man by Donald Sutherland; Jesse Plemons plays Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character, Kieran Culkin plays Stanley Tucci’s, Elle Fanning plays Elizabeth Banks’s, and Joseph Zada is the twentysomething hero, who is due to become the middle-aged alcoholic played by Woody Harrelson. The director is Francis Lawrence, who made all of the other Hunger Games films, as well as last year’s Stephen King adaptation, The Long Walk – another dystopian thriller about young people being killed as televised entertainment. (NB)
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is released on 20 November
13. Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew
In the early 2000s, back when every studio wanted its own children’s fantasy adventure franchise to compete with Harry Potter, there were three films adapted from CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia novels – and now, after a 16-year break, comes a fourth. Confusingly, it’s actually based on the sixth of Lewis’s Narnia novels, which is the first if you’re going by the chronology of the events in the story. In other words, The Magician’s Nephew is a prequel set 40 Earth years and 1,000 Narnia years before The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Emma Mackey plays Jadis, the evil White Witch, alongside Carey Mulligan and Daniel Craig, but the most exciting person involved is the writer-director, Greta Gerwig. This is the first film she has directed since Barbie conquered the world in 2023, so she’ll have the freedom and the budget to do whatever she wants. Anyway, as Wicked taught us, there’s definitely an audience for prequels with famous fictional witches. (NB)
Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew is released on 26 November
14. Disclosure Day
With ET, Steven Spielberg created one of the cutest space aliens ever to visit Earth. But we’re not sure what kind of creatures are headed our way in his latest film. Josh O’Connor stars as a man who knows something about that, and is determined to tell the entire world at once. “People have a right to know the truth,” he says in the mysterious trailer. “It belongs to seven billion people.” He sometimes stands in a crop circle, a classic UFO clue. Emily Blunt is a television meteorologist in Kansas who suddenly freezes and utters strange sounds, Colin Firth’s eyes suddenly change colour, and Eve Hewson, Wyatt Russell and Colman Domingo are also on hand dealing with the threat. The secrecy around the film has inspired wild theories about what it might be, including the idea that it could be a sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. What we know for sure is that no one does aliens better than Spielberg, whether they are as benign as ET or as ominous as those in War of the Worlds. (CJ)
Disclosure Day is released on 12 June
15. The Odyssey
It’s safe to assume that Homer’s ancient Greek poem is not the reason this film is so wildly anticipated that tickets went on sale a year in advance. The draw here is Christopher Nolan, adapting the classic with his epic imagination and a very starry cast, in the follow up to his Oscar-winning Oppenheimer. Matt Damon stars as the warrior-king Odysseus, on his dangerous, surreal journey home from the Trojan War. Anne Hathaway plays his patiently waiting wife, Penelope, with Tom Holland as their son, Telemachus. Robert Pattinson is Antinous, a suitor to Penelope and Zendaya plays the goddess Athena. Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal and a raft of others are also in the cast. One of Nolan’s gifts is to merge large-scale action with distinct, vivid characters, and this film promises to offer both kinetic battle scenes and personal drama. Nolan told Empire magazine about Odysseus, “The genius of the character, the cleverness, the inventiveness of him, was a huge part of what interested me.” And a sneak preview of a few scenes revealed there is definitely a Trojan horse. (CJ)
The Odyssey is released on 17 July
16. Avengers: Doomsday
Avengers: Endgame is one of the highest grossing films ever made, but since it came out in 2019, none of Marvel’s superhero films have had as much of an impact. The studio’s solution? To turn back the clock and do everything Avengers: Endgame did – only more so. First of all, the producers have squeezed in every possible Marvel superhero, including the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, who were previously in separate cinematic universes. Secondly, they’ve brought back many of their most popular characters, including Chris Evans’s Captain America, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man, and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. They’ve also brought back the MCU’s most revered actor, Robert Downey Jr, only now he’s playing the villainous Doctor Doom instead of Iron Man. And they’ve even brought back the directors of Avengers: Endgame, Joe and Anthony Russo, whose post-Endgame films – Extraction, Cherry, The Gray Man, The Electric State – haven’t set the world alight, either. Will this new Endgame be a new beginning? (NB)
Avengers: Doomsday is released on 18 December
