The 50 Most Anticipated Movies of Fall 2026

50 Most Anticipated Movies of Fall 2026 - Every fall, studios trot out their big prestige-drama titles, film festivals roll out the red carpet for gala premieres, and big-name talent starts hitting the for-your-consideration circuit. For the next few months, discussion of whether this or that title has a good chance of going all the way, or whether a veteran actor has campaigned enough to nab a long overdue Oscar, will suck up a lot of oxygen. Do a lot of great films, the kind that populate best-of lists, come out in the back fourth of any given year? Yes. Is the experience of having to consume all pumped-up serious movies more or less back-to-back exhausting? Also yes. Forget it, Jake, it’s awards season.

Once again, from Labor Day to Christmas Day, viewers will get the chance to check out biopics, social-issue explorations, A-list period dramas and procedurals, and hoity-toity literary adaptations. But you’ll also get the chance to see a few long-awaited sequels, a couple of star-studded franchise blockbusters (ready or not, here come Dune 3 and Avengers: Doomsday, being released on the same day!), some nutty-sounding genre exercises, and a few once-in-a-lifetime collaborations. Seriously, it’s not like David Fincher directing Brad Pitt in a movie written by Quentin Tarantino is a normal everyday occurrence.

So, yes, there are a lot of things hitting theaters (and/or streaming services) near you before the end of the year, but we’ve singled out 50 titles that are likely to generate chatter and necessitate the clearing of calendars. From Ali G to Godzilla, the MCU to TCAP, Timothée Chalamet, Interstellar Messiah to Tom Cruise, Superstar — it’s going to be an interesting autumn. Buckle up. (Dates may be subject to change.)

49 ‘Onslaught’ (Sept. 4)

Richard Foreman, Jr SMPSP/A24

Now that Focus is gunning to be the new A24 (see: Obsession), A24 may be pivoting toward becoming Lionsgate 2.0. Case in point: This pulpy-as-fuck thriller about a former Army sniper (Adria Arjona) who lives near a military base conducting some off-the-books experiments. The end result of this black-ops project — basically, supersoldiers who are “the human equivalent of a heat-seeking missile” — decide to go rogue and attack the locals. Which means our hero has to battle both genetically modified killing machines and some government “fixers” who’ve been dispatched to clean up the mess and leave zero witnesses. All this, plus Dan Stevens rocking a crazy German accent! Rebecca Hall, Queer‘s Drew Starkey, and The Terminator‘s Michael Biehn costar.

48 ‘Hope’ (Sept. 9)

NEON

Neon has a lot of high hopes (get it?!) for this wackadoo sci-fi opus from South Korean filmmaker Na Hong-jin (The Chaser, The Wailing), about a small town on high alert after a tiger is reportedly spotted in the area. It soon becomes clear that something far more sinister is going on. The cast is a mix of South Korean actors like superstar Hwang Jung-min (A Bittersweet Life) and international names like Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Mindhunter‘s Cameron Britton, and Bones and All‘s Taylor Russell. The vibe is a cross between relentless and batshit.

47 ‘Practical Magic 2’ (Sept. 10)

Warner Bros.

It is once again the season of the witch(es)! Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman reprise their roles as supernaturally gifted sisters Sally and Gilly Owens from their 1997 cult-hit movie for a belated sequel — and yes, the family curse that dogged the sisters roughly a quarter of a century ago is still wreaking havoc on their lives. In fact, it’s been passed down to the women’s daughters, played by Joey King and Game of Thrones‘ Maisie Williams, which forces the whole clan to head to the United Kingdom and get to the source of this centuries-old spell once and for all. Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest return as the spell-casting aunts; Lee Pace joins the fun as a magic scholar with eyes for Bullock’s character.

46 ‘The Uprising’ (Sept. 10)

Betina La Plante/Focus Features.

The year is 1381, and a ploughman (Andrew Garfield) has had it with the endless taxing and various abuses of power perpetrated by King Richard II (C’mon C’mon‘s Woody Norman). This average Joe will soon kickstart a rebellion known as the Peasant’s Revolt, leading hundreds of angry citizens to the streets of London and demanding that the regent recognize their calls for reform. Historians will back us up when we say, with vast understatement: It does not exactly end well for all concerned. The fact that Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, Captain Phillips, a coupla Bourne movies) is the filmmaker behind this recreation bodes extremely well — although really, what could a 14th-century populist pushback against a tyrannical leader willing to use the power of the state against his own people possibly have to say about our current moment? [Cough, cough.] Also on deck for the sound and fury: Jamie Bell, Katherine Waterston, Jonny Lee Miller, Tom Hollander, Shogun‘s Cosmo Jarvis, Thomasin McKenzie, and Game of Thrones‘ Stephen Dillane.

45 ‘The History of Concrete’ (Sept. 18)

John Wilson

If you’ve seen the HBO show How To with John Wilson, then you know that its director-slash-tour-guide has a knack for finding life lessons in New York’s more idiosyncratic nooks and crannies. For those who’ve wondered if he could sustain something like that in a longer format, the answer is a resounding [in John Wilson voice] “Um, well… yes.” Much like a supersized episode from Wilson’s cult series, his exploration into everything you wanted to know about concrete (but were afraid to ask) takes any number of odd detours that lead Wilson from Rome to Ridgewood, Queens, and veers off into tangents that include a visit with a professional gum-remover and a seminar on how to write the perfect Hallmark movie. The gent really is a genius.

44 ‘Resident Evil’ (Sept. 18)

Sony Pictures

Fresh off the success of Weapons, director (and dedicated gamer) Zach Cregger jumps into the Resident Evil franchise with what sounds less like a reboot and more like a cinematic expansion pack. According to the director, his movie is set in the same universe as the popular PlayStation zombie-killing title, and will stick to the same rules as those RPGs and first-person shooters. But it will follow a new character, a courier — played by Cregger’s longtime actor-in-residence Austin Abrams — as he navigates his way through a signature landscape of mutants, creepazoids, and other “bio-organic weapons” plaguing Raccoon Valley. The filmmaker calls it a “love letter” to the games. OK! The trailer alone is a first-rate creepfest.

43 ‘The Weight’ (Sept. 18)

Matteo Cocco/Vertical Enteratinment

Ethan Hawke stars as a Depression-era dad who ends up in a brutal work camp out in the Oregon wilderness because of a misunderstanding. He just wants to do his time and get back to his daughter. But there’s this corrupt warden (Russell Crowe), see, and he has an offer for the prisoner: Smuggle a mother lode of gold through 100 miles of unforgiving terrain, and if you make it through, you can go free. The task is way, way harder than it sounds. This throwback to 1970s-era survivalist thrillers was one of the better things we caught at Sundance this year, and trust us when we tell you: The Walter Hill vibes are 150-proof strong here.

42 ‘Heart of the Beast’ (Sept. 25)

Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures

Should you need a heaping helping of Jack London vibes with a dash of gung-ho militarism this autumn, look no further than director David Ayer’s survivalist thriller about a retired Special Forces officer (Brad Pitt, looking rugged AF) who travels to Alaska with his PTSD-suffering combat scouting dog. When their plane crashes in the wilderness, the man and his trusty mutt have to battle wolves, raging rivers, and a generally unforgiving Mother Nature in order to make it to safety. Expect thrills, spills, and possibly some very manly tears.

41 ‘Primetime’ (Sept. 25)

Sinna Nasseri/A24

Have a seat for Lance Oppenheim’s movie about the origins of a 20th-century TV phenomenon: To Catch a Predator. No less than Robert Pattinson is playing Chris Hansen, the broadcast journalist who turned a regular Dateline segment where he lured online child predators to a “date” — and then filmed the confrontations — into something like a true-crime brand and a cottage vigilante industry. Judging from the trailer, this biopic of sorts will get into TCAP‘s rise and slight fall after one of their sting operations goes south in a big way. The fact that the real Hansen has issues with the project could be a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, you see how this looks, right?