It used to be that any film with a shot at winning major Academy Awards would be released within the last three months of the year, but the last decade has seen spring and summer releases like Oppenheimer, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and CODA taking home Best Picture. Summer’s typically thought of as the season for blockbusters, but this year’s biggest moneymakers haven’t been expected; indie horror hits Obsession and Backrooms overperformed, while potential franchise titles like Supergirl and Masters of the Universe fell flat.
There were a lot of good films in the first half of 2026. Crime 101 is an old-fashioned iteration of Michael Mann’s Heat, The Sheep Detectives is the best family film since Paddington 2, and Hokum is a moody, atmospheric folk horror tale of refreshing cynicism. Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day has received blowback, but might have the same sort of cultural re-appreciation that his work on A.I. Artificial Intelligence and War of the Worlds did after initially proclaimed as divisive. Even if Toy Story 5 had the easiest route to $1 billion out of any of the year’s releases, it’s also a strong sequel with a message about empathy that goes beyond the redundant sentiment that “tech is bad.”
There were a number of releases this year that were elevated by performances. Anne Hathaway had a blockbuster with The Devil Wears Prada 2, but she’s much better in Mother Mary, a surrealist musical about a pop star on the verge of self-implosion. That film co-starred Mikaela Cole, who was even better in The Christophers, where she was paired with an engaged Ian McKellen. Robert Pattinson and Zendaya have films slated for release in the second half of the year, but they had great chemistry in The Drama, which is the exact type of “conversation starter” that the market needs. Within the indie space, the young stars of the Australian horror film Leviticus, Joe Bird and Stacey Clausen, are bound to get a lot more attention soon.
There were other compelling experiments like the sci-fi thriller Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, the political thriller The Wizard of the Kremlin, and the Sundance darling Josephine, but the 10 standout films of 2026 were as follows.
10. The Furious is a propulsive martial arts action film with an understanding of the elements required to justify its spectacle. It’s a story about a one-man army faced against an insidious criminal conspiracy, but the choreography, blocking, and frantic pacing are the work of director Kenji Tanigaki’s years of experience as a stunt artist.
9. Carolina Caroline is a modern riff on Bonnie & Clyde that’s somewhere between the unabashed Americana of Badlands and the mundane violence of Natural Born Killers. Samara Weaving starred in three genre films this year, but Carolina Caroline has her best performance because she showed the transition from a victim into a vigilante. Her co-star, Kyle Gallner, does an effective Marlon Brando impression.
8. Tuner is an absurd thriller about a young piano prodigy with hyperacusis who’s roped into a burglary scheme because of his ability to crack safes. The performance by Leo Woodall as the titular “tuner” is grounded enough to make it an emotionally sincere study of ambition and potential.
7. The Rivals of Amziah King is a blend of neo-Western mythologizing, coming-of-age poetry, and the escapism of Mark Twain, wrapped up into the story of an Oklahoman inventor (Matthew McConaughey) and his adopted daughter (newcomer Angelina LookingGlass). The story’s told through bluegrass music and tall tales, and it’s a major step-up for writer-director Andrew Patterson after his low-budget sci-fi thriller The Vast of Night.
6. The Invite is Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf? for 2026, with the focus on an unhappily married couple (Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen) who share a strange evening with their eccentric neighbors (Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton). There hasn’t been a portrayal of marital malaise this grounded in some time, but The Invite is also able to draw out the individualized personas that each of its stars have developed off-screen.
5. Epic: Elvis Presley in Concert isn’t just a music documentary, but a rock opera synthesized by Baz Luhrmann that restored a trove of unseen footage from Elvis during his residency in Las Vegas during the last decade of his career. That the footage is so intimate is alarming (Elvis’ sweat is crystallized through IMAX projection), but Luhrmann has rarely been better suited for a narrative medium that’s entirely reliant on excess.
4. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is the latest great entry in a franchise that hasn’t missed yet. Last year’s 28 Years Later from Danny Boyle tackled isolationism in the post-Brexit era, and the sequel from director Nia DeCosta is a clash of science and radical fundamentalism, represented by Ralph Fiennes’ tender-hearted Dr. Kelson and Jack O’Connell’s terrifying portrayal of the cult leader Jimmy Crystal.
3. Blue Heron is unlike any other narrative feature this year because director Sophy Romvari crafted an autobiographical interpretation of the struggles experienced by her immigrant parents as they dealt with their bi-polar son, Jeremy (Edik Beddoes), after moving to Vancouver in the 1990s. This could’ve been a manipulative weepie, but Romvari is calculating in her depiction of the way childhood memories are preserved and distorted in the wake of tragedy.
2. Obsession is a formally brilliant directorial debut from Curry Barker that’s much smarter, funnier, and scarier in its exploration of toxic relationships than what would be anticipated for a 26-year-old filmmaker. Inde Navarette’s performance is a complex portrayal of a woman whose consciousness is contorted by a male fantasy gone wrong.
1. Project Hail Mary is science fiction at its most operatic and grandiose, even though it’s a surprisingly intimate story between an elementary teacher-turned-astronaut (Ryan Gosling) and a rock-like alien (performed by puppeteer James Ortiz). It’s not a naive story of Obama-era idealism, but a thoughtful narrative about problem-solving that has more confidence in personal connection than it does in multinational alliances. No film this year benefitted more from IMAX projection, thanks to the crisp visuals by cinematographer Greig Fraser and the melodic score from Daniel Pemberton.