Whatcha Got, 2026?

 

2026 Movies Preview

 

A year ago, I was feeling pretty glum about the upcoming slate of movies, and while I certainly don’t feel less optimistic about 2026, I can’t say I feel a whole lot more optimistic. The clouds looming over my head at the end of 2024 were all in the shapes of unnecessary sequels and remakes and reboots to come, and while some of them were the duds I expected them to be, others were better than projected, and overall, 2025 wasn’t as bad of a year for new movies as I had anticipated.

I won’t get my hopes way up for this coming year, but I do note fewer silly sequels and a higher number of intriguing original films, plus some sequels and reboots that feel rife with possibility, so let’s break it down into the four quarters and see what’s in store!

 

January to March

 

2025 made it clear that the horror genre has not stopped going strong, and it looks like 2026 is going to continue that trend. The first three months of the year are punctuated with noteworthy horror, and in years past, January horror movies came with automatic red flags, but that seems to be a little less true now. I’ve heard good initial reactions to Primate and Killer Whale, two killer animal films (a subgenre favourite of mine) utilizing familiar creatures with fresh injections of terror. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is the not-so-long-awaited sequel to the very long-awaited sequel to 28 Weeks Later that was not-so-secretly shot at the same time as 28 Years Later by Candyman reboot director Nia Dacosta. Unlike 2025’s third entry in the loosely connected franchise thus far, The Bone Temple seems to be an immediate follow-up, and early word of mouth has been even more positive than it was for its predecessor. I’m iffy on it given the way 28 Years Later ended, but if the reviews really do end up being overwhelmingly positive, maybe I’ll check it out before it hits streaming.

Another horror sequel that’s got me a little less interested is Scream 7. I still haven’t watched a Scream movie that wasn’t directed by Wes Craven (meaning not 5 or 6) but I might finally get around to watching them and see this newest one, which is written and directed by original Scream writer Kevin Williamson, with Neve Campbell returning after being absent from the previous entry due to stupid, cheap executives. There’s an unexpected Frankenstein resurgence happening right now—if you thought Guillermo Del Toro’s take on the classic tale was bold, get a load of the trailer for The Bride! It looks like it’s either going to be a revelatory new vision of the gothic source material, or it’s going to be an annoying disaster, but either way I’m intrigued. Finally for horror, there’s Iron Lung, which hails from Youtuber Markiplier and broke the record for most blood used in a film production. A post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror flick with a sea of blood? Sign me up. But, none of these movies are the one I’m looking forward to the most in the first quarter of 2026. Speaking of hail…Project Hail Mary may have had a spoiler-filled trailer, but I still intend to read the book before the movie comes out, and have high hopes for this epic-yet-comedic sci-fi adventure, which should be extra epic in IMAX.

 

April to June

 

The second quarter has far more variety than the first, but there are also quite a few suspect films that I’m less interested in seeing and more just curious about for their varying qualities and potentials. Apparently, there’s going to be another remake/reboot of The Mummy…I don’t think I’m fully over the 2017 Tom Cruise one yet, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to stomach yet another. There’s also an impending reimagining of Animal Farm from director Andy Serkis that, quite honestly, looks like a joke. It may end up being so fascinatingly bad that I won’t dismiss it entirely until I see the reviews.

I’ve heard early buzz about The Drama, an A24 rom-com-drama starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, and the first poster for The Sheep Detectives boasts an impressive voice cast for a rather unusual sounding mystery comedy written by the guy who did The Last of Us (odd choice). There’s supposed to finally be a new version of Masters of the Universe, which I’ve been hearing about for what feels like a decade or longer, but I haven’t seen a trailer or an image or anything released yet, so I won’t hold my breath on that one. Speaking of movies I’ve heard nothing about yet but find worth keeping track of due to the premise, the director of Deep Blue Sea, one of my favourite killer animal films, is directing a film called Deep Water, starring Ben Kingsley and Aaron Eckhart, about some people trying to survive a frenzy of sharks, so let’s hope that one looks at least mildly interesting.

Three sequels that are on many people’s radar are Mortal Kombat II, Supergirl, and The Mandalorian and Grogu. I don’t recall much about the first Mortal Kombat, but the trailer for the sequel makes it look like it will be more fun, and the casting of Karl Urban as Johnny Cage is spot on. Supergirl will probably be fun enough, coming hot off the heels of Superman and feeling full of possibility for how it will continue to build the new DCU, but The Mandalorian and Grogu only intrigues me by how poorly it may or may not do at the box office. I haven’t even watched all of the series it is inspired by (following up?) and having this as the first new Star Wars movie since Rise of Skywalker feels like a weirdly desperate move. 

Finally, in the early summer season, legendary director Steven Spielberg is back in familiar territory with Disclosure Day, to hopefully remind us that he is one of the best summer blockbuster directors and one of the most brilliant filmmakers to tackle the subject of aliens. The first trailer underwhelmed me, but he has a great cast to work with, and it’s coming at an interesting time for alien conspiracy theorists, with some claiming a real disclosure day is coming. Thinking back, Spielberg has only made two truly great alien films (I don’t consider War of the Worlds all that special) and he hasn’t made a truly crowd-pleasing summer blockbuster in over two decades, so I’m quietly hoping for the best with this one, but I won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t stick the landing.

 

July to September

 

The summer movie season isn’t stacked with tons of blockbusters I’m eagerly anticipating this year, but there are a few releases worth noting, and all of them are pretty different from one another. I’ll start with the superhero stuff, which is pretty light compared to 2025. There’s Clayface from DC Studios, which I don’t expect will be a huge hit, but hey, James Gunn is involved, and he made The Suicide Squad into something better than I ever could have imagined, so maybe it will be the big surprise for the summer, and its ties to the rapidly-growing new DCU will surely be played up once marketing kicks in, but it might be a tough sell to get people excited about a Batman villain never seen in live-action before in a body horror film without any big actors. The other superhero film of note will be a surefire hit, because Spider-Man: Brand New Day is what Marvel fans like myself have been waiting for: the return of the only mainline hero we have left to care about. Tom Holland is back as Peter Parker, Scorpion is back, The Punisher is back, and Daredevil is rumoured to be back, too. I hope it’s another fun Spidey adventure that isn’t just a setup for another Marvel movie coming at the end of the year!  

There are four other standouts from the summer slate. A remake of Resident Evil is in the works, and I wouldn’t care about it at all if it weren’t for the guy behind the camera: Zach Creeger, who directed one of my favourites of 2025 (Weapons) and one of the scariest movies I’ve seen from this decade (Barbarian), so hopefully this one’s actually scary and adapts the game more faithfully. A new Evil Dead film is on the way, from another new director, making it the third one in a row to be set apart from the Bruce Campbell led films, which themselves concluded with the series Ash vs. Evil Dead. Little is known about Evil Dead Burn at the moment, but hopefully it retains all the best elements from Evil Dead Rise and the Evil Dead remake, and maybe, just maybe, if we’re lucky, it also has the much rumoured return of Bruce Campbell… The nearly cancelled and buried Coyote vs. Acme finally gets to see the light of day, and I hope it’s as funny as it’s been purported to be. Finally, Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated The Odyssey is right at the top of my personal list of most eagerly awaited films of the whole year. The trailers have been epic, and I think it will live up to the hype.

 

October to December

 

The final three months of 2026 have a very diverse batch of films I’m looking forward to, and a couple of them are sure to be among the biggest movies of the year, but I’ll get to those ones at the end. First up, the director of one of my favourite movies of the past decade is back with something new and interesting. Birdman director Alejandro G. Iñárritu has teamed up with Tom Cruise for Digger, a black comedy with a teaser trailer that gives nothing away and tells me everything I need to know. The Social Reckoning is one of 2026’s most unlikely sequels: a biographical follow-up to The Social Network. Writer Aaron Sorkin couldn’t entice director David Fincher to come back, so he’s directing the thing himself, and has an absolutely stellar cast to help him. I’m not excited to see it, per se, but I am intrigued, and it will at least be a good excuse to go back and rewatch The Social Network again.

Taking a break from sequels for a second, there’s a remake/reboot of another video game movie coming, and the teaser trailer makes it look way better than the original from the 90’s. Street Fighter appears to be self aware, well cast, and ready to entertain. Another reboot of sorts that I hope will deliver is Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, from director Greta Gerwig, who previously found huge success with Barbie. This reboot appears to be aiming to kickstart a new cinematic saga by starting with what some consider the first C.S. Lewis Narnia book in terms of chronology, and theoretically going from there, meaning we may soon see a new version of that one we all know with that lion and witch and wardrobe.

Two original movies I currently know very little about but want to know more are Whalefall and Remain. Whalefall is about a scuba diver searching for his father who gets eaten by a whale and has to try to escape the leviathan, which is precisely up the survival thriller alley I’m a fan of, and Remain is the newest film from director M. Night Shyamalan, which would almost  be enough right there to prick up my ears, but guess who is writing the screenplay for his newest cinematic endeavor? One of the most famous romance writers out there: Nicholas Sparks! Apparently, it’s based on an idea they came up with together, which Sparks first turned into a book, and is now turning into a movie with Shyamalan, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. I didn’t like Shyamalan’s last film, Trap; it was neither good nor so bad it was entertaining. This one could be either. Hopefully it picks a lane—either lane, I’m down for entertainment when it comes to his films, whichever form it may be in.

These aren’t the movies you’re waiting to read about, though, are they? Alright, let’s address the ticking clock: Doomsday is coming! Will it be doomsday for Marvel, though? I hate to say it, but the leaked teaser trailers for Avengers: Doomsday have done the opposite job of getting me hyped up for the epic return of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Just how many superheroes can you cram into one movie? The Russo Brothers intend to find out, apparently, because everyone, it seems, is back, and I do mean everyone, unfortunately—even characters who had a proper ending in Endgame.

At the moment, Doomsday is set for the same release date as another highly anticipated sequel: Denis Villenueve’s Dune: Part Three. The internet is already trying to make “Dunesday” happen, a la “Barbenheimer”, but I say let this one go. If the release dates don’t change, guess what my plan is? See Dune: Part Three first and then see Doomsday at a later date. There’s no way I’m sitting through two three-hour sequels back-to-back! I’m all in on a third Dune, which will probably be quite different from the second book (remember part one and two were both adapting just book one) but I’m not yet sold on Doomsday, and while I can see the hype train building as it gets closer, right now the current attempts to draw viewers back are making me leery.

Neither of these movies are my most anticipated of the year, though. Two others are even higher: the only ones aside from The Odyssey I can guarantee I will see on opening night, no matter what. Werwulf is auteur director Robert Eggers’ next picture, and he’s three for four for me at the moment. I didn’t love (but still appreciated) The Northman, and absolutely loved The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu. Here’s some CCC math for you: Robert Eggers + Werewolves = Sold. Finally, the next chapter in one of my favourite franchises is supposed to be coming by the end of next year, but it doesn’t currently have a North American release date. Godzilla Minus Zero is the first direct sequel to a Japanese Godzilla film since the early 2000s, and it’s the first time in I don’t know how long that the director of the previous movie is returning for the sequel. Takashi Yamazaki won the Academy Award for Godzilla Minus One, and I don’t think he’s letting that go to his head. Instead, I think he’s going to deliver an equally emotionally resonant, visually stunning, heart pounding experience that will once again remind us why Godzilla is the King of the Monsters.

 

The Best of TV in 2025

 

The Best of TV in 2025

 

It’s been another year where I’ve seen enough noteworthy television that I can do a worthwhile recap. The holidays are always a busy time for me, and I wanted to get this out before 2025 came to a close, so for those reasons (plus I want to write about Avatar in January) I’m going to keep this as short as possible by starting with the shows that disappointed me, then diving right in to the best, in no particular order. I will not be elaborating on Alien: Earth (which I reviewed back in September, link here: https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2025/09/alien-earth-season-one-review.html), Dune: Prophecy (which I didn’t even finish) or The White Lotus Season Three, but I will start with White Lotus as my first best show, because I just watched the first two seasons this year.

The White Lotus hooked me with its initial mystery and vast cast of characters (most of whom were wonderfully despicable) but the humour and character progression from one episode to the next kept me invested. Season one’s music also really stuck with me—I kept making that “buh-buh-bwuhhh…” sound for months afterward—but I think the second season overall was even better than the first, with even more interesting characters, more compelling converging plot lines, and higher overall stakes, despite following a similar formula established in the first season. Having it as an anthology with only some tangential connections between seasons didn’t diminish how compelling subsequent seasons were, but season three let me down with it being all a lethargic setup with no payoff (or rather just an unsatisfying conclusion). The cast was good, the potential was there, but it just didn’t live up to the high standard set by seasons one and two.

Adolescence was a show that quickly snuck up as a must-see, with frighteningly pertinent themes for our modern world. For me, the technical aspects of how the episodes were shot in continuous takes with unbelievable setups for these complex camera moves overshadowed the actual narrative, which started off very strong and lost that unique sense of intrigue by the end. I was so wowed by the performances and the direction that I was hooked for the first two episodes, but found the story petered out and it didn’t really stick with me after it was over. I don’t want to watch a second season, but I would like to see someone attempt to top the technical prowess it took to pull off a story told that way in an episodic format.  

Three shows I was very glad to see back were The Bear, Daredevil, and Andor. Daredevil was a surprise, considering how much bad publicity there was in the lead up to Marvel’s revival of the previously-Netflix-produced show, but the reshoots ultimately bettered the story, and while it still paled in comparison to the best episodes of the Netflix era, Daredevil: Born Again kept me entertained and gave me a bit more than a Daredevil film reboot would have provided, although I do hope the next season is a bit smoother and more consistent. I disagree with the haters: The Bear season four was fantastic. I don’t think it will ever get as good as season two, but coming off a full rewatch of season one, two, and three, I found four was compelling but wholesome, intense but tender, and ultimately felt like a proper leadup to what should be the final season, with a more satisfying beginning, middle, and end than the previous season (which I enjoyed more the second time). Andor season two gets no notes. I already loved season one, I rewatched it before season two, and the only bad thing about it was that it sprinted through the remainder of the story to wrap it all up, but if that’s what it took just to get the second season and all of its triumphant moments, so be it. Andor stands apart from the rest of the Disney Star Wars content as its own entity that doesn’t feel like content; it truly is worthy of a place in the galaxy far, far away. I don’t think Disney will ever succeed in presenting any other Star Wars stories in any format nearly as successfully as Andor.

Two brand-new shows on Crave (Canada’s equivalent to HBO Max) caught me off guard with how excellent I found both of them. The Pitt took a somewhat similar approach to Adolescence in telling a story through a limited amount of time, and while it was not as innovative in terms of how it was shot or presented, I found it far more enjoyable comparatively, quickly getting wrapped up in the characters and the goings on at a very chaotic ER, reminding me of why I loved the show House M.D. back in the day. Just sneaking in during the last month of the year was Heated Rivalry, which surprised me more than any other show I saw this year, because I could not have guessed an LGBTQ+ hockey romance drama would make me laugh, gasp, and even shed a tear by the final episode.

The ultimate winner in terms of overall streaming apps in 2025, for me and I’m sure many others, was Apple TV. What shows did I find there? Severance, Ted Lasso, Pluribus, Murderbot, Slow Horses, Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age, and more! I haven’t finished Murderbot, Pluribus or Prehistoric Planet and haven’t started Slow Horses yet, but of all these shows, I got into Severance first, and have not been compelled by a show like that since perhaps Breaking Bad. The sci-fi concept was (and still is) rife with possibility, and it gets almost too real at times even with all its strange ideas. While season two did not satisfy me quite as much as season one, I am still on the edge of my seat waiting for the next season, and look forward to rewatching it all again. Ted Lasso seasons one, two, and three all tugged at my heartstrings, made me laugh out loud, and made me realize how few shows cultivate genuine optimism these days. Even as the show evolved into more of a drama with longer episodes, straying a bit from its initial appeal, I remained invested, and look forward to its return (even if it feels a bit like a new show—no spoilers, but the first three seasons feel very contained to telling a complete story).

The last show I’ll touch on is Stranger Things 5. I haven’t commented on Stranger Things  since the first “sequel” season came out back in 2017, which feels like a lifetime ago. Season three made me miss when the show felt special because it was just one season with some retro nostalgia mixed in to something that felt fresh and compelling, but season four retroactively made me appreciate aspects of all the past seasons more, and I found it mostly enjoyable, with the new villain Vecna tying in to the more interesting lore expansion and the further development of the characters. The main issue has been with these big gaps in time between seasons three, four, and five, and this final season being broken up into three separate releases did nothing to help with hyping up its epic conclusion.

The final season has felt a bit more like a chore than a compelling finale, and I haven’t finished watching it as of writing this, but the first part of Stranger Things 5 felt slow and unnecessarily tedious to get through, with it finally tapping into some more genuine thrills and progression by episode four—only for the momentum to be killed because we had to wait until after Christmas to continue watching. I’m still enjoying the final season well enough so far, and I hope it ends in a satisfactory way, but my expectations are low, and I don’t really care about it as much now that it’s become this cultural phenomenon and feels more like a Netflix brand than the unique streaming series it once was.

I think that covers all the TV of note in a summary of reasonable length! All that’s left is a little peek into the future for what’s coming out in 2026. Stay tuned as we say farewell to 2025 and see what’s in store for new movies and shows in the new year!