Before we get into the fall lineup, it’s worth acknowledging the phenomenal year that 2026 has been. The movie season kicked off with Project Hail Mary dominating March. Ryan Gosling’s stranded-astronaut sci-fi opened to a $140.9 million weekend globally, the biggest debut in Amazon MGM’s history. Then came Obsession, Curry Barker’s horror movie made for $750,000 about a novelty toy that grants wishes. After playing at TIFF Midnight Madness in 2025, it was released in theaters in May, and it turned into a sleeper success.
A24 had its own viral-turned-blockbuster moment with Backrooms, a movie that adapted 20-year-old Kane Parsons’ liminal-space YouTube horror into the studio’s biggest opening ever. And then Christopher Nolan happened. The Odyssey broke records, opening to $264 million worldwide, and was shot entirely on 70mm IMAX. It features an excellent cast and also holds the director’s best Rotten Tomatoes score since The Dark Knight. Basically, 2026 has already set high standards. Here are 20 movies worth clearing your schedule for this fall.
‘Practical Magic 2’
Release Date – September 11, 2026
- Release Date: September 11, 2026
- Director: Susanne Bier
- Cast: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Joey King
Nearly 30 years later, Practical Magic is finally getting the sequel fans have been asking for. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman reprise their iconic roles as Sally and Gillian. This time, they’re joined by Joey King as Sally’s daughter, who begins developing magical powers of her own as an old family secret resurfaces. Practical Magic 2 is based on Alice Hoffman’s The Book of Magic, the final installment in her Practical Magic saga. It reunites basically the entire original cast, including Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest. This legacy sequel has real staying power.
‘Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil’
Release Date – September 18, 2026
- Release Date: September 18, 2026
- Director: Zach Cregger
- Cast: Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis
After reinventing modern horror with Barbarian and following it up with last year’s acclaimed film Weapons, Zach Cregger doesn’t really need to prove anything else about his horror instincts. However, he’s doing it anyway with a total reboot of one of gaming’s biggest franchises. You can skip the games because Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil is a fully original story. Austin Abrams plays an ordinary medical courier who gets caught in the T-virus outbreak with zero combat skills to rely on. Cregger has promised no Leon Kennedy and nothing familiar. Just dread, mutation, and a director who has earned the benefit of the doubt.
‘The Weight’
Release Date – September 18, 2026
- Release Date: September 18, 2026
- Director: Padraic McKinley
- Cast: Ethan Hawke, Russell Crowe, Julia Jones
Sometimes, a cast is all it takes to get my attention. The Weight brings together two heavyweight actors with zero prior collaborations. Ethan Hawke plays a widower who loses custody of his daughter and is shipped off to a 1930s Oregon labor camp, where Russell Crowe’s warden dangles freedom in exchange for smuggling gold through brutal wilderness. The movie premiered at Sundance to a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and was compared to Deliverance and Sorcerer. For a first-time director, that’s rare praise. Hawke and Crowe rarely phone it in, and when two actors with this much combined Oscar history finally share a scene, you show up.
‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’
Release Date – September 25, 2026
- Release Date: September 25, 2026
- Director: Bassam Tariq
- Cast: Mahershala Ali, John Cho, Giancarlo Esposito
Here’s a fun bit of trivia: writer-director Bassam Tariq was originally set to direct Marvel’s long-stalled Blade movie before dropping out of the project. Watching Mahershala Ali (the actor everyone wanted for that very role) slice through enemies with a literal blade in Tariq’s new film feels like fate correcting itself. Ali plays a devoutly religious hitman whose life unravels after his wife’s death, and he goes on a desperate run across Houston to protect his kids. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is small in scale, but loaded with intention.
‘Digger’
Release Date – October 2, 2026
- Release Date: October 2, 2026
- Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
- Cast: Tom Cruise, Sandra Hüller, John Goodman
When was the last time you saw Tom Cruise headline a comedy? Exactly. However, don’t let the marketing fool you into thinking this is another disaster spectacle. Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, a bloated, delusional energy tycoon who causes an apocalyptic catastrophe and then has to convince the world he’s the only one who will fix it. Digger is Iñárritu’s first English-language movie since The Revenant, co-written with his Birdman collaborators, and Warner Bros. is calling it “a comedy of catastrophic proportions.” For me, an unrecognizable Cruise doing pitch-black satire in a movie by a filmmaker with four Oscars is definitely worth the wait.
‘Verity’
Release Date – October 2, 2026
- Release Date: October 2, 2026
- Director: Michael Showalter
- Cast: Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett
The last Colleen Hoover adaptation to hit theaters was It Ends With Us, which turned into a $351 million phenomenon. Verity, however, is even darker. Dakota Johnson plays a struggling novelist hired to finish the unpublished books of bestselling author Verity Crawford, played by Anne Hathaway, after an accident leaves her unable to write. The deeper she digs through the abandoned manuscript, the less sure she is where fiction ends, and confession begins. Turns out, Hoover’s hot streak isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
‘The Social Reckoning’
Release Date – October 9, 2026
- Release Date: October 9, 2026
- Director: Aaron Sorkin
- Cast: Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong
Sixteen years after The Social Network won him an Oscar, Aaron Sorkin is back in Mark Zuckerberg’s world, this time writing and directing. Mikey Madison, coming off her Anora win, plays Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who teams up with a Wall Street Journal reporter (Jeremy Allen White) to expose the company’s worst secrets. Jeremy Strong steps in as an older Zuckerberg. It’s less a traditional sequel and more a companion piece that examines how Facebook evolved from an ambitious startup into one of the world’s most scrutinized companies.
‘Sense and Sensibility’
Release Date – October 16, 2026
- Release Date: October 16, 2026
- Director: Georgia Oakley
- Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Esmé Creed-Miles, George MacKay
Since Emma Thompson’s 1995 version is one of the most beloved literary adaptations ever made, this new take on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility has big shoes to fill. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles play the Dashwood sisters, thrown into genteel poverty after their father’s death and forced to navigate love on drastically reduced means. They’re joined by an excellent supporting cast that includes Caitríona Balfe, George MacKay, Fiona Shaw, Frank Dillane, and The Worst Person in the World breakout Herbert Nordrum. Working Title (the studio behind Pride & Prejudice and Emma) is producing. With Austen’s 250th birthday approaching, this doesn’t feel like yet another remake.
‘Whalefall’
Release Date – October 16, 2026
- Release Date: October 16, 2026
- Director: Brian Duffield
- Cast: Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue
Every few years, a novel comes along with a premise so irresistible that Hollywood races to adapt it. This time, it’s Whalefall by Daniel Kraus. A scuba diver (Austin Abrams) searching for his dead father’s remains gets swallowed whole by an 80-foot sperm whale and has one hour of oxygen to escape. Meanwhile, flashbacks to his complicated relationship with that same father (Josh Brolin) play out inside its belly. Deadline described it as The Martian meets 127 Hours. Honestly? That tracks. Kraus’s novel was deemed unadaptable, but the trailer alone makes that impossible premise look terrifyingly plausible.
‘The Only Living Pickpocket in New York’
Release Date – October 16, 2026
- Release Date: October 16, 2026
- Director: Noah Segan
- Cast: John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Steve Buscemi
John Turturro and Steve Buscemi have shared the screen in Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, and The Big Lebowski, and their reunion in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York might just mark the most tender outing of the year. Turturro plays an aging pickpocket whose analog skills don’t mean much in a cashless, trackable city. He’s forced into a five-borough chase after unknowingly lifting a USB stick from a crime family’s heir. It premiered at Sundance to a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s modest, funny, and one of the most purely New York movies you’ll ever see.
‘Fatherland’
Release Date – October 23, 2026
- Release Date: October 23, 2026
- Director: Paweł Pawlikowski
- Cast: Sandra Hüller, Hanns Zischler, August Diehl
There was a lot of buzz at Cannes that Fatherland could win the Palme d’Or. It won Best Director instead, which is still a massive win. Sandra Hüller stars as Erika Mann, daughter of Nobel laureate Thomas Mann, on a 1949 road trip across a Germany split between American and Soviet control. Shot in stark black-and-white by the director behind Ida and Cold War, the movie runs for a tight 82 minutes. If you only watch one specialty release this fall, make sure it’s Fatherland. The critics are already calling it award-worthy.
‘Klara and the Sun’
Release Date – October 23, 2026
- Release Date: October 23, 2026
- Director: Taika Waititi
- Cast: Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Mia Tharia
Taika Waititi’s first movie since Jojo Rabbit adapts Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel about an “Artificial Friend” bought to ease a sick teenager’s loneliness. Jenna Ortega plays Klara, whose innocent devotion quietly heals a mother-daughter relationship fractured by grief. There have been several unforgettable Ishiguro adaptations, from The Remains of the Day to Never Let Me Go. His 2021 novel might be his most cinematic work, as it blends science fiction with an emotional story about love and loneliness. Klara and the Sun is gentler and more melancholic than Waititi’s usual movies, but it could be 2026’s standout sci-fi drama.
‘Clayface’
Release Date – October 23, 2026
- Release Date: October 23, 2026
- Director: James Watkins
- Cast: Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie, Max Minghella
DC Studios has spent the past year introducing its new universe with Superman and Supergirl. While Supergirl gave the DCU its charm this year, Clayface is here to give it nightmares. Horror mastermind Mike Flanagan wrote the screenplay for this body-horror origin story about a disfigured actor who turns to an experimental procedure. He ends up as a shapeshifting monster instead. Tom Rhys Harries beat out a stacked list of contenders (including Tom Blyth and Jack O’Connell) for the title role. Additionally, since this is the first properly R-rated horror swing the DCU has taken, that alone makes it worth the ticket.
‘Wildwood’
Release Date – October 23, 2026
- Release Date: October 23, 2026
- Director: Travis Knight
- Cast: Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali
Laika, the studio behind Coraline, ParaNorman, and Missing Link, hasn’t made a stop-motion epic on this scale since Kubo and the Two Strings. Looking every bit as ambitious as its predecessors, Wildwood presents a fully handcrafted fantasy world. A teenager chases her kidnapped baby brother into an enchanted forest hidden just outside Portland. The voice cast is stacked deep enough to include Awkwafina and Angela Bassett. Also, the movie is based on the bestselling fantasy novel by Colin Meloy (yes, the Decemberists frontman), which tells you exactly how strange and lovely this one’s going to be.
‘Wife and Dog’
Release Date – October 23, 2026
- Release Date: October 23, 2026
- Director: Guy Ritchie
- Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Rosamund Pike, Anthony Hopkins
Technically, Guy Ritchie and Benedict Cumberbatch have been in the Sherlock Holmes universe together for over a decade. Ritchie directed several movies, and Cumberbatch starred in the BBC series. However, Wife and Dog marks their first actual collaboration. It’s a black comedy about the wealthy Fairbank family tearing itself apart over succession, betrayal, and (per the title) some combination of spouses and pets no one is explaining yet. Think The Gentlemen’s DNA, but aimed squarely at old money instead of London gangsters.
‘Godzilla Minus Zero’
Release Date – November 6, 2026
- Release Date: November 6, 2026
- Director: Takashi Yamazaki
- Cast: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada (English dub TBD)
2023’s Godzilla Minus One won an Oscar for its visual effects and became a legitimate global hit, which is a rare feat for a foreign-language kaiju film. Now, Takashi Yamazaki continues the Shikishima family’s story two years later in the first Japanese production ever filmed for IMAX. Godzilla Minus Zero opens in Japan on November 3, which happens to be Godzilla Day, marking 72 years since the original 1954 film. It will be released in North America a few days later. For fans, expectations couldn’t be higher.
‘Paper Tiger’
Release Date – November 13, 2026
- Release Date: November 13, 2026
- Director: James Gray
- Cast: Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Miles Teller
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson haven’t shared a screen since Marriage Story, and this reunion couldn’t be more different. Director James Gray draws inspiration from his own family’s real brush with the Russian mob in 1980s Queens for this crime drama about two brothers whose get-rich-quick scheme spirals into mafia territory. Paper Tiger premiered at Cannes to a seven-minute standing ovation, and it opens the New York Film Festival this fall. If Fatherland is this season’s quiet awards pick, Paper Tiger is the loud one.
‘I Play Rocky’
Release Date – November 13, 2026
- Release Date: November 13, 2026
- Director: Peter Farrelly
- Cast: Anthony Ippolito, Stephan James, AnnaSophia Robb
Almost 50 years to the day after the original Rocky hit theaters, we’re getting the story of how it got made. In the movie, a broke, unknown Sylvester Stallone refuses to sell his script unless he can star in it himself. Anthony Ippolito plays young Stallone with an uncanny resemblance, and Green Book’s Oscar-winning director, Peter Farrelly, is behind the camera. I Play Rocky premiered at TIFF to real buzz. After all, it’s the ultimate underdog story about the making of the ultimate underdog movie. It’s tailor-made for the big screen.
‘The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping’
Release Date – November 20, 2026
Release Date: November 20, 2026
- Director: Francis Lawrence
- Cast: Joseph Zada, Elle Fanning, Jesse Plemons
In The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, the world of Panem is expanding once again. This time, the spotlight shifts to one of the franchise’s most beloved characters. Based on Suzanne Collins’ bestselling novel, the prequel drops us into the 50th Hunger Games (the brutal Second Quarter Quell, where every district sends double the usual tributes). It follows a young Haymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zada) through it. Ralph Fiennes joins the franchise as President Snow, alongside an ensemble that includes Jesse Plemons, Elle Fanning, Maya Hawke, Kieran Culkin, Glenn Close, Billy Porter, and Kelvin Harrison Jr. No fall lineup is complete without the franchise’s biggest tentpole. I honestly can’t wait to see some of Haymitch’s life’s most devastating moments translated to the big screen.
‘Cactus Pears’
Release Date – November 21, 2026
- Release Date: November 21, 2026
- Director: Rohan Kanawade
- Cast: Bhushaan Manoj, Suraaj Suman, Jayshri Jagtap
Saving the smallest, most acclaimed title for last, we have Cactus Pears. This Marathi-language debut made history as the first movie in that language to premiere at Sundance. It stunned everyone by walking away with the festival’s World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize outright and put first-time feature director Rohan Kanawade on the map. Set in rural India, the movie follows Anand (Bhushaan Manoj), a Mumbai transplant stranded in his hometown during his father’s 10-day mourning ritual. Meanwhile, he rekindles a tender romance with his childhood friend (Suraaj Suman). It’s already collected rave reviews everywhere it’s played, and I won’t be surprised if Cactus Pears becomes one of the year’s biggest word-of-mouth successes.
Honorable Mentions
- Charlie Harper – September 25, 2026
- Fjord – October 9, 2026
- Poetic License – October 16, 2026
- Wicker – October 23, 2026
- Jimmy – November 6, 2026
- The Great Beyond – November 13, 2026
Which fall release are you most excited for? Let us know in the comments below!
