The gloves are off. After a commercially robust yet mildly depressing year in which garish and mostly soulless kiddie films dominated the global multiplex (Lilo & Stitch, A Minecraft Movie, Zootopia 2 etc), the cinema slate of 2026 is crowded with high profile “movies for grown-ups” designed to redress the balance. From Hamnet to Wuthering Heights, and The Bride! to Disclosure Day, the most anticipated titles of the next 12 months are not simply babysitter substitutes aimed at the under eights. But don’t worry parents, there are plenty of those too. Who isn’t going to see Toy Story 5 after all?
This Shakespeare biopic and Oscar frontrunner arrives at the heart of awards season, just in time for everyone to watch Jessie Buckley scoop up every available best actress gong for a landmark performance. In an exquisite adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s bestseller, she plays Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes Hathaway, the focal point of a harrowingly sad story of parental grief. Jan 9
• Hamnet director relied on Paul Mescal to grasp Shakespeare’s words
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
One of the most intriguing, original and downright entertaining zombie franchises continues with this sequel to last year’s Danny Boyle masterpiece 28 Years Later. Boyle is back as producer this time, handing directorial duties over to Nia DaCosta (Candyman), who builds an entire film around the brilliantly unhinged performance of Ralph Fiennes as a postapocalyptic zombie-dodging doctor. Jan 16
Wuthering Heights
What’s left to say about Wuthering Heights? Plenty, apparently. After seven major movie adaptations, including versions by William Wyler, Peter Kosminsky and Andrea Arnold, along comes Saltburn’s posh provocateur Emerald Fennell. She has a white-hot cast that includes Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, a disruptor’s instincts and a teasing trailer that suggests this Brontë version will be a thumpingly delirious pop-art fever dream. Feb 13
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The Bride!
Maggie Gyllenhaal, who made a promising directorial debut with The Lost Daughter, casts a star of that film, Jessie Buckley, in a reboot of Bride of Frankenstein. Buckley plays the bride, with Christian Bale as the lonesome monster who asks Annette Bening’s Doctor Euphronius to build him a girlfriend. Expect Gyllenhaal to give us a witty feminist spin on James Whale’s 1935 original. Mar 6
Michael
Umpteen years and a couple of court cases and reshoots in the making — Michael is the story of pop’s greatest entertainer. No, not Bublé — it is Jackson time. This biopic surely has to tackle not only the songs but the sordidness. Apr 24
• Jarvis Cocker: The Michael Jackson thing messed my life up
The Devil Wears Prada 2
More glossy-mag malevolence in a sequel that reunites the original stars, the director David Frankel and the screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna. If it follows the plot of Lauren Weisberger’s Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns, it will have Anne Hathaway’s Andy and Emily Blunt’s Emily running a successful bridal magazine, only for Meryl Streep’s demonic Miranda Priestly to reappear. Sydney Sweeney and Kenneth Branagh are the newbies. May 1
The Mandalorian and Grogu
One of Disney’s better Star Wars series gets a big-screen spinoff with Pedro Pascal returning as the shiny-helmeted bounty hunter with a “baby Yoda” sidekick called Grogu. Directed by Jon Favreau, who created the original show and knows his way around a blockbuster, having helmed Elf and Iron Man, it co-stars Sigourney Weaver as a New Republic leader and Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) as Rotta the Hutt, son of Jabba. May 22
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Disclosure Day
“If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you?” is the tagline for this UFO extravaganza from Steven Spielberg. The film is based on an original script by the screenwriter David Koepp, who worked on several Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park films, and features a lip-smacking cast: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo and Eve “daughter of Bono” Hewson. O’Connor has described it as “like old-school Spielberg”. Jun 12
Toy Story 5
We thought the heartbreaking part three would be the end, but Toy Story 4 proved there’s life in the old dolls yet and this fifth instalment embraces the digital age with a sinister tablet called Lilypad, voiced by Greta Lee (Past Lives). Written and directed by Andrew Stanton, the Pixar genius behind Finding Nemo and Wall-E, the film bolsters the core cast — Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack — with Conan O’Brien, who voices a toilet-training tech aid called Smarty Pants. Jun 19
The Odyssey
After his seven-Oscar haul for Oppenheimer at the 2024 Oscars it seemed as if there were no worlds left for Christopher Nolan to conquer. He’s done space (Interstellar), comic books (the Batman franchise), war (Dunkirk) and time itself (Tenet). What remains? Well, the biggie of course. The mother of all stories. Step forward Matt Damon as Odysseus, Tom Holland as Telemachus and Anne Hathaway as Penelope. Possibly the year’s most anticipated movie. Jul 17
Avengers: Doomsday
It’s strange but true that the year’s greatest cinematic gamble is this comic book adaptation with an alleged budget of roughly $500 million, starring Robert Downey Jr and a galaxy of Lycra-clad superheroes. After a string of commercially unsuccessful Marvel movies (Thunderbolts*, Captain America: Brave New World) and outright flops (The Marvels), Hollywood is here asking itself an extremely expensive question: is there even an audience for this stuff any more? Consider all breath held. Dec 18
Two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman
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Which films have you enjoyed at the cinema recently? Let us know in the comments.