The Films of 2026

[Monterey Jack]

[yoshimori]

At least the sofa didn't resort to a pre-packaged ad hominem gif. Or was that somehow ironic?

[wattsup32]

At least the sofa didn't resort to a pre-packaged ad hominem gif. Or was that somehow ironic?

Amen to that! From now on, Jack, create ad hominem gifs from scratch.

[beamish14]

I can’t conceive of any film being a greater or a more pleasant surprise than The Misconceived. Ostensibly about a failed filmmaker who takes a home renovation job at his wealthy college roommate’s house, it touches upon economic anxiety faced by millennials while also acerbically addressing how studios like A24 and Neon, along with their parallels in the art world, dictate what is “important” in culture.

Oh, and the whole movie is rendered in Unreal Engine and scored with stock music, which amplifies the absurdity and somehow draws us closer to the ideas it explores.

In a Q&A with director James N. Kienitz Wilkins, he explained that the film was essentially created 5 times, with the dialogue recorded first, then actors recording physical gestures in motion capture suits, and rendered with figures that were purchased online. He was adamant that no AI was used, which makes the aural and visual qualities decidedly more uncanny and easy for the viewer to rapidly acclimate to and accept. Wilkins doesn’t consider the film to be animated, although it essentially uses a modified type of rotoscoping, in part because none of the characters were designed from scratch.

As it is an extremely dialogue-heavy film, it really demands multiple viewings, but I’m unsure as to when it will get a Blu-Ray release. It is touring in both a DCP and 35mm print, having played at Anthology Film Archives in New York, Rotterdam, and now in Los Angeles

[Lowry_Sam]

The Guardian is reporting that Tender Loving Care will probably be Mike Leigh's last film as he is having health issues.

[Finch]

Sad but totally understandable.

[therewillbeblus]

The Seeing Eye Dog Who Saw Too Much, Eric Jackowitz's debut short, is some kind of wonderful - a giallo spoof that doesn't succumb to eye-rolling obvious nods, but clearly understands the ludicrousness of the genre trappings enough to churn out novel and hilarious punchlines in a continual rhythm without ever repeating a joke. When the film does return to a gag's general area, it embellishes rather than rests on the easy route. And beyond its farcical side, the movie is actually a fun little giallo, fully embracing the style with incredible attention to detail. Apologies for keeping this vague, but it would be a crime to spoil any of these ideas. It's one of the most impressive short films I've seen in a long time, and I hope it winds up becoming available to a wide audience in the near future

[Mr.DarjeelingLimited]

Saw Matt Johnson’s Tony. Ended up being one of my most beloved films of the year. Falls into none of the traps that other biopics do and is really tightly written. Acting is great. Banderas is the absolute highlight.

[Finch]

I saw the director's name and went, is that Canadian Matt Johnson who did Nirvanna and Blackberry and it was! Now I have to see Tony.

[domino harvey]

I’m sorry, I don’t keep track of mainstream new releases but having been made aware of the premise of One Night Only, is this the worst idea for a romantic comedy of all time?

[Never Cursed]

This is the only thing that people have wanted to say about it on social media for, like, months. That said, I still think Neo Ned wins out

[TechnicolorAcid]

This is the only thing that people have wanted to say about it on social media for, like, months. That said, I still think Neo Ned wins out

Jeremy Renner’s in this?! Man if only we had some kind of app to talk about this

[therewillbeblus]

The End of Oak Street: How silly I was to anticipate that such a stupid high concept premise might yield the Amblin-esque feel some audiences pulled from this atrocity. I was hopeful with David Robert Mitchell at the helm, straight out of Director Jail after an eight-year hiatus, following the vastly misunderstood but understandably off-putting masterpiece Under the Silver Lake. Unfortunately this movie has none of the wit of that film or his previous It Follows - it's Jumanji as if directed by a wannabe Shyamalan, if that person had only seen Old and The Happening. Right from the start, the social dynamics are so eerily 'off' thanks to a terrible script and wooden direction (oh, and those odd-angle close-ups within the confines of the house that look like green screens are behind them, when they're clearly not - yuck), that not even Hathaway or especially McGregor can save them, and the kids are awful too. The film commits to its bit in ways that make sense, but in others that are absurd, and never quite finds a tone - sometimes it is reminiscent of early-80s Spielberg in the shallowest atmospherics only, while at other times it feels like imbuing modern horror ideas into its DNA. The little good will the film extends, through "risks" in demonstrating surprising choices of violence and unexpected deaths, is completely undone by the end. It's as if Mitchell and co. gave you some melted ice cream as a treat and then snatched it back. For Hathaway completists only

[domino harvey]

This is the only thing that people have wanted to say about it on social media for, like, months. That said, I still think Neo Ned wins out

Jeremy Renner’s in this?! Man if only we had some kind of app to talk about this

Ha! I watched the Road Work Ahead guy’s YouTube video on Renner’s app and it was both amusing and horrifying to see capitalistic greed extend so deep into the pockets of fans who could not possibly afford to participate and from someone with Marvel Money who objectively did not need to be doing this

As for that film, yes, that is a horrendous premise but it also seems of the time when every indie was a high concept quirk fest so it doesn’t quite set my gag reflex off like this one

[hearthesilence]

Apparently the script for One Night Only topped the annual "Black List" survey of most-liked unproduced screenplays. They really need to poll different people for that thing.

[Captain Paranoia]

Logically, the film with such premise would have the decency to be promoted as a thriller instead of a romantic comedy.

[cantinflas]

After reading this interview with Will Gluck it sounded too compromised. Wouldn't it be like removing the violence from The Purge?

Recent studies have found that Gen Z and Gen Alpha don’t want to see sex on screen. Was that a concern while making this movie?
The answer is 100% yes. I went through this on two movies. I have long pages of empirical data about it. The only thing is I don’t think it’s just Gen Z and Gen Alpha. I believe it’s been a societal shift from taking nudity in adult situations and putting them on your phones at home for everybody. Now it’s more of a private, intimate thing that people don’t want to see when they’re in a shared experience. Whenever people now see nudity or very adult situations in a big theater, they get uncomfortable.

How does that change your approach as a filmmaker?
Once I’ve learned that, which was all through the editing process for my last movie, I applied it to this movie. But even so, I didn’t apply it enough. I cut out so much. There was so much nudity in this movie that we shot on the streets. I felt we needed to show the world that way. As we started to show it to audiences, we felt it takes you out of the movie. You’re engaged in the characters and what’s going on, and then you pan over and there’s two naked people having sex, and you watch the audience … it’s a physical thing. They turn to who they’re with and … the benefits do not nearly outweigh the negatives of it. So we just kept editing it out until we got a balance, and those comments went away.

[domino harvey]

Totes, def don’t want people to feel uncomfortable while watching their fascist regime movie

[TechnicolorAcid]

Tony (Matt Johnson) is kind of like the food Bourdain makes in it, it’s essentially just a serving fast food but you can tell that it’s fast food made with so much love and passion that I just fell in love with it anyhow. Obvious points out of the way but Dominic Sessa is phenomenal, effortlessly playing Tony in a way that crosses the line between very charming and making you want someone to kick his ass, and the rest of the cast is also very good, although I am still a little tickled by the presence of Antonio Banderas in a Matt Johnson movie.

Speaking of Matt Johnson, this is undoubtedly his best directing work with some of his greatest composition in his whole career, no doubt aided by Michael Bauman’s occasionally beautiful cinematography, which is drastically different from most of Johnson’s other films but also feels a lot more appropriate for it. It’s also surprisingly personal for a biopic about another person. I read an interview with Johnson where he said that he felt like him and watching it, I did feel like Tony did have a lot of similarities and it keep of feels like Johnson is looking back on his past through Tony with both men undoubtedly having been oddly charming, youthful men in their pasts but also at points obnoxious, pretentious and often self-centered. Johnson even subtly brings up his edgelord nature with a rather shocking slur dropped by Leo Woodall’s Sal, who himself feels like what Johnson fears his life would’ve become if he kept up with the uncaring, edgelord persona he had been in his past, a childish narcissist who, intentionally or not, harms the people around him almost as much as he does himself.

And yet, despite the dark undertones of Sal, Tony often is a very light-hearted and playful movie, embracing the summertime party atmosphere of Tony’s experience in a way that made the inevitable ending where Tony has to head back home for college feel bittersweet and the film does a great job of endearing you to its characters enough that its emotional beats feel genuinely earned, which I think puts it miles ahead of a lot of “feel-good” movies like it that sort of just expect you to be moved in a way by moments that don’t feel deserved at all.

Ultimately though, I will have to say, don’t go into this expecting a BlackBerry or NTBTSTM because besides the potential link between Matt with Tony & Sal, there aren’t many other defining Matt Johnson traits (although there is one shot that reminded of the lake scene from The Dirties that’s featured in the new Zapruder Film logo) but if you’re in the mood for a wonderful little serving of warm goodness, Tony is probably going to be the film for you.

[cantinflas]

I liked The Dog Stars a great deal. Don't expect a zombie outbreak movie or something because it's more a meditation on loss, grief and the sense of isolation that can often follow through the lens of a pandemic event. So, there is a loose similarity to 28 Years Later which seemed to be about as maligned as this but while there are looming threats with some well executed action scenes (the night vision assault sequence looked awesome) it's not as violent and for me was such a calming experience. Maybe you just have to be on its wavelength or be able to relate in some way for it to be effective but the spectacular aerial cinematography alone is mesmerising and something you rarely see anymore that it's worth it just for that.

There's a real tenderness here that moved me and even when it does suddenly veer into the surreal, it's coming from a place of sadistic desperation and survival in contrast with another community that's encountered. Elordi and especially Qualley are such presences too. I still look forward to and enjoy whatever Ridley does and DP Erik Messerschmidt is on another level these days.

[Never Cursed]

Chronovisor's the first really great movie I've seen from this year, bringing to mind the lo-fi spirit, ambition, and puzzle-box construction, if not the breakneck pacing, of the films made by the long-irrelevant Shane Carruth. Writer-directors Jack Auen and Kevin Walker invent out of necessity their own shorthand to make the procedure of serious source-based research (that is to say, a process that is neither physical nor particularly social and largely consists of interacting with texts) interesting in a film. As someone whose work is in this world, I was impressed by the fluidity with which they bridged gaps of genre, academic expertise, and even language using the device of optically printing translations of the important segments of multilingual sources on top of the original text, mirroring how professionals and people with dangerously compulsive interests in particular subjects learn to almost subconsciously home in on important material. I think that the ideas and subjects that the film uses this approach to explore should remained unspoiled (and those interested should, in my opinion, not even read the basic blurb floating around the internet, which reveals too much of where the film goes), but suffice it to say that Chronovisor asks the viewer to reconsider what the purpose of history should be, and whether objectively knowing the past would even be a desirable goal if it were possible.

Spoiler

Certainly the film considers that kind of knowledge terrifyingly powerful and almost naturally socially corrosive. It presents this hypothetical through a wonderfully perverse and hyperbolic set-up: the Catholic Church has developed scientific proof of the divinity of Jesus and of the historicity of his Passion, but has ordered it destroyed. That the device would allow people to know the intentions of those around them and effectively become socially omniscient is of only secondary concern to the Vatican; they fear the Chronovisor both because specific details of the Passion contradict Church dogma and because they recognize that the truth itself would be politically prescriptive (the device was invented by reactionary opponents of "new theology," in context probably traditionalist critics of Vatican II, to bring the church back to its roots through enhanced knowledge of divinity). A true picture of Christ's life would make even the controlled theological debate that the Church sanctions irrelevant, and so the device's inventors and advocates become victims of a wide-reaching but ultimately well-intentioned conspiracy to save the most ambitious minds in the Church from themselves. The plot of the film is our historian (clad in the costume and social habits of a monk to an increasingly comical degree) discovering this conspiracy and letting her hunger for the truth lead her to self-destruction. If there is another Carruth comparison to be made, it is to the box in Primer and the destructive distortion of ethics it inspires in its user. When the historian finally uses the device, she sees not only hellish CRT visions of ancient times, but the merger of her own immediate past with "history," or the merging of "history-writing" with "history" itself (with the brilliant decision to replay the surveillance-camera-style footage from earlier sequences filtered in the Chronovisor implying that the camera was never objective and was in fact the much-discussed eye of the device watching her). And so she becomes "history" in the most immediate and terrifying way possible. The film offers a forceful case against the pursuit of an objective past (or I guess a narrative argument in favor of historical argument) without considering the purpose of either the goal or the chase.

See this if it comes near you (unless you're The Narrator Returns, in which case, thanks for the indirect recommendation!).

[The Narrator Returns]

Glad to have put it on your radar, it was only on mine because my wife is very tuned into new experimental filmmaking. Given its incredible, by the end terrifyingly gaping, depths and entirely new aesthetic, it's remarkably accessible as an old-fashioned thriller that's only made up of shoe-leather research scenes. The use of Gustav Holst music is the masterstroke that holds it all together, as good as a brand-new Bernard Herrmann score that almost exclusively plays over close-ups of library books. The strong grasp of crowdpleaser fundamentals, even in a dazzling new form, makes the free-fall into religious and cinematic madness so much steeper.

Spoiler

A friend who saw it with us (in a small theater not built for an audience having to read text at every corner of the frame) compared it to We're All Going to the World's Fair, taking a more analog approach to that idea of becoming so consumed by your obsession that you can only exist within its source code. The Car- director who called out to me most with it was John Carpenter, and I would imagine the ending is a direct homage to his two most brain-shredding endings: Prince of Darkness's CRT look into Hell and In the Mouth of Madness's realization of the story you thought you were tracking having long ago consumed you whole.