UPDATE: Added more titles.
Can we really call 2025 a “weak” movie year? You’re going to see that word thrown around a lot in the year-end think pieces, and maybe there’s some truth to it — but let’s not act like the year was a barren wasteland. There were more than enough good-to-great films to make assembling a Top 10 an absolute headache.
Yes, the strikes are over. The pandemic is long behind us. Productions are humming again, and a staggering number of filmmakers have either wrapped their next projects or are gearing up to shoot, all with an eye toward 2026 releases.
Since January, I’ve been tracking titles for what’s shaping up to be an absolutely stacked 2026 slate. I do this every year, and in true fashion, the emphasis is always on the director. If a compelling filmmaker has something new in the works, it goes on the list. I’ll be expanding this with a deeper breakdown soon. And if anything obvious is missing — and I’m sure something is — drop it in the comments.
As it stands, the list is already around 120 films.
The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan)
Judy (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Untitled UFO Movie (Steven Spielberg)
The Adventures of Cliff Booth (David Fincher)
Wild Horse Nine (Martin McDonagh)
Artificial (Luca Guadagnino)
Dune Part Three (Denis Villeneuve)
Werwulf (Robert Eggers)
Bitter Christmas (Pedro Almodovar)
The Entertainment System is Down (Ruben Ostlund)
Fjord (Cristi Mungiu)
Jack of Spades (Joel Coen)
Paper Tiger (James Gray)
The Way of the Wind (Terrence Malick)
Minotaur (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
All of a Sudden (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
Her Private Hell (Nicolas Winding Refn)
Parallel Tales (Asghar Farhadi)
Coward (Lukas Dhont)
Hope (Na Hong-jin)
1949 (Pawel Pawlikowski)
Out of this World (Albert Serra)
Glimpses of the Moon (Francis Ford Coppola)
Possible Love (Lee Chang Dong)
The Basics of Philosophy (Paul Schrader)
Untitled (Mike Leigh)
The Long Winter (Andrew Haigh)
Bucking Fastards (Werner Herzog)
If Love Should Die (Mia Hansen-Løve)
The Dog Stars (Ridley Scott)
Flowervale Street (David Robert Mitchell)
Ghostwriter (JJ Abrams)
Ray Gunn (Brad Bird)
Resident Evil (Zach Cregger)
Behemoth! (Tony Gilroy)
October (Jeremy Saulnier)
Project Hail Mary (PhilLord/Chris Miller)
Narnia (Greta Gerwig)
Ink (Danny Boyle)
The Riders (Edward Berger)
The Uprising (Paul Greengrass)
Sheep in the Box (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Look Back (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Butterfly Jam (Kantemir Balagov)
The Loved One (Rodrigo Sorogoyen)
Wake of Umbra (Carlos Reygadas)
Onslaught (Adam Wingard)
I Love Boosters (Boots Riley)
Untitled Musical (Jesse Eisenberg)
Famous (Jody Hill)
Primetime (Noah Oppenheim)
Teenage Sex and Death and Camp Miasma (Jane Schoenbrun)
Alpha Gang (Zellner Brothers)
Alone at Dawn (Ron Howard)
The Dinner (Olivia Wilde)
Victorian Psycho (Zachary Wigon)
The Death of Robin Hood (Michael Sarnoski)
Godzilla Minus Zero (Takashi Yamazaki)
Panic Carefully (Sam Esmail)
Tony (Matt Johnson)
Animals (Ben Affleck)
How to Rob A Bank (David Leitch)
At the Sea (Kornél Mundruczó)
Burning Rainbow Farm (Justin Kurzel)
The Drama (Kristoffer Borgli)
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Nia DaCosta)
Send Help (Sam Raimi)
Have Fun, Good Luck, Don’t Die! (Gore Verbinski)
Wuthering Heights (Emerald Fennell)
The Bride (Maggie Gyllenhaal)
Michael (Antoine Fuqua)
Colt is My Passport (Gareth Evans)
Madden (David O. Russell)
The Social Reckoning (Aaron Sorkin)
The Chaperones (India Donaldson)
Ebenezeer (Ti West)
Remain (M. Night Shyamalan)
In the Blink of an Eye (Andrew Stanton)
The Last Mrs. Parrish (Robert Zemeckis)
Klara and the Sun (Taika Waititi)
Mother Mary (David Lowery)
The Last Disturbance (Kenneth Branagh)
The RIP (Joe Carnahan)
How To Make A Killing (John Patton Ford)
A Place in Hell (Chloe Domont)
I Want Your Sex (Gregg Araki)
The Young People (Oz Perkins)
Saturn Return (Greg Kwedar)
The Backrooms (Kane Pixels)
Day Drinker (Marc Webb)
Heart of the Beast (David Ayer)
Here Comes the Flood (Fernando Mereilles)
Kockroach (Matt Ross)
MORE …
On Land and Sea (Hlynur Palmason)
It Will Happen Tonight (Nanni Moretti)
Après (Kirill Serebrenikko)
The Man I Love (Ira Sachs)
Mimesis (Kaouther Ben Hania)
Switzerland (Anton Corbijn)
Gentle Monster (Marie Kreutzer)
Double Freedom (Lisandro Alonso)
The Diary of a Chambermaid (Radu Jude)
La Saint-André des loups (Cristi Puiu)
Untitled (Michel Franco)
At The Middle of Life (Hong Sang-soo)
Thomas le Fort (Angela Schanelec)
Rosebush Pruning (Karim Ainouz)
The Unknown (Arthur Harari)
Red Rocks (Bruno Dumont)
Full Phil (Quentin Dupieux)
The Things That Hurt (Arnaud Desplechin)
Moulin (Laszlo Nemes)
Dumas: Black Devil (Ladj Ly)
Roma Elastico (Bertrand Mandico)
POTENTIAL BLOCKBUSTERS
Avengers: Doomsday (The Russos)
Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Daniel Destin Cretton)
The Mandalorian and Grogu (Jon Favreau)
Supergirl (Craig Gillespie)
Toy Story 5 (Andrew Stanton)
Clayface (James Watkins)
Cliffhanger (Jaume Collet Serra)
Masters of the Universe (Travis Knight)
Hoppers (Daniel Chong)
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (Francis Lawrence)
DC's "Clayface" has earned an A- CinemaScore from opening night audiences. That's a very good grade for any movie, and an especially rare one for horror, a genre audiences tend to grade harshly.