100 films to look forward to in 2026 – part two

61. Queen at Sea (Lance Hamer)

February 2026 (Berlinale Première)

Back in 2008, Lance Hamer was a name on everyone’s lips due to his massively impressive indie feature, Ballast. Then… crickets. The guy went off somewhere, did some other things evidently. But now he’s finally back with Queen at Sea, and he’s got none other than Juliette Binoche in tow, and the film is set to première in competition at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival. Its story, about a mother and daughter decamping to London to tend to an ailing relative, could also be a clue as to Hamer’s whereabouts for the last two decades. DJ 

62. Wild Horse Nine (Martin McDonagh)

2026; Release date TBA

It was a bit of shame that Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin was kinda shunted to the side when it came to award distribution in 2022, so it’s good news that he’s going to be back with us soon with a new star-spangled thrilled called Wild Horse Nine, and hopefully with another major contender for silverware. Sam Rockwell, John Malkovich, Parker Posey, Steve Buscemi, Mariana di Girolamo and Tom Waits are all locked in to the cast, with the current logline running as a pair of CIA agents face a trust-testing mission from Santiago to Easter Island during 1973, which feels like something a little different a filmmaker whose work is often steeped in Irish lore and tradition. DJ

63. Artificial (Luca Guadagnino)

2026; Release date TBA

Erm… Luca bbs… is this really the best idea you’ve ever had? For a filmmaker who’s made a bit a name for himself by announcing crazy future projects that never come to fruition, we’re not lying when we say that we were hoping that Artificial – the story of snake oil salesman and AI captain of industry, Sam Altman – would’ve never made it past the back-of-a-napkin idea stage. With Andrew Garfield playing the man himself, and white supremacist richkid Elon Musk played by Ike Barinholtz, we have fingers and toes crossed that this won’t be some ​“both sides” bullshit, as the only creative win here is if the film finds new ways to articulate just how awful and destructive these people are. DJ

64. The Entertainment System is Down (Ruben Östlund)

2026; Release date TBA

Excitement is subjective, so to be diplomatic we’ll say that there are probably some people out there who are very hyped by the fact that Swedish prankster Ruben Östlund is back on the scene in 2026. A Cannes competition slot likely beckons for his long-mooted The Entertainment System is Down, a comic satire about the mayhem that ensues when the seat-back TV on a long-haul flight malfunction. Keanu Reeves, Kirsten Dunst and Daniel Brühl have all signed up for seats. Let’s see if Östlund can temper his trademark smug self-satisfaction and give us something more than his tired old, ​“all people are essentially c**ts” thesis. DJ

65. Fjord (Cristian Mungiu)

2026; Release date TBA

Ever since netting the Palme d’Or in 2007 for his remarkable 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, Romanian New Wave linchpin Cristian Mungiu has never missed with his detailed, determined human dramas about the relationship between the messy reality of human lives and the teetering political structures that are built for people to live in. His new one, Fjord, is notable for being his first English-language film, and also his first set outside Romania, as Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve play a couple who move to a Norwegian village and come under scrutiny from the locals. DJ

66. Jack of Spades (Joel Coen)

2026; Release date TBA

Pains us to say this, but Ethan Coen has a lot to prove when it comes to the idea that there’s a viable cinematic form that can be described as a Coen brother (singular) movie. His silly sex comedies just have landed with a thud. And the jury is still out on Joel, having made a very decent version of Macbeth which noticeably lacked some of that old Coen magic. His new one is a Gothic mystery, set in and around Glasgow during the 1800s and stars Josh O’Connor, Frances McDormand, Lesley Manville and Damian Lewis. All the ingredients are there for something special, but we hope that this can finally put paid to the Curse of Coen (singular). DJ

67. Paper Tiger (James Gray)

2026; Release date TBA

We only want the best for James Gray, who as a champion of cinema and traditional methods of production and storytelling, could be seen as the heir apparent to Martin Scorsese. Following on from 2022’s melancholy autobiography, Armageddon Time, Gray is joined by Hollywood heavyweights Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller for this story of two brothers who find out what happens when you make a deal with the Russian mafia (spoiler: bad things). Filming already occurred in the summer of 2025, so expect Gray to be presenting this one in competition in Cannes come May. DJ

68. The Way of the Wind (Terrence Malick)

2026; Release date TBA

Okay, this is going to be the year where it’s actually going to happen. I think we’ve had Terrence Malick’s The Way of the Wind on our movie preview lists for the past four years now, but word from the whisper network suggests that – finally – we might have the maestro’s follow-up to his rhapsodic 2019 film, A Hidden Life. This film which purports to be about the life of Jesus (played by Géza Röhrig, recently seen in Marty Supreme) will likely be presented in the transcendental mode of late Malick (complimentary), and we’re still really hyped by the credit ​“Mark Rylance as Satan”. DJ

69. Minotaur (Andrey Zvyagintsev)

2026; Release date TBA

There was a point around 2021, when vaccines for the COVID were being dished out, where we almost lost Russian auteur Andrey Zvyagintsev. A three year period of convalescence led to him finally being able to re-enter the cinematic fray, and the maker of such films as Elena, Leviathan and Loveless returns with Minotaur, a story that follows a Russian entrepreneur as he swings the axe on his employees but has a last-minute change of heart when he discovers that his wife is having an affair. Shooting wrapped at the end of 2025, so a Cannes berth seems inevitable. DJ

70. All of a Sudden (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

2026; Release date TBA

Following his speedy ascent to global stardom, which included scoring a Best Picture Academy Award nomination for his 3‑hour experimental adaptation of the Murakami short story, ​‘Drive My Car’, Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi is back, and he’s decamped to Paris. This new work, titled All of a Sudden, is set to star French actor Virginie Efira opposite Japanese actor Tao Okamoto, and even though little is known about it beyond the fact that it has been inspired by a book of letters called ​“You and I – The Illness Suddenly Gets Worse”, Efira did drop on a red carpet appearance that the film will likely be another 3‑hour job. Yay! DJ