Summer blockbuster season is over and that can only mean one thing: it’s time to look ahead to this year’s slate of fall movies.
That and everyone is going to start stocking up on pumpkin spice everything. Good luck and don’t overdo it. Or do – we don’t give a frappe.
Considering we’ve already had eight months full of cinematic goodness – from horror hits Obsession and Backrooms to literal epics – and a box-office shattering summer courtesy of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, 2026 is looking like it’s going to be one for the books. Especially since the last four months of the year are mighty promising, all leading to a single day in December when both of 2026’s biggest blockbusters open simultaneously…
Until then, it’s an extremely compelling but very crowded release schedule… With that in mind, Euronews Culture is making it a little easier for you by selecting the films that should be on your radar between September and December. Release dates vary throughout Europe, so we’ve ordered the picks as chronologically as possible. And if you don’t see this year’s Palme d’Or winner Fjord or the majestic Fatherland below, it’s because they’ve already been released in certain European territories and we’ve covered them already. You’re welcome.
Without further ado, these are the hotly awaited titles coming to the screen this fall that you won’t want to miss.
SEPTEMBER
Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger
While the Madferit lot are waiting for new tour dates in 2027, they’ll have a documentary about the Oasis Live ‘25 reunion tour to keep them happy. It opens at this year’s Venice Film Festival and has been billed as “an unapologetically uplifting account of the biggest musical event of 2025, capturing the experience and emotions of the band and their fans across the world.” It hits cinemas this month and will stream exclusively on Disney+ later this year.
Practical Magic 2
It’s been nearly 30 years since Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman played witchy siblings Sally and Gillian… Now they’re back, alongside returning cast members Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing, as well as newbies Joey King, Lee Pace and Maisie Williams. This time, they’re wrestling with a multi-generational curse haunting the family lineage. As a sizeable bonus, the sequel is directed by the wonderful Susanne Bier (Open Hearts, In A Better World, The Night Manager) – so we’re expecting big things. Witch-ful thinking?
Resident Evil
Being a video game fan is a tough gig when it comes to film adaptations, and we’ve already had seven Resident Evil films since 2002… All of which range from averge to piss poor. None, however, have been co-written and directed by Zach Cregger, the man behind Barbarian and last year’s underwear-soiling Weapons. Billed as a (much-needed) new take on the franchise, we’re curious to see whether Cregger’s leap from indie scares to franchise frights may break the console-to-theatre curse.
Primetime
What a time to be Robert Pattinson. This year, he’s been a hapless groom-to-be in The Drama, a sniveling suitor in The Odyssey, and he’s capping off the year as a power-hungry plotter in Dune: Part Three. Before that, he’s playing Chris Hansen, the host of the morally questionable reality TV series To Catch a Predator. He’ll be directed by documentarian Lance Oppenheim, marking his narrative-feature debut after Some Kind of Heaven and Spermworld. The trailer looks promising – and gives off Nightcrawler vibes… Could an Oscar nomination be coming for R-Patz?
OCTOBER
Verity
The Hathayear continues… After Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey and The End Of Oak Street, Anne Hathaway stars in her fifth feature of 2026. She plays a famous author whose unfinished book series brings a struggling writer (Dakota Johnson) into her home… And closer to her hubby (Josh Hartnett). Verity is the adaptation of the novel by Colleen Hoover (“It Ends With Us”), which has been described as a “gothic, psychosexual thriller in the vein of Rebecca and Gone Girl.” Sounds mighty promising… If you choose to ignore the trainwreck that was 2024’s It Ends With Us. Let’s hope Verity doesn’t derail a stellar year for its leading lady.
Digger
Will Digger be the film that finally bags Tom Cruise an Oscar? The first trailer for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s hotly anticipated new film has given audiences a first look at Cruise’s most transformative and least recognisable role since Tropic Thunder. He stars as Digger Rockwell, a powerful Texas oil man who “embarks on a frantic mission to prove that he is humanity’s saviour before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything”. The satirical tone recalls Dr. Strangelove, and it certainly looks like Cruise is taking one of the biggest swings of his career, looking to remind audiences that he’s more than just a running-jumping-fighting action star.
The Social Reckoning
The timing of this sequel’s release couldn’t be more opportune. Following recent headlines regarding Meta’s landmark billion dollar settlement and Mark Zuckerberg’s vile plan to replace his staff with AI, we get a very timely companion piece to David Fincher’s Oscar-winning The Social Network. Jeremy Strong takes over from Jesse Eisenberg as the Facebook founder in Aaron Sorkin’s film about Zuckerberg’s continuing woes. Strong certainly has that vacant / “Is he human?”http://www.euronews.com/”Probably a soulless droid” stare down… The Social Reckoning focuses on whistleblower Frances Haugen (Oscar-winning Anora star Mikey Madison), who went public about Facebook’s algorithmic wrongdoings and active promotion of false information. Here’s hoping Sorkin can deliver another exhilarating screenplay and that he live up to Fincher’s superb work behind the camera.
Klara And The Sun
Based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel of the same name, Klara And The Sun is Taika Waititi’s bid to get back into Hollywood’s good books, following the back-to-back disappointments of Thor: Love And Thunder and Next Goal Wins. Set in a dystopian future, Jenna Ortega plays Klara, a solar-powered companion android yearning to bond with Josie (Mia Tharia), the sick girl for whom she was purchased. Let’s see if Waititi can harness his humour to work in favour of the source material, and that the big screen adaptation track record when it comes to Ishiguro’s works doesn’t get its first blemish.
Minotaur
Following its Grand Prix win at Cannes this year, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur gets a staggered European release across October and November. Based on the 1969 French film La Femme Infidèle by Claude Chabrol, the story is set in 2022 and follows an affluent Russian business executive who discovers his wife’s infidelity and sets out to kill her younger lover. Echoes from Cannes have been overwhelmingly positive, with praise directed not only at Zvyagintsev but also at Iris Lebedeva and Dmitriy Mazurov, who play the couple navigating betrayal and corruption in Putin’s Russia.
Ali G: Who Iz I?
Does anyone care about Ali G anymore? Sacha Baron Cohen seems to think so, having unretired his Channel 4 / Ali G Indahouse (2002) character for a new mockumentary. Shot in secret and marking Baron Cohen’s directorial debut, Ali G: Who Iz I? has already faced considerable backlash even before its release. The painfully unfunny trailer has led many campaigners to try to get the film pulled from cinemas. They argue that the “outdated” and “racist” stereotypes don’t cut it, even if they are presented as satire. Time will tell whether the film is any good, but it’s bound to be one of the most talked about releases of October. Just maybe not in a good way.
Clayface
One of 2026’s big Halloween releases is, rather surprisingly, a DC Comics movie. Directed by James Watkins (Eden Lake, Speak No Evil) from a screenplay by the ever-reliable Mike Flanagan, Clayface gives us the origin story of the Batman villain with a gloopy face. It sees a famous young actor who is left horribly disfigured and turns to a scientist (Naomi Achie) so she can perform a cutting-edge skin treatment to return him to his former self. The side effects look gnarly. The creepy trailers show that Watkins and Co. have committed to body horror (clap clap clap), and certain sequences already look like they’ll leave audiences squirming in their seats. A certain LITERAL eye-opening scene on board an airplane looks set to churn a fair few stomachs.
Hope
A police chief, a rookie cop and a group of hunters try to track down and kill a mysterious kaiju-style creature that’s laying waste to a Korean village. What’s not to love? South Korean writer-director Na Hong-Jin’s highly anticipated creature-feature comes 10 years since his horror gem The Wailing, and the reception at Cannes was mixed. Messy and saddled with sub-par VFX for some; unhinged and high-octane for others. Oh, and both Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander turn up to play two of the creatures. Colour us intrigued.
Wicker
Another Halloween release this year looks mighty promising: a comedic fairytale starring Olivia Coleman as a fisherwoman ostracised by a rigid medieval farming town. Faced with crippling isolation, she commissions herself a husband made out of wicker (Alexander Skarsgård). As you do. Based on a short story by Ursula Wills-Jones, this atypical romance directed by Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer seems to tick all the boxes. Coleman doing comedy? Tick. A weird, satirical and vulgar folk tale featuring a husband who’s “strong as a tree and just as hard” and plenty of F-bombs? Tick. Skarsgård playing bedworthy basketry who the townspeople want to climb like a tree? Tick. Prepare for this one to unlock a few subconscious kinks.
NOVEMBER
Godzilla Minus Zero
This sequel to 2023’s Oscar-winning hit Godzilla Minus One continues its predecessor’s story, with Japanese writer / director Takashi Yamazaki returning to hopefully deliver another impressive kaiju spectacle. Considering Minus One was one of the best Godzilla films ever made – an impressive feat considering there have been 39 by our calculations – there’s every reason to believe Yamazaki will deliver the goods once more. Minus Zero is also Japan’s first-ever production to be filmed for IMAX, and the synopsis sounds… appropriate: “War reduced Japan to zero, and Godzilla plunged it into minus. Two years have passed since then, and the country has faced agonizing struggles to achieve recovery and finally reclaim its daily life. Just as humanity managed to cling to a hard-won peace, a new threat strikes, crushing hope in an instant. There is no third time. Everything ends here.” Bring the noise.
Wild Horse Nine
Following the multi-award-winning The Banshees of Inisherin, Martin McDonagh is back with another black comedy which seems to hark back to his very own In Bruges. Out with two bickering hitmen in Belgium and in with a squabbling pair of CIA agents (John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell) stirring shit up on Easter Island prior to the 1973 Chilean coup. The ensemble piece is Venice-bound and features the likes of Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey, Mariana di Girolamo and the great and powerful Tom Waits. This one can’t come soon enough.
Ebenezer
Marketed as both a twisted reimagining of “A Christmas Carol” from horror director Ti West (The Innkeepers, the X trilogy) and Johnny Depp’s big screen comeback, Ebenezer could be either a bold Christmas Gothic or a reheated Dickensian dud. A lot depends on whether audiences will welcome Depp back. While initial reactions to his prosthetic-caked transformation as Ebenezer Scrooge have been positive, the ghosts of his past have not been forgotten by some. Open minds and all that, but the far-too-meta trailer lays it on mighty thick: “He brought us Jack Sparrow, Edward Scissorhands and the Mad Hatter. This November, the master of misfits returns.” This is then followed by Depp whispering: “It’s good to be back.” We’ll see quite how good soon enough.
Paper Tiger
James Gray’s latest New York family saga is an 80s set crime story which seems perfectly fitted for the director behind Little Odessa, The Yards and We Own The Night. Paper Tiger follows two brothers who get caught up in a scheme involving the Russian mafia, and their dealings threaten not only their sibling bond but the whole suburban family unit. Starring Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson, this could be the A-lister packed film that finally gives Gray his overdue award recognition. Quite how The Lost City of Z and Armageddon Time didn’t bag him at least a Golden Baldie nomination, we’ll never know.
The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth
Quentin Tarantino didn’t want this to be his tenth and final film, according to the arbitrary rules that he’s set himself. Still, he wrote a sequel to Once Upon A Time In Hollywood centering on Brad Pitt’s stunt man Cliff Booth, and passed the project over to none other than David Fincher. On the plus side, this means we get another Fincher-Pitt team-up, following Se7en, Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. On the minus front, do we really need more? Once Upon A Time In Hollywood wasn’t QT’s best… Plus, there’s the niggling question: Can Tarantino’s voice and Fincher’s sensibility gel to make a winning combination? We’ll find out end of November, before the movie goes to streaming via Netflix on 23 December.
DECEMBER
La Bola Negra
Straddling the months of November and December when it comes to release dates in Europe, La Bola Negra was one of Cannes’ most talked-about titles. Directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, this queer epic – inspired by the unfinished work of the same name by Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca – earned both filmmakers the joint Best Director Palme alongside Paweł Pawlikowski for Fatherland. If it’s anywhere near as masterful as the latter, audiences are in for a treat. Spanning from Spain in the early 1930s to queer persecution during the turmoil of the civil war up until the 21st century, this sprawling epic could very well end up as the contender to beat when it comes to Best International Feature at next year’s Oscars.
Ink
The opening film of this year’s Venice Film Festival is Danny Boyle’s Ink, which will hit select theatres in December and January, before streaming on Netflix early next year. Boyle’s Lido debut is a bio-drama adapted by James Graham from his 2017 stage play, about the early days of Rupert Murdoch amid the news mogul’s acquisition of The Sun. It stars Guy Pearce as the Australian newspaper magnate, Jack O’Connell as tabloid editor Larry Lamb, and Claire Foy as a fictional reporter. The synopsis, which promises a scathing and timely examination of the state of news reporting, states: “An explosive cinematic rollercoaster about a group of visionaries and misfits who had an idea for a new kind of news – one that would give the people what they wanted and would change the face of the world we live in today.” Since Boyle’s previous biographical drama, 2015’s Steve Jobs, led to numerous award nominations, we wouldn’t be surprised if Ink becomes a big contender throughout awards season.
Avengers: Doomsday
It’s been a rough five years for the world’s biggest movie franchise. The MCU has had more misses than hits in its post-Endgame era, and everyone was ready to be done with the overstuffed multiverse shenanigans. But apparently, superhero fatigue hasn’t peaked, judging by the record-breaking showing of Spider-Man: Brand New Day – which is now a bigger box office hit than Titanic. Still, the end of this year is truly make-or-break time for Marvel, who are leaving nothing to chance and going balls to the wall with what promises to be their biggest crossover epic yet. Everyone’s in for the ride: returning Endgame directors the Russo Brothers; the supposedly MCU retired Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr.; The Fantastic Four; The Thunderbolts; the OG X-Men… It’s going to be one half of 2026’s biggest blockbuster extravaganza, and you just know it’ll obliterate the global box office. Records have already been broken, as pre-ticket sales have surpassed $35 million. You read correctly: even four months before its release, Doomsday has smashed advance sales records. Whether it lives up to the hype or becomes a cultural event like Endgame remains to be seen. What’s certain is that this adventure isn’t just about battling Doctor Doom; it’s the MCU’s fight to reclaim its title and prove it’s still worth our time.
Dune: Part Three
If Avengers: Doomsday is one half of 2026’s massive blockbuster hoopla, the second is the third chapter of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune saga. Both films come out on the exact same day (18 December), leading many to predict a Barbenheimer-style double-bill event dubbed Dunesday. We’ll be indulging in this bladder-punishing day at the talkies come December, but truth be told, we’re far more excited about Dune: Part Three. It concludes the trilogy of adaptations of Frank Herbert’s Dune and is based on “Dune Messiah”, in which emperor Paul Atreides’ holy war is getting waaay out of hand. Everyone’s back for the final chapter, including previously deceased Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) and some new faces (the ubiquitous Robert Pattison, Isaach de Bankolé, and Anya Taylor-Joy graduating from cameo to full-time player). Considering both Dune and Dune: Part Two were top-notch, this concluding chapter could very well make Villeneuve’s trilogy one for the ages. Only one question remains: Which out of Doomsday or Dune: Part Three will outgross the other at the box office?
There we have it. Which films are you most looking forward to? For up-to-date reviews of the latest film releases, head to Euronews Culture’s Film of the Week section, and check out our picks for the Best Movies of 2026… So Far.