The Best Films Of 2026 So Far!!!
We Are Officially halfway through 2026 which means it’s time to look back at the cinematic highs of the year so far!!!
Let’s Begin!!!
Special Grand (Grant) Jury Prize:
The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act
Animator Gooseworx finally completes there animated web series exploring the psychological inner lives of unwitting digital prisoners on the big screen and the result is a moving and incredible communal experience!!!
30. Jackass: Best And Last
A loving celebration of male friendship, love and the simple glories of grown men getting hit in the nads as hard as possible, the jackass crew limped off into the sunset with this hilarious, disgusting and surprisingly moving victory lap and i loved every painful minute!!! Good night and farewell sweet jackasses!!!
29. Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard And Soft: The Tour (Live In 3D)
Billie Eilish is an incredible singer and showwoman, and that alone is enough to recommend this and yet the 3D ultimately elevates this into the pantheon of great concert films!!! When a crowd shot became so immersive i actually adjusted in my seat to help an invisible audience member get by i knew Eilish and Cameron had fully pulled off this ambitious gambit!!! I can handle a mediocre Avatar sequel if we get a few more films like this!!!
28. Hokum
Damian McCarthy’s irish folk horror fairy tale is a great example of a straight forward story done just right!!! Spooky and emotionally probing with an excellent lead performance from Adam Scott, Hokum is a hell of a tale!!!
27. Send Help
26. Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial Vs. That’s The Weight Of The World)
Questlove is the king of the music documentary and he has found his best subject since his oscar winning Summer Of Soul with this thoughtful examination of the titular band and the unique sound and style they brought to black music and damn what great music it is!!!
25. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
24. The Drama
How much do we really know the people we love and is it possible to know too much? This is the question posed by Kristoffer Borgli’s excellent romantic black comedy about a young couple whose soon to be nuptials are thrown for a loop after the groom to be (Robert Pattinson in another excellent performance) finds out a very dark secret from his fiance’s (Zendaya, also spectacular) past!!! Walking a delicate tightrope flawlessly The Drama is a breath of transgressive and provocative fresh air in an overly safe cinematic landscape!!!
23. Sirāt
There is a moment around the halfway point of the excellent Oscar nominated drama Sirāt that was so utterly shocking, unexpected and gutting i audibly gasped, this is also the moment that might understandably lose some audiences, it floored me!!! The film absolutely earns that surprise shock, this film about a father and his young son looking for there missing daughter and sister through the desert with the help of a group of ravers is utterly electrifying cinema that you can practically reach out and touch!!! It’s extraordinary!!!
22. Exit 8
Exit 8 is the best video game movie adaptation ever made!!! Yes damning with faint praise i know but still!!! This excellent Japanese thriller is as fun to watch as it is to think about!!! The story of a man trapped in an endless subway station from hell and forced to spot anomalies to escape is a thoughtful and surreal chiller that incorporates game mechanics into the narrative without ever losing track of its thoughtful themes!!! Exit 8 is a quick and entertaining flick worth getting trapped in!!!
21. The Sheep Detectives
Family films as terrific as this don’t come around every day!!! The Sheep Detectives is like a miracle!!! That rare stars align great film that literally everyone can watch and enjoy!!! Clever and moving with a surprisingly unpredictable mystery at its center, The Sheep Detectives makes most lesser family entertainment look so very baaaad!!!
20. Mile End Kicks
Chandler Levack is quickly becoming one of my new favorite filmmakers and her second feature Mile End Kicks is something special!!! An excellent coming of age flick about a young Canadian music journalist in the early 2010s trying to write a piece on Alanis Morisette in Montreal who finds herself in a love triangle between two members of an indie rock band, this is a thoughtful and well observed film that allows its characters to be flawed real people with real problems!!! Barbie Ferrera delivers a star making performance!!! A true hidden gem!!!
19. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
If last year’s 28 Years Later successfully revived a great horror franchise the second part of this new trilogy takes it to the twelfth gear!!! The Bone Temple is a fantastic sequel that enriches, darkens and deepens its predecessor while leaving you hungry for the final installment!!!
18. Dead Man’s Wire
Gus Van Sant delivers his best film in years with this excellent true crime thriller about an angry, screwed over real estate developer who took the son of a wealthy mortgage banker hostage with a wired up shotgun as the world watched in 1977!!! Sharp, darkly funny and featuring a terrific lead performance from Bill Skarsgard!!! This film deserved way more attention than it received!!!
17. Backrooms
Kane Parsons’ excellent surreal horror thriller about a furniture store owner who goes missing in a hidden maze like labyrinth in the basement of his store and his therapist who goes looking for him is a truly lynchian head trip that totally stunned me!!! I am still trying to figure out how certain things played out but one thing i know for sure is at only 20 years old Parsons’ is a true filmmaking revelation!!!
16. Power Ballad
John Carney is my kryptonite, i am okay with this!!! Yes he often makes films with a similar theme (people coming together through making music usually in Ireland) but he is simply great at it!!! This film about a wedding singer who after a drunken jam session with a pop star discovers that his song had been stolen and turned into a hit is a thoughtful music driven dramedy that has something meaningful to say about how a song can impact the songwriter and his audience differently!!! Damn you John Carney, you simply don’t miss!!!
15. Ricky
Every year a film comes along that has no fanfare, a practically non-existent theatrical release and zero buzz that completely floors me!!! This year that film is first time director Rashad Frett’s excellent drama Ricky!!! Stephan James delivers one of the year’s best performances as a man incarcerated at 15 who now 30 is essentially learning to be an adult for the first time as various characters and the world around him threaten to make his time out short lived!!! This is a raw, uncompromising film that is not an easy watch but it’s absolutely worthwhile!!! I cannot wait to see what this young filmmaker does next!!!
14. I Love Boosters
Nobody makes films like Boots Riley and by god am i glad he’s here!!! I Love Boosters is absolutely bonkers and totally brilliant!!! This satire about a group of women who boost clothes and their personal war with a fashion mogul is without question the most unpredictable film of 2026 so far!!! But the thing that lingers is its thoughtful takes on hustle culture, the fast fashion industry and exploitation of labor!!! I Love Boosters, I Love them a lot!!!
13. Tuner
Daniel Roher has already proven himself an excellent documentary filmmaker (he also directed this year’s terrific The AI Doc) but with Tuner his first narrative feature he proves he’s the real deal!!! This crime caper about a piano tuner suffering from hyperacusis who discovers his skills at piano tuning can also be applied to safe cracking is the kind of lightly comic romantic caper that simply doesn’t get made anymore!!! Leo Woodall is excellent and Dustin Hoffman delivers his best work in years!!! The sound design is immaculate!!! Tuner is a real gem!!!
12. The Furious
11. Toy Story 5
What is in the water at Pixar? How do they keep pulling this franchise off!!! Toy Story 5 is a delight!!! Smart, funny, moving and thoughtful in the very unique way this franchise has always been!!! By focusing the narrative on Jesse’s attempts to rescue Bonnie from becoming a slave to tech, the film ultimately morphs into a lovely ode to friendship, unconditional love and imagination and in turn resolves a devastating plot point from the second installment after 27 years!!! I loved Toy Story 5!!! I am truly surprised and delighted!!!
10. Carolina Caroline
Adam Carter Rehmeier is a filmmaker that hasn’t gotten nearly enough praise, unfortunately that trend continues with his third and best feature Carolina Caroline!!! This is a gripping, sexy and heartbreaking film that overcomes its familiar Bonnie And Clyde/Badlands style criminal lovers on the run narrative with a career best performance from Samara Weaving as a woman trapped in a vicious cycle of crime and direction that rises and falls in intensity and pace alongside its characters!!! Carolina Caroline is a true hidden gem!!!
9. Project Hail Mary
Big budget studio cinema is rarely better than Project Hail Mary, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller’s adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel about a science teacher recruited to take part in a desperate interstellar mission to save mankind from a microorganism slowly devouring the sun and the otherworldly new alien friend who helps him is a perfect marriage of brains, humor, emotion and thrills!!! It’s why we go to the movies!!! Ryan Gosling is fantastic!!! But the real star is Rocky (James Ortiz) who steals every scene!!! Don’t let this film’s erroneous PG-13 rating dissuade you, Project Hail Mary is the best family film of 2026 so far!!!
8. The Invite
It’s been a minute since we have had a comedy that seems like it was made by adults for adults!!! That’s why director/star Olivia Wilde’s third feature is such a delight!!! Centering on a couple (Wilde & a career best Seth Rogen) who have become deeply unhappy with one another who decide to invite there upstairs neighbors (Edward Norton & Penelope Cruz) over for a dinner party what follows is an evening of barely contained resentment, old wounds being reopened and potentially new and uncharted sexual waters!!! The Invite (which is based on a 2020 Spanish film) is smart, twisted, ferociously funny and even shockingly poignant with thoughtful insights into monogamy and sexual politics!!! This invite is one you should accept!!!
7. Disclosure Day
“Listen”, this is the last word spoken in Steven Spielberg’s terrific Sci-Fi drama Disclosure Day!!! This is not an anticlimax, it’s an invitation, a plea from one of our greatest cinematic artists to look up into the night sky and away from the doom and gloom we scroll past on a daily basis!!! The film about a whistleblower who has stolen evidence of alien activity and a Kansas City meteorologist (a career best Emily Blunt) on a collision course with destiny and the forces looking to stop them is a great blockbuster, but what makes it truly one of the year’s best is its sense of wonder and hope and its genuine belief empathy can save mankind!!! So “Listen” Mr. Spielberg has such wonders to show us and nobody does it better!!!
6. Girls Like Girls
Young love is a roller coaster, regardless of sexual orientation!!! Hayley Kiyoko’s directorial debut based on her song, short film and later novel about a young woman named Colley’s burgeoning romantic interest in her new friend Sonya during the summer of 2006 is a film that understands a fundamental truth about human nature: first love is an emotional minefield regardless of who you love!!! This is clearly a very personal story for Ms. Kiyoko and pal and co-writer Stefanie Scott (who originated the role of Colley in the original short film) and it shows in every aspect of her direction and the tender unforced performances she gets from excellent newcomers Maia Da Costa and Myra Molloy!!! The films utterly outrageous R rating be damned, all young teens going through the same feelings as Colley & Sonya should see this wonderful film!!! I liked Girls Like Girls, i liked it a lot!!!
5. Miss You, Love You
Sometimes the right film comes along right when you need it, Jim Rash’s solo directorial debut Miss You, Love You was one of those films!!! This moving and often funny two-hander about a grieving widow (a career best Allison Janney) whose estranged son sends his assistant (Andrew Rannells, also career best) to go to his stepfather’s funeral in his place is a heartbreaking, well observed examination of how grief brings people together even perfect strangers!!! It also proves the philosophy that sometimes great acting and great dialogue can truly carry a movie!!! Miss You, Love You is a diamond buried in the HBO algorithms and it deserves your attention!!!
4. Is God Is
Not since Jordan Peele’s Get Out have i seen a directorial debut that immediately announces a new filmmaking force as assured as Aleshea Harris’ Is God Is!!! This feminist black comedy/revenge thriller/western is a true original centering on twin sisters one rough and one sensitive who are given a request by there long thought dead mother they refer to as “God” (Vivica A. Fox in her best performance since Kill Bill) on her death bed and that request is to kill there monstrous father who burned them up (literally) and left them for dead, there patricide plot turns out to be easier said than done!!! Is God Is is one of the most confident and original films of the decade so far, a genre mash up that balances comedy, melodrama, horror and emotion and Harris’ (adapting her stage play) infuses the film with the righteous anger that fuels her protagonists allowing them to go to violent ends and to seek vengeance without judging them for it!!! Films as bold as this don’t come around every day and this one deserved way more attention!!!
3. I Swear
Uplifting and inspirational biographical films are a tricky thing to pull off. Lay it on too thick and you come across as disingenuous and saccharine, pull back too much and you run the risk of dishonoring the subject. I Swear is that rarest of examples of this subgenre: a film as irreverent and inspiring as its titular character. That character is John Davidson (Robert Aramayo in a star making performance) a man who grew up in the UK suffering from Tourettes Syndrome and how he overcame a rough childhood and went on to become an advocate for people with Tourettes. Released in the UK last year, Sony Pictures Classics gave the film a relatively quiet release in the states late spring after an unfortunate incident that occurred at the BAFTAs involving Davidson’s condition. That’s a true shame because I Swear is a truly special film that deserves way more attention here in the US!!!
2. Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie
Matt Johnson’s fourth feature film as writer/director/star truly shouldn’t exist and yet it does and it’s a miracle!!! Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie is maybe one of the best comedy films ever made. Johnson’s film adaptation of his prior web series and later television series is an incredible achievement in mockumentary filmmaking following the titular band (made up of Johnson and co-writer/composer Jay McCaroll) whose latest failed attempt at booking a gig at the small Toronto venue The Rivoli results in the duo inadvertently time traveling to 2008 via a flux capacitor, a spilled bottle of Orbitz and a VHS of Back To The Future and then things get really crazy!!! Much like the original series (viewing of which is not required to enjoy this film) the genius of this film is putting this bonkers premise into actual Toronto with many of the extras and bit players not realizing they are in a film Borat-style and then upping the technical ante blurring the line between what’s scripted and what isn’t!!! Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie is a work of brilliant cinematic mischief that i can’t wait to watch again and again!!!
1. Obsession
The best film of 2026 so far is also one of cinema’s greatest recent cinderella stories!!! Curry Barker’s sophomore feature Obsession is truly the little movie that could!!! Filmed on a budget of only 750,000 dollars with a cast of (formerly) unknown actors, this genuinely frightening and thought provoking film centering on a music shop employee (Michael Johnston, excellent and subtly monstrous) whose use of a novelty toy to supernaturally control his childhood friend and crush (Inde Navarette, a true breakout star) to fall madly in love with him is a success story unlike any other becoming one of the most profitable films in recent history!!! But pure financial success means little, what does matter is Obsession deserves its success with Barker successfully spinning the age old monkey’s paw narrative into a thoughtful, terrifying and shockingly funny examination of consent and the dangers of the “nice guy”!!! But if you simply want an entertaining creepfest, well it delivers on that front also with Navarette in particular delivering an instantly legendary performance!!! Obsession is a film i have thought about nearly every moment since i first saw it!!! Obsession is my obsession and the best film of 2026 so far!!!
Before we go here are some more films i have loved so far in 2026:
The AI Doc: Or How I Became An Apocaloptimist, Everyone Is Lying To You For Money, People We Meet On Vacation, Hoppers, Undertone, Roommates, Crime 101, Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, Forbidden Fruits, Over Your Dead Body, Mother Mary, Mr Nobody Against Putin, Arco, I Live Here Now, All You Need Is Kill, “Wuthering Heights”, Scarlet, The Bride!, Pizza Movie, Standout: The Ben Kjar Story
Stay tuned for The Worst Films Of 2026 So Far!!!
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