The Biggest Hollywood Films Still Coming in 2026

Michael Showalter's adaptation of Colleen Hoover's thriller, with Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett and Dakota Johnson, out at the end of September. Hoover adaptations have a proven audience and a poor critical record — It Ends with Us made $351 million on a $25 million budget in 2024 while being panned — and this is the darker book by a distance.

The awards-corridor entry, out on 2 October. Alejandro G. Iñárritu's first English-language film since The Revenant, with Tom Cruise as Digger Rockwell — described by Warner Bros. as a comedy about the most powerful man in the world racing to prove he is humanity's saviour before the disaster he caused finishes the job. Sandra Hüller, John Goodman, Jesse Plemons and Riz Ahmed are in support. Cruise has not made a film like this in thirty years, which is the only reason it is on a list otherwise full of sequels.

DC's October horror experiment, from a James Watkins-directed script that Mike Flanagan wrote, with Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie and Max Minghella. It is the most interesting swing on this list: a body-horror film about a minor Batman villain, released without Batman, at a moment when the studio badly needs its non-Superman slate to work after Supergirl underperformed in June.

Peter Farrelly's film about how Sylvester Stallone forced Rocky into existence — refusing to sell his script unless he could star in it — with Anthony Ippolito as Stallone. A November awards-corridor release about the making of an underdog film, which is either irresistible or unbearable depending on your tolerance for the genre.

A Christmas Carol again, in November, this time with a horror inflection. Dickens' novella is the most-adapted story in English-language cinema and the version that works is always the one that takes the ghosts literally — which appears to be the plan here.

20 November, and the biggest pre-December release left. Francis Lawrence adapts Suzanne Collins' 2025 prequel about Haymitch Abernathy's Games, twenty-four years before Katniss — Joseph Zada plays Haymitch, with Mckenna Grace, Jesse Plemons and Ralph Fiennes in support. The 2023 prequel made $349 million on a $100 million budget; this one has a considerably more popular character at its centre.

David Harbour's murderous Santa returns in early December. The first film cost $20 million and made $76 million, which is exactly the ratio that gets a sequel greenlit fast — and it is counter-programming for a month otherwise given over to two three-hour epics.

Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black and Karen Gillan back for the third of the modern Jumanji films, dated 11 December — one week before the Doomsday-Dune collision. The previous two took $962 million and $801 million, which makes this the safest commercial bet of the quarter and the reason Sony picked the date it did.

18 December, moved back seven months from its original 1 May date. Robert Downey Jr. returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Doctor Doom rather than Tony Stark, with Pedro Pascal, Chris Hemsworth and Vanessa Kirby among an enormous cast. It is the first Avengers film since Endgame in 2019 and the one Marvel has staked its recovery on — and it is opening on the same day as Dune: Part Three, which nobody has yet blinked on.

Denis Villeneuve closes the trilogy on the same 18 December date, with Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson joining for the finale. Part Two took $714 million and is among the best-reviewed blockbusters of the decade, which gives this the strongest critical position of anything on the list. Chani's unresolved arc from the second film is the thread the whole conclusion hangs on.