Killer robots, brain-controlling diseases, UFOs and more: here’s our pick of 15 sci-fi films coming up in 2026… The real world increasingly resembles a rubbish sci-fi thriller, so thank heavens that we can retreat to the safety of cinema and escapist stories about rampaging AI, over-powered corporations and totalitarian governments. And 2026 is positively stuffed ... 15 sci-fi films to look forward to in 2026
Killer robots, brain-controlling diseases, UFOs and more: here’s our pick of 15 sci-fi films coming up in 2026…
The real world increasingly resembles a rubbish sci-fi thriller, so thank heavens that we can retreat to the safety of cinema and escapist stories about rampaging AI, over-powered corporations and totalitarian governments. And 2026 is positively stuffed with genre films from some of the world’s most respected filmmakers: the last time we had Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott release a sci-fi movie in the same year was in 1982.
With apologies to any superhero movies that might happen to contain sci-fi elements (no Supergirl or Avengers: Doomsday here), please enjoy this list of the most exciting genre films coming up next year. Big budgets, small budgets, comedy elements, splashes of horror – there really is something for just about everyone in the list below.
Let’s begin, then, with a cautionary tale about indulging in carnal relations with a household appliance…
Soulm8te – 9th January (or perhaps not…)
The year gets off to a rather saucy start with this spin-off from Blumhouse’s killer robot thriller, M3GAN. Soulm8te is said to be taking the franchise into erotic territory, as a lonely widower buys a gynoid to keep him company – only for the wretched thing to start wreaking havoc. Directed by Kate Dolan and starring David Rysdahl and Lily Sullivan, it sounds like similar territory to Subservience, a 2024 thriller starring Megan Fox, and numerous other films where human-robot relations turn sour. Will it be a bigger hit than M3GAN 2.0, which was an unexpected disappointment in 2025? Dunno m8.
(Since this post was written, Universal has reportedly taken Soulm8te off its 2026 calendar, and is now shopping it to other distributors. We haven’t seen any official confirmation of this as yet, but we’ll update this list if we do.)
Bulk – January and February
British director Ben Wheatley’s career has spanned indie drama and horror (Down Terrace, Kill List) and expensive thrillers (Rebecca, Meg 2: The Trench). Bulk sees the filmmaker explore mind-bending science fiction, albeit in a uniquely DIY fashion. Shot on a tiny budget on domestic cameras (iPhones, SVHS and the like), Bulk sees protagonist Corey Harlan (Sam Riley) head off into a bizarre, dimension-spanning odyssey that includes an enigmatic scientist (Alexandra Maria Lara) and a variety of eccentric characters played by Noah Taylor. That Harlan’s odyssey takes place almost entirely in a single nondescript house doesn’t make it any less epic. Touring UK cinemas large and small in early 2026, Bulk is possibly the most mesmerising, unusual genre films you’ll see all year. You certainly won’t forget it in a hurry.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple – 14th January
Director Nia DaCosta takes over from Danny Boyle for the next chapter in a planned 28 Years trilogy, and by all accounts, this one’s an absolute corker. Picking up the thread from 2025’s sequel, it’s another journey into a country riven by superstition, disease and territorialism. We do wonder where screenwriter Alex Garland gets his out-there ideas from.
Mercy – 23rd January
We’ll try to go into this one with an open mind. It’s the latest film from director Timur Bekmambetov, previously known for the flashy action thriller, Wanted, but more recently associated with a series of ‘screenlife’ thrillers. He was producer on War Of The Worlds – a version of HG Wells’ invasion text viewed entirely through a computer interface. Starring Ice Cube and a supporting cast of Amazon goods and services, it was one of the most bafflingly misguided films of 2025.
But anyway: Mercy. Starring Chris Pratt, it’s set in a Minority Report-esque future where the entire legal system has been handed over to AI. Chris Pratt plays a detective who’s accused of murdering his own wife, and has 90 minutes to convince an icy digital judge (Rebecca Ferguson) of his innocence – or face summary execution.
The perplexing thing about Mercy isn’t so much the premise as the venue; Amazon MGM’s giving it a big cinema push, including a run on 3D IMAX screens. The trailer dresses the film up a bit, but it’s still mostly a single-location thriller with plot points unfolding on computer screens. We’re not sure it screams big-screen, bring-your-chums entertainment – but again, we’ll keep an open mind.
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Cold Storage – 13th February 2026
The Last Of Us played for laughs? Quite possibly. A storage facility becomes overrun by a mind-controlling fungus in a sci-fi comedy written by David Koepp – adapted from his own novel – and directed by Jonny Campbell (Alien Autopsy). Georgina Campbell (Barbarian) and Joe Keery (Stranger Things) star, and there’s a role too for Liam Neeson, who’s made some, er, interesting career choices of late. That’s hardly the film’s fault, though. The trailer is filled with gore and sweary, gross-out humour, and it all looks tremendously entertaining.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die – 20th February
Another sci-fi comedy, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die marks the return of director Gore Verbinski (Rango, the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise). Sam Rockwell stars as a dishevelled, oddly-dressed man who stumbles into a diner one night insisting that he’s from the future – and that he needs the customers’ help to avert a future war against machines. The film made its debut at 2025’s Fantastic Fest, where it garnered almost universally positive reviews. The supporting cast includes Zazie Beetz, Michael Pena and Juno Temple. We can’t wait.
In The Blink Of An Eye – 27th February
We were a bit worried about this film for a while. Finished in March 2025, In The Blink Of An Eye sat without a release date for several months, with rumours of reshoots doing the rounds. The sci-fi drama is now making its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, meaning it’ll screen there between late January and the 1st February.
From Wall-E and John Carter director Andrew Stanton, In The Blink Of An Eye is an epoch-spanning fable that takes us from humanity’s earliest days to a spacecraft 200 years in the future. The script, by Colby Day, was on the Black List of best unproduced screenplays in 2016, and it’s a terrific read: seamlessly eliding between eras and characters at various points in history, all building to a truly emotional climax. Day also wrote Spaceman, an Adam Sandler sci-fi you can find on Netflix; In The Blink Of An Eye promises to be another terrific genre piece.
(Unfortunately, In The Blink Of An Eye doesn’t appear to be getting a cinema release after its festival debut; instead, Disney has opted to send it directly to its Hulu screening service on the 27th February.)
The Bride! – 6th March
Not connected to Guillermo del Toro’s baroque take on Frankenstein made for Netflix, The Bride is the latest film from actor turned director Maggie Gyllenhaal. It stars Jessie Buckley as a mortally injured woman revived by Anette Bening’s Dr Euphronius, while Christian Bale plays the monster and the Bride’s betrothed. Moving Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel into the roaring (19)20s, it looks like a sumptuous and beautifully-designed tragic romance.
Project Hail Mary – 20th March
Based on the novel by Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary sees Ryan Gosling’s unassuming science teacher blasted into space in a last-ditch effort to save humanity. The trailer gave away a bit more of the book’s events than we were expecting, so maybe avoid that if you want to go into the cinema completely cold. The adaptation’s by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, so expect plenty of humour and heart as well as Weir’s plausibly detailed science fiction. In a case of unfortunate cosmic timing, Project Hail Mary once placed it rather near another major sci-fi film from a director whose last big hit was also a Weir adaptation. Though since this post was originally written, Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars has been pushed back to August 2026 (see below).
The Mandalorian And Grogu – 22nd May
Lucasfilm’s first Star Wars movie in seven years, The Mandalorian And Grogu takes the hit Disney+ series out for a big screen spin-off – making it the Holiday On The Buses of space fantasies. We don’t know much about the plot, and frankly, we don’t need to know: as long as director Jon Favreau delivers on the pace and spectacle, we should be in for a pulpy, entertaining evening at the pictures. Pedro Pascal, Grogu, Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allan White all star – the latter as the alarmingly buff son of the late Jabba.
Disclosure Day – 12th June
It’s an absurdly stuffed year for respected directors making genre films. And Disclosure Day could be the biggest of the lot: it’s the latest from Steven Spielberg, and a return to the UFO-based subject matter of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. It’s written by David Koepp (see Cold Storage earlier), who previously worked with Spielberg on the adapted screenplay for Jurassic Park, and following the autobiographical drama of The Fabelmans, it’s a return to the summer blockbuster experience the filmmaker essentially invented. Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor and Wyatt Russell star; it’s about an attempt to reveal the truth about alien intelligence to the world, and a shadowy attempt to stop it. We think. The trailer’s big on intrigue and low on plot specifics. It compels us, though.
Flowervale Street – 10th August
It Follows was one of the great horror movies of the 2010s, and here comes its director, David Robert Mitchell, with some sort of time-travelling IMAX thriller involving dinosaurs. Ewen McGregor and Anne Hathaway are the starriest names among the warm-blooded cast. At present, we don’t know a whole lot more about this one, either, but Mitchell is a hugely talented director of both comedy and suspense. His previous film, Under Silver Lake, was an unfairly overlooked commercial disappointment, but we thought it was an absolute keeper. As such, we’ve high hopes for Flowervale Street. Bring on the dinosaurs.
The Dog Stars – 28th August
Some of Ridley Scott’s most beloved and influential movies are in the sci-fi genre – Alien, Blade Runner and The Martian (the Weir adaptation we were on about above) are all markedly different in tone, but all classics in their own way. We’re excited to see what Scott’s done with The Dog Stars, then: adapted from Peter Heller’s novel, it’s set in a future world ravaged by a pandemic. Holed up in an aircraft hangar, the two protagonists – Jacog Elordi’s pilot, Hig and Josh Brolin’s sniper, Bangley – are coaxed back into the open world by a mysterious signal. Margaret Qualley, Guy Pearce and Benedict Wong also star. Given Scott’s visual flair – even his uneven Alien prequels were often lovely to look at – this is arguably one of our most anticipated genre films of the year.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping – 20th November
Quentin Tarantino’s favourite killer contest franchise is back with another prequel, this one joining things up to the 2011 film that started it all. Hence why Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are making a return as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. Expect more oppression, death and romance; Francis Lawrence has become a dab hand at making these. And as The Long Walk proved, he’s quite an underrated director, both technically and in the performances he gets from his actors.
Dune: Part Three – 18th December
The year ends with a pinch of spice courtesy of director Denis Villeneuve. Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya and the rest of the Dune crew are back for a third visit to Arrakis, and given that this chapter will sail beyond the confines of Frank Herbert’s original novel, which formed the basis for the first two movies, it’ll be fascinating to see where the Canadian filmmaker takes the saga next. Herbert’s own follow-up, Dune Messiah, had some truly wild ideas that might not translate too well onto a cinema screen, but Villeneuve’s previous adaptations were spectacularly done.
Also coming up, with no release date attached:
Ray Gunn, the animated sci-fi noir passion project from Brad Bird; Godzilla Minus Zero, the follow-up to instant kaiju klassic, Godzilla Minus One. You lucky, lucky people.
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