2026 has already seen the release of one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time, with Project Hail Mary changing the brain chemistry of genre fans the world over. There’s also been another great Spielberg in Disclosure Day, a delightful Pixar sci-fi in Hoppers, Netflix’s take on The Terminator meets Predator in War Machine, and the truly, madly, deeply brilliant Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, and there’s a lot more still to come.
The sci-fi genre continues to pull in incredible talent, both in front of the camera and behind it, and the second half of 2026 promises the return of another old sci-fi master, Ridley Scott; the third part of a new master’s hard sci-fi epic saga; and both huge IP offerings and interesting originals and adaptations of creative marvels. Whether anything will be able to dethrone Project Hail Mary as the best of the year is up for debate at this point, but the hype machine is already in full flow, and there’s definitely at least a couple of major contenders.
An honorable mention nod must first go to the re-release of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which returns to theaters on August 28 to celebrate its 35th anniversary. No, it won’t add new footage, it’s not been retroactively turned into a 3D release, and it hasn’t been messed with in any way. Which is exactly why you should go and see it on a big screen, especially if you haven’t had the chance already. And while we’re on the subject, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping might be on some people’s sci-fi lists, but the dystopian prequel feels like an uneasy fit with more conventional genre offers. Argue about it among yourselves.
7
Onslaught – September 4
Having turned his hand to Godzilla for his last two movies, Adam Wingard is stepping away from massive Kaiju battles to reunite with writer Simon Barrett and A24 for something decidedly smaller in scale. Onslaught is, somewhat ironically, an allegorical tale of societal trauma (which his Godzilla movies really weren’t, despite the franchise’s origin) and is part of the same universe as the excellent The Guest. It’s very political, which some have already said is a provocative choice, but Wingard knows exploitation, and seeing a sci-fi/horror blend in that context is an interesting sale.
Incoming Man of Tomorrow star Adria Arjona stars as a military vet desperately protecting her family from a squad of genetically engineered super-soldiers in the same town as The Guest. Wingard talisman Dan Stevens returns, but with a different name, and so too does Wingard’s patented brand of hyperviolence and surprising depth. Early reactions highlighted both the violence and the fun factor, with allusions to the Terminator and Die Hard, and it’s frankly been too quiet on the Universal Soldier-like cyborg villain front in the sci-fi genre. Hopefully the spiritual sequel can live up to the very high bar set by The Guest. All signs are promising so far.
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Klara and The Sun – October 23
Taika Waititi’s reputation is an odd thing. He’s made some excellent movies (and TV series, in fact) but the widely criticized, perceived self-indulgence of Thor: Love & Thunder and the head-scratching decision to follow it up with Next Goal Wins has rather taken the shine off his brand. In that context, Waititi adapting Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro’s masterpiece scores high on the intrigue factor. But it’s definitely weird, and that’s where Waititi has done his best work.
Klara and the Sun stars Jenna Ortega as Klara, a “Artificial Friend” designed to provide companionship and emotional support to lonely teenagers in a near-future society driven by high-stakes genetic engineering. If only that was laughably unrealistic sci-fi fantasy and not a horribly possible glimpse at the near future Silicon Valley is engineering for us… While AI in movies has tended to be malevolent, Ishiguro’s story approaches the technology as a sort of existential horror, but also as a wonder that requires something like empathy. This is not a swash-buckling robo-war movie, instead meditating on the subtleties of existence and it should, hopefully, allow Waititi a return to soulful form.
5
Ray Gunn – December 18
Brad Bird has already made a number of sci-fi movies having cut his teeth as co-writer of the wonderful Batteries Not Included way back in 1987. In one of the most enduringly confusing trends in cinema, the box office has not been as evenly kind to the sci-fis he’s directed, though. The Iron Giant is both an undisputed masterpiece and a bona fide box office flop, and Tomorrowland was unfairly misunderstood and barely made its production budget back. At least he has The Incredibles movies.
And even better, his long-gestating passion project, Ray Gunn, is coming to Netflix and thus doesn’t have the weight of box office expectations to distract from how great it might be. Like Tomorrowland and The Incredibles universe, Ray Gunn is another retro-futuristic story, and is, again, an animation, promising to fuse 1940s noir detective tropes with a futuristic world shared by humans and aliens. It’s another collaboration between Bird and his Batteries Not Included co-writer Matthew Robbins, who also did some uncredited scripting on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. So not a partnership short on quality.
Anything that allows Bird to apply his eye for storytelling to something as original and simultaneously familiar sounding as Ray Gunn should be taken as a very exciting prospect, and early reviews of the first seven minutes out of Comic Con were delightfully glowing.
4
The Dog Stars – August 28
Ridley Scott hasn’t made a sci-fi movie since 2017’s Alien: Covenant, which immediately followed sci-fi masterpiece The Martian, so it shouldn’t really need to be said that his return to the genre with The Dog Stars is a big deal. Based on Peter Heller’s acclaimed novel, the story follows a pilot, his dog, and a stern ex-Marine clinging to life in an abandoned hangar after a devastating flu pandemic decimates human civilization. Given Scott’s in charge, we already know the story will speak loudly, and the central performances will be great, but this looks like a change of pace.
Early The Dog Stars reactions have called it a more gentle Scott offering, and confirmed that both the story and character work are impressive. But what do you expect when the cast is led by Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, and Margaret Qualley? Apocalyptic sci-fi fans might be more used to heavy-handed mutant or zombie threats, but Scott’s dystopia (and Heller’s before him, of course) is a different breed that promises the master’s touch. That should be enough for anyone.
3
Godzilla Minus Zero
In 2023, Takashi Yamazaki set a dauntingly high bar with Godzilla Minus One, delivering something that was both wildly transformative for monster movies and deeply familiar. Minus One proved that you don’t need nine-figure Hollywood budgets when you know at your core what a Godzilla movie should be. And in returning to an allegory for trauma in post-war Japan, Minus One was one of the most exciting movies of the century.
Picking up in the aftermath of its Oscar-winning predecessor, Godzilla Minus Zero promises to continue Toho’s grounded, character-driven approach. Yamazaki returns as a triple threat, overseeing writing, directing, and visual effects supervision, which will be enough for some fans to throw money at the sequel. For sci-fi purists, if it manages to hit the heights of the original, we’re getting the antidote to hollow CGI spectacles and homogenized universe-building. There isn’t much to know about the plot yet, other than the promise of a continuation of the Shikishima family’s story, and another “calamity” in 1949, but the central trauma is guaranteed, and so is more delightful monster action. If you loved the original, you likely already have tickets ring-fenced. And if you didn’t, you probably didn’t see it.
2
Dune: Part Three – December 18
If you’re talking purely in terms of pedigree, Denis Villeneuve’s third Dune movie – an adaptation of Dune: Messiah – would probably run away with most hype rankings. And there has to be something in Warner Bros’ confidence to release the threequel – Villeneuve’s last in this universe – in direct competition with Avengers: Doomsday. If it performs anything like as well as Part 2, which outperformed the original by a shade over $300m, we could be looking at a near-billion-dollar haul.
But money alone doesn’t determine quality, and the hard sci-fi world-building Villeneuve has already shown in the first two movies is ample evidence that his trilogy-ender should be a blast. Typically, sci-fi tales of messianic chosen ones follow a typical path, but Dune: Part Three has had its subversion writ large across its chest from day one. There’s the same rich lore, the same politics, and the same incredible cast – with the addition of Robert Pattinson, which in itself is a guaranteed mark of quality these days – and even if you chose to watch it with no sound, Villeneuve’s breathtaking visuals would be a hell of a treat.
1
Avengers: Doomsday – December 18
There will, no doubt, be some debate over the classification of Avengers: Doomsday as a pure sci-fi, given it’s a comic book movie, but only one of those things is an actual genre. And it’s my list. The fifth Avengers movie is a fascinating prospect, and not entirely for wholly positive reasons: on the back of Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s success as a stand-alone story, Doomsday is going back to the formula that has made Marvel the most money during the Multiverse Saga. Big-name characters, mysterious cameos, and nostalgia will rule, which is why so many fans are very excited. And it’s also why so many cynics are already annoyed.
Like quite a few MCU movies, the story – or at least what can be pieced together from the surprisingly vague marketing so far – is high concept sci-fi, taking in the multiverse, variants, techo-magic, and colliding universes. It also just happens to have the huge selling point of Robert Downey Jr’s return (and the associated canon wrinkles), and an eye-wateringly good cast. If it can do what the Russos want – to outdo Avengers: Endgame, which is getting a new version timed for release ahead of it with new bridging material, there’s no question it will be the year’s biggest sci-fi.
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