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Hollywood’s annual awards season is finally done. No more winners’ speeches, and the stylists can finally exhale. What that also means, for moviegoers, is a ripe new selection of titles. The next few months are when the movie business tries to have it all: family franchise sequels, buzzy horror counter-programming, stars getting their arthouse groove on, and billion-dollar grossing blockbusters are all on the release schedule. Mark your calendars – the cinemas are calling us.
THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE
Video games have supplanted comic books as Hollywood’s favourite intellectual property in recent years, and it was the huge success of 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie that kickstarted the trend. The sequel to the animated hit brings back everyone that matters, including directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, plus voice actors Chris Pratt (Mario), Anya Taylor-Joy (Princess Peach), Charlie Day (Luigi), and – as the undoubted X-factor of this interstellar adventure – Jack Black (Bowser). Will he contribute a song as catchy as the first film’s Peaches? I wouldn’t put it past him. April 1
THE DRAMA
Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, who will also share the screen in December’s sci-fi epic Dune: Part Three, turn New York couple Emma and Charlie’s wedding week into an unhinged reckoning when an innocuous game with friends results in one of them making a shocking confession. Everything the happy couple thought true of each other gets blown up, which is the ideal entry point for Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli, who did absurdly good things with Nicolas Cage in 2023’s Dream Scenario. The film has the potential to show both stars in a hitherto unseen light. April 2
BEAST
Featuring fight scenes shot before 10,000 fans at a major mixed martial arts tournament in Thailand, this Australian drama is a hard-hitting tale of sacrifice and redemption – there are painful blows of all kinds – that follows a retired fighter, Patton (Daniel MacPherson), back into the cage after his brother’s career is brought to a brutal end. Patton has to convince his doubtful trainer, Sammy (Russell Crowe, also a co-writer), to prepare him once more, as well as rediscovering a side of himself he’d long buried. There are Rocky vibes, but also more. April 23
THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2
The gang’s all here! Two decades after the original fashion magazine comic-drama introduced us to Meryl Streep’s imperious editor Miranda, Anne Hathaway’s scrappy assistant Andy, and the importance of cerulean blue, they return – along with Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci – to a luxury brands world where the finance and clothes are different, but the immaculate insults stay the same. This is the kind of fan service we should encourage and, yes, that’s Colin from Accounts mainstay Patrick Brammall providing an Australian presence as Andy’s new love interest. April 30
STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU
There hasn’t been a Star Wars film since 2019’s disappointing The Rise of Skywalker, but that’s been rectified now that the key characters of streaming hit The Mandalorian – stoic bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his mischievous ward and future Yoda, Grogu – have graduated to the big screen. This will be a family-friendly Star Wars, an anti-Andor, with the show’s creative team of director Jon Favreau (Iron Man) and writer Dave Filoni in charge as the duo help the fledgling New Republic fight the Empire’s remnants. If the audience cheers, that means it’s working. May 21
BACKROOMS
Budding filmmaker Kane Parsons was just 16 years old in 2022 when he began posting a series of acclaimed short films online about “the Backrooms”, an online concept about a creepy extradimensional expanse of empty rooms and unknown inhabitants. Internet obsession has fuelled the idea, with Parsons now taking it into the mainstream with this highly anticipated horror film.
It starts with an inexplicable door in a furniture showroom and goes … somewhere else. The cast includes Chiwetel Ejiofor and, fresh from her success in Sentimental Value, Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve. May 28
DISCLOSURE DAY
Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind? Having made his coming-of-age memoir The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg gets back to blockbuster business with this science-fiction thriller about the race to reveal – or equally cover-up – the possible public confirmation of extraterrestrial life on Earth. Caught up in this world-changing event is a television weather forecaster with an otherworldly connection (Emily Blunt), a haunted whistleblower (Josh O’Connor) and a mysterious figure intent on shutting them down (Colin Firth). The trailer goes creepy and then full-bore action – Spielberg is definitely taking a shot at the heavyweight belt for cinematic car chases. June 11
TOY STORY 5
Much to Disney’s delight, the young fans who went to Pixar’s groundbreaking digital animation in 1995 can now take their children to the latest instalment.
Tom Hanks and Tim Allen return as the respective voices of Woody and Buzz Lightyear, who are still squabbling, with the various secretly alive toys under threat as their latest child, eight-year-old Bonnie, falls under the spell of the educational tablet Lilypad (Greta Lee). There’s an anti-tech subtext in all of this, but more importantly silly visual gags and toy-sized derring-do. June 18
SUPERGIRL
Australian star Milly Alcock debuted her chaotic Kryptonian, Kara Kor-El, a.k.a. Supergirl, in last year’s cape-reboot Superman, where she delivered a very different energy to her dedicated cousin. Her spin-off feature, directed by Australian filmmaker Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya), sends her on an intergalactic road trip, as Kara’s 23rd birthday celebration turns from partying to vengeance as she is recruited by a young girl with a (literal) axe to grind. There’s definitely some Guardians of the Galaxy in this mix of mayhem and self-discovery, which is most welcome. June 25
MOANA
Just 10 years after the original Moana was an animated hit – and somehow an even bigger success on streaming – the Polynesian seaborne adventure gets a live action remake. Dwayne Johnson returns as the demigod Maui, who must accompany the titular princess (Australian actress Catherine Laga’aia) on a dangerous quest to save her community.
What’s crucial is the songs. Original hits How Far I’ll Go and You’re Welcome will be heard once more, but their writer, Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, has reportedly penned some new tunes as well. July 8
THE ODYSSEY
After Oppenheimer capped Christopher Nolan’s ascent, the British filmmaker could do whatever he wanted. Who knew he would choose to adapt Homer’s ancient Greek epic about a king’s perilous return from the Trojan Wars? Matt Damon plays the long-absent warrior monarch, Tom Holland the son searching for him, Anne Hathaway the wife fending off suitors back home. The entire film is shot on IMAX cameras and features all kinds of gods – including Zendaya as Athena – and mythic monsters. How the CGI-averse Nolan depicts the latter will be fascinating. July 16
SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY
We all have scheduling issues in our lives, but a moment’s sympathy for Tom Holland. After several quiet years, the British actor has two of 2026’s most anticipated films coming out within a fortnight of each other. If The Odyssey tests him in new ways, his fourth outing as webbed wonder Peter Parker is right in his wheelhouse. Following the Marvel mechanics of 2021’s No Way Home, this Spider-Man is an anonymous crime-fighter, with Peter forgotten by even the love of his life, M.J. (the omnipotent Zendaya). Sounds sombre, but a new crisis brings unexpected change and risky opportunity. July 30
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