The Best Sci-Fi Movies of 2026 (So Far)
It’s a big year for sci-fi. 2026 will end with the dual release of Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three, and the competition is fierce if the Marvel brand is strong enough to compete against Timothée Chalamet. But until then, the year has quite a selection of sci-fi movies that are worth the price of admission.
The year started strong with Project Hail Mary, a Ryan Gosling vehicle in which the Drive and Barbie star plays a schoolteacher who wakes up in a spaceship far from Earth. Out of SXSW, there were movies like Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, a time travel caper that brings a gangster-movie edge to sci-fi, and Anima, an intimate and tender road movie about two strangers on a journey of connections.
The rest of 2026 will see some big sci-fi films that just might challenge both Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three as the year’s buzziest releases. In June, Steven Spielberg will unleash Disclosure Day, an event movie that imagines mankind’s first contact with aliens. In August, It Follows director David Robert Mitchell will return to the big screen with The End of Oak Street, where Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor star as a mother and father who find that their suburban neighborhood has been transported to somewhere truly alien. Let’s not forget the other tentpoles: Masters of the Universe, Supergirl, and Rogue Trooper.
For now, these are the best science fiction movies of 2026.
Project Hail Mary
One of the biggest movies of 2026 is, without question, Project Hail Mary. Based on the 2021 novel by Andy Weir, the smash hit follows a middle school science teacher (Ryan Gosling) who awakes with amnesia aboard a spacecraft light-years away from Earth. The newest movie from comedy giants Phil Lord and Christopher Miller was the right movie at the right time, its release accidentally coinciding with the Artemis II mission to the Moon. That it’s still playing in theaters more than a month after its release—an eternity in today’s theatrical landscape—speaks volumes about its out-of-this-world appeal.
In Theaters
Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice
If Guy Ritchie made Looper, it might look like Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice. Emerging out of SXSW, the Hulu exclusive follows a gangster (Vince Vaughn) who, after regretting murdering his friend (James Marsden), uses a time machine to stop his past self. There’s an awful lot of action comedies nowadays, but Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice stands out from the pack with some novel twists on well-worn time travel formulas.
Sydney Chandler co-stars in Brian Tetsuro Ivie’s debut feature Anima.
Anima
Sydney Chandler (Alien: Earth) and Takehiro Hira (Giri/Haji) hit the road in this tender and emotional sci-fi road trip from first-time director Brian Tetsuro Ivie. Set in a speculative near future where one’s consciousness can be uploaded into the cloud, Chandler stars as an unemployed engineer who drives a wealthy and terminally ill man (Hira) across Connecticut in the hopes of finding his estranged son before the end of his life. Anima premiered to rave reviews at SXSW earlier this year and may soon find wide release distribution.
Coming Soon
Hoppers
Animated children’s films about woodland creatures are usually a mixed bag. For every Bambi or The Wild Robot, you’ll find a dozen films trying to become the next Over the Hedge. Hoppers dodges the repetitive trend by magically turning a little girl into a woodland creature, and the box office numbers prove that the gimmick has paid off so far. The film follows a young girl named Mabel Tanaka who transports her consciousness into a robot beaver. She wants to rally the animals to protect their wilderness from becoming a highway. It’s a crazy idea. But considering the way we’re headed in 2026, I’m down for anything.
Wishful Thinking
This SXSW darling stars Lewis Pullman and Maya Hawke as a couple with the ability to literally shape their environment. After attending a couples counseling session run by a set of magic wonder twins, the two on-again/off-again lovers learn that their emotions have dire effects on the world around them. The silly, video-game-like premise isn’t Wishful Thinking’s only draw, however. At its heart, director Graham Parkes’s feature debut really touches on a question we all ask ourselves. How do we change for the person we love without sacrificing what makes us who we are?
Coming Soon
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Ralph Fiennes’s Dr. Ian Kelson experiments with some real science-fiction in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which is one of the first zombie flicks I’ve ever seen to reckon with the idea that a cure is physically attainable. This second entry in a planned sequel trilogy to the original 28 Days Later film also features Jack O’Connell (Sinners) as a maniacal cult leader styled after Jimmy Savile—just tearing up the apocalyptic landscape with Danny Boyle’s zany, violent humor.
