The Best New Movies
This is the list for when you've seen everything people keep recommending, because almost nothing on it existed eighteen months ago. These are the best-reviewed and most-discussed films of 2025 and 2026 so far, chosen for a living room rather than a festival jury: Oscar winners, the year's biggest blockbusters, kids' animation and some properly nasty horror.
The useful split is between event movies that turned out better than they had to be and awards films that are now easy to catch at home. Project Hail Mary, The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day are the first kind: big, crowd-pleasing and well reviewed. One Battle After Another, Hamnet and Sentimental Value are the second: richer, slower, and more likely to start an argument afterward. It has also been a remarkable stretch for horror, with Sinners, Weapons and Obsession all crossing over to people who don't usually watch it.
For a family night, start with Hoppers, The Sheep Detectives or Coyote vs. Acme; Project Hail Mary is the pick for older kids. The horror films here are made for adults and several are very gory, which the notes flag. For more, see New Family Movies, The Best Horror Movies of the 2020s, The Best New Series and The Best Movies of the 2020s.
Project Hail Mary
Movie · 2026The crowd-pleaser of 2026 and the easiest yes on this list. Ryan Gosling plays a science teacher who wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory of why, and the friendship at its center is why people see it twice. A few critics found it familiar. Rated PG-13, and about as mild as that rating gets.
Sinners
Movie · 2025Ryan Coogler's vampire film set in 1932 Mississippi, with Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a juke joint for one night. It plays as a blues drama for an hour before the horror arrives, and one musical sequence is the scene everyone describes to friends. Jordan won the Oscar. Bloody.
One Battle After Another
Movie · 2025The Best Picture winner, and much funnier than that suggests. Leonardo DiCaprio is a burned-out ex-revolutionary dragged back into action when his daughter is hunted, and Sean Penn won an Oscar as the officer chasing them. Long, chaotic and violent, with a final car chase over rolling desert hills you won't forget.
The Odyssey
Movie · 2026Christopher Nolan's take on Homer, with Matt Damon as Odysseus fighting his way home from Troy and Tom Holland as the son waiting for him. It's the first feature shot entirely on IMAX film cameras, so find the biggest screen you can. Close to three hours, R-rated, and some critics balked at its liberties with the poem.
KPop Demon Hunters
Movie · 2025The animated phenomenon of 2025: a K-pop girl group who secretly hunt demons, up against a rival boy band who are demons. It won the Oscar for animated feature, and its song 'Golden' won another. Children will want to rewatch it immediately; adults tend to end up humming along anyway.
Hoppers
Movie · 2026Pixar's funniest film in years. A college student transfers her mind into a robotic beaver to save a woodland from a highway, and accidentally starts a full-scale animal uprising. Yes, it's a bit like Avatar with beavers; the jokes more than make up for it.
Weapons
Movie · 2025Seventeen children from one classroom run out of their homes at 2:17 in the morning and vanish. Zach Cregger tells it in chapters, each from a different person in town, and it's as funny as it is frightening. Amy Madigan won an Oscar for it. Gory in places, and the ending is wild.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Movie · 2026Picks up with the whole world having forgotten Peter Parker exists, including the people he loves. Smaller and more grounded than recent Marvel films, though Jon Bernthal's Punisher and Mark Ruffalo's Hulk turn up. The biggest hit of 2026, and good enough to deserve it.
Toy Story 5
Movie · 2026The toys against a tablet: Bonnie gets a device called Lilypad and stops playing with them. Andrew Stanton, who co-wrote the original, directs, and it doubles as a family conversation about screens. Not every critic thought the series needed a fifth chapter, but most were won over.
Hamnet
Movie · 2025Jessie Buckley won the best actress Oscar as Agnes, Shakespeare's wife, in Chloé Zhao's film about the death of their young son and the play that came out of it. Paul Mescal plays Shakespeare. It's about grief and is very hard going in places, so pick your night carefully.
Marty Supreme
Movie · 2025Timothée Chalamet as a fast-talking 1950s New York table-tennis player who will lie to anyone to get to the British Open. Josh Safdie directs at a sprint, which is exhausting in a good way. Loosely inspired by the real player Marty Reisman. Lots of swearing, and nothing sentimental about it.
Sentimental Value
Movie · 2025Joachim Trier's family drama about two sisters and the filmmaker father who walked out, now back with a film he wants to shoot in the family house, starring his actress daughter. Funny, sad and generous. It won the Oscar for international feature; mostly in Norwegian with subtitles.
The Sheep Detectives
Movie · 2026A murder mystery solved by sheep. Hugh Jackman plays the shepherd who reads them detective novels, and when he's found dead the flock takes up the case. Written by Craig Mazin, who made Chernobyl, which explains why it's smarter than it sounds. Sadder than it looks, too: guard dogs later kill a ram.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Movie · 2026The rare horror sequel critics liked more than the film before it. Nia DaCosta takes over from Danny Boyle, and Ralph Fiennes gives it a strange, gentle heart as a doctor who befriends one of the infected. Very violent, including a cult leader's cruelties. Watch 28 Years Later first.
Send Help
Movie · 2026Sam Raimi back in horror-comedy mode. Rachel McAdams plays a put-upon employee stranded on an island with the boss who passed her over for promotion, and the balance of power flips fast. Gross, mean and very funny, and McAdams has rarely been better.
Coyote vs. Acme
Movie · 2026Wile E. Coyote sues the Acme Corporation over its faulty products, with Will Forte as his lawyer and John Cena for the defense. Warner Bros. finished it and shelved it for a tax write-off; another studio rescued it, and it turned out to be one of the funniest family films of the year.
Resident Evil (2026)
Movie · 2026The best-reviewed video game movie yet, from the director of Weapons. It ignores the earlier films and follows a medical courier who drives into Raccoon City on the night everything goes wrong. Tight, gory and often funny, and you don't need to have played the games.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Movie · 2025The third Benoit Blanc mystery, and the darkest: a domineering priest dies in what looks like an impossible crime, and the young priest assigned to his parish is the prime suspect. Josh O'Connor is terrific opposite Daniel Craig. Rian Johnson plays fair with the clues, so pay attention.
Zootopia 2
Movie · 2025Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde are back, now partners, chasing a pit viper through parts of the city the first film never showed. It became one of the highest-grossing animated films ever because it works for kids and adults alike. Busy and fast, with a near-drowning and a house set on fire, so it's best from about eight.
Obsession (2025)
Movie · 2025A shy guy breaks a novelty wishing toy and wishes his crush would love him more than anyone in the world. She does. Curry Barker's tiny-budget horror film premiered at a festival in 2025, then became one of the biggest hits of 2026. Extremely gory in places, and genuinely upsetting.
Frankenstein (2025)
Movie · 2025Guillermo del Toro's long-dreamed-of version, with Oscar Isaac as Victor and Jacob Elordi as a Creature you end up rooting for. Less a horror film than a gothic tragedy, gorgeous to look at, and it won Oscars for its costumes, makeup and production design. Often bloody and grisly, with brief nudity.
Train Dreams
Movie · 2025A quiet, beautiful film about one man's life across eight decades in the Idaho forests, from Denis Johnson's novella. Joel Edgerton barely raises his voice, and Will Patton's narration does a lot of the work. A Best Picture nominee. Slow, sad in places, and it stays with you.
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
Movie · 2025Two Toronto musicians try to book a show at a local venue and accidentally travel back to 2008. Much of it was shot guerrilla-style among real, unsuspecting people, which is half the joke. You don't need to know the cult series it grew out of. The comedy most likely to surprise you here.
F1
Movie · 2025Brad Pitt as a veteran driver who returns to Formula One to help an old teammate's struggling team. Critics liked it more than they loved it, but it was filmed during real Grand Prix weekends, and the racing on a big screen with good sound is a genuine thrill. It won the Oscar for sound.
No Other Choice
Movie · 2025Park Chan-wook's black comedy about a laid-off paper-industry veteran who decides the way back into work is to eliminate the other candidates. Lee Byung-hun is superb as a desperate, ordinary man. Very funny, very dark and sometimes violent. In Korean with subtitles.
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Picks are editorial recommendations. Streaming availability changes by region and over time — the “where to stream” links check current availability on JustWatch.