A wicker man builds himself a marriage. That’s the actual premise of one of this fall’s movies, and it isn’t even the strangest thing headed to theaters between now and the end of 2026.
Fall usually means the couch. Blanket up to your chin, hot cider, something nostalgic or kooky or scary on the screen. Halloween’s coming, winter’s right behind it, and the case for leaving the house gets thinner every week.
This year the case got a lot stronger. We ranked the 10 films worth the drive, the ticket and the overpriced popcorn.
A Disney witch story with a KPop Demon Hunters-shaped hole to fill
Animation is where magic gets to actually look like magic, whether that’s a song or the glint of a sword. Disney’s Hexed follows Billie (Hailee Steinfeld), a rebellious teen whose powers yank her into Hexe, a realm of witches.
Fawn Veerasunthorn, who directed Raya and the Last Dragon, is at the helm. The pitch writes itself for anyone still nursing a KPop Demon Hunters hangover: female relationships, family secrets, stylish animation that knows it’s being watched.
Olivia Colman commissions a husband out of wicker
Small medieval towns always have their shenanigans. Wicker, directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, escalates well past shenanigans.
Based on a short story by Ursula Wills, it follows a reclusive fisherwoman (Colman) who has spent years ostracized by her village for the crime of being unmarried. Her revenge: she commissions a husband made of wicker.
Then the thing works. Her wicker husband (Alexander Skarsgard) turns out to be so honest and so romantic that the townspeople descend into chaos. Richard E. Grant and Peter Dinklage round out the village.
Santa’s on the naughty list now
Tommy Wirkola’s sequel to his mercenary Santa movie arrives in December, and the premise is a good joke well told. Saint Nick (David Harbour) has settled into the job. He’s also on the naughty list.
With his position at risk, Santa has to rediscover the meaning of Christmas while dismantling a new gang of thugs terrorizing a small community. He isn’t going in alone. Mrs. Claus (Kristen Bell) appears to be more chaotic and more vengeful than her husband.
Whether the new meaning of Christmas turns out to be violence is a question Violent Night 2 will settle.
Jason Momoa is Blanka, and yes, that’s the whole sell
Video game adaptations move product, and Street Fighter knows it. The 1994 original with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia was gloriously campy and not remotely faithful to Capcom’s games.
Kitao Sakurai’s 2026 action-comedy looks aimed at that same register, with more room for individual fighters: Chun-Li (Callina Liang), Ken Masters (Noah Centineo), Ryu (Andrew Koji). The supporting cast is absurd in the best way. Momoa as Blanka. Wrestler Cody Rhodes as Guile. Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson as Balrog.
Double the tributes, double the bodies
If you want young adults fed into the meat grinder for public entertainment again, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping has you covered.
Adapted from the book, it’s a prequel set 24 years before the main trilogy, following Haymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zada) as a tribute. He’s reaped for the 50th Hunger Games, which carries its own cruel arithmetic: twice the tributes, twice the deaths.
The Avengers and the X-Men, finally in one room
Marvel and Disney have been filling theaters with superheroes since Iron Man in 2008. Eighteen years on, Anthony and Joe Russo are back for Avengers: Doomsday, a multiverse-spanning team-up aimed at Doctor Doom.
Colliding universes means colliding casts. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Captain America (Anthony Mackie) from the MCU, plus Fox’s X-Men veterans: Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). If that crossover is the thing you’ve wanted for years, this is the ticket to buy.
Body horror in Gotham, and it’s about a face
James Watkins made Eden Lake and The Woman in Black. Mike Flanagan is involved. DC Studios’ Clayface is built to unsettle you.
Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is a movie star who undergoes experimental surgery to restore his original face, then discovers the side effects. He turns to clay.
Batman fans get the Gotham setting and a nod to one of the best episodes Batman: The Animated Series ever produced. But the real draw is the premise underneath it: the emotional and physical cost of no longer recognizing your own face or body.
Resident Evil hands the keys to the Weapons guy
Capcom’s Resident Evil is a pillar of video game entertainment, and Zach Cregger, who made Weapons, wants that to hold on film too.
This is a full reboot, running parallel to Resident Evil 2. Rather than Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield during the T-virus outbreak in Raccoon City, you follow Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier.
A cast of original characters may disappoint game fans. It also gives Cregger space to do something of his own with a 30-year-old franchise. Given how badly the previous adaptations landed, Resident Evil needs the win.
Godzilla goes to New York
After the international run of Godzilla Minus One, writer-director Takashi Yamazaki returns with Godzilla Minus Zero.
It’s 1949, two years after the events that nearly destroyed Japan and the Shikishima family introduced in the first film. The country is still trying to recover what it lost. A new threat appears on the horizon, and it threatens whatever hope is left.
This time Godzilla is looking elsewhere. New York City, specifically.
Paul Atreides was never the hero
Denis Villeneuve caught all of us with the first two films of his Frank Herbert adaptation, and there’s no reason to doubt the finale.
Dune: Part 3 is set 17 years after Part 2, a change from the novels’ 12, and it doesn’t ease you into anything. The film takes the idea that Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) is a selfless liberator and dismantles it, casting him as a ruthless imperialist dictator instead.
His jihad has all but conquered the universe. That power comes with consequences, and they may be more than Paul or the people he loves can survive.
Ten films, one season. Somewhere in December, David Harbour is punching a thug in a Santa suit while Olivia Colman falls in love with a man made of sticks, and Timothee Chalamet sits on a throne he shouldn’t have.
