Yes, new Star Wars and Avengers movies await (The Mandalorian and Grogu and Doomsday), but let’s take a closer look at some of the other starry international films touching down on Earth later this year.
International films in 2026 – quick links
Wuthering Heights
Promising Young Woman director Emerald Fennell played it coy with her Brideshead Revisited borrowings in Saltburn, but the lace gloves are off for this Emily Brontë adaptation. Only it’s not exactly a close reading – Australians Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are too old and too white, respectively, for teenage Cathy and ‘dark-skinned’ Heathcliff. Instead, Fennell has said she’s channelling how horny it made her feel when she first read it. Most importantly, we want to know if it drops the needle on Kate Bush? Watch the trailer.
The Bride!
Hot on the heels of Guillermo del Toro’s fantastical take on goth queen Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, The Lost Daughter filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal’s spin is something altogether different. With more in common with Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, The Bride is a crime caper set in 1930s Chicago starring Hamnet’s Jessie Buckle as the Bride to Christian Bale’s monster, expanding on the Bride’s dialogue-free cameo in the 1935 James Whale classic. Watch the trailer.
The Odyssey
When Barbenheimer ruled the world in 2023, Greta Gerwig’s Mattel doll fantasy took home the biggest share of the box office phenomenon and secured an Oscar for Billie Eilish’s original song. But Christopher Nolan’s nuclear bomb biopic blew away the competition, taking home Best Picture, Best Actor for Cillian Murphy and five more golden statuettes. Can his spin on Homer’s ancient Greek epic strike gold again like Zeus’ lightning? Matt Damon is Odysseus, with Anne Hathaway as poor Penelope.
Mother Mary
If you’ve missed the mighty Michaela Coel since her astonishing series I May Destroy You, then buckle up for a wild ride of a return. The Green Knight filmmaker David Lowery casts her as Sam, the pissed off costume designer who Anne Hathaway’s titular pop star comes crawling back to after a decade’s estrangement for a new look that might go to hell. Featuring new music from Charli XCX (also coming up in The Moment) and co-starring FKA twigs, this looks like In Fabric by way of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
The Devil Wears Prada 2
Hathaway also returns to the role of cerulean-oblivious writer Andy some 20 years after she was terrorised by Anna Wint… errr, Miranda Priestly, imperiously played by an Oscar-nominated Meryl Streep. Director David Frankel’s original wrapped with Andy abandoning glossy fashion mags, so what on earth pulled her back into Miranda’s orbit? We’re psyched to see Emily Blunt turn rival and also welcome Lucy Liu, Lady Gaga, Kenneth Branagh and Aussie Patrick Brammall, less so Sydney Sweeney.
Disclosure Day
Alongside invading Miranda’s space, the A Quiet Place lead also appears in Steven Spielberg’s tightly wrapped alien movie Disclosure Day. We don’t know much yet, but Blunt’s weather reporter appears to be an unwilling mouthpiece for whatever’s out there. Also featuring The History of Sound actor Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth and Colman Domingo, this will be massive when it lands in the northern hemisphere summer. Watch the trailer.
The Adventures of Cliff Booth
While we’re on sequels, colour us intrigued that Gone Girl director David Fincher has picked up the baton from Quentin Tarantino, directing the latter’s screenplay for a continuation of parallel history fable Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. Detailing what Brad Pitt’s former-stuntman-now-Tinseltown-fixer does next, Timothy Olyphant’s take on real-life actor James Stacy also returns. There’s no sign of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton, but it adds Aussie Elizabeth Debicki and Watchmen’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.
The Entertainment System Is Down
Speaking of stacked ensembles, the latest from Swedish troublemaker Ruben Östlund is truly wild. Following his satirical cruise ship disaster movie Triangle of Sadness, he’s trapped a bunch of A-listers on a plane with no in-flight movies (or snakes, hopefully). Our players include John Wick star Keanu Reeves, Civil War’s Kirsten Dunst, Inglourious Basterds’ Daniel Brühl and the steely Samantha Morton of Morvern Callar fame. But we’re most pumped to see The Sapphires director Wayne Blair onboard.
Parallel Tales
It’s been five years since A Hero, the last feature from legendary Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, one of the most influential filmmakers working today. He never fails when it comes to delivering astonishingly plotted and performed moral quandaries that hook you in. So we’re intrigued that this Paris-set drama reunites astonishing French divas Isabelle Huppert and Catherine Deneuve, last on screen together in François Ozon’s 8 Women in 2002, and fields them with Vincent Cassel.
Dune: Part Three
Wrapping up the year, Denis Villeneuve’s thunderous conclusion (??) to the spicy Arrakis melodrama sees Paul ‘Muad’Dib’ Atreides sat upon the emperor’s throne, backed-in by Fremen, but at the cost of a staggering 61 billion lives in the colonial invasion of the galaxy that follows. Will his lover, Zendaya’s Chani, put up with his messiah shit? And what of a prophecy that says she will die in childbirth? Can Paul’s politically motivated marriage to Florence Pugh’s Princess Irulan hold, or will she avenge her deposed father?
