From Robert Pattinson’s unnerving turn in Primetime and Margaret Qualley entering the world of Possession to Hudson Williams in Apparatus and Tom Holland preparing to play Fred Astaire, these are the upcoming films we’ll be hearing a lot about.
Upcoming movies start generating their own kind of gossip long before release. A trailer lands, a set photo circulates, an unexpected casting announcement suddenly becomes the thing everyone is talking about.
The next year has an unusually good mix of enormous releases and films that are still early enough to feel like discoveries. Denis Villeneuve is returning with Dune: Part Three, Panem is reopening for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, and several smaller projects are gathering attention through casting news, production updates and the occasional image from set.
Somewhere in that mix is Cavendish, a 17th-century witch-hunt thriller with Sophie Thatcher, Erin Kellyman and Joe Alwyn that is still early enough to feel like useful information. Scroll until the end to discover all the titles and releases!
Upcoming Movies to Watch in 2026 and 2027
Here are seven films we’re keeping very close track of.
Primetime
In theaters September 25, 2026
Of the upcoming movies arriving this fall, Primetime has one of the more unexpected premises: Robert Pattinson playing To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen.
In the first images, Pattinson has the immaculate side-parted hair, tan and carefully assembled authority of an American television presenter circa 2006. Lance Oppenheim directs, with Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Matthew Maher and Bokeem Woodbine joining the cast. A24 has set the film for September 25.
The period gives Oppenheim unusually rich material. To Catch a Predator belonged to the last great era of appointment network television while anticipating many of the mechanics that later dominated online culture: confrontation designed for replay, public exposure and spectacle packaged as accountability.
Oppenheim’s documentary work has often been interested in people performing versions of themselves in spaces where reality and entertainment begin to blur. Chris Hansen’s television persona gives him plenty to work with.
Pattinson does too. His career has become increasingly difficult to predict, and Primetime adds an immaculate early-2000s television journalist to an already eccentric filmography.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
In theaters and IMAX November 20, 2026
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping returns to the Second Quarter Quell, 24 years before Katniss Everdeen enters the arena. Lionsgate has confirmed the November 20 release, and the franchise’s official account is already deep into the campaign.
Joseph Zada plays a young Haymitch Abernathy, decades before Woody Harrelson’s version became Katniss and Peeta’s permanently exasperated mentor. Haymitch is especially good material for a prequel because his adult personality already carries the history of what happened to him. He understands television, sponsorship, image-making and Capitol politics with uncomfortable fluency.
Suzanne Collins has always been interested in propaganda and the manufacture of public narratives. Panem turns clothing, romance, grief and violence into material for an audience, which helps explain why The Hunger Games still lends itself so easily to conversations about contemporary media.
Among this year’s upcoming movies, Sunrise on the Reaping also has the advantage of a fandom that treats every casting announcement, costume glimpse and trailer frame as material for analysis.
Dune: Part Three
In theaters and IMAX December 18, 2026
Few upcoming movies arrive with the cultural machinery already surrounding Dune: Part Three.
Denis Villeneuve reaches Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah this December, with Timothée Chalamet returning as Paul Atreides alongside Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Jason Momoa, Rebecca Ferguson and the wider ensemble. Warner Bros. has confirmed the December 18 theatrical release.
Messiah moves deeper into the political and religious consequences of Paul’s rule. Villeneuve has spent two films constructing the mythology around him, giving the third chapter a particularly interesting position from which to examine power, devotion and the world created by his ascent.
There is also the separate spectacle of the Dune press tour. Zendaya’s archival Mugler robot suit at the Part Two premiere is already lodged firmly in recent fashion history, while Chalamet, Pugh and Anya Taylor-Joy have each treated the films’ promotional wardrobes as extensions of their visual world.
Vanity Teen has followed the franchise before, including the rollout surrounding Dune: Part Two.
Club Kid
In theaters November 6, 2026
Jordan Firstman’s feature directorial debut arrives from Cannes with exactly the sort of premise that sounds made for late-night New York.
A24 describes Club Kid as the story of a hard-partying New York City club promoter whose life is upended by the arrival of the 10-year-old son he never knew he had. Firstman writes, directs and stars, with Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Reggie Absolom and Colleen Camp in the cast. The film premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes earlier this year and opens November 6.
The setting alone gives it an immediate cultural hook. Firstman has built much of his public persona around a very specific corner of queer nightlife, celebrity and internet culture, and Club Kid turns that world into his first feature. Cannes itself singled the film out as one of the festival’s distinctly “cool” titles before its premiere, which feels like a useful indication of where the interest is coming from.
It was also shot on 35mm, with Adam Newport-Berra (who also shot The Invite) behind the camera, which should give the nightlife material a texture that suits the world Firstman is building.
Apparatus
Release date TBA
Among the upcoming movies still without a release date, Apparatus has one of the more interesting pairings currently making its way through production: Hudson Williams and Dylan O’Brien. Scythia Films announced the project on Instagram, sharing Deadline’s casting report confirming the two actors as leads in Sofia Banzhaf’s darkly comedic thriller.
Banzhaf makes her feature directing debut with the film, which follows Tyler, a struggling rideshare driver played by Williams, after he meets JP, a charismatic entrepreneur played by O’Brien. An opportunity involving JP’s handheld-massager business draws Tyler into an increasingly violent spiral.
The premise gives Banzhaf a recognizably contemporary world of gig work, entrepreneurial confidence and proximity to money. Williams arrives with the enormous attention surrounding Heated Rivalry, while O’Brien has spent his post-franchise career moving through independent films, comedy and increasingly strange material.
The two were photographed shooting the film in Toronto this spring, though no release date has been announced. For now, the limited amount of material surrounding Apparatus makes Scythia Films’ early announcement one of the few glimpses we have of a project already attracting considerable attention.
Possession
In theaters June 11, 2027
Of the upcoming movies already dated for 2027, Possession carries an unusually intimidating cinematic history.
Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 original has spent decades building a fiercely devoted following. Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill play a married couple disintegrating in West Berlin, while jealousy, espionage, religious imagery and body horror accumulate into something increasingly difficult to categorize. Adjani’s subway-station breakdown remains one of horror cinema’s great feats of physical performance.
Parker Finn, director of Smile and Smile 2, is writing and directing the new version for Paramount. Margaret Qualley and Callum Turner lead the cast, with Paul Dano and Diego Calva also attached, while Robert Pattinson is among the producers. Paramount has set the film for June 11, 2027.
Qualley is an especially compelling choice after The Substance, which required extraordinary physical control and a willingness to push beauty, discomfort and self-consciousness to grotesque extremes. Żuławski’s Possession asks for its own particular kind of emotional and physical abandon.
There is already an enormous amount for Finn to contend with. The original’s reputation comes from its excesses, its performances and a sense of emotional ugliness that remains genuinely difficult to tidy up. That makes the remake one of the more fascinating gambles on the 2027 calendar.
Tom Holland’s Fred Astaire Biopic
Release date TBA
Tom Holland has returned to dance training.
He is preparing to play Fred Astaire in Sony’s long-developing film directed by Paul King, the filmmaker behind Paddington, Paddington 2 and Wonka. Holland said this summer that the project is next on his schedule and that rehearsals have already begun. He also wants to perform the dancing himself, with the choreography captured in extended takes.
The casting makes sense when you remember Holland’s pre-Marvel career. He trained extensively in dance and played Billy Elliot on the West End as a child, a part of his background that his film career has rarely used at this scale.
Astaire’s screen technique depended on precision and clarity. His dancing could look almost casual because the work underneath it was so exact, and his musical numbers frequently allowed viewers to see the choreography unfold without excessive cutting.
King is an intriguing director for the material after the elaborate production design, physical comedy and musical staging of Wonka. Sony’s project remains officially untitled and does not yet have a confirmed release date; Paul King has been attached to direct since 2023.
It is one of the upcoming movies with almost no visual material yet, which makes Holland’s training one of the few clues we currently have about how the film might approach Astaire.
Cavendish
Release date TBA
Christopher Andrews, director of Bring Them Down, is making the 17th-century action thriller with Sophie Thatcher, Erin Kellyman and Joe Alwyn. Thatcher plays a young bride accused of witchcraft on her wedding day, while Kellyman plays a poacher who becomes her ally and Alwyn the witch hunter pursuing them. Cornerstone launched the film internationally at Cannes and says production is due to begin in Poland in September 2026.
Thatcher has developed a particularly good relationship with genre filmmaking through Yellowjackets, Heretic and Companion. Andrews, meanwhile, showed in Bring Them Down an interest in violence, landscape and people making increasingly disastrous decisions. A witch-hunt thriller gives him ample room to continue exploring that territory.
Cavendish is still among the earliest-stage upcoming movies on this list. Right now, the cast and premise are doing most of the work, and they are persuasive enough to keep watching.