The best upcoming movies for October 2026 and beyond

 One of the BBC’s most beloved comedies of recent years, Ghosts ended in 2023 – but, much like one of the spectres that make up the bulk of its cast, it has returned from the dead. And in feature-length style, too.

We don’t know a great deal about this big-screen edition of Ghosts at the moment (and the embedded trailer above is very much a teaser rather than a plot-revealer) but the makers have confirmed that all six writer-performers – Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond – will return, alongside Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Lolly Adefope. And, of course, Button House (aka Surrey’s West Horsley Place) is back as the location.

A quick note for readers outside of the British Isles: at the moment, the movie is slated only for a UK and Ireland theatrical run, and we’re not sure it’ll come to cinemas elsewhere.

Release date: 23 October 2026 (UK)

The last big-screen Cat in the Hat was a 2003 live-action disaster starring Mike Myers that Dr. Seuss fans would rather forget, so there’s a fairly low bar to clear with this new adaptation. The animated reboot takes a slightly expanded approach to the original material: the Cat is now a magical agent for the Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration LLC – a well-meaning but consistently bungling operative given one last chance to prove himself by cheering up two miserable siblings.

Bill Hader voices the chapeau-sporting Cat himself, while Matt Berry plays the Fish, the siblings’ talking pet who takes a dim view of the whole situation.

Release date: 6 November 2026

Three years ago, a modestly budgeted Japanese monster movie named Godzilla Minus One bagged the Best Visual Effects statuette at the Oscars, leaving Hollywood’s nine-figure blockbusters to wonder where it all went wrong. Now the big lizard is back – and this time he’s been filmed for IMAX, which is apparently a first for any Japanese-made Godzilla.

Godzilla Minus Zero picks up in 1949, two years on Minus One, with Japan still clawing its way back from ruin. And, without spoiling much, it seems things are about to get all messed up by giant monsters again.

Early word from its New York Film Festival premiere is glowing, though a few critics grumble that we have to wait a long time and sit through a lot of meetings before we get to the city-flattening. Still, any film that sends Godzilla stomping past the Statue of Liberty is welcome to tease out the drama a wee bit.

Release date: 6 November 2026

The 50th Hunger Games comes with a particularly cruel twist: each district must send twice the usual number of tributes, meaning 48 children enter the arena for a double-sized blood bath. That’s the backdrop for this sixth Hunger Games film, which follows Haymitch Abernathy (the character played by Woody Harrelson in the original series), Katniss Everdeen’s eventual mentor, from the morning of his own reaping.

Francis Lawrence is back in the director’s chair (he’s now helmed four of the six Hunger Games films), which should at least guarantee some visual and tonal consistency despite this new setting. The supporting cast is extremely impressive, featuring Jesse Plemons, Elle Fanning, Maya Hawke, Lili Taylor, Kieran Culkin and Glenn Close alongside Ralph Fiennes stepping into the role of a younger President Snow (a part previously owned by the late Donald Sutherland).

Release date: 20 November 2026

David Fincher directing a Quentin Tarantino-written movie in which Brad Pitt revisits his role as stuntman Cliff Booth from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? It sounds like fever dream fan fiction but, incredibly, it’s a real thing.

Pitt will be joined by Timothy Olyphant (reprising his OUATIH role as James Stacy), Elizabeth Debicki, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Carla Gugino, Scott Caan and Holt McCallany in the film, which will be set in 1977 and is reportedly working off a budget of around $200 million – far more than any Tarantino or Fincher film to date. It’ll be getting a release in selected theatres prior to streaming on Netflix on 23 December.

We know next to nothing about the plot as yet, but with all that Hollywood royalty involved, we’re extremely excited about what’s in store.

Release date: 25 November 2026

The MCU’s long-telegraphed multiverse endgame has arrived, and it comes with a big twist: Robert Downey Jr. is back, but not as Tony “Iron Man” Stark – this time he’s playing supervillain Doctor Doom, with the movie scrapping its previously planned Kang Dynasty storyline to make him the big bad. So, superheroes from three distinct universes are set on a collision course with something none of them have faced before.

As you’d expect from Marvel’s summer super-blockbuster, the cast is epic in scale. Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Mackie, Florence Pugh, Paul Rudd, Sebastian Stan, Letitia Wright and Simu Liu are joined by Chris Evans reprising Steve Rogers in a story that apparently picks up from his Endgame ending. The X-Men contingent arrives via Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Kelsey Grammer, James Marsden, Alan Cumming and Rebecca Romijn, while the Fantastic Four are represented by Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards and Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm.

It’s also sharing a release date with Dune 3, which means cinemagoers are going to have to a tricky decision to make in the weeks before Christmas.

Release date: 18 December 2026

Director Denis Villeneuve calls Dune Messiah his favourite of Frank Herbert’s series of novels, and describes this film adaptation as “one of my most personal.” If you know what happens in that book, that’s either thrillingly exciting or faintly alarming – possibly both.

Set 17 years after Part Two, the third and final film in Villeneuve’s trilogy sees Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) ruling the known universe and reckoning with the consequences of his holy war. Robert Pattinson joins the cast as Scytale, a shape-shifting antagonist with murky allegiances, while Anya Taylor-Joy appears as Paul’s sister Alia and Florence Pugh returns as Princess Irulan.

Villeneuve has described this film as more of a thriller than its predecessors, but I’d be shocked if it doesn’t have its fair share of IMAX-worthy moments. It also opens on the same day as Avengers: Doctor Doom – which both Chalamet and Robert Downey Jr. are already calling “Dunesday”. May the best pre-Christmas blockbuster win.

Release date: 18 December 2026

Robert Eggers’ follow-up to Nosferatu takes place in 13^th-century England, with era-appropriate Middle English dialogue and a grim, gritty and gloomy aesthetic that should suit his lycanthropy yarn perfectly. Notably, Eggers describes the movie as “the darkest thing I’ve ever written” and has reportedly chosen to set the story before the werewolf mythology we’re all familiar with – so don’t expect any silver bullets or similarly campy tropes here.

Former Eggers’ collaborators return in the form of Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe and Lily-Rose Depp in the cast and Icelandic novelist Sjón (his Northman collaborator) on script-writing duties.

Release date: Christmas 2026

In the previous two movies, the Jumanji gang’s problem has been getting out of the game. Now, in this third and apparently final installment, the game itself has got out (of its console, specifically) and is spilling its chaos onto the streets of the real world.

Dr Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), Mouse (Kevin Hart), Professor Oberon (Jack Black) and Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) find themselves wandering our world in ‘demo mode’ – which, judging by the trailer, involves a lot of stiff walking and an inexplicable Spanish accent for Bravestone. Getting them back where they belong falls to Spencer (Alex Wolff) and his friends, a job made messier by a fresh bout of body-swapping with people from Spencer’s life. Danny DeVito, Nick Jonas and Awkwafina are among the familiar faces returning.

Release date: 25 December 2026

Succession gave us four seasons of Brian Cox playing a Rupert Murdoch-shaped stand-in, but Ink ditches the metaphor and goes straight for the real thing. This movie is Danny Boyle’s account of how Aussie media mogul Rupert Murdoch talked disgraced editor Larry Lamb into launching The Sun, and in doing so reinvented the British tabloid.

Adapted by James Graham from his own award-winning play, it’s got Jack O’Connell as Lamb and Guy Pearce exuding quiet menace as Murdoch, with Claire Foy rounding things out. Having directed The Social Network, Boyle’s certainly got the pedigree for this sort of thing (y’know: unchecked ambition that leads the world down a dark path), and this could be one of the year’s better based-on-a-true-story jobs.

Release date: 8 January 2027