From Practical Magic 2 and Resident Evil to Tom Cruise’s Digger and the return of The Hunger Games, fall 2026 has a seriously stacked movie calendar.
Summer blockbuster season might be winding down, but the 2026 movie calendar is nowhere near finished.
This fall brings some major returns, a few unexpected adaptations and enough horror to take us straight through October. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are heading back into the world of Practical Magic, Zach Cregger is taking on Resident Evil, Tom Cruise is doing something completely different with Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and Panem is reopening its doors for another Hunger Games story.
Here are the biggest movies coming this fall 2026, and the release dates worth putting on your calendar.
Practical Magic 2
In theatres September 11
Nearly three decades after Practical Magic became a cult favourite, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are back as Sally and Gillian Owens.
The sequel once again finds the Owens sisters dealing with the family’s long-running curse, with Joey King, Lee Pace, Maisie Williams, Xolo Maridueña, Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing joining the cast. Susanne Bier directs, with the story drawing from Alice Hoffman’s The Book of Magic.
If there was ever a movie practically designed for September, this is it.
Resident Evil
In theatres September 18
The Resident Evil franchise is getting another reset, this time from Barbarian and Weapons filmmaker Zach Cregger.
Rather than retelling one of the previous films, the new movie follows Bryan, a medical courier played by Austin Abrams, whose night descends into an increasingly horrifying fight for survival. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser also star.
Cregger behind a Resident Evil movie is already enough to make this one of fall’s more interesting horror releases.
Heart of the Beast
In theatres September 25
Brad Pitt heads into survival-thriller territory in Heart of the Beast, directed by David Ayer.
Pitt stars as Special Forces officer James Belmont, who survives a plane crash only to become stranded deep in the Alaskan wilderness with his combat dog, Odin. What follows is a fight against the elements built around the relationship between the two.
After F1, Pitt going from racetracks to the Alaskan wilderness feels like a pretty solid change of pace.
Digger
In theatres and IMAX October 2
This might be one of the strangest and most intriguing movies on the entire fall schedule.
Tom Cruise stars in Digger, the new original film from Birdman and The Revenant director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Cruise plays an extraordinarily powerful man racing to convince the world he can save humanity from a disaster he helped create.
Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons round out the cast, and the movie was shot entirely in VistaVision.
No Ethan Hunt. No franchise. Just Cruise and Iñárritu going for it.
Verity
In theatres October 2
Colleen Hoover’s Verity is making the jump from bestseller to psychological thriller with a cast that feels almost engineered to generate conversation.
Dakota Johnson plays struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh, who is hired to finish the books of bestselling author Verity Crawford, played by Anne Hathaway. While staying at Verity’s home, Lowen discovers a disturbing manuscript that begins to blur what is real and what isn’t. Josh Hartnett stars as Verity’s husband, Jeremy.
If the book’s popularity is any indication, expect this one to be all over social media in October.
The Social Reckoning
In theatres October 9
Aaron Sorkin is returning to the world of The Social Network, but The Social Reckoning isn’t exactly a traditional sequel.
Written and directed by Sorkin, the film is inspired by the events surrounding The Facebook Files and follows Facebook engineer Frances Haugen, played by Mikey Madison, and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, played by Jeremy Allen White. Jeremy Strong steps into the role of Mark Zuckerberg.
Considering how much the internet has changed since The Social Network arrived in 2010, there is plenty for Sorkin to work with.
Street Fighter
In theatres October 16
Street Fighter is heading back to the big screen, and the casting alone deserves attention.
Andrew Koji plays Ryu, Noah Centineo is Ken Masters and Callina Liang takes on Chun-Li. Then things get even more interesting: Roman Reigns plays Akuma, David Dastmalchian is M. Bison, Cody Rhodes is Guile, 50 Cent is Balrog and Jason Momoa is Blanka.
Set in 1993, the story brings Ryu and Ken back together when Chun-Li recruits them for the World Warrior Tournament, where something much larger is unfolding behind the fights.
Whalefall
In theatres October 16
The premise of Whalefall sounds simple until you actually picture it.
Austin Abrams stars as Jay Gardiner, a diver searching for his late father’s remains off the California coast who gets swallowed by a massive sperm whale. He has approximately one hour of oxygen left and has to find a way out from inside it.
Josh Brolin plays Jay’s father, with Elisabeth Shue, John Ortiz, Jane Levy and Emily Rudd also starring. Brian Duffield directs the adaptation of Daniel Kraus’s novel.
Claustrophobia, deep water and being trapped inside a whale. Great.
Klara and the Sun
In theatres October 23
Jenna Ortega leads the adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s bestselling novel Klara and the Sun, written and directed by Taika Waititi.
Ortega plays Klara, an Artificial Friend searching for a home who forms a connection with a young girl named Josie. Amy Adams plays Josie’s mother, while Steve Buscemi and Natasha Lyonne are also among the cast.
With AI becoming increasingly embedded in everyday life, the timing for Ishiguro’s story feels particularly interesting.
Godzilla Minus Zero
In theatres November 6
After the international success of Godzilla Minus One, filmmaker Takashi Yamazaki is returning with Godzilla Minus Zero.
Yamazaki once again serves as director, screenwriter and VFX supervisor. Plot details are still being kept quiet, but TOHO has confirmed a November 3 release in Japan followed by a November 6 North American release, marking the first near-simultaneous Japan and North America rollout for a Japanese-produced Godzilla film.
That’s more than enough reason to have it on the list.
I Play Rocky
In select theatres November 6, expanding later in November
Instead of another Rocky sequel, I Play Rocky goes back to the unlikely story behind the original.
Anthony Ippolito plays a young Sylvester Stallone as he fights to get Rocky made while refusing to give up his demand that he play Rocky Balboa himself. Peter Farrelly directs, with Matt Dillon, AnnaSophia Robb, Toby Kebbell, Tracy Letts and Stephan James among the supporting cast.
Fifty years after Rocky first arrived in theatres, the story of how Stallone bet on himself might be just as compelling as the movie he eventually made.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
In theatres and IMAX November 20
Panem is back.
Sunrise on the Reaping takes place 24 years before the original Hunger Games and follows a young Haymitch Abernathy, played by Joseph Zada, as he is chosen for the 50th Hunger Games, better known as the Second Quarter Quell.
The cast is enormous. Ralph Fiennes plays President Snow, Elle Fanning is Effie Trinket, Kieran Culkin is Caesar Flickerman, Jesse Plemons is Plutarch Heavensbee, Maya Hawke is Wiress, Mckenna Grace is Maysilee Donner and Glenn Close also joins the ensemble. Francis Lawrence returns to direct.
It has been more than a decade since the original Jennifer Lawrence-led series dominated theatres, but The Hunger Games clearly isn’t finished with us yet.
Fall 2026 is looking very good for movie fans
There are still plenty of release dates that could move between now and November, but the fall 2026 movie schedule already has a little bit of everything: prestige directors, horror, bestselling books, giant franchises and a couple of genuinely strange ideas that could become the movies everyone ends up talking about.
And after a summer built around some very big blockbusters, fall might end up being the more interesting movie season.
