The 10 Most Anticipated Movies Coming Out in Autumn 2026

Few movies say autumn quite like the original Practical Magic, which is why this upcoming rebootquel is the perfect release to kick off the season.

Like many an annually watched classic before it, the 1998 original needed a good few years to earn its reputation. Thanks to its cosy, witchy vibe and fall colour palette, however, it’s basically become the movie equivalent of a pumpkin-spiced latte.

Practical Magic 2 brings Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman back together for the first time since its predecessor, likely to pass the baton to some younger stars (namely Joey King and Maisie Williams). It’s too early to say, but this one is definitely giving more Devil Wears Prada 2 than that dog awful Hocus Pocus sequel...   

Release date: September 11

Just a little over a year since Zach Cregger’s majorly successful Weapons was released, the director is returning to cinemas with a hotly anticipated reboot of the Resident Evil franchise — and if the trailers are anything to go by, it looks absolutely killer.

There has long been a section of the movie fandom-verse that's defended Paul W.S. Anderson’s six original Resident Evil movies as high-trash (which I've always found endearing). I have every belief that Cregger has the juice to make his stripped-down RE really land with both critics and audiences.

Early reports say it’s a non-stop action thriller. Weapons breakout Austin Abrams stars. We are counting down the days.  

Release date: September 18

Awards-boffins were a little surprised at the news that Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu’s Digger would be skipping the autumn festival circuit. Whatever that says about the use of festivals for Hollywood's biggest movies is a story for another day. However, the choice has definitely been in keeping with a marketing campaign that has been pushing the Mexican's latest less as a prestige satire and more as an outrageous big-screen comedy.

Whether it’s pushing a little too hard with all that remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt that Tom Cruise fans will be queuing up to see it, and so will we. John Goodman, Riz Ahmed and Sandra Hüller are amongst the dazzling supporting cast in a movie that looks to be splitting the difference between Dr Strangelove and Tropic Thunder.

Release date: October 2

In early October, Anne Hathaway will put the final cherry on top of what has been a defining year in her career. The film, her fifth starring role of 2026, is called Verity, and it follows a writer (Dakota Johnson) who’s been hired to finish a disabled author’s (Hathaway) book. It’s the actress's second film with director Michael Showalter after the delightful age-gap romance The Idea of You. 

After It Ends With Us and Regretting You, Verity is the latest movie adapted from a book by the phenomenally successful author Colleen Hoover. Something tells me this one will be a bit more up to scratch than those previous efforts.

Release date: October 2

If it’s acceptable to reuse the "U", you really can’t spell Austin Abrams’s name without autumn — which is great, because he’s starring in the two most exciting movies of the coming season.

Mark the dates: precisely one month after the release of Resident Evil, Abrams will be back on screens in the frankly awesome-looking Whalefall, a Melvillian fable about a father (Josh Brolin) and son who get eaten by that very same amphibious mammal. The trailer looks absolutely terrifying. We're just praying that we'll be lucky enough to see it on an IMAX screen.

Release date: October 16

No non-A24 movie in the history of movies has ever looked and sounded more A24-coded than Wicker — but even if you're not so down with that studio's output, you're going to want to keep this one on your radar.

The log line is one of the year’s best: a solitary fisherwoman pays a basket maker to weave her a husband who she gets scandalously hot and heavy with. Olivia Coleman and Aleksander Skarsgård star, because of course they do.

Release date: October 30

The Nth movie in the Godzilla franchise is also one of the most hotly anticipated to ever feature the legendary ocean creature. The reason for this is the huge success of its predecessor, Godzilla Minus One, a movie that rode a wave of acclaim and fandom all the way to picking up an unlikely special effects award at the Oscars.

There’s no point looking into the plot of Godzilla Minus Zero. Let’s just say that if the filmmakers could make the last one look that good on a budget of $15M, who knows what they might do with at least twice that.

Release date: November 6

You can file this one as the hottest take on this list, but something tells me that Focker-in-Law might actually be a little more welcomed by cinemagoers than people expect. Audiences have been crying out for the return of broad, big-screen comedies in cinemas and they don’t come much broader than the Meet the Parents franchise. 

The fifth in the long-running series reunites Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro and Owen Wilson and throws the usually very funny Ariana Grande into the mix. See it with a full house, if you can.

Release date: November 25

I couldn’t quite work out why people weren't so on board with A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the first prequel of the consistently enjoyable Hunger Games franchise. The cast was tight, the action solid, and the Berlin locations gave it a real sense of weight.

We’ll return to some of those settings again for Sunrise on the Reaping, which is set 40 years after the events of that previous movie and focuses on the star-making tournament of Haymitch Abernathy. Joseph Zada takes over the role from Woody Harrelson, with the great Ralph Fiennes stepping into the shoes of President Snow.

Catch it and enjoy it before 'Dunesday' takes over.

Release date: November 20