£12.99 Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die – 20th February Another sci-fi comedy, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die marks the return of director Gore Verbinski (Rango, the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise). Sam Rockwell stars as a dishevelled, oddly-dressed man who stumbles into a diner one night insisting that he’s from the future – and that he needs the customers’ help to avert a future war against machines. The film made its debut at 2025’s Fantastic Fest, where it garnered almost universally positive reviews. The supporting cast includes Zazie Beetz, Michael Pena and Juno Temple. We can’t wait. In The Blink Of An Eye – showing Sundance in Jan/Feb We were a bit worried about this film for a while. Finished in March 2025 , In The Blink Of An Eye sat without a release date for several months, with rumours of reshoots doing the rounds. The sci-fi drama is now making its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, meaning it’ll screen there between late January and the 1st February. From Wall-E and John Carter director Andrew Stanton, In The Blink Of An Eye is an epoch-spanning fable that takes us from humanity’s earliest days to a spacecraft 200 years in the future. The script, by Colby Day, was on the Black List of best unproduced screenplays in 2016, and it’s a terrific read : seamlessly eliding between eras and characters at various points in history, all building to a truly emotional climax. Day also wrote Spaceman, an Adam Sandler sci-fi you can find on Netflix; In The Blink Of An Eye promises to be another terrific genre piece. The Bride! – 26th March Not connected to Guillermo del Toro’s baroque take on Frankenstein made for Netflix, The Bride is the latest film from actor turned director Maggie Gyllenhaal. It stars Jessie Buckley as a mortally injured woman revived by Anette Bening’s Dr Euphronius, while Christian Bale plays the monster and the Bride’s betrothed. Moving Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel into the roaring (19)20s, it looks like a sumptuous and beautifully-designed tragic romance. Project Hail Mary – 20th March Based on the novel by Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary sees Ryan Gosling’s unassuming science teacher blasted into space in a last-ditch effort to save humanity. The trailer gave away a bit more of the book’s events than we were expecting, so maybe avoid that if you want to go into the cinema completely cold. The adaptation’s by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, so expect plenty of humour and heart as well as Weir’s plausibly detailed science fiction. In a case of unfortunate cosmic timing, Project Hail Mary places it rather near another major sci-fi film from a director whose last big hit was also a Weir adaptation… The Dog Stars – 27th March There aren’t any images for The Dog Stars kicking around yet, so please accept this still from 1980s children’s TV show, Children Of The Dog Star. We used to quite like it. Some of Ridley Scott’s most beloved and influential movies are in the sci-fi genre – Alien, Blade Runner and The Martian (the Weir adaptation we were on about above) are all markedly different in tone, but all classics in their own way. We’re excited to see what Scott’s done with The Dog Stars, then: adapted from Peter Heller’s novel, it’s set in a future world ravaged by a pandemic. Holed up in an aircraft hangar, the two protagonists – Jacog Elordi’s pilot, Hig and Josh Brolin’s sniper, Bangley – are coaxed back into the open world by a mysterious signal. Margaret Qualley, Guy Pearce and Benedict Wong also star. Given Scott’s visual flair – even his uneven Alien prequels were often lovely to look at – this is arguably one of our most anticipated genre films of the year. The Mandalorian And Grogu – 22nd May Lucasfilm’s first Star Wars movie in seven years, The Mandalorian And Grogu takes the hit Disney+ series out for a big screen spin-off – making it the Holiday On The Buses of space fantasies. We don’t know much about the plot, and frankly, we don’t need to know: as long as director Jon Favreau delivers on the pace and spectacle, we should be in for a pulpy, entertaining evening at the pictures. Pedro Pascal, Grogu, Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allan White all star – the latter as the alarmingly buff son of the late Jabba. Untitled Steven Spielberg film – 12th June A shot from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Sorry: the best we’ve got for now. Ace film though isn’t it? It’s an absurdly stuffed year for respected directors making genre films. And this currently untitled piece could be the biggest of the lot: it’s the latest from Steven Spielberg, and said to be a return to the UFO-based subject matter of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. It’s written by David Koepp (see Cold Storage earlier), who previously worked with Spielberg on the adapted screenplay for Jurassic Park, and is said to be a big thrillride following the autobiographical drama of The Fabelmans. Emily Blunt and Wyatt Russell star; beyond that, we know precisely nothing about the plot or setting. It compels us, though. Flowervale Street – 10th August A generic picture of a dinosaur, courtesy of Public Domain Pictures. It Follows was one of the great horror movies of the 2010s, and here comes its director, David Robert Mitchell, with some sort of time-travelling IMAX thriller involving dinosaurs. Ewen McGregor and Anne Hathaway are the starriest names among the warm-blooded cast. At present, we don’t know a whole lot more about this one, either, but Mitchell is a hugely talented director of both comedy and suspense. His previous film, Under Silver Lake, was an unfairly overlooked commercial disappointment, but we thought it was an absolute keeper. As such, we’ve high hopes for Flowervale Street. Bring on the dinosaurs. The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping – 20th November Quentin Tarantino’s favourite killer contest franchise is back with another prequel, this one joining things up to the 2011 film that started it all. Hence why Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are making a return as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. Expect more oppression, death and romance; Francis Lawrence has become a dab hand at making these. And as The Long Walk proved, he’s quite an underrated director, both technically and in the performances he gets from his actors. Dune: Part Three – 18th December An epic moment of epicness in Dune: Part Two. Credit: Warner Bros. The year ends with a pinch of spice courtesy of director Denis Villeneuve. Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya and the rest of the Dune crew are back for a third visit to Arrakis, and given that this chapter will sail beyond the confines of Frank Herbert’s original novel, which formed the basis for the first two movies, it’ll be fascinating to see where the Canadian filmmaker takes the saga next. Herbert’s own follow-up, Dune Messiah, had some truly wild ideas that might not translate too well onto a cinema screen, but Villeneuve’s previous adaptations were spectacularly done. Also coming up, with no release date attached: Ray Gunn, the animated sci-fi noir passion project from Brad Bird; Godzilla Minus Zero, the follow-up to instant kaiju klassic, Godzilla Minus One. You lucky, lucky people. /**/ Source: https://filmstories.co.uk/features/15-sci-fi-films-to-look-forward-to-in-2026/