The year is officially two-thirds over, and it has already been huge for movies. From low-budget surprises like Obsession and Backrooms to record-breaking blockbusters The Odyssey and Spiderman: Brand New Day, 2026 has been the best year in theatres since before the pandemic. In the inaugural column of The Watchlist, we’re looking back at a few of the biggest hits of 2026 and recommending some potential new favourites — what’ll you add to your watchlist?
If you liked The Drama, you might like…
One of the things that makes The Drama so powerful is its hyper-modernity, the sense that the problems and situations of the movie would be inconceivable just ten years ago. Our Hero, Balthazar feels the same way. Jaeden Martell stars as a rich, chronically online teenager who starts DM-ing with a man from rural Texas who is threatening a school shooting. Desperate to impress his political activist crush, Martell’s character flies to Texas in order to stop the shooting before it happens. The film, which hit theatres earlier this year, is both hilarious and cynical, a satiric portrayal of America that ranges from performative activism to gun violence; from incel culture to MLM schemes.
Available on Apple TV or the Letterboxd Video Store for $5.99.
If you liked Backrooms, you might like…
If Backrooms is about the discovery of liminal spaces underneath our everyday lives, Robina Rose’s 1981 film is about the revelation that those places exist in our world, too. Nightshift takes place during a single night at a London hotel and follows the receptionist as her shift passes. Although there are no jumpscares, off-putting camera angles and fuzzy, nocturnal lighting create an eerie and surreal atmosphere. An eccentric nighttime crowd drifts in and out of the lobby, but we get the sense that the receptionist herself, silently watching, is no different from the windows and walls of this transitory, dream-like space. What happens in a hotel lobby past midnight, once everyone goes to sleep?
Available for free on Kanopy.com with a public library card.
If you liked The Odyssey, you might like…
Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer imagines the time after the Trojan War as a chaotic, apocalyptic world; the order that provided structure to gods and men had collapsed. The gods are similarly absent in Franco Piavoli’s 1989 film Nostos: Il ritorno, which leans even more into the depiction of Odysseus not as the wily trickster of the poem, but a bewildered, lonely man, traumatized by memories of war. The mysterious, ethereal Mediterranean coast makes Odysseus seem truly tiny and helpless against the forces of nature. Long shots of the sea and sky alongside the film’s use of a made-up language to imitate ancient Greek make for a hypnotic viewing experience. That Nolan’s blockbuster has so much in common with this subtle and emotionally powerful film should call into question Emily Wilson’s assertion that his adaptation is nothing but “unconvincing nonsense.”
Available for free on Youtube.