The best films of 2026 so far

Jessie Buckley is dug up to marry Christian Bale, while Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel are the double act of the year in Steven Soderbergh’s dark comedy. Here’s our round up of movie magic from the last six months in the UK, in order of release

A Neil Diamond tribute act gets a sweet treat of a movie thanks to Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, in a film that follows a Milwaukee married couple as they rise to fame with a real-life band called Lightning and Thunder.

What we said: “Here is a startlingly strange, undeniably entertaining true-life story from the heartland of American showbusiness; a lovable crowdpleaser whose feelgood flavour won’t prepare you for the way the plot repeatedly and savagely twists like an unsafe fairground ride.” Read the full review

Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley captivate in Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s myth-making novel, an audacious Shakespearean tragedy that powerfully reimagines the agonising loss of a child as the source of Hamlet’s grand stage drama.

What we said: “It is an unselfconsciously beguiling performance from Buckley, who gives every look and smile a piercing significance.” Read the full review

A murderous Clockwork Orangey gang take on the zombies in this gruesome and energised fourquel, the finest of the 28 franchise by a blood-curdling mile.

What we said: “Fiennes’s dance to Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast is basically one of the most extraordinary moments of his career. At the screening I attended, we were on our feet, looking for a speaker bin to headbang into.” Read the full review

Fierce, urgent docufiction in which director Kaouther Ben Hania reconstructs the killing of a five-year-old in Gaza using her real voice as she is bombarded by the Israeli army.