Fall 2026: The Movies and Series to Watch, In Theaters and Streaming
Fall 2026 looks packed for film lovers, following on from our summer 2026 selection. Rather than a plain list of dates, this article digs into what sits behind each release: an autobiographical inspiration, a breakup that marked a shoot, a filmmaker settling scores with Hollywood. Enough to help you choose with your eyes open. In theaters, several films noticed at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival cross paths with a horror reboot, a beloved fantasy franchise, and the most talked-about transformation of Tom Cruise’s career. On streaming, the return of a cult Israeli thriller sits alongside a dive into the golden years of Vincennes University. Here is the Movie in the Air selection for building a fall 2026 lineup that is both popular and demanding, with context, angle, trailer, and date for every title.
This fall 2026 selection deliberately mixes big screen and small screen, blockbusters and auteur cinema. Every title is dated and placed on its platform or in theaters. Dates apply to metropolitan France and may vary by territory.
1. Adieu monde cruel, by Félix de Givry: our fall 2026 favorite
Félix de Givry directs his first feature, after co-writing and producing Ugo Bienvenu’s Arco and starring in Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden. Milo Machado-Graner, revealed in Anatomy of a Fall, plays Otto, a fourteen-year-old dealing with school bullying. After a failed suicide attempt, Otto hides rather than go home, until Léna, a classmate played by Jane Beever, spots him one night and shelters him in secret.
The project began as a conversation between the director and a friend about voluntary disappearances, before taking a more personal turn: Félix de Givry has said the story draws on his own experience of bullying at school. That personal material runs through a film critics describe as full of poetry about connection and love, chosen to close Critics’ Week at Cannes 2026. Our favorite pick of this fall 2026.
In theaters September 9.
2. A Woman’s Life, by Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet
Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet returns to the Cannes Competition six years after Anaïs in Love. Léa Drucker plays Gabrielle, a fifty-five-year-old surgeon and head of department at a public hospital, overwhelmed by work and responsibility. When a novelist played by Mélanie Thierry comes to observe her for a book, Gabrielle’s balance starts to shift.
To write this second feature, the director shadowed a surgeon at work for several weeks. She describes a fulfilled woman who puts her career at the center of her life without giving up her sexuality, a deliberate move away from the sacrificed female figures of classic literature. Charles Berling, Laurent Capelluto, and Marie-Christine Barrault round out the cast of this comedy drama, in competition for the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2026.
In theaters September 9.
3. Practical Magic 2, by Susanne Bier: the Owens sisters return
Twenty-eight years after the 1998 cult favorite, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman step back into the roles of Sally and Gillian Owens, two sisters from a line of witches. An ancestral curse once again threatens to destroy their family, this time alongside the next generation.
Joey King, Lee Pace, Maisie Williams, Stockard Channing, and Dianne Wiest surround the duo, under the direction of Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier (Bird Box). A modest performer at release that became a cult favorite through the 2000s, the original has built a fanbase that has waited more than a quarter century for this sequel. Warner Bros. picked the project back up after acquiring the Village Roadshow library, which had fallen under bankruptcy protection.
In theaters September 9.
4. Pressure, by Anthony Maras: the 72 hours that changed history
Three days before the Normandy landings, a storm threatens to derail the largest amphibious operation ever staged. Andrew Scott plays James Stagg, the Scottish meteorologist tasked with delivering a reliable forecast to General Eisenhower, played by Brendan Fraser, who alone carries the responsibility of launching or delaying the invasion.
Adapted from David Haig’s play, first staged at the Edinburgh Fringe before transferring to the West End, the screenplay, co-written with director Anthony Maras, is carried by Kerry Condon, Chris Messina, and Damian Lewis. The film holds an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics praising the tension it builds around an almost entirely meteorological dilemma.
In theaters September 9.
5. Fauda, Season 5: the Israeli thriller returns
Lior Raz returns as Doron Kavillio in a season entirely rewritten after the events of October 7, 2023, to ground the story in a new reality. An old friend draws Doron into an unauthorized revenge mission that leads him into a dangerous infiltration, part of which unfolds in Marseille, a sequence ultimately shot in Budapest for security reasons.
French actress Mélanie Laurent joins the cast, alongside Hakim Djaziri, Itzik Cohen, Doron Ben-David, and Yaakov Zada Daniel. Eleven episodes make up this fifth season, already broadcast in Israel since May ahead of its worldwide release, available in full.
Available September 8 on Netflix.
6. Resident Evil, by Zach Cregger: the franchise reinvents itself
Zach Cregger, director of Barbarian and Weapons, takes on a full reboot of the franchise, unrelated to the films led by Milla Jovovich or to Welcome to Raccoon City. Austin Abrams plays Bryan, a medical courier whose delivery turns into a nightmare as Raccoon City collapses into chaos.
Paul Walter Hauser, Zach Cherry, and Kali Reis round out the cast of a film shot in Prague, co-written by Cregger with Shay Hatten, screenwriter of the John Wick saga. Behind the camera, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, a longtime collaborator of Ridley Scott on Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, brings this reboot a more polished texture than its predecessors, which critics and fans alike have written off for years.
In theaters September 16.
7. Camarades, on arte.tv: the Vincennes utopia
May 1968. The French state reels under a student and faculty revolt. To contain the unrest, the Gaullist government dreams up a solution as perverse as it is brilliant: build an experimental university far from the Paris barricades. Claudine, a sex worker from the Bois de Boulogne, agrees to infiltrate this nest of leftists for the intelligence services, after they scared off her wealthy clientele. But at Vincennes, the students aren’t the only revolutionaries: Foucault, Bourdieu, Cixous, and Wittig cross paths there too.
Benjamin Charbit and Dominique Baumard create this historical comedy, blending real figures who shaped French theory with fictional characters. Manon Kneusé, awarded Best Actress at the 2026 Séries Mania Festival, plays Claudine, alongside Pierre-François Garel, Lulja Comar, Grégory Gadebois, Micha Lescot, and Vincent Elbaz.
Available September 16 on arte.tv, broadcast on Arte September 24 and October 1.
8. Garance, by Jeanne Herry: Adèle Exarchopoulos rebuilding
Three years after All Your Faces, which earned Adèle Exarchopoulos her second César, Jeanne Herry reunites with her lead actress for a new portrait of a woman. Garance, a young actress struggling with alcoholism, moves through eight years of relocations, encounters, parties, and anxiety. Sara Giraudeau plays Pauline, her girlfriend, whose presence adds another layer to this story of recovery.
To prepare for the role, Adèle Exarchopoulos met women dealing with addiction, while Jeanne Herry drew on the story of a woman who had confided in her. Competing for the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2026, the film received a mixed critical reception, though Exarchopoulos’s performance won over critics across the board.
In theaters September 23.
9. Digger, the event of fall 2026
Alejandro González Iñárritu returns to English-language filmmaking for the first time since The Revenant, with Tom Cruise in the title role of Digger Rockwell, billed as the most powerful man in the world, an energy magnate responsible for a trillion-dollar ecological disaster.
Made up, padded, and given a thick Southern accent by Alessandro Bertolazzi and Kazu Hiro, Cruise shifts radically away from decades of action blockbusters, in what the press is already comparing to the satirical tone of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. Last year, Iñárritu himself presented Tom Cruise with his honorary Oscar, promising him more would follow. Sandra Hüller, John Goodman, Jesse Plemons, Riz Ahmed, Sophie Wilde, and Emma D’Arcy surround him in this black comedy, shot on 35mm VistaVision by Emmanuel Lubezki. Warner Bros. is framing the film as the opening move of an Oscar campaign for Cruise, who is still waiting for a competitive win despite four nominations.
In theaters September 30.
10. The Social Reckoning, by Aaron Sorkin: Facebook, sixteen years later
Aaron Sorkin returns to the world he wrote for The Social Network, this time directing solo without David Fincher, who had long called the idea of a sequel a risky one. The film follows Frances Haugen, a former Facebook engineer played by Mikey Madison, an Oscar winner for Anora, who enlists the help of Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, played by Jeremy Allen White, to expose the Facebook Files.
Jeremy Strong succeeds Jesse Eisenberg as an older Mark Zuckerberg, surrounded by Wunmi Mosaku, Betty Gilpin, Billy Magnussen, and Bill Burr. Billed as a companion piece rather than a sequel, the film lets Sorkin trace the consequences of what he first put on screen in 2010, rather than retelling its origin.
In theaters October 7.
11. Karma, by Guillaume Canet: a couple’s last film together
Guillaume Canet returns to the thriller genre twenty years after Tell No One, with Marion Cotillard for their ninth collaboration. The film follows Jeanne, who is trying to rebuild her life in a village in northern Spain alongside Daniel, who knows nothing of her troubled past. When Mateo, her six-year-old godson, mysteriously disappears, Jeanne flees to France, taking refuge in the religious community where she grew up.
Denis Ménochet plays the leader of that community, with Leonardo Sbaraglia and Luis Zahera rounding out the cast. A month after filming wrapped, Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard announced their separation, making Karma the last film they shot together as a couple. Screened out of competition at Cannes 2026, where it received a six-minute standing ovation, the psychological thriller is distributed by Pathé.
After the critical failure of Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom, several Cannes critics welcomed Guillaume Canet’s return to form, some calling it his best work as a director since Tell No One in 2006. The script draws some reservations for its lack of originality once it shifts into cult territory, but Marion Cotillard and Denis Ménochet’s intensity won over critics across the board.
In theaters October 21.
12. Moulin, by László Nemes: Gilles Lellouche as the Resistance leader
László Nemes, whose Son of Saul won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2015 and later the Academy Award for Best International Feature, returns to competition with a biopic of Jean Moulin. Gilles Lellouche plays the Resistance leader, arrested in June 1943 while trying to unify the forces of the Armée secrète. Lars Eidinger plays Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief in Lyon who interrogates and tortures him: Moulin keeps his silence to the end, a silence that will help spark a new spirit of resistance in France.
Louise Bourgoin and Félix Lefebvre round out the cast of the Hungarian filmmaker’s first film shot in French, which earned a largely favorable critical reception at its Cannes premiere. Gilles Lellouche has said he thought long and hard about the responsibility of portraying such a central figure in French history.
In theaters October 28.
Also Playing This Fall 2026
Fall 2026 holds a few more dates worth noting. Already in theaters since August 26, The Dog Stars by Ridley Scott, led by Jacob Elordi and Josh Brolin, opened the season to a rough critical reception, with the script drawing unflattering comparisons to The Road and The Last of Us. On September 9, the busiest day of the season, two more films arrive: Élie Chouraqui’s Les Héros du Louvre with Kad Merad, and Christine Paillard’s Billie Melody with Roschdy Zem. And on September 23, Her Private Hell marks Nicolas Winding Refn’s long-awaited return to filmmaking, ten years after The Neon Demon, alongside Alexandre Castagnetti’s new take on The Phantom of the Opera.
On streaming, Last Seen lands on Apple TV+ on September 9, Mayday with Ryan Reynolds arrives on Apple TV+ on September 4, and Prisoner 951, with Narges Rashidi and Joseph Fiennes, joins arte.tv the same day. Call My Agent!, the film, with Camille Cottin, and all four seasons of Catastrophe arrive on Netflix and arte.tv respectively on September 10. Finally, Francis Lawrence directs The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, a prequel centered on young Haymitch Abernathy, due November 18.
A highly anticipated adaptation of Les Misérables by Fred Cavayé, starring Vincent Lindon and Tahar Rahim, is also expected this fall. Its exact release date varies across sources, and we will confirm it once it is officially set.
Where and When to Watch Fall 2026 Movies and Series
To plan your fall 2026 lineup, here is the date recap. In theaters, the season picks up September 9 with Adieu monde cruel, A Woman’s Life, Practical Magic 2, and Pressure. Resident Evil follows on September 16, then Garance and Her Private Hell on the 23rd, Digger on September 30, The Social Reckoning on October 7, and Karma and Moulin on October 21 and 28.
On streaming, Prisoner 951 and Mayday arrive September 4, Fauda on the 8th, Last Seen on the 9th, Call My Agent! and Catastrophe on the 10th, and Camarades on September 16.
Frequently Asked Questions About Fall 2026
What is the most anticipated movie of fall 2026?
Digger by Alejandro González Iñárritu is drawing the most attention this fall 2026, driven by Tom Cruise’s physical transformation and the Oscar campaign announced by Warner Bros. The film opens September 30.
Which Cannes 2026 films are releasing this fall 2026?
Several films that premiered at Cannes 2026 arrive in theaters this fall: Adieu monde cruel and A Woman’s Life on September 9, Garance on September 23, Karma on October 21, and Moulin on October 28.
What series should I watch streaming this fall 2026?
Fauda Season 5 arrives September 8 on Netflix, Last Seen on September 9 on Apple TV+, and Camarades on September 16 on arte.tv, alongside Prisoner 951 and Catastrophe.
Fall 2026: Between Blockbusters and Auteur Cinema
This fall 2026 lineup spans every genre. Cannes runs through the season from start to finish, from Adieu monde cruel to Moulin by way of Garance and Karma, while American spectacle takes shape in Digger, The Social Reckoning, and the return of the Owens sisters. Between theaters and streaming platforms, fall 2026 is packed with things to watch, and with stories behind the stories themselves.
Selection subject to change based on distributor scheduling.
