Image via 20th Century Studios
Published Aug 14, 2026, 8:44 PM EDT
Ben Brewster is a filmmaker, critic, screenwriter, and actor whose work sits at the intersection of film culture, craft analysis, and storytelling.
He is a movie list contributing writer at Collider and a contributing writer for High on Films, where he covers contemporary cinema, independent film, and festival releases with an eye toward narrative structure, performance, and visual language.
Ben is an active film festival participant, having worked with Newport Film, the Nantucket Film Festival and as a screener for the Austin, Boston & Woodstock film festivals.
He brings to that work a programming instinct shaped by years of close engagement with independent and documentary cinema. This comes with a deep investment in the kinds of films that rarely find their way into the mainstream conversation without someone willing to advocate for them.
His background spans documentary and narrative filmmaking, film marketing, and production, including work with award-winning directors. This as well as developing his own indie production company, Lilac Creative Studio, through which he develops and produces original work across fiction and nonfiction forms.
His debut documentary, Diamond in the Rust, is an examination of economic redevelopment and displacement in the Queens area of New York City. The film was recently accepted to the Unisphere Film Festival, the Defense of Democracy Film Festival, and the Urbanite Arts & Film Festival. This would mark his first festival recognition as a director.
In addition to his writing and programming work, Ben hosts Beneath the Bloom, a film podcast exploring the work behind the scenes in cinema, and the struggles one can face to make a movie become a reality. The show reflects the same sensibility that runs through all of his work. A conviction that film is not merely entertainment but one of the most powerful tools human beings have for understanding each other.
Across mediums, his work is driven by a deep belief in film as a communal, transformative art form.
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It is such a great time for movies right now. The problem is trying to keep up with them. The films getting the most oxygen right now are the ones at the very top. In some of the biggest cities around America, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey has been booked out for months. In the spring, there was a craze surrounding horror hit hopefuls like Passenger, Hokum and the two box office giants in Obsession and The Backrooms. The current noise around the new Spider-Man Brand New Day film, the MCU's first trailer for Avengers: Doomsday and the impending third act of the Denis Villeneuve-led Dune franchise are all to come in the next five or so months. Even the first peak at Tom Cruise starring in Alejandro G. Inarritu's latest project, Digger, has generated lots of buzz as being one of the major films coming this Fall. These conversations can seem loud, and it can feel like it blocks out everything else.
With that said, there has been a quiet resurgence of mid-tier films that deserve just as much attention. The kinds of movies that may not have the billion-dollar marketing budget, but have no lack of ambition, high-quality production and A-list talent. From festival darlings, to studio swings, these films are worth finding time for. But, before the actual list itself, let's go over the rules of this, as well as a few of the snubs before people are up in arms. The rules: the movie has to be an upcoming release this year, ideally with a set date, and it cannot be out in theaters yet. Any films mentioned above are not included on this list. Now, the snubs (which are all worth checking out as well), but even a list this long has to leave some projects out, as much as their omissions might come back to bite me later.
Late Fame, the narrative debut feature from longtime festival programmer and film critic Kent Jones, places you in New York's artistic underworld following a late-in-life poet portrayed by Willem Dafoe. Joe Swanberg's The Sun That Never Sets, a love triangle starring Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson (New Girl, Into the Spider-Verse) and Corey Michael Smith, who is best known for portraying the Riddler in the TV series Gotham. This could be the kind of low-key ensemble indie drama that tends to sneak up on the average movie goer. Zach Woods (The Office), makes his directorial debut with the movie The Accompanist, an unlikely foster story starring Susan Sarandon, Aubrey Plaza and John Rothman, and it is easy to see why early buzz has been very favorable. Madden, David O. Russell's take on football legend John Madden, with Nicolas Cage in the lead and Christian Bale in a supporting role. There is hope that this will bring the director back to the oddball character work that made American Hustle and The Fighter work so well. Then there is Bruton, starring Theo Rossi (The Penguin), which is based on the true story of Brayan Bruton's accidental descent into the Florida prison system. It is exactly the kind of gritty indie crime-thriller that tends to get overlooked next to larger theatrical releases. And rounding out the near-misses is Here Comes the Flood, a heist thriller starring Denzel Washington and Robert Pattinson that was set to hit Netflix later this year, but recently was pushed back to its 2027 slate.
25 'Jimmy' (2026)
Image via Burns & Co.Jimmy arrives November 6th as a biographical drama by director Aaron Burns, starring Kj Apa as legendary actor Jimmy Stewart. The movie traces a striking and jarring decision amidst the middle of Stewart's career. It chronicles his story from winning the Oscar for Philadelphia Story to his decision to leave Hollywood behind and enter the U.S. Army Air Corps. He went on to fly twenty combat missions over Europe during WWII and rocketed up to the rank of colonel, something the film treats as the heart of his story. Burns chooses to focus more on Stewart's life post-war as well, a man who had returned home changed and disheartened by what he had witnessed.
Far removed now from the leading man persona audiences had once remembered, Stewart re-established his passion for the screen as George Bailey in Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life. It's a moment Burns uses as an emotional resolution to the story, framing the role as the thing that helped the man find himself again. The supporting cast is stacked with recognizable faces, including Neal Mcdonough, Rob Riggle and Jason Alexander as legendary studio head Louis B. Mayer. Filming took place in West Cork, Ireland in association with the period's settings. Much of Stewart's legacy may have been reduced to nostalgia over the decades, but this film advertises itself as one willing to reckon with the psyche beyond Jimmy Stewart's naturally wholesome image.
24 'Paper Tiger' (2026)
Image via NeonPaper Tiger arrives November 13th, the latest film from Ad Astra director James Gray. It is a crime thriller set in 1980s Queens, New York following a set of brothers pulled into the orbit of the Russian mob during a waterfront clean-up venture. Adam Driver plays Gary, a slick, well-connected ex-cop, opposite Miles Teller, as his younger brother Irwin, an earnest engineer chasing his own version of the American Dream through a local development project. The title itself is believed to come from the idea of a paper tiger, someone who looks powerful on the surface, a king or a man with connections, but who turns out to have none of the true authority he projects. The tension is key to the premise, as the pressure is turned up after Irwin and his sons stumble upon something they were never supposed to see, forcing the brothers to figure out if they can truly trust one another.
Gray has made a career with NYC-centric films from The Yards, to We Own the Night or even Armageddon Time, and it feels like every movie uses New York as its own character. Paper Tiger hopes to continue that thread, taking that same critical and disillusioned eye toward the cost of ambition that defines the majority of his earlier works. His new film is opening this year's New York Film Festival before Neon gives it a limited theatrical release on November 13th, followed by a wider expansion the week after. New York stories are having a bit of a moment right now. Keep an eye on this one.
23 'Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother' (2026)
Image via MGM Amazon StudiosYour Mother Your Mother Your Mother arrives on September 26th and has to be the most inventive premise on this list. It is an action thriller by writer-director Bassam Tariq starring Mahershala Ali as Latif, a devout Muslim family man who also happens to be a religious hitman working out of Houston. When Latif's wife passes away, he's forced to raise his kids on his own, which is where Tariq places the audience. Latif, must scramble to find breast milk for his infant daughter all while avoiding the deadly and influential faith leader Hwan Yoon. The title of the film comes from a Hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad repeats "your mother" three times to underscore the singular weight of a mother's sacrifice. This framing gives the movie something that separates itself from a standard genre entry.
Tariq, who previously made Mogul Mowgli, brings the same specificity of culture and faith to this project that defined his earlier work, and pairing that sensibility with a Texas-set action thriller feels genuinely fresh. Ali leads a strong supporting cast that includes, John Cho, Giancarlo Esposito, and Trammell Tillman. The film had its world premiere at TIFF, where Ali previously won the People's choice award for Green Book, before Amazon and Orion Pictures are behind an original select theatrical release, expanding to a wider range of screens by October.
22 'Other Mommy' (2026)
Other Mommy releases nationwide on October 9th and has already generated tons of buzz off of its trailer alone. This could be largely in part due to famed A-List talent Jessica Chastain taking a full dive into uncanny valley makeup and an all-encompassing horror role. The film is directed by Rob Savage and is adapted from the 2024 novel Incidents Around the House, following an eight-year-old girl named Bela, who becomes the target of a malicious entity emerging from her closet. The entity looks identical to Bella's mother Ursula, also played by Chastain, and repeatedly asks to go inside of her heart. It is a premise creepy enough on its own before you factor in how the filmmaker plans on using it. Dubbed Other Mommy, the doppelgänger begins leaving Bela's room targeting the rest of the household, slowly working to erode the girl's trust in her real parents, while positioning itself as its true protector.
Chastain playing both the mother and the mimic sets up a disorienting dynamic, since neither Bela nor the audience can always tell which version is truly standing in front of her. That confusion is compounded due to the marital friction developed between Bela's parents, Chastain and Jay Duplass, which Bela is in earshot of. This gives the entity's manipulation a more vulnerable target to work with. Now, there is a real possibility that this ends up being a case of trailer fever, where the marketing actually outpaces what the finished film plans on delivering, but that remains to be seen. Either way this is one of the more talked about horror releases coming this Fall.
21 'The End of Oak Street' (2026)
Image via Warner Bros.The End of Oak Street marks David Robert Mitchell's return after an eight-year hiatus following his neo-noir psychological thriller Under the Silver Lake with Andrew Garfield. This time, he is trading a paranoid Los Angeles conspiracy for prehistoric suburbia. The film, formerly titled Flowervale Street, follows the Platt family after a mysterious cosmic anomaly physically rips up their entire neighborhood. Now displaced from the quietness of modern suburbia, the family finds themselves surrounded by an unrecognizable landscape crawling with an array of prehistoric creatures. August 14th release. Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor lead the cast in a project that leans hard into 1980s Amblin sci-fi adventure. With JJ Abrams producing, the lineage feels intentional rather than incidental. The one true blemish on the movie so far, is a marketing misstep from Warner Bros. after an AI-generated promotional video drew significant backlash online. So much, it was worth flagging, even if the movie itself is generating a different kind of buzz.
Nonetheless, early reactions have been quite enthusiastic, with filmmaker Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) comparing it to late 20th century classic The Twilight Zone, and praising how far it pushes its PG-13 rating, with its non-stop terror. Some critics have pointed to strong Super 8 and Lost-style mystery box elements, deeming it a big high-concept film that necessitates seeing it on the largest screen possible. What seems to be resonating the most with viewers, is the decision to ditch the theme park cloning formula that has defined the dinosaur genre for decades. Instead, Mitchell opts in favor of a raw, straight survival premise, with early social media reactions calling the third act an absolute banger. This could be one of the more purely fun popcorn fodder movies of the year. The End of Oak Street hits theaters nationwide this Friday, August 14th.
20 'The Weight' (2026)
The Weight releases September 18th, and it has already premiered to real acclaim at Sundance back in January. Set in 1933 Oregon, the story is a Great Depression era survival thriller that is reminiscent of the tactile old school filmmaking sensibility of movies like Sorcerer and The Wages of Fear. Ethan Hawke stars as Samuel Murphy, a desperate widower imprisoned in a brutal work camp who is promised early release by Warden Clancy (Russell Crowe), if he agrees to smuggle a fortune in gold across a hundred miles of dangerous Pacific Northwest wilderness. The set up gives the movie's its double meaning right in the title, the literal physical burden of moving the gold balanced with the psychological burden of greed and betrayal that grows as the crew inches deeper into the forest. This is all without mentioning Murphy's frantic attempt to make it back to his young daughter alive.
The grounded element of the production behind the movie has audiences and critics alike with piqued interest, with the river crossings, rope bridges, and real phsyical obstacles in place of the CGI that tends to dominate modern survival films of this magnitude. Director Padraic Mckinley (The Exorcism) puts Crowe and Hawke opposite each other, a desperate father against a ruthless menacing warden that holds true power from a distance. Vertical Entertainment is the distributor behind the movie, and it is shaping up to be one of the most purely well crafted genre films of the year.
19 'The Whisper Man' (2026)
Image via NetflixThe Whisper Man drops straight to Netflix August 28th. It marks Adam Scott's second horror outing of the year, following Hokum, and this time he shares the screen with Robert De Niro and Michelle Monaghan. The Whisper Man is an adaptation from the hit 2019 psychological thriller novel of the same name. The story follows a terrified father searching for his abducted eight-year-old son, a search that quickly ties back to a locked-up serial killer known for whispering at children's bedrooms before taking them away. This unsettling hook is boosted by a scary playground rhyme tied to the serial killer, and a new abduction that seems connected even though the original Whisper Man has been sitting in prison for years.
James Ashcroft directs, a filmmaker known for tightly wound and intense thrillers, and the pairing of his sensibility with AGBO, the Russo Brothers production studio, suggests audiences might prepare themselves for psychological dread over traditional jump scare horror. De Niro plays against type, an out-of-touch father, akin to his role in Silver Linings Playbook, is another reason to give this film attention. Adam Scott seems to truly be carving out a lane in the horror genre. With the source material already proven to work as a slow-burn page turner, this has the opportunity to be the most effective straight-to-streaming horror film of the year.
18 'Buddy' (2026)
Buddy releases August 28th as the feature debut of Casper Kelly, the mind behind the viral Adult Swim nightmare Too Many Cooks. Buddy brings that same escalating surreal dread and dark comedy into a full-length horror film. Centering on a kids show that never actually existed, Kelly mimics the grainy analog aesthetic and saccharine tone of nineties children's programming reminiscent of Barney before it jumps into pure full-blown chaos. Keegan Michael Key voices Buddy, balancing a cheerful warmth with unhinged menace across impressive practical suit and puppet work against the backdrop of the dreamy, unsettling setting of the show Buddy hosts and that Kelly puts the audience in.
The cast around Key is stacked as well, indicating this project will go well beyond a niche cult release. Cristin Miloti, Michael Shannon, Topher Grace and an ensemble of children round out roles that add the right layered depth to the satirical childrens show setting. Early reviews out of Sundance praised the film blend of sharp pop culture commentary with genuine terror, something Kelly had already proved with Too Many Cooks. A kind of high-concept swing that is positioned for a cult following or as a new go-to Halloween watch.
17 'Wildwood' (2026)
Image via LAIKA StudiosWildwood releases on October 23rd as LAIKA's most ambitious stop-motion project to date. The studio's track record alone makes this a genuine awards season contender to watch. Every single LAIKA feature, from Coraline to Paranorman and everything else that makes up their library, has earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature. Wildwood arrives with the same painstaking, hand-crafted approach behind it, built from hundreds of custom puppets and physical sets. Travis Knight, LAIKA's CEO, returns to the director's chair for a dark fantasy epic based on the novel by Colin Meloy, adapting a story deeply tied to the actual geography of Portland's Forst Park.
The scale here is what separates it from LAIKA's earlier work. Knight has described the world building and faction conflicts as a stop-motion equivalent to the Lord of the Rings lore. It follows a young girl venturing into a dangerous and hidden forest to rescue her kidnapped baby brother. It is a premise built on real emotional stakes in place of the average animated kids adventure. The voice cast backs that ambition up, with Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Tom Waits and Awkwafina all involved. Between LAIKA's unbroken nomination streak, Knight's pedigree and a late Fall release, this could be one of the more significant animation releases in years and might be the studios best shot at finally winning the category outright.
16 'Union County' (2026)
Image via Oscilloscope LaboratoriesUnion County releases August 14th following a breakout run at Sundance, where it screened in the U.S. Dramatic Competition and became one of the festival's defining films of the season, receiving longstanding ovations and praise from high-level critics. Directed by Adam Meeks, the docudrama blends scripted narrative with authentic testimonials from Ohio's recovery community, and focuses on a man navigating an eighteen-month court-mandated rehabilitation program, during the height of the rural opiod epidemic. The real-life drug court participants and non-professional actors give the movie an unscripted sense of truth that critics have compared to Nomadland's approach to blending fiction with reality.
Will Poultier leads as the young man at the center of the story, in what's already being called a career-defining performance, the kind of raw and unflashy work that deserves to earn award attention. Noah Centineo sheds his usual teen romcom persona entirely, delivering what early reviews describe as a layered and deeply lovable performance as Poultier's brother. Oscilloscope Laboratories acquired the film shortly after its festival premiere, a distributor known for picking distinctive work in favor of safe bets, which only adds to the possibility of this film being one of the deeper, more substantial dramas of 2026. For anyone drawn to grounded, humanistic filmmaking over spectacle, this is shaping up to be essential viewing.
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