2026 Mid-Year Wrap Up: Best, Worst, Surprising, and Disappointing

2026 Mid-Year Wrap Up: Best, Worst, Surprising, and Disappointing

2026 is way done, we now have six months to look back on as well as six months to look forward to. So, here are my picks for the top 3 best, worst, most surprising, and most disappointing movies of 2026 so far. Here we go!

DISAPPOINTING

Honorable Mentions

• Supergirl

• Mercy

• Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu 

         Obsession: This is my pick for the biggest disappointment of 2026 so far. I know this is going to be one of my hottest takes of 2026. Obsession is a movie that so many people are praising as one of the best horror movies of the decade and the last 10 years. Because of all the praise it was getting for months coming out of film festivals, I was excited to check this movie, and I hoped it would be another great horror film. Unfortunately, I must have watched a different movie from everybody else. I just do not see the movie that everybody else saw and loved. I have not met somebody that has even close to similar opinions on the film as me. So many people saw a film that had a script that was funny, thrilling, and unsettling. I saw a film that had borderline bad dialogue with too many plot holes and plot contrivances that pulled me out of the film and prevented me from enjoying the film at all. I felt like the film was very superficial in the ideas, it did not dive deeper into some of what is going on. I felt like Nikki’s actions could have been pushed further and make it more disturbing; it felt like the lighter version of what could have been a far creepier and more unsettling film. The big thing here is that I never bought Micahel Johnston’s performance. He is supposed to be weird and awkward, the reason I “bought it” was because the movie was trying so hard to tell me that he was awkward. But the writing and the performance did not work for me. I have been meaning to rewatch the film and see if I like it more with more tempered expectations and now with the film being out much longer and seeing the theories about it, I will enjoy it more on rewatch. As of right now, this is my pick for the most disappointing movie of 2026. 

SURPRISING

Honorable Mentions

• Mortal Kombat II

• Hoppers

• Over Your Dead Body 

         Backrooms: One of two very cool horror success stories to come out of May 2026. Given why it is on here, I enjoyed Backrooms a whole lot more than Obsession. This is an interesting film because a lot of people my age know the Backroom lore and have seen the YouTube videos on this concept. Going into this film, I was watching it simply as a horror film. To this day, I still have not seen any of the YouTube videos and I never really saw a trailer for this movie. I went in fresh and not knowing what I was getting myself into. Simply put, I really dug Backrooms. Was this movie perfect? No. But I was really invested in the plot of the film, and the creepy atmosphere this movie creates right out of the gate. The movie has one of the best opening scenes of the year, where it at once hooks you and every time a character is in there, you’re worried they are not going to make it out or they are going to get lost. 

WORST

Honorable Mentions

• The Bride!

• Mimics

• Michael 

         Dracula: Most people did not even realize that a Dracula movie came out this year and that is for good reason. This movie is shockingly bad as there is so much talent involved with this film and the fact they made a bad movie is so weird to me. The movie was written and directed by Luc Besson, who is not the most prolific director of the last 20 years. But he has done some iconic and great movies and tackling Bram Stoker’s source material sounds like it could be good. From there, you have Christopher Waltz in here, who normally picks good scripts and roles. Overall, the film was so bad and did not really have any redeeming qualities about it. They tried to tell this Romeo + Juliet movie with the Dracula source material, which could have been interesting given the lore of Dracula. But they picked the wrong direction to go with it where they created characters that you do not care about and you do not care if they do or do not get together. From there, it tries to have this Shakesperian vibe to it where the production and costume design feels grand, but it simply does not work and looks cheap and like they did not put any thought into the look of the film. The worst part about this movie is that it is just boring. I did not care about anything going on and despite the film only having a 2 hour and 9-minute-long runtime, it feels like the film was 20-30 minutes longer. When it is boring and wastes a ton of talent, you know that you made an absolute dud of a movie. 

BEST

Honorable Mentions

• Over Your Dead Body 

• The Drama

• The Sheep Detectives

Project Hail Mary: I first saw this film the Monday before it came out and left the theater thinking it is going to be hard for a movie to top this year. We are now halfway through the film and no movie has come close to topping Project Hail Mary. I rewatched the film last month hoping I would still like it as much as I did the first time and I did. Project Hail Mary is a lock to be in my top 3 favorite movies of the year and is 100% deserving of a Best Picture nomination. What I love about this film is that it is just a crowd-pleasing blockbuster that makes you feel all sorts of emotions. Where there’s points where you feel sad, you feel happy, you feel victorious, you feel scared, and so many other emotions but all told in this fun manner, that's this blockbuster that is long, but doesn’t at all feel like its runtime. A lot of the creative team behind this movie also worked on The Martian, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. But it does not feel like it is copying The Martian, it is taking similar ideas and situations but putting a fresh spin on it with a different story and outcome. Lord & Miller continue to prove that they are some of the most fun and freshest voices in Hollywood, this is their best directed movie. The finishing sequence is my favorite scene/sequence of the year so far. Of course, the reason this movie works as well as it does is because Ryan Gosling and Rocky are one of the best movie duos in recent memory. I hope there’s awards consideration for Ryan Gosling at the end of the year because he is 100% deserving of at least a nomination. So easily, without question, Project Hail Mary is my favorite movie of 2026 so far.