We are halfway through 2026, so I think now is time to count down my favorites of the year so far. While I have these ranked currently, there is a likely chance a movie could be higher or lower on my final rankings at the end of the year, so don’t take my rankings here as Gospel for my end of the year rankings. This is just how I’m feeling at the moment. Let’s get onto the list.
First off, Poetic License would be on this list, a movie I saw at TIFF last year. Sadly, it still doesn’t have a distributor since it’s original one dropped the film and it might not even come out this year, so I kept it off the list for now.
10. Hoppers
So far in 2026, a nice trend with the year is thoughtful and creative family films have been continuing to dominate. One of them from the masters of the craft themselves, Pixar. Hoppers is so much fun. This wonderful little irreverent movie is one of the studios funniest films to date that also has a timely message about conservation on its mind. The film feels less like your typical Pixar film and more like a movie that you would stumble upon watching Cartoon Network in the mid 2000’s- which I found to be a nice change of pace for the studio.
9. Mile End Kicks
This little movie deserved more attention. Mile End Kicks is a delightful coming of age comedy about a girl moving from her hometown to pursue her aspirations for being a music critic. You all already understand just by hearing that why this one resonated with me a lot. It’s not a movie that particularly reinvents the wheel in any way. If you’ve seen any coming of age teen comedy, you can probably guess some of the plot beats on arrival. However, this film just captures that awkward and anxiety inducing time of discovering yourself and your voice amongst artists in such an identifiable way. It’s a film I can see a lot of people walking way thinking it was pleasant and cute, but it’s one that hit me emotionally like a ton of bricks.
8. Backrooms
I’m jealous of Kane Parsons. I’ll just say it that bluntly, I feel like what he’s doing right now should have been me. My short films in college very much reflected the energy presented in Backrooms. They are distilled and abstract- leaving people uneasy. This isn’t to say Parsons doesn’t deserve his success. Actually, his story is super inspiring and he’s obviously a hard worker. He’s opened the door for a lot of creatives and for that alone, Backrooms gets my endorsement. Thankfully, outside its narrative of having a 20 year old director, the film is great. I love the tension and dread Parsons is able to create in every shot. The analog looking shots are just gorgeous and unnerving. One featuring a Christmas tree that might be my favorite stretch of film I’ve seen so far this year. I think like several, I do have some issues with the last third of the movie. I feel as though it tries to give a back story to the back rooms, something I find to be unnecessary. However, the more time goes on, the more I realize how much more they could have given us and didn’t. Therefore, I do admire the way this movie tests the patience of its audience, especially since the demographics seeing this are certainly late teens to early twenties. As an introduction to David Lynch esque filmmaking, this is a great place to start.
7. Disclosure Day
Disclosure Day has come out to a pretty divided audience reaction and when I first watched the film, I almost predicted that would be the case. This movie immediately brings you into the action, slowly unraveling what it’s even about as it goes on. In a meticulous way only Steven Spielberg would be able to. This movie harkens back to a type of thoughtful blockbuster we don’t get much these days. A blockbuster with ideas and soul, one that isn’t scared to slow down and establish plot and characters. It’s a hopeful film about an event that could bring America together, even if it’s just for a few moments. In my opinion, it’s the antithesis of a film like Eddnington that came out last year- a film I love but is a bleak understanding that it might be impossible for us to be brought together in this day of age. Spielberg argues the opposite and brings us an idea of unity and what that could look like. The last twenty minutes of this movie is sprawling and emotional. Some have questioned it’s believability and the cynical side of my brain says the same, but Spielberg has always been the master of creating escapism and films filled to the brim with humanity and he does it once again with this film.
6. Toy Story 5
It feels like we are on borrowed time with the Toy Story films. The original trilogy are three of the best movies ever made, cementing Toy Story as one of the most important film series ever made in the history of cinema. Not only for its technological advances to the medium, but for its thoughtful and existential storytelling that all ages could take something away from. This is what made the fourth film an easy target for ridicule. I think the fourth film was great, a wonderful epilogue for Woody and his story. Toy Story fans have been divided since its release. Some believing it’s worthy of the franchise and some saying the series should have ended with the third. This same narrative is blending into Toy Story 5, some people saying it’s an unnecessary side adventure. I don’t believe this to be the case at all. Toy Story 5 is a thoughtful addition to the franchise, giving us a direct sequel to the second film and its arc with Jessie. What results is not just a timely message on technology entering children’s lives and their relationship to screen time, but a great story about the fear of abandonment and the role we play in peoples lives, even when they come and go from them. It once again is Pixar understanding why these characters are so crucial in people’s childhood and how they will be carried by generations and generations to come.
5. Project Hail Mary
Let me be clear here- the next movies are fairly loosely ranked. All of these could easily (and some of them certainly will be) featured on my favorite movies of the year list when I make the final list this winter. Project Hail Mary will certainly be on that list, I placed it here simply because some of the films ahead of it are fresher in my mind. This movie blew me away. This is a wonderful space adventure that all ages can take something away from. It’s a timely film about communication and how communication can transcend time and space and save us all. It’s about adaptation and the power of friendship, but never in a way that feels too cute of cloying. It’s a genuine exploration of some of the similar thematic materials present in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. It also features an amazing alien creature Rocky, who’s a puppet they made for the film. It’s astonishing how well realized the character is and seeing puppetry on screen in 2026 made me giddy. This movie is a warm blanket of a film and deserves all the success it’s gotten.
4. The Sheep Detectives
Sheep Detectives will go down as one of the biggest surprises of the year for me. I thought the concept alone was super irreverent and funny, but watching the film play out the film does a great job of establishing its tone and world. It feels like a combination of Paddington, Babe and Knives Out. The film has a pretty solid mystery attached to it while giving you an honest exploration of grief that is surprisingly profound and touching. It’s also effortlessly charming and funny and I can see this movie easily becoming a comfort watch for me in the incoming years. It’s another elevated family film that treats its audience with respects and gives them nuggets of truths about the human condition, all presented through discovering why loss is a fundamental part of being alive.
3. Minions and Monsters
Okay, here’s the single biggest surprise of the year so far for me. Minions and Monsters is a miracle. This film releases as a part of the Despicable Me / Minions franchise, a franchise I haven’t cared about in years and gave the franchise all new life. This film decides to actually craft a narrative around its slapstick and give us likable characters to root for. James the Minion aspires to be a filmmaker because someone tells him one day he has talent for crafting stories. He is this franchises Kermit the Frog or Sammy Fabelman. The film establishes how the Minions have shaped 1920’s Hollywood in their distorted lens. This film is essentially the PG rated Babylon or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It’s a celebration of everything I’m passionate about: cinema, wacky cartoons and giant monsters and robots battling. It has the same energy of a classic Tex Avery cartoon and the meta commentary of a film like Gremins 2: The New Batch. It explores how the minions rose to fame and shaped film in their image, in a very knowing fashion of how they have dominated the media space for the last fifteen years. The references to classic cinema and even cultural events happening in the 1920’s are hilarious and unexpected- but at its core it is a sweet and simple tale of unbridled ambition of telling a good story.
2. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
When looking for my top spots for favorite movies of the year, I’m always looking for movies that push the medium of filmmaking. Ones that is a singular object that could only be made today and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie fits that bill. Based off the cult Canadian series Nirvanna the Band the Show, this film is a riff on a classic Back to the Future film as our duo Matt and Jay get sent back to 2008, when the web series first started. The way this film plays with archival footage of themselves and the way people just walking on the streets of Toronto play into the film is so imaginative. This movie is a magic trick, one that proves that movie magic is still alive and well in 2026. It is also one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen. This movie is a two jokes per minute type of film and about 98% of those jokes work effortlessly. It is a perfect love letter to Toronto as well, a town I’ve come to love over the years after a few trips to the TIFF film festival. It’s also a great film about wanting to make art and have it be seen and the price of success and if the true fun of making art is making memories with the people you share it with. It’s a one of a kind special piece of filmmaking.
1. Obsession
What hasn’t been said about Obsession? This is the true success story of the year. A film that cost only 750,000 dollars to make has now made over 400 million dollars worldwide, making it the highest grossing film festival movie of all time and one of the most profitable movies ever made, all conceived and made by a 26 year old filmmaker and YouTuber Curry Baker. A movie that made its most money on its third weekend, it’s simply unprecedented. It’ll go down as a movie that changed the industry at large and one that will join the film canon forever. Thankfully, its success story is an indication of how good the movie is. This is a movie that stayed with me and made me feel a lot of emotions watching it. It takes a pretty straightforward monkeys paw scenario and twists it on its head. Showing the selfishness of our main protagonist Bear and his desire for love being constraining for Nikki. The pursuit of crafting someone in your head to your image can only do harm because people are more complicated than that. Bear consistently has the choice to free Nikki but doesn’t because he wants to make it work so badly. However, Nikki is the victim here, loosing her autonomy to a wish she cannot control. This is a movie that made me really emotional, especially on a second watch. It’s a film that forces you to think about desire. It’s a tragic tale of girl ripped of her own autonomy in the way classics like Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me or Possession are. It’s a visceral piece of filmmaking with a lot on it’s mind and a truly inspirational tale of a filmmaker’s breakout success that should have future generations inspired to pick up a camera and start filming.
That’s what I have so far for my favorites of the year! Let me know what some of yours are in the comments!
Based solely on my LB ratings, Wuthering Heights is so far my #1 film 😅