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The year 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Perhaps it's the sound of the consonant "f" in "five". However 2026 signifies a leap forward, and it's where we find ourselves, with each futuristic advancement – chiefly the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence – appearing dystopian, or perhaps more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-backed dehumanizing technology would actually function more effectively?) Didn't anyone sound the alarm about this?

The response, particularly regarding our sci-fi movies from years ago (or sometimes recently) set in 2026, is both yes and no. A number of these prophecies are broadly applicable (global catastrophe) but in detail implausible (when mankind is inevitably decimated, we will most likely bring down the primate species alongside us). Others of them are visionary; others just look like poor visual effects. Yet it remains worth examining where various film-makers, ranging from masters to journeymen, thought we'd be situated by now in the world's evolution. So let's take a look at some of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 throughout cinematic history and see if they have anything to impart.

Doom

Now, this doesn't bode well. According to the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that humanity discovers a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth can establish a research facility. Now, the negative events – in terms of narrative and in terms of over-the-top cinematic imitations of a FPS video game – doesn't really go down for another 20 years later, so even if we find a Martian gateway now, we could gain some time to avoid true disaster. If we did uncover a portal to an old Martian city, it's truly hard to tell whether a certain tech billionaire would remain extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the discovery was not a thing he personally paid for, allowing him to claim messianic credit for mankind's expansion to the cosmos. This precedes we consider the collection of Martian chromosomes and subsequent transformations into horrific creatures. (Again, this is nearer 2046, not to be confused with the Wong Kar-wai film.) In general, *Doom* is (at the very least) a useful example for why, exactly we let Mars become a stretch-goal hope for mankind. Whether in John Carpenter's chintzy genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to serve as a beacon of optimism. If anyone wants to close that dubious red-planet property deal, maybe they should start with at least making the fantasy version look good.

The Marvel Dregs

A of the strangest features of the current MCU is how to account for the multiple world-threatening cataclysms, encompassing a five-year time-jump whose occurrences are mostly undepicted in the movies themselves; the movies have turned into a clock radio constantly running a few minutes fast – except with minutes, it's annual increments. So there's a whole bunch of Marvel stuff that various wikis helpfully explain to be taking place in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated romp *The Marvels*, take place far away from Earth, and so feel quite detached from our sense of time. But the poorer material is some of the worst Marvel has ever produced: the nonsensically meandering TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by this stuff, we're facing a whole lot of annoying stagnation in 2026, including the related spin that actually, this confusing mess unfolding before our eyes is essential to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the actual world that assertion will probably turn out to be accurate.

The Apes Saga Continues

The majority of the classic five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is located in the more distant tomorrow of Earth, but the modern series that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins closer to home, initiating its chronology approximately 2016. So by the time a pathogen that knocks out most of Earth’s human population has done its damage, and simultaneously enhanced the cognitive abilities of primates, it’s only 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) ahead. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how rapidly this virus spreads around the world and taking place in 2019, looks downright eerie in the wake of the actual pandemic that would begin in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; astonishingly, we’re now six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and society, though obviously wounded by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been wiped out, and our technology certainly has not been knocked out. But this most pessimistic of the four modern *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a substantial downer in store, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, whatever qualifies as either, will inevitably result in violent conflict, regardless of the work of the most well-meaning individuals. We’re subject to the whims of those who exploit others’ baser impulses, although those instincts are not held by the majority. Right now, it seems difficult to dispute that, even though we probably should.

The Silent Classic

Easily the best-known portrayal of 2026 in cinema is from a movie close to marking its 100th anniversary. Fritz Lang’s silent classic *Metropolis* is set in a city of tomorrow where rich businessmen preside over the towers as workers work tirelessly below the surface on the machines that power the city. Rich city-dweller Freder, scion of the city’s ruler, has his perspective changed to these massive class divisions when he falls for Maria, an underground activist who advocates for a coming together of the separate strata of Metropolis. A inventor with darker plans creates a automaton in her likeness, hoping to bring the entire Metropolis down in flames. Here, a machine created to imitate a human isn't a tool of the ruling corporate class, but someone who wants to witness their downfall; it's one element inverted by reality in a future that in other ways appears to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where technology depends on traditional manual labor, which seems like a perfect fusion of conservative contempt for “unskilled workers” and corporate enthusiasm for an tech boom. It has not yet come to pass, but it's simple to imagine a slightly more utilitarian version of Lang’s city growing with the prospect of a return to manufacturing. The trickier, less plausible accomplishment is the conclusion of the film, where the chasm between the haves and the have-nots is bridged with love; rather than with specific policies. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; unlike *Dawn*, it seems optimistic about the possibility