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The year 2025 could appear more futuristic. Maybe it's the sound of the letter "f" in "five". But 2026 represents a leap forward, and it's where we find ourselves, with each science-fiction-style development – primarily the widespread adoption of AI – appearing bleak, or possibly more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-sponsored anti-human technology might operate more effectively?) Did no one warn us about this?

The response, at least concerning our sci-fi movies from years ago (or occasionally recently) positioned in 2026, is both yes and no. Some of these prophecies are universally relevant (worldwide disaster) but in detail far-fetched (when mankind is ultimately ravaged, we will almost certainly bring down the ape population alongside us). Some of them are prescient; others just look like poor green screen. But it's worth examining where different directors, ranging from masters to journeymen, thought we'd be positioned by this time in the world's development. So let's examine a selection of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 throughout cinematic history and see if they contain any lessons to teach us.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this isn't promising. According to the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to establish a research facility. Currently, the bad stuff – regarding narrative and in terms of garish film versions of a first-person-shooter video game – does not actually go down for another 20 years in the future, so even if we do discover a portal to Mars this year, we might have some time to avert catastrophe. If we did uncover a portal to an ancient Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to determine whether Elon Musk would remain super-psyched to send everyone to Mars or would immediately turn disheartened that the portal was not a thing he funded himself, allowing him to claim savior-like credit for mankind's expansion to the cosmos. This precedes we consider the harvesting of extraterrestrial genetics and resulting mutations into horrific creatures. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the Wong Kar-wai film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a good test case for the reasons we allow Mars become a long-term hope for mankind. Whether in the director's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to serve as a symbol of hope. If anyone wants to make that questionable red-planet property deal, maybe they should start with first ensuring the fictional depiction appear appealing.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

One of the goofiest quirks of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the multiple global disasters, encompassing a five-year time-jump whose occurrences are largely undepicted in the movies themselves; the movies have become like a alarm clock perpetually running a few seconds fast – except with minutes, it's annual increments. So there's a whole bunch of Marvel stuff that fan sites helpfully explain to be set in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated romp *The Marvels*, occur far away from Earth, and so seem pretty unmoored from any concrete sense of time. But the bad stuff is some of the worst the studio has ever produced: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by these examples, we're in for a whole lot of frustrating stagnation in 2026, along with the related narrative that in truth, this confusing mess unfolding in front of us is essential to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the real world that assertion will probably prove correct.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Most of the original five-movie *Planet of the Apes* cycle is located in the further-flung future of Earth, but the modern series that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins nearer the present, starting its timeline around 2016. So by the time a pathogen that knocks out the majority of Earth’s human population has done its damage, and simultaneously enhanced the cognitive abilities of primates, it’s merely 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and simian triumphs) ahead. The end-credits sequence of *Rise*, depicting how rapidly this virus spreads globally and set in 2019, looks profoundly unsettling in the wake of the actual pandemic that would begin in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* looks more abstract; if you can believe it, we’re now half a decade from the onset of Covid-19, and society, though obviously impacted by the ongoing virus, hasn't been wiped out, and technological infrastructure certainly has not been knocked out. But this bleakest of the four contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) still has a significant downer in store, implying that human and/or ape nature, whatever qualifies as each, will unavoidably lead to violent conflict, regardless of the efforts of the most well-meaning among us. We’re subject to the whims of those who exploit others’ worst instincts, even if those instincts don't represent the majority. Currently, it seems hard to dispute that, even though we ought to try.

The Silent Classic

Easily the most prominent depiction of 2026 in cinema is from a movie nearing celebrating its centennial. Fritz Lang’s silent classic *Metropolis* is set in a city of tomorrow where wealthy industrialists preside over the skyscrapers as workers work tirelessly below the surface on the equipment that power the city. Rich surface resident Freder, scion of the city’s master, has his eyes opened to these massive class divisions when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an subterranean organizer who preaches a reconciliation of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with darker plans creates a automaton in her image, aiming to tear the whole of Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a robot created to imitate a human isn't a tool of the ruling corporate class, but someone who wants to witness their downfall; it's a component inverted by the modern world in a vision of tomorrow that otherwise seems to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where technology relies on traditional human toil, which seems like a most logical union of rightwing contempt for “the working class” and corporate enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It has not yet come to pass, but it's easy to picture a somewhat less stylish-looking iteration of Lang’s city expanding out with the prospect of a return to industrial production. The more complex, less plausible accomplishment is the ending of the film, where the gap between the wealthy and the have-nots is bridged with love; not so much with specific policies. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for peaceful cohabitation; unlike *Dawn*, it appears optimistic about the chance