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The date 2025 could appear more futuristic. Maybe it's the sound of the consonant "f" in "five". But 2026 signifies one step beyond, and it's where we find ourselves, with every science-fiction-style advancement – chiefly the widespread adoption of AI – seeming bleak, or perhaps more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-sponsored anti-human technology would actually function a bit better?) Did no one sound the alarm about this?

The answer, particularly concerning our sci-fi movies from years ago (or sometimes months ago) positioned in 2026, is both yes and no. A number of these prophecies are universally relevant (global catastrophe) but specifically far-fetched (if humanity is ultimately ravaged, we will most likely take the primate species alongside us). Others of them are prescient; others just resemble bad visual effects. Yet it remains worth examining where various directors, from geniuses to journeymen, thought we'd be positioned by now in the world's evolution. Therefore, we shall examine a selection of the films that have been depicted in 2026 throughout cinematic history and see if they have anything to impart.

Doom

Now, this isn't promising. According to the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to set up a scientific outpost. Now, the negative events – regarding plot and in terms of over-the-top cinematic imitations of a FPS video game – does not actually transpire for another 20 years in the future, so even if we find a portal to Mars this year, we could gain some time to avert true disaster. If we did discover a portal to an ancient Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to determine whether a certain tech billionaire would remain extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become disheartened that the discovery was not a thing he funded himself, enabling him to claim messianic ownership for humanity's journey to the cosmos. That's before we consider the harvesting of extraterrestrial genetics and resulting transformations into horrific creatures. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the Wong Kar-wai film.) In general, *Doom* is (at the very least) a good test case for the reasons we allow Mars become a stretch-goal aspiration for mankind. Be it in John Carpenter's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely serve as a symbol of hope. Should someone wishes to close that questionable red-planet property deal, perhaps they should start with at least making the fantasy version look good.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

One of the strangest features of the current Marvel Cinematic Universe is how to account for the various world-threatening disasters, including a five-year time-jump whose events are largely undepicted in the movies themselves; the movies have become like a alarm clock constantly running a few minutes fast – except with minutes, it's annual increments. Consequently, there exists a large assortment of MCU content that fan sites clarify to be taking place in 2026. The better entries, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated romp *The Marvels*, take place far away from Earth, and so feel quite unmoored from any concrete sense of time. But the poorer material is some of the worst the studio has ever produced: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by these examples, we're in for a great deal of annoying stagnation in 2026, including the related spin that in truth, this nonsensical crap unfolding in front of us is crucial to future events. More troublingly, in the real world that assertion will probably turn out to be correct.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The majority of the classic five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is located in the more distant tomorrow of Earth, but the new trilogy that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins closer to home, initiating its chronology around 2016. Thus, when a virus that knocks out most of Earth’s people has done its damage, and also boosted the intelligence of apes, it’s merely 2026, with additional setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) to come. The end-credits sequence of *Rise*, illustrating how swiftly this contagion propagates around the world and taking place around 2019, looks profoundly unsettling in the wake of the actual pandemic that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; astonishingly, we’re now half a decade from the onset of Covid-19, and society, though clearly wounded by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been annihilated, and our technology definitely hasn't been disabled. But this most pessimistic of the four modern *Apes* movies (at least so far!) still has a significant bummer in store, suggesting that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines each, will inevitably lead to violent conflict, regardless of the work of the most well-meaning individuals. We’re subject to the whims of those who appeal to others’ worst instincts, although those drives don't represent the most. Right now, it feels difficult to argue with that, despite the fact that we probably should.

Metropolis

By far the best-known depiction of 2026 in film is from a movie nearing marking its 100th anniversary. The director's silent classic *Metropolis* takes place in a city of tomorrow where rich businessmen lord over the skyscrapers as workers work tirelessly below the surface on the equipment that keep everything running. Affluent city-dweller Freder, scion of the city’s ruler, has his eyes opened to these enormous social gaps when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an underground activist who preaches a reconciliation of the separate strata of Metropolis. A scientist with more radical plans creates a robot in her likeness, hoping to bring the whole of Metropolis down in flames. In this narrative, a robot created to mimic a human does not serve as an instrument of the ruling corporate class, but an entity who desires to witness their downfall; it's a component inverted by reality in a vision of tomorrow that otherwise appears to be progressing. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where technology relies on traditional human toil, which seems like a most logical union of conservative disdain for “unskilled workers” and business enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It hasn't yet materialized, but it's simple to imagine a slightly more utilitarian iteration of Lang’s city expanding out with the promise of a resurgence to industrial production. The more complex, harder-to-imagine accomplishment is the conclusion of the film, where the gap between the wealthy and the have-nots is spanned with love; rather than with specific policies. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates coexistence; unlike *Dawn*, it seems hopeful about the chance