Autumn 2026 Movie Roundup

It’s time for the Autumn 2026 movie review roundup!

I had originally planned for this to be the combined Autumn/Winter 2026 movie review roundup, but there are enough movies that I want to see this winter that it would get a bit long. So I cut it in half instead.

Now on to the movies! As ever, they’re ordered from least favorite to most favorite, and the grades are only based on my own thoughts and opinions and nothing more objective.

OUT TO SEA (1997)

An attempt at a madcap romantic buddy comedy with Jack Lemmon and Walter Mathau. Jack Lemmon plays a lonely widower, and Walter Mathau plays his sketchy and frequently broke brother-in-law. Mathau’s character hatches a plot to get them hired as “dance hosts” on a cruise ship in hopes of seducing an attractive and wealthy woman.

Wacky hijinks ensue.

Or try to, anyway. For a comedy movie, this was very slow and ponderous, with a lot of very slow-paced dance sequences. Brent Spiner, most famous for playing Commander Data on STAR TREK, was funny as a malevolent cruise director.

I usually only review movies if I don’t second screen when they’re on, since that seems fair. Like every other thing in this review, I gave them my undivided attention. That said, I admit I watched about half of OUT TO SEA, and then lost interest and kept it on in the background while I played FALLOUT 4. It’s the kind of movie that’s inoffensive to watch if it’s on the TV at a relative’s house some afternoon. Like if it’s on in the background at the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, that sort of thing.

Overall grade: D-

THE MUMMY (2017)

The basic concept: imagine Imhotep from THE MUMMY as a woman, and then she’s horny for the protagonist in an incoherent way.

Tom Cruise plays a sketchy antiquities collector who accidentally frees an evil ancient Egyptian sorceress from her imprisonment. The sorceress has made a pact with the Egyptian god Set, and wants to use Cruise’s character for his vessel. Meanwhile, Cruise is scooped up by the Monster Secret Police, headed by Dr. Jekyll, who oversees protecting the world from supernatural world.

Unfortunately, and not to to put too fine a point on it, the Monster Secret Police are really bad at their jobs. The mummified sorceress promptly escapes, Dr. Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde, and mayhem ensues.

I think this had two major weaknesses. The performances and effects were good, but the plot was kind of incoherent and required the characters to act like idiots not at a critical few junctions, but frequently. Additionally, there’s way too much ponderous worldbuilding setting up a cinematic universe that never actually happened.

The thing about cinematic universes is that they’re really hard to do. Marvel kind of blundered into it, but it wouldn’t have worked if IRON MAN in 2008 hadn’t been a good movie, and I’m afraid this wasn’t a good movie.

Overall grade: D-

MAYDAY (2026)

A thriller/buddy comedy movie with Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh.

Reynolds plays Lieutenant “Assassin” Kelly, an Air Force pilot in the 1980s who is recruited to fly a spy mission over the USSR. When the mission goes sideways and his plane is shot down, Kelly is rescued by Ustinov, a former KGB officer played by Branagh. Ustinov has soured on the Soviet system and wants to defect to America, and offers a deal to Kelly – if he can get asylum at the US consulate in Moscow, then Ustinov will use his KGB skills and knowledge of the USSR to get Kelly there.

Kelly naturally agrees, and what follows is a combination of an action thriller and a buddy comedy.

I’d say this was mostly okayish. Some funny bits, some good action bits. Admittedly all the protagonists seemed to have very 2026 social attitudes, which seemed jarringly out of place in 1987. You wouldn’t expect even a disillusioned former KGB officer to have social attitudes from 2026, but they did explain his character’s motivation.

Amusingly, the plot was very similar to the Apple TV TETRIS movie from a few years ago. If I had a nickel for every time I saw an Apple TV movie about a 1980s-era Soviet defector trying to get to America, I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s funny that it happened twice.

Overall grade: C+

BLACKBERRY (2023)

A movie about the rapid rise and spectacular fall of RIM, the company behind the Blackberry smartphone that dominated the 2000s right up until Steve Jobs announced the iPhone.

This movie was fairly bleak, since it essentially featured unscrupulous men betraying each other for money and power, but I found it interesting because I lived through that era. I’m old enough now that Prestige Dramas are being made about events I personally lived through and remember! 🙂

I never personally owned a Blackberry, but I did tech support for a lot of the blasted things back in the day. I didn’t like Blackberries at all because doing tech support was them was a hassle. They also needed their own dedicated server within your organization, which to be honest was kind of a shakedown.

It’s ancient history now, but back then Blackberries had an astonishing cultural cache. They were hip and cool. All the cool people had them, and for a while people insisted on having them, since they were Important Business Leaders who needed to get their Important Business Emails on their Blackberry. People were enchanted by the fact that then Senator (soon to be President) Barack Obama used a Blackberry.

And then it all fell apart in a few years. Regardless of one’s opinion of Apple and Blackberry, I think it is safe to say that the iPhone’s interface was a quantum leap past the Blackberry’s, and RIM responded by making a Blackberry version of the iPhone, but worse.

So this is a highly fictionalized biopic of the rise and fall of Blackberry. Like I said, it’s fairly bleak since none of the characters are particularly likeable, but the performances are good, and I found it interesting to watch since I essentially lived through and was personally affected by many of the events in the movie. Though to be fair, maybe I didn’t find the characters sympathetic because, as I mentioned, the Blackberry caused me so many headaches in Real Life back in the 2000s.

The scene where the RIM engineers are gathered watching Steve Jobs present the iPhone was great and the best bit of the movie. Kind of like watching dinosaurs looking up into the sky seeing that big ball of fire getting bigger and bigger. 🙂

Overall grade: B

THE PAPER SEASON 2 (2026)

A continuation of the story from Season 1 of THE PAPER about a struggling small-town newspaper.

Editor Ned is flush with victory after his paper won several awards at the end of last season. He’s also started a relationship with layout editor Mare which he is trying to keep secret. The problem is that while both Ned and Mare are kind of dorks, Ned is an idealistic optimist, and Mare is a pessimistic cynic, which causes them to clash. Additionally, they have trouble managing open communication.

Meanwhile, Ned’s investigations have brushed up against the Glass Club, an association of powerful local business leaders who REALLY don’t like him looking into their affairs.

Overall, a funny show, and I hope it gets a Season 3. I think the weakest point was the character of Esmeralda. Esmeralda is really a “small doses” kind of character, but she was in the show a lot, more than some of the frankly more interesting characters.

Overall grade: B

DISCLOSURE DAY (2026)

High concept Steven Spielburg-style science fiction.

World War III is about to break out between the world’s nuclear powers. Josh O’Connor plays Dr. Daniel Kellner, who steals a massive trove of data from Wardex, the secret government-backed corporation that has controlled all data about extraterrestrials since the Roswell incident. Meanwhile, in Kansas City, TV meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (played by Emily Blunt) has a strange encounter with a cardinal that flies through an open window in her apartment. Immediately afterward she gains the ability to speak and understand any language, and unusual telepathic powers and precognition.

Her precognition tells her that she has to find Daniel at any cost, while the ruthless head of Wardex (played with villainous flair by Colin Firth) unleashes his goons to hunt down Daniel and then Emily.

This was enjoyable to watch, all the performances were good, and as usual for a movie with a John Williams score, the music does a lot of the heavy lifting.

That said, I think I understand why this movie didn’t do well in theaters. I think the weakness of the movie was that its view of the world was obsolete or perhaps simply dated. Cold War-era “UFOlogy” is kind of obsolete, and the movie had a very 20th century view of broadcast media. Very few people actually believe anything on the broadcast news. Like, if the government came out tomorrow and announced that aliens were real and they’ve been visiting since 1947, most people wouldn’t believe it, more people would believe it was a plot to influence the elections, and about 3% would find a way to try and seduce the aliens (no doubt while using AI to generate copious amounts of explicit images).

It’s kind of the same problem STAR TREK has – its vision of a shiny secularist utopia clearly isn’t going to happen, so it’s hard to write for.

But still an enjoyable movie to watch, and I appreciated its ambition.

Overall grade: B+

TOY STORY 5 (2026)

Not as good as TOY STORY 3, but better than TOY STORY 4.

Now eight years old, Bonnie is having trouble forming friendships with kids her own age. To help with that, her parents get her a Lilypad tablet, which all the kids in her cohort seem to have. Unfortunately, the resultant friendships are quite shallow, and Bonnie starts getting addicted to the tablet. It’s up to Buzz, Woody, Jessie, and the rest of the Toy Story gang to save the day, free Bonnie from the Lilypad’s influence, and help her make actual friends with other kids.

The Lilypad was an interesting character – like the toys, she really cares about Bonnie and wants what is best for her, but in her arrogance makes mistakes. That’s probably a more charitable characterization than Big Tech deserves, but it makes for a good character.

The entire subplot with the Wi-Fi enabled Buzz Lightyear figures was actually better than the movie LIGHTYEAR from a few years back.

Overall grade: A-

THE GRAND TOUR (2026)

I thoroughly enjoyed the old TOP GEAR and then THE GRAND TOUR. Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May have all retired from cinematic car adventures, but Amazon wants to keep THE GRAND TOUR going with new hosts. I don’t object to that. I always enjoyed the show and hope it keeps going. And it’s the proper way of things. Eventually people retire and move on, and then it’s time for the younger people to have a turn.

Not to get too cynical, but I think the US would be in better shape if more political and business leaders sensibly and prudently retired at 65 instead of hanging on long past the time when they can reasonably meet the demands of the job.

Anyway! Amazon recruited Thomas Holland and James Engelsman of the Throttle House YouTube channel as two of the new hosts, and the third is Francis Bourgeois, famed for TikTok trainspotting. I admit I had never heard of them before the new Grand Tour, but I don’t really spend a lot of time on YouTube and I don’t use TikTok at all.

That said, the new hosts are entertaining, and the show was enjoyable. The new hosts have a different dynamic than the old ones, but that’s okay. I was entertained by their car adventures, and hope they get to do more of it.

I watched a couple of episodes of Throttle House after this, and it was interesting to see that the new GRAND TOUR is a lot like Throttle House but with a bigger budgets. But it works, because Throttle House is in a sense a cultural descendant of TOP GEAR, and so it slots in perfectly to the new GRAND TOUR. Cultural osmosis is sometimes a fascinating thing to watch.

Overall grade: A

EVERYONE IS LYING TO YOU FOR MONEY (2026)

This is basically a documentary form of actor Ben McKenzie’s book EASY MONEY.

During Covid, McKenzie became skeptical of the crypto mania, so started investigating it, which ended up with him testifying to Congress about the dangers of crypto. This led to his book EASY MONEY about the crypto scam, which turned into this documentary.

I largely agree with McKenzie’s view that crypto is an unregulated scam, so naturally I enjoyed the documentary. It added weight to his argument that he interviewed several major crypto figures of the early 2020s, many of whom are now in prison for a variety of serious financial crimes. Definitely worth watching if you want to learn more about the topic, though there are several books that dig deeper into it. (Zeke Faux’s book NUMBER GO UP is an excellent overview of the topic.)

Overall grade: A

Now for my two favorite things I saw in Autumn 2026!

DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS (1988)

This was thoroughly enjoyable. Michael Caine plays Lawrence, a sophisticated scammer in the French Riveria who scams wealthy women out of large sums by pretending to be a prince fighting communist rebels in his homeland. Lawrence has an efficient, well-oiled operation by paying off the local police and other officials.

Then Freddy, a crude American scammer turns up (played by Steve Martin), and starts horning into Lawrence’s territory. Lawrence, being extremely clever, tries to get rid of Freddy by recruiting him, but Freddy sees through the ruse.

Finally Lawrence and Freddy settle on a bet. Whichever of them scams $50,000 out of a wealthy American heiress first will win the bet, and the loser leaves town forever.

Escalating comedy ensues.

This was very funny as Lawrence and Freddy keep trying to one-up each other.

It was interesting how this was structurally similar to OUT TO SEA, but was so much more interesting. The writing was tighter and more interesting, and the stakes were higher. Of course, since Lawrence and Freddy are both technically bad guys, they definitely deserve all the stuff they do to each other. It also helped that Steve Martin’s talent for physical comedy meshed well with Michael Caine’s effortless charisma.

Overall grade: A+

VISIONQUEST (2026)

The final installment of the trilogy that began with WANDAVISION and continued with AGATHA ALL ALONG. The previous two were among the best of the Marvel TV shows, and VISIONQUEST brings the story to a satisfying conclusion.

I was optimistic for this since Terry Matalas was the showrunner, and he was the showrunner for Season 3 of PICARD, and that season was in my opinion the best of modern STAR TREK.

I am pleased to report that my optimism was not misplaced!

In AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, Vision got killed when Thanos ripped off the top of his head, but he was resurrected by mad science in WANDAVISION, and then received his memories back from the magical simulacrum Wanda created of him. Needless to say, this succession of traumatic experiences has left Vision as a shell of his former self, and he is living in isolation trying to come to terms with things.

He also prefers to spend most of his time in a sort of electronic mind palace he created for himself, interacting with the various Stark Industries AIs he has in his mind, including FRIDAY, EDITH, Jarvis, DUM-E, and DUM-U from previous Marvel movies. However, unbeknownst to everyone else, Ultron is still lurking in Vision’s head, since Vision couldn’t bring himself to kill his progenitor back in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON.

To make matters worse, it turns out that someone put a bounty on Vision’s head. As he evades the legendary bounty hunter Paladin, Vision realizes that one of the children he had with Wanda in the twisted dream world of the Hex back in WANDAVISION may still be alive, and Paladin has him captive. So Vision will need to shake off his stupor and become a hero once more if he wants to save his son and repair the fractured pieces of his mind.

But there is a larger, deeper conspiracy underway.

This was excellent. Well-written, well-acted, and tightly plotted. The only difficulty with recommending it is that it relies out of necessity on some much previous Marvel continuity, so newcomers to the Marvel Cinematic Universe might have a hard time following some stuff.

Overall grade: A+

-JM