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The year 2025 might sound more futuristic. Perhaps it's the presence of the letter "f" in "five". But 2026 signifies one step beyond, a moment where we find ourselves, with every science-fiction-style development – chiefly the widespread adoption of AI – appearing bleak, or perhaps more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a proper dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-sponsored anti-human technology might function a bit better?) Didn't anyone warn us about this?

The response, at least regarding our sci-fi movies from years ago (or occasionally recently) set in 2026, is both yes and no. A number of those warnings are universally relevant (worldwide disaster) but specifically implausible (if humanity is ultimately decimated, we will almost certainly bring down the ape population with us). Some of them are prescient; the rest just look like poor visual effects. But it's worth examining where various film-makers, ranging from masters to grunts, believed we'd be positioned by this time in our planet's evolution. Therefore, we shall examine at some of the movies that have been set in 2026 throughout cinematic history and see if they have anything to impart.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this doesn't bode well. According to the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a portal to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the people of Earth are able to set up a research facility. Currently, the bad stuff – in terms of narrative and concerning garish film versions of a FPS video game – does not actually transpire for two more decades later, so even if we find a portal to Mars this year, we might have some time to avoid catastrophe. If we did uncover a passageway to an ancient Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to tell whether a certain tech billionaire would remain super-psyched to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the portal wasn't something he personally paid for, allowing him to claim messianic credit for humanity's journey into the stars. That's before we consider the collection of Martian chromosomes and subsequent mutations into monstrous beings. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a useful example for why, exactly we let Mars serve as a long-term aspiration for mankind. Whether in the director's cheap-looking genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to serve as a beacon of optimism. Should someone wants to make that dubious Martian real estate sale, maybe they should start with first ensuring the fantasy version appear appealing.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

A of the goofiest quirks of the current Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the various world-threatening disasters, including a five-year time-jump whose events are largely not shown in the films themselves; the movies have turned into a alarm clock constantly set a few seconds fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. So there's a whole bunch of Marvel stuff that fan sites clarify to be taking place in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated romp *The Marvels*, take place distant from Earth, and so seem pretty detached from any concrete sense of time. However the bad stuff is some of the worst the studio has created: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on these examples, we're facing a whole lot of annoying wheel-spinning in 2026, including the related spin that in truth, this confusing mess unfolding before our eyes is essential to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the real world that claim will likely turn out to be accurate.

The Apes Saga Continues

The majority of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is located in the further-flung future of Earth, but the new trilogy that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts nearer the present, starting its timeline around 2016. So by the time a pathogen that devastates the majority of Earth’s human population has run its course, and simultaneously boosted the intelligence of apes, it’s merely 2026, with additional setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) ahead. The end-credits sequence of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this contagion propagates globally and set around 2019, appears downright eerie in the aftermath of the actual pandemic that would begin in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* looks more abstract; astonishingly, we’re already six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and humanity, though obviously impacted by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been wiped out, and our technology definitely hasn't been disabled. But this most pessimistic of the quartet of contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) still has a significant bummer in store, implying that human and/or ape nature, whatever qualifies as either, will unavoidably result in warfare, regardless of the efforts of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re subject to the whims of those who appeal to others’ baser impulses, even if those instincts are not held by the most. Currently, it seems difficult to dispute that, even though we ought to try.

The Silent Classic

Easily the best-known portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie close to marking its 100th anniversary. The director's silent classic *Metropolis* takes place in a futuristic city where rich businessmen preside over the towers 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 perspective changed to these massive class divisions when he falls for Maria, an underground organizer who advocates for a coming together of the separate strata of Metropolis. A scientist with more radical plans builds a robot in her image, aiming to bring the entire Metropolis to ruin. Here, a machine created to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the elite, but an entity who desires to witness their downfall; it's one element flipped by the modern world in a future that in other ways seems to be progressing. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where technology relies on traditional human toil, which seems like a perfect fusion of conservative contempt for “unskilled workers” and business zeal for an tech boom. It hasn't yet come to pass, but it's easy to imagine a somewhat more utilitarian version of Lang’s city expanding out with the promise of a return to industrial production. The trickier, less plausible feat is the conclusion of the film, where the chasm between the wealthy and the poor is spanned with love; rather than with specific policies. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates peaceful cohabitation; in contrast to *Dawn*, it appears optimistic about the possibility