Our 10 Most Anticipated Fantastic Fest 2026 Movies

Fantastic Fest 2026 has a stacked lineup with several highly anticipated genre films and two secret screenings. Here are our 10 most anticipated.

Fantastic Fest 2026 has an amazing lineup that includes many of the year’s most highly anticipated genre films. The secret screenings are also making a return, although this year there are just two of them. Still, these could end up being some of the best of the fest, as they have in years past. I am personally hoping for Clayface and Wicker, but we shall see.

10 Most Anticipated Fantastic Fest 2026 Movies

The schedule this year is stacked, with several movies I have truly been looking forward to since I heard of them. Others have intrigued me with their synopsis and have me eagerly awaiting watching them at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin during Fantastic Fest.

Here are my ten most anticipated movies, not counting the secret screenings, of course.

Resident Evil

From the mind of visionary filmmaker Zach Cregger (WEAPONS, BARBARIAN) comes a thrilling — and terrifying — reinvention of the RESIDENT EVIL franchise. In an all-new story, RESIDENT EVIL follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in an action-packed, non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.

The Cycle

When the body of a man missing for thirty-six years is discovered at the scene of a horrific crime, it’s up to his estranged daughter to unravel his dark past.

Wild Horse Nine

Shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup, CIA agents Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell) are dispatched from Santiago to Easter Island by their bureau chief, MJ (Steve Buscemi). Amongst the Island’s iconic statues, and as the longtime partners wrestle with their dark pasts and present conspiracies, Chris’s newfound bond with a pair of rebellious students (Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas) threatens to send everyone’s trip to this remote paradise sideways. 

BEWARE BOIÚNA

Deep in the Amazon, a medical mission spirals into a fight for survival when Boiúna, a colossal ancient predator, awakens to reclaim her domain. In the jungle where nature holds absolute power, she decides who lives and who dies.

Play House

Exactly one year ago, Nic Curcio, Kirby Gladstein, and Ben Gojer stood on stage in the Highball and promised all of us that they could make a kick-ass horror film. They won the inaugural Fantastic Pitches and have returned to Fantastic Fest to world premiere PLAY HOUSE. Since accepting their crowns, the team has been on a full sprint to the finish. With no time to catch their breath, the team barreled through development, casting, and production, taking a week’s break for the director and producer to get married before heading into post.

Divide/Conquer (M3GAN, BLACK PHONE 2) joined Chroma as executive producers on the film. My spidey senses and my Instagram algorithm tell me that this is just the beginning of what will be very scary and successful careers for all three of these champions.

Victorian Psycho

Set in Victorian England, VICTORIAN PSYCHO sees an eccentric governess arrive at a remote gothic manor, where strange happenings stir suspicion that she’s not what she seems.

I Have Proof

Alex has proof. And he wants you to see it.

Into The Sky

A man desperately tries to reconnect with his estranged wife, but keeps getting abducted by aliens.

The Spiral

Meet Alice. Her estranged mother, Anna, has just arrived at her Rome apartment in the middle of a storm with a preposterous confession: twenty years ago, she made a bargain that cursed their entire family. Talk about dramatic.

Back then, during a lavish party at the family estate, the family dog viciously attacked young Alice, crushing the dreams Anna had already built for her daughter. You see, she’d just booked her first commercial (for a pasta company). And in Anna’s mind, that future could not possibly survive the loss of a leg. So when a mysterious Stranger appears in the hospital chapel and offers Anna a one-of-a-kind bargain, however morally obscene, Anna refuses—until she doesn’t.

Over the next two decades, every attempt she makes to repair the damage only creates new debts, new sacrifices, and consequences for the whole family—and beyond. The monster she fed once keeps demanding payment. Now, Anna believes Alice might hold the key to ending this cruel spiral. This is horror built from guilt: however much Anna loves her daughter, that love is contaminated by ambition, vanity, and the future she projected onto her.

Kick On

Eden and her three best friends spend their nights drinking, dancing, getting high, and breaking into fights across Melbourne’s club scene. They are kicked out of a dance club, and after a quick pit stop for a chicken souvlaki wrap and a few energy drinks, they set out in search of one last fix to keep the party going. Their night leads them to the extravagant drug lair of Roman, casually known to his friends as Ray, the volcanic son of a sadistic mobster.

Check out the full Fantastic Fest 2026 schedule here.