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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 a leap forward, and it's where we currently stand, with every futuristic advancement – primarily the widespread adoption of AI – appearing dystopian, or perhaps more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a proper dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-sponsored dehumanizing technology would actually operate a bit better?) Did no one warn us regarding this?

The answer, particularly concerning science fiction films from years ago (or sometimes months ago) positioned in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of these prophecies are universally relevant (global catastrophe) but in detail implausible (when mankind is ultimately ravaged, we will almost certainly take the primate species alongside us). Others of them are visionary; others just look like bad visual effects. Yet it remains valuable to explore where various film-makers, ranging from masters to grunts, thought we'd be situated by now in our planet's evolution. Therefore, we shall examine a selection of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 throughout cinematic history and see if they have anything to impart.

The Game 'Doom'

Well, this isn't promising. In the universe of the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind finds a gateway to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to establish a scientific outpost. Currently, the negative events – regarding plot and in terms of garish film versions of a first-person-shooter video game – doesn't really transpire for two more decades in the future, so should we find a portal to Mars this year, we could gain a respite to avoid catastrophe. If we did uncover a portal to an ancient Martian city, it's truly hard to determine whether a certain tech billionaire would still be super-psyched to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become disheartened that the discovery was not a thing he funded himself, enabling him to assert messianic ownership for mankind's expansion to the cosmos. That's before we even get to the harvesting of Martian chromosomes and subsequent mutations into horrific creatures. (Again, this is closer to 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a useful example for why, exactly we allow Mars serve as a long-term aspiration for mankind. Whether 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 act as a symbol of hope. If anyone wants to make that questionable Martian property deal, perhaps they should start with first making the fictional depiction look good.

The Marvel Dregs

One of the strangest features of the present MCU is how to account for the various global cataclysms, including a half-decade leap whose occurrences are mostly undepicted in the films themselves; the movies have turned into a clock radio perpetually running a few seconds fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a large assortment of MCU content that various wikis clarify to be set in 2026. The better entries, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated adventure *The Marvels*, take place distant from Earth, and so feel pretty unmoored from any concrete sense of time. However the poorer material is some of the worst Marvel has created: 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 whole lot of annoying wheel-spinning in 2026, along with the related narrative that actually, this confusing mess unfolding before our eyes is essential to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the actual world that assertion will probably prove correct.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The majority of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is located in the more distant tomorrow of Earth, but the modern series that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts nearer the present, initiating its chronology around 2016. So by the time a virus that knocks out the majority of Earth’s people has done its damage, and also boosted the cognitive abilities of primates, it’s only 2026, with additional setbacks for mankind (and simian triumphs) ahead. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this virus propagates around the world and taking place around 2019, looks downright eerie in the aftermath of the real-world pandemic that would begin in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; if you can believe it, we’re now half a decade from the spread of Covid-19, and humanity, though clearly impacted by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been annihilated, and technological infrastructure definitely hasn't been disabled. Yet this most pessimistic of the four contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a substantial bummer to offer, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines each, will inevitably result in violent conflict, no matter the work of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who exploit others’ baser impulses, although those drives are not held by the most. Currently, it feels hard to dispute that, despite the fact that we probably should.

The Silent Classic

Easily the most prominent depiction of 2026 in film is from a movie close to celebrating its 100th anniversary. The director's silent classic *Metropolis* takes place in a city of tomorrow where rich businessmen preside over the skyscrapers as laborers work tirelessly underground on the equipment that power the city. Rich surface resident Freder, son of the city’s ruler, has his eyes opened to these massive class divisions when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an underground organizer who advocates for a coming together of the separate strata of Metropolis. A inventor with more radical plans builds a automaton in her likeness, aiming to bring the entire Metropolis down in flames. In this narrative, a robot 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 vision of tomorrow that in other ways seems to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where advanced machinery relies on old-fashioned human toil, which appears as a most logical fusion of conservative disdain for “the working class” and corporate enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It has not yet materialized, but it's simple to picture a slightly more utilitarian iteration of Lang’s city expanding out with the prospect of a return to manufacturing. The more complex, less plausible feat is the conclusion of the film, where the chasm between the haves and the have-nots is spanned with compassion; not so much with specific policies. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; unlike *Dawn*, it appears hopeful about the chance