After the COVID-19 pandemic dealt a shock to the movie industry, audiences’ relationship with theaters has been in a state of reset. Studios are still working to figure out what, exactly, motivates people to see something on the big screen before it’s available at home. While the whole situation is still in flux, there’s one thing that’s emerged as the closest we have to a certainty: IMAX.
The company behind the premium large-format theatrical experience is one of the few outright winners of our current environment. Even as home entertainment systems get better and better, it remains clear to everyone that IMAX is something they’ll never be able to replicate on their TVs, and as a result, Hollywood’s fight for those limited screens has never been more competitive.
On October 23, IMAX delivered a quarterly earnings presentation to their investors that included an expected 2026 release schedule, featuring 20 of the biggest and most-anticipated films of next year. These are all the films set to play in IMAX, in release order.
Mercy
Officially, the first IMAX movie to play in theaters in 2026 is Avatar: Fire & Ash, which will carry over its run after releasing in December. The first new release of the year to play the biggest screens arrives January 23, when Mercy releases.
The sci-fi movie from director Timur Bekmambetov stars Chris Pratt as a Los Angeles detective accused of murdering his wife. In the distant year of 2029, that means coming before an AI judge (played by Rebecca Ferguson) and getting just 90 minutes to prove his own innocence using every piece of digital evidence at his disposal.
The Bride!
Guillermo del Toro treated us to one interpretation of Frankenstein in 2025, and thanks to some release date shuffling, we’ll be getting another, very different one next year. The Bride!, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s second feature as a director, releases on March 6.
Set in 1930s Chicago, the movie stars Jessie Buckley as the Bride and Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s monster, along with Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Penélope Cruz. It was pushed out of 2025 amid reports of troubling test screenings, and The Bride!‘s first trailer certainly showed signs of the kind of unique, stylish vision that can sometimes prompt those stories. According to Sarsgaard, it’s also somewhat of a musical, meaning audiences could be in for a truly singular IMAX experience.
Project Hail Mary
Project Hail Mary will arrive with plenty of heat when it releases on March 20. Amazon MGM used early footage to hype movie theater owners at CinemaCon, and then gave it the Hall H treatment at San Diego Comic-Con, where it was received with much excitement.
An adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, Project Hail Mary stars Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, an astronaut who loses his memory while on a crucial mission in deep space and wakes up as the crew’s sole survivor. The film is directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, marking the duo’s return to live-action movies after 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story was taken from them mid-production. Weir’s The Martian made a big box-office hit when brought to the silver screen by Ridley Scott, so expectations for this one will naturally be high.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
Speaking of box office expectations, the sequel to 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie will be looking to match the original’s $1.3 billion worldwide gross when it releases on April 3. A few weeks of IMAX screens will certainly help.
Nintendo recently announced the film’s title is The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, signaling to fans that the movie would dip into that series of games for material this time around. No news has come through yet on voice casting for expected new characters like Rosalina, but Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, and Jack Black are all set to return as Mario, Peach, Luigi, and Bowser, respectively.
Michael
Given that a Michael Jackson concert doc made $268 million in 2009, a high-profile biopic would be an event on any release calendar. But if Michael actually makes it to theaters on April 24, it should be considered a miracle.
The Antoine Fuqua film starring Jafaar Jackson, Michael Jackson’s own nephew, has had a hell of a time making it to the big screen. After being delayed by the 2023 Hollywood strikes, Michael filmed in early 2024 and was even previewed by Lionsgate at CinemaCon that year, only to be reportedly derailed by an uncovered legal agreement that rendered the whole third act unusable. After additional filming this year, a new version will supposedly be ready, with the potential for a follow-up if this one does well enough.
Mortal Kombat 2
Yet another film on this list that decided to make audiences wait, Mortal Kombat 2 was initially scheduled for October 24, 2025, and likely burned through a good portion of its planned marketing campaign already. But, reportedly amid WB’s financial success this year, the studio gifted its 2026 slate another tentpole by dating it for May 8.
The first movie, released amid the pandemic in 2021, and was one of the more high-profile releases to go day-and-date to HBO Max alongside its theatrical release. While there were some complaints, it did enough to get fans excited about the overall vision, and Mortal Kombat 2 ups the stakes by introducing both the actual tournament and popular characters like Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) and Kitana (Adeline Rudolph). Tracking data currently has it as one of the upcoming movies people most want to see in theaters, so there should be plenty of demand for seeing bloody fatalities on an IMAX screen.
The Mandalorian & Grogu
Star Wars is coming back to theaters! Since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, the storied franchise has been limited to Disney+, despite many announcements of theatrical films that remain in various states of development. As it turns out, the first movie to make it through is a continuation of the biggest of those Disney+ TV shows, dated for May 22.
The Mandalorian & Grogu will pick up from where The Mandalorian season 3 leaves off, continuing the adventures of the bounty hunter Djin Djarin and the adorable, force-wielding child that has become his loving companion. Jon Favreau, who created the series, directs and co-writes with Dave Filoni, one of the chief members of the Star Wars TV braintrust. As a revival of the franchise’s theatrical roots, it’s certainly an interesting choice, and it remains to be seen whether this continued adventure can draw the mass audiences that Star Wars movies usually do.
Toy Story 5
Pixar may be struggling to get its originals to perform in theaters of late, but its sequel game is a different story. At almost $1.7 billion, 2024’s Inside Out 2 is currently the studio’s highest-grossing movie ever. Toy Story 5 will be looking to break that record when it opens on June 19, 2026.
Despite having reached multiple “endings,” Pixar just doesn’t seem capable of putting down the franchise that started it all. And why would they? Each new film finds its own reason to exist, and ends up received well by critics and audiences alike. Finding a killer story to tell with this group of toys for the fifth time will certainly be a challenge, but putting Toy Story 5 in IMAX shows Disney is going into the year with full confidence in their sequel as a theatrical draw.
Supergirl
James Gunn’s Superman kicked off a new era for DC movies this year, and while it couldn’t overpower the newfound limitations on superhero movie box office that could change the industry calculus on the genre, it did generate genuine excitement. But Superman is a marquee character, and the big test for the DCU as a franchise comes on June 26, when Supergirl releases.
Introduced at the end of Gunn’s movie, Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El now gets her own film from director Craig Gillespie, based on the comic miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. Unlike the Earthbound Superman, this film will take audiences out into the galaxy, where Supergirl is traveling alongside Krypto and gets wrapped up in a quest for revenge.
Minions 3
After last appearing in 2024’s Despicable Me 4, the Minions are back for their third solo effort, a sequel to 2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru. Minions 3 will debut in theaters on Wednesday, July 1, ready to deliver full-family, IMAX entertainment over the July 4 holiday.
It’s not currently known whether the film will be set in the present or continue the adventures of young Gru in the past, but it will mark the return of Pierre Coffin to the director’s chair. Alongside having voiced the Minions across all their appearances, the French animator co-directed the first three Despicable Me movies and the original Minions.
