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The year 2025 might sound more futuristic. Maybe it's the sound of the consonant "f" in "five". But 2026 represents a leap forward, a moment where we find ourselves, with every futuristic development – chiefly the widespread adoption of AI – appearing bleak, or perhaps more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-backed anti-human technology might operate a bit better?) Did no one warn us about this?

The answer, particularly concerning our sci-fi movies made long ago (or occasionally months ago) positioned in 2026, is a mixed bag. Some of those warnings are universally relevant (worldwide disaster) but in detail far-fetched (if humanity is inevitably decimated, we will almost certainly take the primate species with us). Some of them are visionary; others just resemble poor green screen. But it's valuable to explore where different film-makers, from geniuses to grunts, thought we'd be situated by this time in the world's evolution. Therefore, we shall take a look at some of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 over the years and determine if they have anything to teach us.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this isn't promising. In the universe of the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was recently celebrated by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that humanity discovers a portal to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to establish a research facility. Currently, the negative events – regarding narrative and in terms of over-the-top cinematic imitations of a FPS video game – doesn't really go down for two more decades later, so even if we do discover a portal to Mars this year, we might have a respite to avert catastrophe. If we did uncover a passageway to an old Martian city, it's truly hard to determine whether Elon Musk would still be extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the portal wasn't something he funded himself, enabling him to assert savior-like ownership for mankind's journey into the stars. That's before we consider the harvesting of extraterrestrial genetics and resulting mutations into monstrous beings. (Again, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the Wong Kar-wai film.) Overall, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a good test case for the reasons we allow Mars serve as a stretch-goal aspiration for mankind. Be it in John Carpenter's cheap-looking genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our distant neighbor planet doesn't tend to serve as a beacon of optimism. If anyone wishes to make that questionable red-planet real estate sale, maybe they ought to begin with at least ensuring the fictional depiction appear appealing.

The Marvel Dregs

A of the goofiest quirks of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the various global disasters, encompassing a five-year time-jump whose events are mostly undepicted in the films themselves; the films have become like a clock radio perpetually set a few seconds fast – only instead of minutes, it's annual increments. So there's a large assortment of MCU content that fan sites helpfully explain to be taking place in 2026. The better entries, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated romp *The Marvels*, take place far away from Earth, and so seem pretty unmoored from our sense of time. However the bad stuff is among the weakest Marvel has ever produced: the nonsensically meandering TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by this stuff, we're facing a whole lot of frustrating wheel-spinning in 2026, along with the related narrative that actually, this nonsensical crap unfolding in front of us is crucial to future events. Even worse, in the actual world that claim will likely prove accurate.

The Apes Saga Continues

Most of the classic five-film *Planet of the Apes* cycle is set in the more distant tomorrow of Earth, but the new trilogy that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts closer to home, initiating its chronology approximately 2016. Thus, when a pathogen that knocks out most of Earth’s human population has done its damage, and also enhanced the cognitive abilities of apes, it’s merely 2026, with additional setbacks for mankind (and simian triumphs) ahead. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, illustrating how swiftly this contagion spreads globally and set in 2019, appears downright eerie in the aftermath of the actual pandemic that would begin in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* seems more abstract; if you can believe it, we’re now six years out from the spread of Covid-19, and humanity, though obviously impacted by the ongoing virus, was not annihilated, and our technology definitely hasn't been knocked out. But this most pessimistic of the four contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) still has a substantial downer to offer, implying that human and/or ape nature, however one defines each, will unavoidably lead to violent conflict, no matter the work of the most well-meaning among us. We’re subject to the whims of those who exploit others’ baser impulses, even if those instincts are not held by the most. Right now, it feels difficult to argue with that, even though we ought to try.

Metropolis

Easily the best-known depiction of 2026 in film is from a movie nearing celebrating its 100th anniversary. Fritz Lang’s iconic silent film *Metropolis* is set in a city of tomorrow where rich businessmen preside over the skyscrapers as laborers work tirelessly below the surface on the machines that power the city. Rich city-dweller Freder, scion of the city’s master, has his perspective changed to these massive social gaps when he falls for Maria, an underground activist who preaches a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with darker plans creates a automaton in her image, aiming to bring the whole of Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a machine created to mimic a human isn't a tool of the ruling corporate class, but someone who desires to see them destroyed; it's a component inverted by reality in a future that otherwise appears to be progressing. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where technology depends on old-fashioned manual labor, which appears as a most logical union of rightwing contempt for “the working class” and corporate zeal for an AI bubble. It hasn't yet materialized, but it's simple to picture a somewhat less stylish-looking version of Lang’s city expanding out with the promise of a resurgence to industrial production. The more complex, harder-to-imagine feat is the ending of the film, where the gap between the wealthy and the have-nots is bridged with love; rather than with specific policies. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; in contrast to *Dawn*, it appears optimistic about the chance