“Jack Ryan: Ghost War”
John Krasinski’s Jack Ryan gets a feature-length continuation with “Jack Ryan: Ghost War,” extending the Prime Video series after its four-season run. Andrew Bernstein directs, with Krasinski co-writing alongside Aaron Rabin from a story by Krasinski and Noah Oppenheim. The film brings back Wendell Pierce as James Greer and Michael Kelly as Mike November, while Sienna Miller joins as MI6 officer Emma Marlowe. The premise finds Ryan pulled back into espionage after leaving the CIA, drawn into an international covert operation, and forced to confront a rogue black-ops unit.
Premiere Date: May 20, 2026, via Prime Video.
“The Mandalorian and Grogu”
Eight years after its last feature, “Star Wars” returns to theaters with “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” bringing Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin and his young apprentice out of the Disney+ ecosystem and onto the big screen. Jon Favreau directs, with Dave Filoni and Kathleen Kennedy among the key creative forces, and Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allen White joining the galaxy far, far away. The question is industrial as much as narrative: can a TV-born “Star Wars” phenomenon translate into a theatrical event after years of streaming-centered franchise maintenance?
Premiere Date: May 22, 2026, via Walt Disney Studios.
“I Love Boosters”
Boots Riley has never been interested in polite satire, and “I Love Boosters” looks like another provocation dressed as a genre movie. His star-studded follow-up to “Sorry to Bother You” stars Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza González, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, Don Cheadle, and Demi Moore in a crime comedy about professional shoplifters targeting a ruthless fashion mogul. Riley’s work tends to turn capitalism into absurdist body horror, labor farce, and political cartoon all at once, so theft, fashion, and class resentment feel right in his strike zone (Read our review).
Premiere Date: May 22, 2026, via NEON.
“Pressure”
How many ways can you slice a leading-up-to-D-Day WWII movie? “Pressure” certainly tries, taking the 72 hours before the invasion of Normandy into a chamber piece of military calculation about, uh — the weather, but also fear, and consequence. Andrew Scott plays British meteorologist James Stagg, with Brendan Fraser as General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Kerry Condon, Chris Messina, and Damian Lewis in support. Directed by Anthony Maras (“Hotel Mumbai”), the film focuses on the impossible decision facing Allied command: launch the Normandy invasion under terrifying uncertainty—and potentially a bad forecast—or delay and risk losing the strategic advantage.
Premiere Date: May 29, 2026, via Focus Features.
“The Last Viking”
Anders Thomas Jensen reunites with Mads Mikkelsen for “The Last Viking,” another dark, oddball Danish comedy built around broken men, family damage, and kooky genre detours. Mikkelsen plays Manfred, whose brother Anker, played by Nikolaj Lie Kaas, returns from prison hoping to retrieve hidden robbery money, only to find that Manfred’s mental state has shifted in strange and unpredictable directions. Jensen’s films have always found surprising tenderness inside grotesque behavior, and the premise seems ripe for that mix of intimacy and absurdism.
Premiere Date: May 29, 2026, via Samuel Goldwyn Films.
“Backrooms”
The internet’s most famous liminal nightmare gets the A24 treatment with “Backrooms,” directed by Kane Parsons, the filmmaker behind the viral “Backrooms” web series. The creepypasta premise is simple and weirdly durable: endless yellow rooms, fluorescent dread, and corporate blandness turned into existential horror. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, and Lukita Maxwell star, with the film following a therapist who enters an otherworldly dimension in search of a missing patient.
Premiere Date: May 29, 2026, via A24.
“The Breadwinner”
Nate Bargatze stars in “The Breadwinner,” a studio comedy from Eric Appel, who directed “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” and episodes of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Silicon Valley,” and “New Girl.” Bargatze plays a salesman whose household is upended when his wife, played by Mandy Moore, lands a “Shark Tank” deal, forcing him into stay-at-home parenting. The cast also includes Will Forte, Colin Jost, Kumail Nanjiani, Zach Cherry, and Kate Berlant.
Premiere Date: May 29, 2026, via Sony Pictures.
“Tuner”
Leo Woodall and Dustin Hoffman star in “Tuner,” the first narrative feature from Daniel Roher, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind “Navalny” and the new, much-discussed documentary “The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist.” Woodall plays a gifted piano tuner whose heightened hearing gives him an unexpected talent for cracking safes, pulling him into a criminal scheme. The cast also includes Havana Rose Liu, Lior Raz, Tovah Feldshuh, and Jean Reno. Roher co-wrote the film with Robert Ramsey.
Premiere Date: May 22, 2026, via Black Bear.
May Honorable Mentions:
“Deep Water” (May 1, Magenta Light Studios — Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley); “Our Land” (May 1 — Lucrecia Martel); “Two Pianos” (May 1 — Arnaud Desplechin); “The Last One for the Road” (May 1 — Francesco Sossai); “Affection” (May 8, Brainstorm Media — Jessica Rothe); “The Python Hunt” (May 8); “Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft – The Tour Live in 3D” (May 8 — Billie Eilish); “Is God Is” (May 15, Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios — Kara Young, Mallori Johnson, and Sterling K. Brown); “Magic Hour” (May 15); “Been Here Stay Here” (May 15); “Manas” (May 22); “Saccharine” (May 22); “Everybody to Kenmure Street” (May 22); “The Currents” (May 29 — Milagros Mumenthaler); “Renoir” (May 29 — Chie Hayakawa); “With Hasan to Gaza” (May 29 — Kamal Aljafari); “Forastera” (May 29); “The Furious” (May 29, Lionsgate — Xie Miao, Joe Taslim).
June
“Power Ballad”
John Carney returns to his music-as-emotional-warfare playground in “Power Ballad,” starring Paul Rudd as Rick, a past-his-prime wedding singer, and Nick Jonas as Danny, a fading boy-band star. The two bond over music during a gig, but when Danny turns one of Rick’s songs into a career-reviving hit, Rick sets out to reclaim the recognition he believes he deserves. Carney’s best films—“Once,” “Begin Again,” and “Sing Street”—understand songs as confessions people are not brave enough to put their heart on the line IRL. This sounds like the bitter middle-aged cousin to those earlier films: bruised ego, artistic ownership, and the humiliation of watching someone else get rewarded for your pain (Read our review).
Premiere Date: June 5, 2026, via Lionsgate
“Masters Of The Universe”
“Masters of the Universe” has been in development for so many years that its arrival feels like a pop-cultural relic of “Wait, didn’t this already come out years ago?” Nicholas Galitzine stars as Prince Adam, with Jared Leto as Skeletor, Camila Mendes as Teela, and Idris Elba as Duncan/Man-At-Arms. Travis Knight directs, which may be the most encouraging piece of the package. “Bumblebee” proved Knight could find character and sincerity inside toy-based franchise machinery, and “Kubo and the Two Strings” showed his feel for fantasy imagery. The material is inherently ridiculous—swords, planets, muscles, skull-faced villains, and destiny—but embarrassment could be the enemy. If it embraces the mythic pulp, He-Man might finally get the movie he needs.
Premiere Date: June 5, 2026, via Amazon MGM Studios.
“Scary Movie”
The “Scary Movie” franchise returns with Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Marlon Wayans, and Shawn Wayans back in the fold, along with Kenan Thompson and Chris Elliott, and the target list has only grown larger since the series last mattered. Horror has spent the last decade cannibalizing itself in public: legacy sequels, requels, elevated-horror discourse, franchise revivals, prestige grief metaphors, and “final chapters” that never stay final. That gives the new “Scary Movie” plenty of material, though parody is harder now because the culture already exhausts itself in real time.
Premiere Date: June 5, 2026, via Paramount Pictures.
“Carolina Caroline”
Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner lead “Carolina Caroline,” a romantic crime thriller from “Dinner in America” filmmaker Adam Carter Rehmeier. Weaving plays a young woman desperate to escape her small West Texas town, while Gallner plays the charismatic con man who pulls her into a crime spree across the American South. Kyra Sedgwick and Jon Gries co-star, and the setup has an old, dangerous American pull: romance as escape route, performance as survival, and crime as self-invention.
Premiere Date: June 5, 2026, via Magnolia Pictures.
