Welcome to the annual New Year's edition of 6 Flicks Picks to ring in 2026!
This segment started out as a monthly column (and could return to that if there is enough support on Patreon!), but the new year always started with an assessment of the entire year, which is even more difficult in some ways.
The year-in-full edition of 6 Flicks Picks works the same way it always has. Rather than being limited to just six for this list like I would for the monthly editions, I'm going to be breaking down my top six as well as some supplemental groups of six for different tier lists, in a sense, of how much I want to see those movies.
Still, the general question remains: If you could only watch six movies for the entire year, which ones would those be?
Obviously, not every film that will come out this year is currently announced, and I haven't seen trailers for the vast majority of them. That is part of the fun when you can look back and see which movies you enjoyed more and which ones were surprises.
Without further ado, let's take a look at what makes my cut for 2026!
6 FLICKS PICKS FOR 2026
As far as January 1st is concerned, I don't have anywhere remotely close to my top 30 like I've had in previous years. In fact, this is the weakest year of movie releases that I can think of since the pandemic. That is really going to make me question paying for AMC A-List every month if there are stretches where I wouldn't see much value in seeing one film, let alone two to justify the price. How the mighty have fallen. I used to be such a movie hound, and they're just not releasing much anymore that piques my curiosity, even though I'm still going around on the lookout.
Miscellaneous Honorable Mentions:
If they receive good enough reviews, I might check out:
- Project Hail Mary
- Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
- Michael
- Masters of the Universe
- Coyote vs. Acme
- Disclosure Day
- How to Make a Killing
They're all on the chopping block as far as me not really being too super into watching them, or not being sure if they just had some good trailers, but having at least some minimal interest.
Top Tier Honorable Mentions:
12. [TIE] Scary Movie 6 / Untitled Jumanji Sequel — I tied these, rather than to pick one of them to go into the other category below at #13, because they're about on par with each other until I see a trailer or more information. Scary Movie 1 and 3 are amazing and I absolutely love them. Every other Scary Movie film has been either meh (#2) or just straight-up bad. Considering how much I disliked 2025's Naked Gun compared to how much the original is one of my 5 favorite comedies ever, this doesn't give me a lot of faith Scary Movie 6 will be awesome. The same for Jumanji. The first of this series from The Rock was fun enough for me to see the second, but the second wasn't so great to make me HAVE to see the third.
11. The Mandalorian and Grogu — Speaking of liking something from before and being beaten down. I absolutely loved Star Wars from around the time of the special editions in the 90s up until The Force Awakens just ruined the series. Nearly every single thing that has come out under Disney has been something I either hated or just couldn't get into. Even solid projects like Rogue One, Kenobi, and the original Mandalorian seasons at points, just all lead to the terrible events from the sequel trilogy, and those 3 films ruined the franchise for me so much that it taints EVERYTHING in the series, so much so that I didn't even watch shows like Andor or The Acolyte. Why should I see this? I don't even know if I will. It looks like a slightly longer episode that they just want to try to get box office receipts from and I doubt it will help undo all the damage from the other films. Unless there's a scene in here that says "nothing with The First Order or Snoke or Palpatine or Rey or any of that garbage is canon and we're starting over from Return of the Jedi", I doubt my fandom can truly be saved.
10. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie — The first was fun. I'm a Mario fan, so even though this isn't going in the direction I was hoping and I was pitching for (check out my layout) I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that this could be a fun kids film to check out.
9. The Odyssey — Christopher Nolan doesn't have a 100% success rate for me, but he's close enough that I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. For every Dunkirk that I don't dig, you've got something amazing like Inception. I've never been fond of The Odyssey story, but it's an epic that will probably be more along the lines of Oppenheimer, which even though it didn't rank as my favorite movie of the year, was certainly one of the *better* films that year.
8. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple — All three of the previous movies were things I enjoyed. There's no reason why I shouldn't go into this expecting it to be as interesting as its predecessor.
7. Toy Story 5 — I have a lot of complains about Toy Story 4, and I think this movie is going to undo some of those while also creating some other problems. But it's Toy Story. Of course it makes the list high up. It's kind of crazy that it isn't in the top 6, but...
What Made the Final Cut:
6. Mortal Kombat II — Look, it's not going to be better than Toy Story 5 or whatever. I get that. It's not like the previous one was a good movie. But it's popcorn nonsense. I had a lot of fun watching that one, and sometimes, you just want to go to the movies and see some stupid action flick from your childhood.
5. Street Fighter — When it comes to my childhood, by the way, I was always more of a Street Fighter fan than a Mortal Kombat fan. That gives it the edge here, as well as how I'm obviously into pro wrestling (Smark Out Moment) and when you've got Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns among the cast for this, I really hope it's a fun watch, because this looks INSANELY ridiculous.
4. Clayface — Batman project? You sold me. Mike Flanagan is involved? Even more so. And it's a serious movie about Clayface? Hell yeah. I loved that same episode of the animated series that Flanagan was so inspired by.
3. Supergirl — I happen to be one of those people who really liked James Gunn's Superman, so even though Kara has never been in my top 10 favorite superhero characters by any means, I still value the property and I'm curious to see a film revolving around her.
2. Spider-Man: Brand New Day — My top two favorite superheroes of all time are Batman #1 and Spider-Man #2. I don't need to explain this.
1. Avengers: Doomsday — Just hook it to my veins. This isn't going to be as great as Infinity War, but it's going to be a mashup of a huge number of characters from my childhood as well as this awesome journey of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The MCU has been in a rough state after Endgame, so I'm hoping this is what turns everything around and makes it all worthwhile.
WHICH MOVIES ARE YOU INTERESTED IN CHECKING OUT?
TELL US IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!
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