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The date 2025 could appear more futuristic. Perhaps it's the sound of the consonant "f" in "five". However 2026 signifies one step beyond, a moment where we find ourselves, with every futuristic advancement – chiefly the broad integration of AI – appearing bleak, or possibly even worse. (Doesn't it feel like in a proper dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-sponsored dehumanizing technology would actually operate more effectively?) Did no one sound the alarm about this?

The response, particularly concerning science fiction films from years ago (or sometimes months ago) positioned in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of those warnings are broadly applicable (global catastrophe) but specifically implausible (when mankind is inevitably decimated, we will most likely bring down the ape population alongside us). Others of them are prescient; the rest just look like poor visual effects. Yet it remains valuable to explore where various directors, ranging from masters to journeymen, thought we'd be situated by this time in the world's evolution. So let's examine a selection of the films that have been set in 2026 over the years and determine if they have anything to teach us.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this isn't promising. According to the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was recently celebrated by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that humanity finds a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to establish a scientific outpost. Currently, the bad stuff – in terms of 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 find a Martian gateway this year, we could gain a respite to avert catastrophe. If we did discover a portal to an old Martian city, it's truly hard to determine whether a certain tech billionaire would still be extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become disheartened that the discovery was not a thing he funded himself, enabling him to assert savior-like ownership for mankind's expansion into the stars. This precedes we consider the collection of Martian chromosomes and subsequent transformations into horrific creatures. (Once more, this is closer to 2046, not to be confused with the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a useful example for why, exactly we let Mars serve as a long-term aspiration for humanity. Whether in John Carpenter's chintzy space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our distant neighbor planet doesn't tend to act as a beacon of optimism. Should someone wishes to make that questionable Martian property deal, perhaps they should start with at least making the fictional depiction look good.

The Marvel Dregs

A of the goofiest quirks of the current Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the various world-threatening cataclysms, including a five-year time-jump whose events are largely undepicted in the movies themselves; the films have become like a clock radio constantly running a few minutes fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. So there's a large assortment of Marvel stuff that various wikis helpfully explain to be taking place in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated romp *The Marvels*, take place distant from Earth, and so seem quite unmoored from our sense of time. But the bad stuff is some of the worst Marvel has ever produced: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on these examples, we're facing a whole lot of frustrating wheel-spinning in 2026, including the related spin that actually, this nonsensical crap happening in front of us is crucial to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the real world that assertion will probably turn out to be accurate.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Most of the classic five-movie *Planet of the Apes* cycle is located in the more distant tomorrow of Earth, but the modern series that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins closer to home, initiating its chronology around 2016. So by the time a pathogen that knocks out the majority of Earth’s people has run its course, and also enhanced the intelligence of primates, it’s only 2026, with further human indignities (and simian triumphs) ahead. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this virus spreads globally and taking place 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; astonishingly, we’re already six years out from the spread of Covid-19, and society, though obviously impacted by the ongoing virus, was not wiped out, and our technology definitely hasn't been knocked out. Yet this bleakest of the quartet of modern *Apes* movies (to date!) still has a significant downer in store, suggesting that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines either, will unavoidably lead to violent conflict, regardless of the efforts of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who appeal to others’ worst instincts, even if those instincts are not held by the most. Currently, it feels difficult to dispute that, even though we ought to try.

Metropolis

Easily the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie close to marking its centennial. Fritz Lang’s silent classic *Metropolis* is set in a city of tomorrow where wealthy industrialists preside over the towers as laborers work tirelessly below the surface on the equipment that power the city. Rich surface resident Freder, son of the city’s ruler, has his eyes opened to these enormous class divisions when he falls for Maria, an underground activist who preaches a reconciliation of the two halves of Metropolis. A scientist with darker plans builds a robot in her likeness, hoping to bring the entire Metropolis down in flames. Here, a robot created to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the ruling corporate class, but someone who desires to see them destroyed; it's one element inverted by reality in a vision of tomorrow that otherwise seems to be progressing. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where technology depends on traditional human toil, which seems like a perfect union of rightwing contempt for “the working class” and corporate zeal for an tech boom. It hasn't yet come to pass, but it's simple to picture a somewhat less stylish-looking 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 gap between the haves and the have-nots is bridged with compassion; rather than with concrete reforms. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for peaceful cohabitation; in contrast to *Dawn*, it seems optimistic about the chance