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The date 2025 might sound increasingly advanced. Maybe it's the sound of the consonant "f" in "five". But 2026 represents a leap forward, and it's where we currently stand, with each science-fiction-style advancement – primarily the widespread adoption of AI – seeming bleak, or possibly even worse. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-sponsored dehumanizing technology would actually operate a bit better?) Didn't anyone warn us about this?

The answer, particularly regarding our sci-fi movies made long ago (or occasionally months ago) set in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of those warnings are universally relevant (worldwide disaster) but specifically far-fetched (when mankind is inevitably decimated, we will almost certainly bring down the primate species alongside us). Some of them are visionary; others just resemble poor green screen. But it's worth examining where different directors, from geniuses to journeymen, believed we'd be situated by this time in the world's development. Therefore, we shall examine at some of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 throughout cinematic history and see if they contain any lessons to teach us.

The Game 'Doom'

Well, this isn't promising. According to the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was recently celebrated by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that humanity finds a portal to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth can set up a scientific outpost. Currently, the negative events – regarding narrative and concerning over-the-top film versions of a FPS video game – does not actually go down for two more decades in the future, so should we find a Martian gateway this year, we might have some time to avoid true disaster. If we did uncover a portal to an ancient Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to determine whether Elon Musk would still be extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the portal was not a thing he funded himself, enabling him to assert messianic ownership for mankind's expansion to the cosmos. This precedes we even get to the harvesting of Martian chromosomes and resulting transformations into monstrous beings. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, not to be confused with the acclaimed director's film.) In general, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a useful example for the reasons we allow Mars serve as a stretch-goal hope for humanity. Whether in the director's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the new-age spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely act as a beacon of optimism. If anyone wishes to close that questionable red-planet real estate sale, perhaps they should start with first making the fictional depiction look good.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

A of the strangest features of the current Marvel Cinematic Universe is how to account for the multiple global cataclysms, encompassing a half-decade leap whose occurrences are largely not shown in the movies themselves; the films have become like a clock radio perpetually set a few seconds fast – except with minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a whole bunch of MCU content that fan sites helpfully explain to be taking place in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated romp *The Marvels*, occur distant from Earth, and so seem quite unmoored from our sense of time. But the poorer material is some of the worst Marvel has ever produced: the nonsensically meandering TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on these examples, we're in for a great deal of frustrating stagnation in 2026, along with the related narrative that actually, this confusing mess happening in front of us is essential to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the real world that claim will likely turn out to be correct.

The Apes Saga Continues

Most of the classic five-movie *Planet of the Apes* series 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 nearer the present, initiating its timeline approximately 2016. So by the time a virus that knocks out most of Earth’s people has run its course, and also boosted the cognitive abilities of apes, it’s only 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and simian triumphs) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this virus spreads around the world and taking place in 2019, looks downright eerie in the aftermath of the actual pandemic that would begin in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* seems more abstract; astonishingly, we’re now half a decade from the onset of Covid-19, and society, though clearly wounded by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been annihilated, and technological infrastructure definitely has not been knocked out. But this most pessimistic of the four contemporary *Apes* movies (at least so far!) still has a substantial downer in store, implying that human and/or ape nature, whatever qualifies as either, will unavoidably lead to violent conflict, regardless of the work of the best-intentioned among us. We’re subject to the whims of those who exploit others’ worst instincts, although those drives are not held by the majority. Right now, it feels difficult to dispute that, despite the fact that we probably should.

Metropolis

By far the best-known depiction of 2026 in film is from a movie close to celebrating its centennial. The director's silent classic *Metropolis* is set in a city of tomorrow where wealthy industrialists lord over the towers as laborers toil 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 subterranean organizer who advocates for a reconciliation of the separate strata of Metropolis. A scientist with more radical plans creates a automaton in her image, aiming to bring the whole of Metropolis down in flames. In this narrative, a machine created to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the ruling corporate class, but someone who wants to see them destroyed; it's one element flipped by reality in a future that in other ways seems to be progressing. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where advanced machinery depends on old-fashioned human toil, which appears as a most logical fusion of conservative disdain for “unskilled workers” and corporate zeal for an tech boom. It has not yet come to pass, but it's simple to picture a slightly less stylish-looking version of Lang’s city expanding out with the prospect of a resurgence to manufacturing. The more complex, less plausible accomplishment is the ending of the film, where the chasm between the wealthy and the have-nots is spanned with love; rather than with specific policies. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; unlike *Dawn*, it seems optimistic about the chance