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The date 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Maybe it's the presence of the letter "f" in "five". But 2026 represents one step beyond, a moment where we find ourselves, with every science-fiction-style development – chiefly the widespread adoption of AI – seeming dystopian, or possibly even worse. (It often seems like in a true dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-sponsored anti-human technology would actually operate a bit better?) Did no one sound the alarm about this?

The response, particularly regarding science fiction films from years ago (or sometimes months ago) positioned in 2026, is both yes and no. Some of these prophecies are universally relevant (worldwide disaster) but specifically implausible (if humanity is ultimately ravaged, 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 valuable to explore where various directors, from geniuses to journeymen, thought we'd be positioned by this time in the world's development. So let's examine a selection of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 throughout cinematic history and determine if they contain any lessons to teach us.

Doom

Now, this doesn't bode well. In the universe of the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind finds a gateway to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth can establish a research facility. Currently, the bad stuff – regarding plot and in terms of over-the-top film versions of a FPS video game – does not actually transpire for another 20 years later, so even if we do discover a Martian gateway this year, we might have some time to avert catastrophe. If we did uncover a portal to an ancient Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to determine whether Elon Musk would remain super-psyched to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the portal wasn't something he personally paid for, enabling him to assert messianic credit for mankind's expansion to the cosmos. That's before we consider the collection of extraterrestrial genetics and resulting mutations into monstrous beings. (Again, this is closer to 2046, not to be confused with the Wong Kar-wai film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a good test case for why, exactly we let Mars become a stretch-goal aspiration for mankind. Whether in the director's cheap-looking genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely serve as a symbol of hope. If anyone wants to make that questionable red-planet property deal, maybe they should start with first making the fantasy version look good.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

One of the goofiest quirks of the present MCU is the way it handles the various global disasters, including a half-decade leap whose events are largely not shown in the films themselves; the movies have turned into a alarm clock constantly set a few seconds fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. So there's a whole bunch 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 underrated adventure *The Marvels*, occur far away from Earth, and so feel quite detached from our sense of time. However the poorer material is some of the worst Marvel has created: the nonsensically meandering TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on these examples, we're in for a great deal of annoying stagnation in 2026, including the accompanying narrative that in truth, this nonsensical crap unfolding in front of us is crucial to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the real world that assertion will likely turn out to be accurate.

The Apes Saga Continues

Most of the classic five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is set in the further-flung future of Earth, but the modern series that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins closer to home, starting its timeline approximately 2016. So by the time a pathogen that devastates the majority of Earth’s people has done its damage, and also enhanced the intelligence of primates, it’s merely 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and simian triumphs) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this virus propagates around the world and taking place in 2019, looks downright eerie in the aftermath of the actual global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* looks more abstract; if you can believe it, we’re already half a decade from the onset of Covid-19, and society, though obviously wounded by the still-spreading virus, was not annihilated, and technological infrastructure certainly hasn't been disabled. But this most pessimistic of the quartet of modern *Apes* movies (at least so far!) still has a substantial bummer in store, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, whatever qualifies as each, will unavoidably lead to violent conflict, regardless of the efforts of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who exploit others’ baser impulses, even if those instincts are not held by the majority. Currently, it feels difficult to argue with that, even though we probably should.

Metropolis

By far the best-known depiction of 2026 in cinema is from a movie close to celebrating its 100th anniversary. Fritz Lang’s silent classic *Metropolis* is set in a city of tomorrow where rich businessmen preside over the skyscrapers as workers work tirelessly below the surface on the machines that keep everything running. Rich surface resident Freder, scion of the city’s master, has his eyes opened to these massive class divisions when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an underground activist who preaches a coming together of the separate strata of Metropolis. A scientist with darker plans creates a automaton in her image, aiming to bring the whole of Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a robot created to imitate a human isn't a tool of the elite, but someone who desires to witness their downfall; it's one element flipped by reality in a vision of tomorrow that otherwise seems to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where technology depends on old-fashioned manual labor, which seems like a perfect union of rightwing disdain for “the working class” and corporate zeal for an tech boom. It hasn't yet materialized, but it's simple to imagine a slightly less stylish-looking version of Lang’s city growing with the promise of a resurgence to manufacturing. The trickier, harder-to-imagine feat is the conclusion of the film, where the gap between the wealthy and the poor is spanned with compassion; rather than with specific policies. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; in contrast to *Dawn*, it appears optimistic about the chance