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The year 2025 might sound increasingly advanced. Maybe it's the sound of the letter "f" in "five". However 2026 represents a leap forward, a moment where we find ourselves, with every science-fiction-style advancement – chiefly the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence – seeming dystopian, or possibly more grim. (It often seems like in a proper dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-backed anti-human technology would actually operate more effectively?) Did no one sound the alarm regarding this?

The answer, at least concerning science fiction films from years ago (or occasionally recently) positioned in 2026, is both yes and no. Some of these prophecies are universally relevant (worldwide disaster) but specifically implausible (when mankind is ultimately decimated, we will almost certainly bring down the ape population alongside us). Others of them are visionary; the rest just look like bad green screen. Yet it remains worth examining where different film-makers, ranging from masters to journeymen, thought we'd be positioned by this time in our planet's development. Therefore, we shall take a look a selection of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 over the years and determine if they contain any lessons to impart.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this isn't promising. According to the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was recently celebrated by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to establish a research facility. Now, the negative events – in terms of plot and concerning over-the-top film versions of a FPS video game – doesn't really go down for two more decades later, so should we do discover a Martian gateway now, we could gain a respite to avoid true disaster. Were we to uncover a passageway to an ancient Martian city, it's truly hard to determine whether Elon Musk would still be extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would immediately turn disheartened that the discovery was not a thing he personally paid for, allowing him to claim messianic credit for mankind's expansion to the cosmos. That's before we even get to the harvesting of extraterrestrial genetics and resulting transformations into horrific creatures. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, not to be confused with the acclaimed director's film.) In general, *Doom* is (at the very least) a useful example for the reasons we allow Mars serve as a stretch-goal hope for humanity. Be it in the director's cheap-looking genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our distant neighbor planet rarely serve as a symbol of optimism. If anyone wishes to close that questionable Martian property deal, maybe they ought to begin with at least making the fantasy version look good.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

A of the goofiest quirks of the current MCU is the way it handles the multiple world-threatening cataclysms, including a five-year time-jump whose events are largely undepicted in the films themselves; the films have become like a alarm clock perpetually set a few minutes fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. So there's a large assortment of MCU content that various wikis clarify to be taking place in 2026. The better entries, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated romp *The Marvels*, occur distant from Earth, and so seem pretty detached from any concrete sense of time. But the bad stuff is some of the worst the studio has created: the convoluted and aimless 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 whole lot of frustrating stagnation in 2026, along with the related spin that actually, this confusing mess unfolding in front of us is essential to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the actual world that claim will likely turn out to be correct.

The Apes Saga Continues

Most of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is set in the further-flung tomorrow of Earth, but the new trilogy that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts nearer the present, initiating its timeline around 2016. Thus, when a virus that knocks out most of Earth’s people has done its damage, and simultaneously boosted the intelligence of apes, it’s merely 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and simian triumphs) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this contagion spreads around the world and taking place in 2019, looks profoundly unsettling in the aftermath of the actual global health crisis that would begin in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; astonishingly, we’re now half a decade from the spread of Covid-19, and society, though obviously impacted by the ongoing virus, hasn't been wiped out, and technological infrastructure certainly has not been knocked out. Yet this bleakest of the four modern *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a substantial downer to offer, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines each, will unavoidably result in warfare, regardless of the work of the most well-meaning individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who appeal to others’ worst instincts, although those instincts don't represent the majority. Right now, it seems hard to dispute that, despite the fact that we ought to try.

Metropolis

By far the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie close to marking its centennial. The director's iconic silent film *Metropolis* is set in a city of tomorrow where rich businessmen preside over the skyscrapers as workers work tirelessly underground on the equipment that keep everything running. Rich city-dweller Freder, son of the city’s master, has his eyes opened to these massive social gaps when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an underground activist who advocates for a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A scientist with darker plans creates a automaton in her likeness, hoping to tear the entire Metropolis down in flames. In this narrative, a robot created to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the ruling corporate class, but an entity who wants to see them destroyed; it's one element inverted by the modern world in a vision of tomorrow that otherwise seems to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where technology relies on traditional human toil, which appears as a most logical fusion of conservative disdain for “unskilled workers” and corporate zeal for an AI bubble. It hasn't yet materialized, but it's easy to picture a slightly less stylish-looking version of Lang’s city growing with the promise of a return to industrial production. The trickier, less plausible accomplishment is the conclusion of the film, where the chasm between the wealthy and the poor is spanned with compassion; rather than with specific policies. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; unlike *Dawn*, it appears hopeful about the chance