Top Ten Movies I've Watched in 2026...in July

I’ve made it my mission this year to see 200 films, and as the halfway point has passed, I thought it would be a good idea to reflect on what I’ve really loved this year. The problem is, there’s been a lot!

There are no honourable mentions on any of my midyear lists, but does feel right to say that I’ve enjoyed so much this year that I don’t think I would have ever seen had I not given myself this little challenge. Movies are something that have always meant a lot to me, so making a point to expand and accelerate my taste levels feels important to me. Plus, there’s plenty of opportunities to laugh and/or cry. Sometimes at the same time!

Anyways…onto the list.

10. Down With Love (2003)

This is one of those movies that everyone was hyping up online out of nowhere a while ago that I skipped. It looked cute in photos. But in all honesty, a romcom pastiche from the mid-2000s didn’t sound super appealing. And then, I actually watched it and was taken aback but how insane the final act is.

The film is legitimately very funny, but the energy becomes Looney Tunes-esque in the final twenty minutes or so, as the plot collapses in on itself with drawn out monologues and jokes about hair colour determining personality. There is something undeniable about Renee Zellweger’s performance at this point, where her strange voice and awkward physicality throughout much of the film reach a comedic climax that is totally unexpected. Ewan McGregor plays his part perfectly opposite her, playing the playboy and the devoted follower with such abandon that it can leave you almost speechless.

This is by far the funniest film I have watched this year. By a long shot.

9. Project Hail Mary (2026)

I am a sucker for good spectacle and a pet who is a friend. My friend and I dragged ourselves to this out of boredom one day and sat down in a shockingly full IMAX theatre for what turned out to be a glorious viewing experience. She cried, I pretended I wasn’t also crying, and we walked out buzzing over the film. It was really just that good.

At the core of it, this was a very good script. Conceptually strong and emotionally dense. The flashbacks offer a twist that, while a little obvious, really does make the bravery and kindness of the character even more effective. You might have seen it coming, but that did not stop the audience I saw this with from gasping in horror as it happened.

Ryan Gosling is one of those movie stars that I always appreciate. He’s an actor who plays sensitivity and warmth very well, and this is no exception. There’s obviously a goofiness to what he does well, but he is very good at embodying a softness. That really does help when his costar is a literal rock alien. It’s still way too early in the year to suggest any awards contenders, but I would not be upset if he made some waves this year. The film is both very good and could not work without his performance and star power. We’ve awarded much worse for less.

8. 3 Women (1977)

I want evil Pinky to run me over with her car.

There’s a lot that could be said about the film and how it explores identity and relationships between the three women. The dreamlike way it plays with the sisterly and the maternal. Forgetting oneself in the role of caregiver and the inability to recapture youth in context of motherhood. Or at least, that was my initial takeaway from the film, which is defiant in it’s refusal to give easy answers. It is a film that plays with dream logic to craft a narrative that slowly decays into itself as logic warps without snapping.

All of this around two of the greatest performances I have ever seen on screen. Duval is one of the greatest examples of why the camera should not be fed only the regular faces that Hollywood prefers. Her appearance in this film is as odd as it is magnetic, with her lankiness taking on a glamorous alien quality that a more convential beauty would not allow. She is a striking line of yellow when she appears, splitting the screen and staring across various rooms with her tiny head and giant eyes. Across from her is the embodiment of 1970s girlhood. Spacek balances brightness and fragility that can so easily curdle into a sneer or a bark at a moments notice. They ebb and flow around each other with a dancer-like quality, which heightens as the film lets reality slip away.

Look, I’ve had this on my watchlist for years. What kept me away? Well, mostly the length and the general unease I had with the poster. Something about the due of Shelley Duval and Sissy Spacek staring at me was spooky. Which, as it turns out, really does reflect the film.

7. The Moment (2026)

I have a full review of the film The Moment, but one thing I want to assure you of is that Charli xcx is the most meta pop star alive. In a sea of self-aware starlets, she is the only one who seems to get that being embarrassed is kind of the point. Pop music, pop stardom, pop culture - it is all a humiliation ritual!

The Moment both vindicates brat (2024) as a cultural product with more depth than what the genre typically puts out, and parodies the immense pressure of suddenly being “the moment” in a fast moving world. The film is mostly a comedy, but a much darker one than you might expect. Everything climaxes with failure, to the point where you half expect the hopelessness to consume the film. But it is not a tragedy. It is a button on the entire brat phenomenon.

6. Perfect Blue (1997)

Not to start this segment off mad, but the idea that this film was “ripped off” by Black Swan (2010) is a testament to how many people have not seen either film. These are not remotely similar in style, content, or premise. I want to state that up front because, for years now, I have seen this film be referenced as the work that Darren Aronofsky “stole from” when making his film. That is a ridiculous stretch, even if you do not like him as a director. If nothing else, Perfect Blue is a much more engaging film that Black Swan, and one I would actually watch again.

This is a ridiculously good thriller. A well crafted horror film about fan obsession and the death of self to the altar of celebrity. Satoshi Kon guides the audience through a fractured and increasingly claustrophobic film that ends with the defeat of persona in the spirit of personal artistic fulfilment. All held together (in the English dub) by the fantastic voice performances of Ruby Marlowe and Wendee Lee.

It’s a classic for a reason.

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5. Dakan (1997)

Dakan (also known as Destiny) is a film I did not expect to shake me as much as it did. The story of two gay men in West Africa who are forced into the closet and eventually find their way back to each other is something I could imagine feeling almost quaint in theory. A short film with a simple premise that allows the performances and emotional drive to capture the audience’s attention, to astounding results.

It is haunting in it’s romance and devastation. Mohamed Camara’s career as a director basically boils down to only this one film, and it is a shame that we do not have a plethora of work from him if this is how his debut feature turned out. He takes what might have been a slight or underwhelming story, or one that overindulges in pain, and makes it a gorgeous love story.

4. When The Wind Blows (1986)

This film inspired an article on this very SubStack, but I want to reiterate here that this is one of the saddest films I have seen in my life. The normalcy of a couple existing in the wreckage of war hit me in the gut with very little warning. It may sound hyperbolic, but I am rarely left speechless and quiet after watching a film. In a world that regularly regards film as a medium for escapism, When The Wind Blows refuses to look away. The only levity is that it looks beautiful while tearing your heart to pieces.

3. Borderline (1930)

This film was basically nothing like I was expecting. Borderline is a 1930 film about a black couple, Pete and Adah (Paul and Eslanda Robeson) who are boarding in a room within a white household. An affair begins between the wife and a white man named Thorne (Gavin Arthur, sexologist and grandson of President Chester A. Arthur), to the consternation of his wife Astrid (H.D., Hilda Doolittle) and eventually her death. It is a film about racial tension, emotional friction, and modern problems in a world that was only just beginning to anticipate them.

Everyone is doing their best work in this film. In particular Arthur and the Robesons should have all had much bigger careers. Obviously Paul Robeson had a very robust career and plenty to brag about, but his wife Eslanda more than meets his ability to command the screen. Gavin Arthur, meanwhile, could have easily been one of the greatest leading men of the golden age of Hollywood. He and Paul share a chemistry in the final act that lights up the screen. All wrapped in the package of then groundbreaking cinematic techniques that give the entire film an almost contemporary feel.

It would not be an understatement to say that this film is far ahead of the surrounding cinema of the time. This is not staid or overly revelling in spectacle. Rather, it is a film that revels in the ability to edit as an artistic tool, rather than one of utility. Even the best films of this period feel their age. But Borderline plays at the edges of what was acceptable (past them in some cases) to create something that is fresher today than it has any right to be.

2. No Other Choice (2025)

There is something decidedly retro about how No Other Choice handles its premise and comedy. Not in a negative way, but the structure of this film often feels in line with how 1990s Hollywood handled the ennui of Generation X. This is a compliment, if for no other reason than it is not something as thematically dull as The Menu (2022).

Park Chan-wook takes a simple but instantly funny premise and runs with it. Of everything on this list, I think this is the film most people are likely to see and so I do not want to spoil it. But it is a testament to Park Chan-wook as a director that this film, which is long, never feels sloppy or indulgent in the way it easily could.

I shan’t say more, but implore you all to see this when you can.

1. The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970)

William Wyler, who I knew best as the director of the fluffy romantic comedy Roman Holiday (1953), the musical Funny Girl (1968) and the tense drama The Little Foxes (1941), ended his career with a bang. A lifetime of careful takes and deliberate filmmaking all came to a head with The Liberation of L.B. Jones. This film about race and police violence at the beginning of the 1970s takes all he had honed over nearly half a century of work and funnels it into 100 minutes of escalating tension and fear.

There is a slow, creeping horror to this film. What seems to be a pretty obvious morality play about how racism is bad slowly chips away at the audience’s assumptions as the reality of Southern racism and police conspiracy chip away at the pretence of civility. The film submerges itself in the crime and cover up as everything fractures into something unbearably real.

I’ve seen reviews that try to dismiss this film as a precursor to Blaxploitation - as if influencing an entire genre is suggestive of failure - and leave it at that. This idea that Wyler making a film that bridges the stylistic melodrama of his hey day with the coming decade of gritty filmmaking is uninteresting or tepid in execution is one I don’t agree with. Critics dismissed this as a cold, uninteresting film about race at the tail end of a decade where transgression was becoming almost a norm for Hollywood. But Wyler’s “cold” approach is not clinical. He treats the events of the film with the horror they deserve. This is no less tender a film in execution than anything he did with Bette Davis or Olivia de Havilland back at his peak.

That’s the list!

This will probably be out of date by the time I publish. I’ve written, rewritten, reconsidered, reordered, and started this a dozen times. Almost cheated by doubling the length and doubling up on nominees. But unlike the Oscars, I do not cheat myself or others.

There’s so much more to watch. It is overwhelming and exciting at the same time. I always want recommendations, so if you have a film you really love, I’ll add it to the watch list.

Unless it stars Tori Spelling. I have certainly seen everything she’s done.