If you just read the headlines this year, you would be forgiven for thinking that movies are circling the drain, with audiences staying away from supposed sure things, movie stars like Julia Roberts and Jennifer Lawrence failing to attract viewers, summer spectacles sagging, and artificial intelligence lurking like an inevitable mass extinction event. When we gather next December to take stock of 2026, will we be bemoaning the end of cinema? Of storytelling? Of humanism writ large?
