Richard Roeper's 10 Most Anticipated Summer 2026 Movies

Richard Roeper has his 10 most anticipated films of summer 2026 mapped out, and the spread covers everything from a resurrected cartoon lawsuit to Steven Spielberg’s return to science fiction.

The veteran critic for the Chicago Sun-Times ordered the list by release date rather than pure enthusiasm, running through a season that’s shaping up as one of the more loaded theatrical lineups in years. Franchise tonnage and director-driven projects both make the cut. The overlap between those categories is thin.

“The Devil Wears Prada 2” kicks things off. The original 2006 film turned Miranda Priestly into a cultural shorthand for a particular brand of professional terror, and the sequel arrives carrying two decades of that baggage into a media landscape that’s barely recognizable from when the first one dropped.

Not everything with marquee appeal made Roeper’s list. Guy Ritchie’s “In the Grey,” starring Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal, didn’t clear the bar. Neither did “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” slated for May 22. Both projects carry the kind of built-in audience that studios don’t have to work hard to find, but Roeper’s 10 slots weren’t just about guaranteed turnout.

The films that did earn spots tend to signal something larger. Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day” represents the director’s first real push into science fiction territory in years, and Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” puts one of Hollywood’s most disciplined craftsmen against one of Western literature’s oldest stories. Pixar’s “Toy Story 5” also makes the list. Roeper described the franchise as “the greatest animated franchise of all time,” a claim that’s hard to dispute from anyone who still hasn’t fully recovered from what “Toy Story 3” did to them in 2010.

Hugh Jackman stars in “The Death of Robin Hood,” opening June 19. Jackman stepping into a role that’s been reinterpreted across stage and screen for centuries isn’t a small casting decision, and pre-release conversation has reflected that. “It’s the kind of casting that either feels inevitable or completely wrong, and you won’t know which until you’re sitting in the theater,” Roeper told the Sun-Times. June 26 brings “Supergirl.” July 1 delivers “Minions and Monsters.”

Then there’s “Coyote vs. Acme,” and its backstory alone earns it a spot on any list.

Warner Bros. shelved the completed live-action animated hybrid in 2023 and wrote it off as a tax move rather than releasing it. The decision drew public pushback from the people who actually made the film and reignited a long-running argument about whether studios can treat finished creative work as a financial instrument to be zeroed out on a balance sheet. The Motion Picture Association has documented similar situations across the industry, though none generated quite the same volume of public anger. Warner Bros. eventually reversed course. The film hits theaters August 28, an unusual arc for any project in an industry that doesn’t often admit it got something wrong.

“Evil Dead Burn” opens July 24. “Super Troopers 3” follows August 7.

The National Association of Theatre Owners tracks seasonal box office patterns closely, and the 2026 summer corridor reflects a broader industry push to rebuild theatrical attendance that’s been grinding along since the pandemic disruptions of 2020. Studios have been more aggressive about protecting exclusive theatrical windows, a posture that’s changed how calendars get built.

The full run from May through late August clocks 10 films across 15 release weeks, with dates concentrated in late June through early August. That stretch from June 19 through August 21 accounts for 7 of the 10 titles. Four films land within 26 days of each other between July 1 and July 24, which is either confident programming or a scheduling collision depending on how the box office shakes out.

Roeper’s 2012 and 2020 summer preview lists both identified films that went on to define their respective seasons, and his track record of flagging ambition over pure spectacle has held up reasonably well. Whether “Disclosure Day” or “The Odyssey” or the long-delayed cartoon-versus-corporation lawsuit comedy actually delivers is a question 600 theaters across the country will start answering come August 21.

The rest is just waiting.