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The date 2025 might sound increasingly advanced. Perhaps it's the sound of the letter "f" in "five". But 2026 represents one step beyond, and it's where we currently stand, with each futuristic advancement – chiefly the widespread adoption of AI – appearing bleak, or perhaps more grim. (It often seems like in a proper dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-sponsored anti-human technology would actually function more effectively?) Didn't anyone warn us about this?

The response, particularly concerning science fiction films from years ago (or occasionally recently) positioned in 2026, is both yes and no. A number of these prophecies are universally relevant (global catastrophe) but in detail far-fetched (when mankind is ultimately ravaged, we will most likely bring down the ape population alongside us). Others of them are prescient; others just look like bad green screen. But it's worth examining where different directors, ranging from masters to grunts, believed we'd be situated by this time in the world's evolution. So let's take a look at some of the films that have been set in 2026 throughout cinematic history and determine if they have anything to impart.

Doom

Now, this isn't promising. In the universe of the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth can set up a research facility. Now, the negative events – regarding narrative and in terms of over-the-top cinematic imitations of a FPS video game – does not actually transpire for two more decades in the future, so even if we do discover a portal to Mars this year, we might have a respite to avert true disaster. If we did discover a passageway to an old Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to tell whether Elon Musk would remain extremely excited to dispatch people to Mars or would immediately turn disheartened that the discovery wasn't something he funded himself, enabling him to assert savior-like credit for humanity's expansion into the stars. That's before we even get to the harvesting of Martian chromosomes and subsequent transformations into horrific creatures. (Again, this is closer to 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a good test case for the reasons we allow Mars become a long-term aspiration for mankind. Whether in the director's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our distant neighbor planet doesn't tend to act as a symbol of optimism. If anyone wants to make that questionable red-planet property deal, maybe they ought to begin with first ensuring the fantasy version look good.

The Marvel Dregs

One of the goofiest quirks of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the various world-threatening cataclysms, encompassing a half-decade leap whose events are mostly not shown in the movies themselves; the movies have turned into a clock radio constantly running a few minutes fast – except with minutes, it's annual increments. Consequently, there exists a large assortment of MCU content that various wikis helpfully explain to be taking place in 2026. The better entries, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated adventure *The Marvels*, take place distant from Earth, and so feel pretty detached from our sense of time. However the bad stuff is some of the worst the studio has ever produced: the nonsensically meandering TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on this stuff, we're in for a whole lot of frustrating wheel-spinning in 2026, including the accompanying spin that actually, this confusing mess happening in front of us is essential to future events. Even worse, in the actual world that claim will probably prove accurate.

The Apes Saga Continues

The majority of the original five-movie *Planet of the Apes* cycle is located in the further-flung tomorrow of Earth, but the modern series that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts nearer the present, initiating its timeline around 2016. Thus, when a pathogen that knocks out the majority of Earth’s human population has run its course, and simultaneously boosted the cognitive abilities of apes, it’s only 2026, with further human indignities (and simian triumphs) to come. The end-credits sequence of *Rise*, depicting how rapidly this virus propagates around the world and set around 2019, looks profoundly unsettling in the aftermath of the actual global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; if you can believe it, we’re already six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and humanity, though clearly wounded by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been annihilated, and technological infrastructure definitely hasn't been disabled. But this most pessimistic of the quartet of contemporary *Apes* movies (at least so far!) still has a substantial bummer in store, suggesting that the fundamental nature of beings, whatever qualifies as each, will inevitably lead to violent conflict, regardless of the work of the most well-meaning among us. We’re at the mercy of those who appeal to others’ baser impulses, although those instincts are not held by the majority. Currently, it seems difficult to dispute that, despite the fact that we ought to try.

The Silent Classic

Easily the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in cinema is from a movie close to marking its centennial. Fritz Lang’s iconic silent film *Metropolis* is set in a futuristic city where rich businessmen preside over the skyscrapers as workers toil below the surface on the machines that power the city. Affluent city-dweller Freder, scion of the city’s ruler, has his eyes opened to these enormous social gaps when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an underground organizer who advocates for a reconciliation of the separate strata of Metropolis. A scientist with more radical plans creates a robot in her likeness, hoping to bring the entire Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a robot created to mimic a human does not serve as an instrument of the ruling corporate class, but an entity who desires to see them destroyed; it's a component inverted by reality in a future that in other ways seems to be progressing. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where technology depends on traditional manual labor, which appears as a most logical union of conservative contempt for “unskilled workers” and business zeal for an AI bubble. It has not yet materialized, but it's easy to imagine a slightly more utilitarian iteration of Lang’s city growing with the promise of a resurgence to industrial production. The trickier, less plausible accomplishment is the ending of the film, where the gap between the haves and the poor is spanned with compassion; rather than with concrete reforms. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates peaceful cohabitation; unlike *Dawn*, it appears optimistic about the possibility