Forty films in six months. Some were entertaining. Some were unforgettable. A few completely rewired how I think about humanity, power, science, art, love, and oppression. If 2025 was the year I watched stories about identity, then 2026 has become the year of institutionsโhow they shape us, fail us, and sometimes destroy us.
There is a strange comfort in sitting in a dark theater while the world outside seems determined to burn itself down.
Maybe thatโs why I still love cinema.
Not because movies help us escape realityโbut because the best films force us to confront it.
The first half of 2026 was a surprisingly strong year. I watched forty films spanning documentaries, comedies, historical dramas, thrillers and quiet arthouse masterpieces. Looking back at my Letterboxd diary, I noticed something interesting:
Almost every favorite challenged an institution.
Marriage.
Fashion.
Science.
Religion.
Capitalism.
The prison system.
History itself.
These arenโt simply films.
Theyโre conversations.
Here are the ten that stayed with me.
1. The Invite
Sometimes the most uncomfortable movies donโt involve violence.
They involve dinner.
At first glance, The Invite feels like another awkward social comedy centered around a gathering that slowly goes off the rails. But what makes the film extraordinary is how the camera becomes another guest at the table.
The cinematography is almost manipulativeโin the best possible way. Long takes, uncomfortable close-ups and careful framing make the audience feel every pause, every forced smile and every social lie.
The invitation itself becomes a psychological trap.
Every twenty minutes the story shifts directions.
Just when you think youโve figured out where itโs going, another emotional layer unfolds.
Married couples especially will recognize fragments of themselves somewhere inside this filmโnot necessarily because the situations are identical, but because relationships are built upon countless small performances we give each other every day.
The humor is warm.
The awkwardness is painfully real.
And underneath it all lies a meditation about honesty.
Synopsis
Joe and Angelaโs marriage is on thin ice when they invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbors to dinner, sending the evening into increasingly unexpected and emotionally revealing territory.
Director & Producer
Directed by Olivia Wilde and starring Seth Rogen, Wilde, Penรฉlope Cruz and Edward Norton, the film demonstrates remarkable confidence from its creative team, whose emphasis on visual storytelling allows silence and body language to become as important as dialogue.
โถ Watch the Official Trailer:
The Invite โ Official Trailer on YouTube
2. The Devil Wears Prada 2
Hollywood rarely gets sequels right twenty years later.
This one actually earns its existence.
Instead of lazily repeating the first film, it asks a more interesting question:
What happens to fashion when algorithms begin replacing tastemakers?
Miranda Priestly still dominates every room she enters.
Andy has evolved.
Emily remains wonderfully chaotic.
Yet the real villain isnโt another editor.
Itโs irrelevance.
The digital age has democratized fashion while simultaneously commodifying creativity.
Social media influencers challenge traditional magazines.
Artificial intelligence threatens designers.
Luxury brands compete against TikTok trends.
The sequel understands that fashion was never only about clothes.
It has always been about power.
Just like the original did.
Synopsis
Miranda Priestly faces an industry transformed by AI, social media and collapsing print media while confronting her own legacy. The old hierarchies of fashion are under threat, and the people who once controlled taste must now survive a world in which everyone with a phone believes they are a tastemaker.
Director & Producer
Directed by David Frankel, who also directed the original 2006 film, the sequel reunites Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci. The filmmakers wisely preserve the chemistry and elegance that made the original iconic while modernizing its themes for the AI era.
โถ Watch the Official Trailer:
The Devil Wears Prada 2 โ Official Trailer on YouTube
โFashion changes every season. Human insecurity never goes out of style.โ
3. Colours of Time
This became one of the yearโs biggest surprises.
Paris has always inspired artists.
Now it inspires debates about artificial intelligence.
Photography once threatened painting.
Digital threatened film.
AI now threatens everyone.
Watching this movie in 2026 felt strangely prophetic because every artistic revolution eventually produces the same panic.
Will painters disappear?
Will photographers disappear?
Will filmmakers disappear?
History answers every time:
No.
Artists evolve.
The movie beautifully captures both old Paris and modern Paris while quietly asking whether technology changes artโor merely the tools we use to create it.
The debate between photography and painting becomes especially relevant today. When photography arrived, many feared that painting would become obsolete. Why paint reality if a machine could capture it instantly?
Sound familiar?
Today, we hear the same anxiety about AI art.
Why draw if a machine can generate an image?
Why write if an algorithm can produce text?
Why compose music if software can create a song?
But perhaps the history of art teaches us something more hopeful: new technology does not eliminate human creativity. It forces us to redefine it.
Synopsis
A group of distant relatives unexpectedly inherit an abandoned house in Normandy and discover the story of an ancestor who left the countryside for Paris in 1895. As the film moves between past and present, the characters encounter photography, painting, memory and the changing face of the city.
Director & Producer
Directed by acclaimed French filmmaker Cรฉdric Klapisch, Colours of Time continues his fascination with people, cities, generations and the invisible connections between them. The filmโs visual language celebrates Paris itself as an evolving artwork, making the city one of its strongest characters.
โถ Watch the Official Trailer:
Colours of Time โ Official Trailer on YouTube
4. An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
This was my third viewing.
Twenty years later.
Itโs even scarier now.
Almost every warning Al Gore presented has become our present reality.
Rising temperatures.
Extreme weather.
Melting glaciers.
Climate migration.
Ocean warming.
Wildfires.
Heat waves.
The documentary isnโt shocking because it predicted the future.
Itโs shocking because we ignored it.
Perhaps even more depressing than climate change itself is the persistence of science denialism.
We now possess better data.
Better models.
Better satellites.
Better evidence.
Yet disinformation spreads faster than peer-reviewed science.
That may be humanityโs greatest existential challenge.
Watching this film twenty years after its release is like finding an old fire alarm that has been screaming the entire time while half the building insists there is no smoke.
The science became stronger.
The consequences became more visible.
And yet denial survived.
That should frighten us as much as climate change itself.
Synopsis
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore presents scientific evidence demonstrating the accelerating climate crisis and calls for immediate global action.
Director & Producer
Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the film uses a remarkably restrained approach. Rather than turning climate science into Hollywood spectacle, Guggenheim allows evidence, charts, photographs and Goreโs presentation to carry the story.
โถ Watch the Trailer:
An Inconvenient Truth โ Trailer on YouTube
5. The Girl with the Needle
Absolutely devastating.
One of the finest black-and-white films Iโve seen in years.
Inspired by the true story of Danish serial killer Dagmar Overbye, the film examines poverty, shame, abortion stigma and the impossible choices women faced during the early twentieth century.
Its cinematography deserves to be studied in film schools.
Every frame resembles a haunting photograph.
Nothing feels artificial.
Everything feels suffocating.
Rather than sensationalizing tragedy, the film quietly exposes how oppressive societies manufacture desperate people.
This is where the movie becomes bigger than its historical setting.
Societies often criminalize or stigmatize desperate women, then refuse to examine the conditions that created their desperation.
Poverty.
Abandonment.
Unwanted pregnancy.
No social safety net.
No bodily autonomy.
No acceptable escape.
Then society arrives afterward with a courtroom and asks: How could this happen?
Well, maybe look around.
Synopsis
A struggling young woman becomes entangled with a mysterious caretaker for unwanted children in post-World War I Copenhagen, entering a world of desperation, secrecy and horror.
Director & Producer
Directed by Magnus von Horn, the film confirms him as one of Europeโs most fearless contemporary filmmakers. The visual work is extraordinary, turning early twentieth-century Copenhagen into something between historical realism and nightmare.
โถ Watch the Official Trailer:
The Girl with the Needle โ Official Trailer on YouTube
6. Jane (2017)
Sometimes greatness isnโt loud.
Sometimes greatness spends sixty years watching chimpanzees.
Jane Goodall transformed biology not through technology but through patience.
The documentary reminds us that scientific breakthroughs often require something modern society has almost forgotten:
Time.
The archive footage is extraordinary.
The emotional journey even more so.
Watching one person dedicate an entire lifetime to understanding another species is profoundly humbling.
We live in an era obsessed with instant results.
Instant opinions.
Instant fame.
Instant expertise.
Jane Goodall represents almost the exact opposite.
Observe.
Wait.
Learn.
Question your assumptions.
Observe again.
That is science.
And that kind of dedication is beautiful.
Synopsis
Using remarkable archival footage, the documentary follows Jane Goodallโs pioneering chimpanzee research in Tanzania and the extraordinary personal journey that changed our understanding of animals and ourselves.
Director & Producer
Directed by Brett Morgen, the documentary transforms scientific history into deeply emotional cinema. The archival footage, much of it shot decades earlier, gives the film an intimacy that makes scientific discovery feel almost magical.
โถ Watch the Official Trailer:
Jane โ Official National Geographic Trailer on YouTube
7. The Boss of It All
Lars von Trier made me laugh.
I never thought Iโd write that sentence.
This Danish comedy is wonderfully absurd.
Corporate dishonesty becomes theatrical performance as an actor is hired to play the fictional CEO employees have never met.
Every scene escalates the chaos.
The performances are magnificent.
Iโve already watched it more than once.
Thatโs probably the highest compliment I can give any comedy.
What makes the film especially funny is that corporate culture already contains so much theater.
Job titles.
Mission statements.
Executive jargon.
People pretending decisions came from somewhere else.
The imaginary boss is barely more absurd than many real bosses.
Synopsis
A businessman who has spent years blaming unpopular decisions on a fictional company president suddenly needs that imaginary boss to become real. He hires an actor to impersonate the CEO, and the performance quickly spirals beyond anyoneโs control.
Director & Producer
Directed by Lars von Trier, the film demonstrates that his satire can be just as sharp as his tragedies. The strange visual choices and superb ensemble acting turn corporate life into existential farce.
โถ Watch the Trailer:
The Boss of It All โ Trailer on YouTube
8. Marty Supreme
Fast.
Energetic.
Grounded.
Inspired by the life of legendary table tennis player Marty Reisman, the film avoids turning him into a superhero.
Instead, it celebrates persistence.
Dreams remain compelling when they stay connected to reality.
The pacing never slows.
Yet beneath the excitement lies a surprisingly human portrait of ambition.
What I liked most is that the film understands obsession without romanticizing it completely.
Ambition can build you.
It can also eat you alive.
Marty Supreme lives in that uncomfortable space between inspiration and madness.
And it moves like somebody accidentally gave an arthouse movie three energy drinks.
Synopsis
Inspired by legendary American table-tennis hustler Marty Reisman, the film follows an ambitious young player chasing greatness, money and recognition through the strange, competitive world of professional ping-pong.
Director & Producer
Directed by Josh Safdie and produced by A24, the film brings Safdieโs trademark nervous energy and relentless pacing into an unlikely sports story. Timothรฉe Chalamet carries the film with a performance that keeps ambition grounded in human insecurity.
โถ Watch the Official Trailer:
Marty Supreme โ Official A24 Trailer on YouTube
9. Dead Manโs Wire
True stories almost always carry a different emotional weight.
Knowing that real people actually lived these events changes everything.
The film delivers strong performances while maintaining tension throughout.
Rather than glorifying violence, it explores desperation.
Sometimes history is stranger than fiction because fiction usually needs to make sense.
Reality doesnโt.
The story of Tony Kiritsis is so bizarre that a screenwriter inventing it from scratch would probably be told to calm down.
Yet underneath the spectacle is something much more serious: economic frustration, humiliation, rage and the dangerous moment when a person decides the system has left him no legitimate path forward.
Synopsis
Based on the infamous 1977 hostage crisis, the film follows Tony Kiritsis, who kidnaps a mortgage company executive and holds him captive with a shotgun wired to the manโs neck, triggering a tense public standoff that captures national attention.
Director & Producer
Directed by Gus Van Sant, the film benefits from a filmmaker who has always been fascinated by outsiders, alienation and people living at the edges of society. Bill Skarsgรฅrd leads a strong cast in a story that balances action with psychological desperation.
โถ Watch the Official Trailer:
Dead Manโs Wire โ Official Trailer on YouTube
10. The Alabama Solution
The hardest watch of the year.
Not because itโs graphic.
Because itโs real.
The documentary exposes Alabamaโs prison system with remarkable restraint.
Watching it, I couldnโt stop thinking about how institutions normalize suffering.
The title made me think of the historical phrase โFinal Solution,โ and while the historical contexts are fundamentally different and should never be collapsed into one another, the documentary forced an unsettling question into my mind:
What happens when a system begins treating an entire class of people as disposable?
It is ultimately a story about incarceration, dignity and resistance.
About people refusing to surrender their humanity even when the institution surrounding them has.
The incarcerated men at the center of the documentary are not passive subjects.
They document.
They expose.
They resist.
They fight for their rights from inside a system designed to make their voices disappear.
If democracy is measured by how it treats its prisoners, then this documentary asks questions America cannot afford to ignore.
Synopsis
Incarcerated men use contraband cellphones and their own documentation to expose conditions inside Alabama prisons, revealing violence, neglect and systemic failures while fighting to make the outside world pay attention.
Director & Producer
The documentary comes from filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman, whose work places the voices and evidence of incarcerated people at the center of the story. Rather than simply talking about prisoners, the film allows prisoners to document the system themselves.
โถ Watch the Official Trailer:
The Alabama Solution โ Official HBO Trailer on YouTube
Cinema doesnโt change the world.
But it changes the people who eventually do.
Honorable Mentions
- Mayor (2020) โ One of the finest documentaries ever made about Palestinian governance under occupation, balancing humor, bureaucracy, and the daily absurdities of leadership.
- The Wizard of the Kremlin โ A timely political drama inspired by Giuliano da Empoliโs novel, exploring power around Vladimir Putin.
- Under the Sun โ A chilling documentary revealing the carefully staged reality presented by North Korea.
- Shall We Dance? โ A joyful Japanese classic about ballroom dancing, conformity, and rediscovering happiness.
- Festen (The Celebration) โ Thomas Vinterbergโs Dogme 95 masterpiece that remains one of cinemaโs most powerful family dramas.
- The Piano Accident โ Quentin Dupieuxโs surreal French comedy, delightfully absurd and uniquely his own.
- Michael
- Obsession
- Young Washington
- Serious People
Why These Films Mattered
Looking at this list, I realized something.
None of my favorite films are really about their plots.
Theyโre about institutions.
Marriage.
Capitalism.
Fashion.
Science.
Religion.
Government.
Prisons.
Climate.
Art.
Each asks the same question in a different language:
How much of ourselves do we sacrifice just to belong?
Maybe thatโs why these films resonated so deeply in 2026.
Weโre living through an age where technology is rewriting work, AI is reshaping creativity, democracy is being stress-tested around the world, the Gaza Genocide continues to force a moral reckoning about international law and human rights, and climate change is no longer a future prediction but our daily weather report.
Great cinema doesnโt offer easy answers.
It simply reminds us that behind every institution is a human being making choicesโand behind every statistic is a life.
Thatโs why Iโll keep watching.
Not to escape the world.
But to better understand the one weโre trying to build.
Wissam Charafeddine 