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The date 2025 might sound more futuristic. Maybe it's the presence of the consonant "f" in "five". But 2026 represents a leap forward, a moment where we currently stand, with every futuristic development – chiefly the widespread adoption of AI – appearing bleak, or perhaps more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-sponsored anti-human technology might function more effectively?) Didn't anyone warn us about this?

The answer, particularly concerning our sci-fi movies made long ago (or occasionally months ago) set in 2026, is both yes and no. Some of these prophecies are universally relevant (global catastrophe) but in detail implausible (when mankind is inevitably decimated, we will most likely bring down the primate species with us). Some of them are visionary; the rest just resemble bad green screen. Yet it remains worth examining where various directors, from geniuses to grunts, thought we'd be situated by this time in the world's evolution. So let's examine at some of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 over the years and see if they have anything to teach us.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this isn't promising. According to the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind finds a portal to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth can establish a research facility. Now, the negative events – in terms of plot and in terms of garish film versions of a FPS video game – does not actually transpire for two more decades in the future, so should we find a portal to Mars now, we might have a respite to avoid catastrophe. If we did uncover a passageway to an old Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to determine whether a certain tech billionaire would remain extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become disheartened that the discovery wasn't something he funded himself, allowing him to claim messianic ownership for humanity's journey to the cosmos. This precedes we consider the harvesting of Martian chromosomes and subsequent mutations into horrific creatures. (Again, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a good test case for the reasons we let Mars become a stretch-goal aspiration for humanity. Be it in the director's chintzy genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our distant neighbor planet doesn't tend to act as a beacon of optimism. Should someone wishes to make that questionable Martian property deal, maybe they should start with first ensuring the fantasy version appear appealing.

The Marvel Dregs

A of the goofiest quirks of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the multiple global disasters, including a five-year time-jump whose occurrences are mostly undepicted in the films themselves; the movies have turned into a alarm clock constantly set a few seconds fast – except with minutes, it's years. So there's a large assortment of MCU content that various wikis clarify to be set in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated adventure *The Marvels*, take place far away from Earth, and so feel quite unmoored from our sense of time. But the bad stuff is some of the worst the studio has created: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on these examples, we're in for a great deal of annoying stagnation in 2026, along with the related spin that actually, this confusing mess unfolding before our eyes is crucial to future events. More troublingly, in the actual world that assertion will likely prove correct.

The Apes Saga Continues

Most of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* cycle is set in the more distant 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 approximately 2016. So by the time a pathogen that knocks out most of Earth’s people has run its course, and also enhanced the intelligence of primates, it’s merely 2026, with further human indignities (and simian triumphs) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, illustrating how rapidly this virus spreads globally and set in 2019, appears downright eerie in the wake of the real-world global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* looks less literal; astonishingly, we’re already half a decade from the onset of Covid-19, and society, though clearly wounded by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been wiped out, and our technology definitely hasn't been disabled. But this bleakest of the four contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a significant downer in store, suggesting that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines each, will unavoidably result in warfare, regardless of the work of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who exploit others’ baser impulses, even if those instincts don't represent the majority. Right now, it feels difficult to argue with that, even though we ought to try.

The Silent Classic

By far the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie close to marking its centennial. The director's iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a city of tomorrow where rich businessmen lord over the skyscrapers as workers toil underground on the machines that power the city. Rich surface resident Freder, scion of the city’s master, has his eyes opened to these massive class divisions when he falls for Maria, an underground organizer who preaches a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with darker plans creates a automaton in her image, aiming to bring the entire Metropolis down in flames. Here, 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 one element inverted by the modern world in a future that otherwise seems to be progressing. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where technology relies on traditional human toil, which appears as a most logical union of conservative disdain for “unskilled workers” and corporate enthusiasm for an tech boom. It hasn't yet materialized, but it's simple to picture a somewhat less stylish-looking iteration of Lang’s city growing with the prospect of a return to manufacturing. The more complex, less plausible feat is the conclusion of the film, where the gap between the wealthy and the poor is spanned with love; not so much with concrete reforms. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for peaceful cohabitation; unlike *Dawn*, it appears hopeful about the chance