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The date 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Perhaps it's the presence of the consonant "f" in "five". But 2026 signifies one step beyond, a moment where we currently stand, with every futuristic advancement – primarily the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence – seeming bleak, or perhaps more grim. (It often seems like in a proper dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-sponsored anti-human technology might operate a bit better?) Didn't anyone warn us regarding this?

The answer, particularly concerning science fiction films from years ago (or sometimes months ago) set in 2026, is both yes and no. Some of those warnings are broadly applicable (global catastrophe) but specifically far-fetched (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 visual effects. But it's valuable to explore where various directors, from geniuses to grunts, thought we'd be positioned by now in the world's development. So let's examine a selection of the movies that have been set in 2026 over the years and see 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 hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to set up a scientific outpost. Now, the bad stuff – in terms of narrative and concerning garish film versions of a FPS video game – doesn't really transpire for two more decades in the future, so should we find a Martian gateway now, we could gain some time to avoid catastrophe. Were we to discover a portal to an ancient Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to determine whether Elon Musk would still be extremely excited to dispatch people to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the discovery wasn't something he personally paid for, enabling him to assert savior-like credit for humanity's journey to the cosmos. That's before we consider the harvesting of Martian chromosomes and resulting transformations into monstrous beings. (Once more, this is closer to 2046, distinct from the Wong Kar-wai film.) In general, *Doom* is (at the very least) a useful example for why, exactly we allow Mars serve as a stretch-goal hope for mankind. Whether in the director's chintzy space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely serve as a symbol of optimism. If anyone wants to close that dubious red-planet property deal, perhaps they should start with first making the fictional depiction look good.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

A of the goofiest quirks of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the multiple global cataclysms, encompassing a half-decade leap whose events are largely not shown in the movies themselves; the films have turned into a clock radio perpetually running a few seconds fast – only instead of minutes, it's annual increments. So there's a whole bunch of Marvel stuff that fan sites helpfully explain to be taking place in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated romp *The Marvels*, take place far away from Earth, and so seem pretty unmoored from our sense of time. But the poorer material is among the weakest 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 this stuff, we're in for a whole lot of annoying stagnation in 2026, along with the related spin that in truth, this confusing mess unfolding in front of us is essential to future events. More troublingly, in the actual world that assertion will likely prove correct.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Most of the original five-movie *Planet of the Apes* cycle is set in the further-flung future of Earth, but the modern series that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins closer to home, starting its timeline around 2016. So by the time a virus that devastates most of Earth’s human population has done its damage, and also enhanced the intelligence of apes, it’s only 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this virus propagates around the world and set around 2019, appears profoundly unsettling in the aftermath of the actual pandemic that would begin in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; astonishingly, we’re already six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and humanity, though obviously impacted by the still-spreading virus, was not wiped out, and technological infrastructure definitely hasn't been disabled. Yet this most pessimistic of the four contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) still has a substantial downer in store, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines either, will inevitably result in warfare, regardless of the efforts of the most well-meaning individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who appeal to others’ worst instincts, even if those instincts don't represent the majority. Currently, it seems hard to dispute that, even though we ought to try.

The Silent Classic

By far the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie nearing celebrating its 100th anniversary. The director's iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a city of tomorrow where wealthy industrialists preside over the towers as laborers work tirelessly underground on the equipment that keep everything running. Affluent surface resident Freder, son of the city’s master, has his perspective changed to these enormous class divisions when he falls for Maria, an subterranean organizer who preaches a coming together of the separate strata of Metropolis. A inventor with darker plans creates a automaton in her likeness, hoping to bring the whole of Metropolis down in flames. Here, a machine designed to mimic a human isn't a tool of the ruling corporate class, but an entity who desires to witness their downfall; it's one element inverted by the modern world in a vision of tomorrow that otherwise appears to be progressing. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where advanced machinery depends on old-fashioned human toil, which seems like a most logical fusion of conservative disdain for “the working class” and corporate zeal for an tech boom. It has not yet materialized, but it's simple to imagine a slightly less stylish-looking version of Lang’s city expanding out with the promise of a resurgence to industrial production. The more complex, harder-to-imagine accomplishment 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. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates peaceful cohabitation; unlike *Dawn*, it appears optimistic about the possibility