Which films have taken the biggest creative swings in 2026? We take a look…
2026 has been a good year full of surprises and, if you’ve looked far enough outside of Hollywood, an eclectic range of quality cinema. Even so, within the Hollywood system there’s still been plenty to shout about. Spider-Man: Brand New Day won’t win any awards for being a fresh and invigorating slice of cinema pie, but it still gave comic book movies a much-needed shot in the arm with a focused and fun movie that at least felt like a cinematic and not a plastic mass-produced product. It also made bank, which is something even the MCU (and more so the DC universe) have struggled with of late.
Christopher Nolan made The Odyssey, which, despite what Elon and Grok might say, was a grand cinematic achievement. If it had casting choices that irked certain folk, that’s one thing, but to go as far as shitting out a new version that’s fully AI is a bit much. I hated The Expendables 4 last year, but I won’t go as far as rebooting it with prompts. Get a life. Still, Christopher Nolan took on an ambitiously grand project, and at least technically, it’s hard to dispute that his heavy leaning on old practical techniques wasn’t a triumph of filmmaking.
As it is, I also dug the story and found it wholly compelling too. However, this is Nolan, and he doesn’t make any grand narrative leaps or take any major storytelling risks these days. He’s still making a quest movie based on one of the most famous stories in history, and most people know at least one vignette from it, whether it’s the Cyclops or the Witch. It’s almost like Nolan doing an expensive blockbuster is guaranteed to be a marvel of filmmaking technique and spectacle. Ambitious, yes, but a big swing that defies expectations? Not so much.
The same will be true of Denis Villeneuve’s third Dune film, which is almost nailed on to be a spectacular and elevated blockbuster in its finest form. Yet we would expect no less, and Frank Herbert’s notoriously difficult-to-film source material already took the big swings for him (to an extent).
Obsession surprised us as a bandstanding behemoth of indie film done well. YouTube sensation turned feature film director Curry Barker upgraded the cursed monkey paw template to make a horror that was really assured, anchored by great performances (from a fresh, “unknown” cast). Still, it delivered all the horror beats you’d want, subverted a few but stayed largely true to formula and knew exactly which audience it wanted to grab (and how). A very assured creative swing, but perhaps not a really big, outrageous one.
Big creative swings take the calculated risk that they will split an audience. It’s a game of double down and daring where you could become a cult film with a long legacy and slow-blooming adoration, but maybe at the cost of bombing when you first drop in the theatres. There’s also no guarantee that a cult fanbase ever arrives. We’ve seen it time and again in the past, with films that were ahead of the curve, or merely took a decade or two to get the recognition they deserved.
Usually they are uncompromised auteur visions, so idiosyncratic, that they need to find their era where the vision can settle. See as an example (of many) the bold vision of Fight Club for example. Perhaps initially everyone was too adept at following the first two rules. Thankfully, once they began to break them, the film accrued its cult fanbase and remains a staple among cinephiles (admittedly especially among the “film bro.”).
As for the biggest creative swings of 2026. For me, there are three that encapsulate distinct, fresh auteur voices. Films which dare to alienate sections of their audience, or be wilfully uncommercially driven. Some split critics, some split audiences, and indeed both, but they all feel fresh and unique…
Digger
It’s not been an easy time at the box office for Tom Cruise of late. His last two Mission: Impossible movies underperformed, countered by their budgets being hugely inflated by troubled productions. His one-two punch of Fallout and Top Gun: Maverick put Cruise’s box office might at its highest, so perhaps, heading into his 60s, the only way was down.
Then there is his collaboration with Alejandro González Iñárritu. A team-up that was mouth-watering for many, but with perhaps questionable marketing and underwhelming early critic reactions leaking ahead of release, it seems audiences weren’t willing to go see Cruise in old man makeup and sporting a beer belly.
Additionally, while the trailers give little away to the true nature of the film and its unexpected turns, it did enough to suggest it was a farcical satire taking aim at environmental disaster and billionaire greed. That’s always off-putting to a section of audience that might dismiss the film as a woke two-hour preaching session (it’s not).
Ironically, while critics were split right down the middle, the response from the three people that watched it in theatres (including me) has been mostly positive. Ahead of seeing this, I saw plenty of clickbait stories about it being a misunderstood masterpiece or a future cult favourite. The humble box office dud and its potential resurrection in the future is always something I take with a pinch of salt because I’ve turned up to see for myself with previous examples, and been left siding with the haters.
In the case of Digger, those optimistic fans of the movie are right (in my humble opinion). I’m potentially another watch or two from calling it a masterpiece, but it is far better than most critics gave it credit for. Mix Dr. Strangelove, Birdman, and Brazil, shaken, not stirred, and served with a twist of lemon. This is biting satire gazing at capitalism, environmental issues, Western politics and more. It’s timely, and it’s also, beneath it all, a disturbing look at where we are heading.
For some, satirising the relationship between billionaire oligarchs and the political powers is impossible because how do you satirise the thoroughly ludicrous? Yet Cruise and Iñárritu’s film manages to do it pretty well. All whilst surprising you (if you actually do go to see it, go in as blind as you possibly can), entertaining you and giving us Tom Cruise’s best and most complex performance since Magnolia. His role has layers (and not just latex), and it also has a platform for outrageous theatricality (that calls upon the show-stopping Len Grossman to some degree too). Conspiracy theorists might also suggest that films with negative commentary about the 5% are (usually) aggressively buried.
What really doesn’t surprise me with Digger, despite box office disappointment, is how vocal Inarritu’s fellow filmmakers have been in support of this. It’s a magnificent filmmaking feat, made for the big screen, perfectly tailored to allow big, brash, and bold performances with wild creative jumps. They’re the kind of big swings that will, and have, turned some people off, and yet beneath all of it, the film has commentary, and it acts as a love letter to the theatrical arts.
Resurrection
Another jaw-dropping feat of directorial genius is Bi Gan’s Resurrection, a near-visionary sci-fi fantasy set in a dystopian world where all but a few outlawed outliers have given up the ability to dream to live indefinitely. The premise becomes a platform for Gan to split his film into vignettes and, using cinema as a theme, tell an eclectic mix of stories tied to a different sense (like sight, smell, feel, etc).
Gan doesn’t offer a clear and concise explanation at any point, even through narration. He retains ambiguity throughout, pushing his audience to join the dots or form their own thesis about what the film is about. He offers plenty of nuggets along the way, though, and plenty of caveats that lend themselves to repeat viewing.
As he did with A Long Day’s Journey into Night, Gan is happy to make the film as he sees fit, with challenging and ambitious creative choices (and his penchant for elaborate long takes is here in the final story of Resurrection). This film is visually resplendent and visually varied, with odes to silent cinema, noir cinema, different colour themes, and more.
Gan takes us through history, via cinema history, to tell a futuristic dystopian story. Critics mostly loved it, some in spite of narrative frustrations, and the fans who have actually managed to see it have been fairly mixed. It will absolutely throw some viewers off kilter because it can be so elusive, while others may find that some segments hit their marks far better than others.
By the end, whether you love it or don’t, Resurrection feels like something you haven’t seen before. It has recognisable elements, some of which lightly stroke the nostalgia bone, but as an entirety, this is a work of creative genius.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Speaking of nostalgia, there’s a hefty shot in the arm in Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Wry, subversive, and wholly idiosyncratic, Schoenbrun’s film is a majestic swing for the fences almost guaranteed to wear the label (and it’s a film about labels among other things) of “acquired taste.”
Whether it speaks to you in terms of identity, personality, or being a creative/film-maker, there’s a viewpoint for plenty of people. As a screenwriter and filmmaker myself, so much of this, particularly the dynamic between a creative’s vision, ambition, and the more blunt studio executive viewpoint, really tickled me. Schoenbrun’s depiction of a Zoom script meeting is something I’ve experienced, almost to the letter. It also almost always starts vaguely with, “Walk us through it.”
Camp Miasma starts elusively and takes increasingly colourful and engaging twists and turns, with gleefully glib and meta humour and brilliant performances. Hannah Einbinder is great, and Gillian Anderson is a revelation as a kind of Norma Desmond (Sunset Boulevard) figure. It’s rare these days to watch a film that you don’t have the route mapped out in your mind by the first five minutes.
Where Camp Miasma is concerned, it surprised me and delighted me in equal measure throughout. Visually dazzling and brimming with colour, it feels textual and Earthy as well as effectively fantasmagorical when it needs to be. It’s got loving homage to 80s low-tech franchise video horror that will delight aficionados who enjoy regularly revisiting A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, or Friday the 13th sequels (and more obscure titles and franchises aside).
As with any film from a trans filmmaker, it can’t help but be a natural repellent to significant sections of the audience, which is a shame because it’s very acerbic and self-effacing at times, and it’s so fantastical as to not be a film you could view as “woke.” On the other hand, those who do give it a chance may find it too wild in its trajectory from bright start to bat shit finish. It does have a real pic ‘n’ mix of enjoyable elements, from its soundtrack to its horror references (some very obscure) to its mix of horror tropes and comedy.
This was never a film that screamed box office magnet, as is the case with many movies that ultimately settle home on Mubi, but it certainly deserved a bigger return than 8 million worldwide, particularly as it was such a creatively bold vision.
What film do you think took the biggest swing of 2026? Which film is destined to be remembered in decades to come? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe
