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The date 2025 could appear more futuristic. Perhaps it's the sound of the consonant "f" in "five". But 2026 represents a leap forward, and it's where we find ourselves, with each futuristic development – chiefly the broad integration of artificial intelligence – appearing bleak, or perhaps even worse. (It often seems like in a true dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-sponsored anti-human technology might operate a bit better?) Did no one warn us about this?

The answer, particularly concerning science fiction films made long ago (or occasionally months ago) positioned in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of these prophecies are universally relevant (worldwide disaster) but specifically far-fetched (if humanity is inevitably decimated, we will most likely take the ape population with us). Some of them are prescient; others just resemble bad visual effects. Yet it remains worth examining where different directors, from geniuses to journeymen, thought we'd be positioned by now in the world's evolution. So let's take a look a selection of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 over the years and see if they have anything to impart.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this doesn't bode well. In the universe of the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was recently celebrated by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that humanity discovers a portal to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth can set up a scientific outpost. Currently, the negative events – in terms of plot and concerning over-the-top film versions of a FPS video game – doesn't really go down for two more decades in the future, so even if we find a Martian gateway now, we could gain a respite to avert true disaster. If we did discover a portal to an ancient Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to tell whether Elon Musk would remain super-psyched to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the portal was not a thing he personally paid for, enabling him to claim savior-like credit for humanity's expansion into the stars. That's before we even get to the harvesting of Martian chromosomes and resulting transformations into monstrous beings. (Again, this is closer to 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a useful example for why, exactly we let Mars become a long-term aspiration for humanity. Whether in John Carpenter's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to act as a beacon of hope. Should someone wants to make that dubious Martian real estate sale, maybe they should start with at least making the fictional depiction look good.

The Marvel Dregs

A of the strangest features of the present MCU is how to account for the various world-threatening cataclysms, including a five-year time-jump whose occurrences are mostly not shown in the movies themselves; the movies have turned into a clock radio perpetually set a few seconds fast – except with minutes, it's annual increments. Consequently, there exists a whole bunch of Marvel stuff that various wikis clarify to be taking place in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated adventure *The Marvels*, occur far away from Earth, and so seem quite unmoored from our sense of time. However the poorer material is some of the worst the studio has ever produced: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by these examples, we're facing a whole lot of annoying stagnation in 2026, along with the accompanying narrative that actually, this nonsensical crap happening in front of us is essential to whatever happens next. Even worse, in the real world that assertion will probably turn out to be accurate.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The majority of the classic five-movie *Planet of the Apes* cycle is set in the further-flung tomorrow 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. Thus, when a pathogen that knocks out the majority of Earth’s people has run its course, and simultaneously enhanced the intelligence of apes, it’s only 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and simian triumphs) to come. The end-credits sequence of *Rise*, illustrating how rapidly this contagion spreads globally and set around 2019, looks downright eerie in the wake of the real-world global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* looks more abstract; if you can believe it, we’re already six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and society, though obviously wounded by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been wiped out, and technological infrastructure certainly hasn't been disabled. Yet this bleakest of the quartet of contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a substantial bummer to offer, suggesting that the fundamental nature of beings, whatever qualifies as each, will unavoidably lead to warfare, no matter the work of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who exploit others’ worst instincts, even if those instincts don't represent the most. Right now, it feels hard to argue with that, even though we ought to try.

The Silent Classic

By far the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in cinema is from a movie close to marking its centennial. The director's silent classic *Metropolis* is set in a futuristic city where wealthy industrialists lord over the towers as laborers toil below the surface on the equipment that keep everything running. Affluent city-dweller Freder, son of the city’s master, has his eyes opened to these massive class divisions when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an subterranean activist who advocates for a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A scientist with darker plans builds a automaton in her image, aiming to tear the entire Metropolis down in flames. Here, a machine created to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the elite, but an entity who desires to see them destroyed; it's one element inverted by reality in a future that otherwise seems to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where technology depends on old-fashioned human toil, which appears as a perfect fusion of conservative contempt for “unskilled workers” and business enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It hasn't yet materialized, but it's simple to imagine a somewhat less stylish-looking version of Lang’s city growing with the promise of a resurgence to industrial production. The trickier, less plausible feat is the ending of the film, where the gap between the wealthy and the have-nots is spanned with compassion; rather than with concrete reforms. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; in contrast to *Dawn*, it seems hopeful about the chance