What to watch this Oscars film season

A non-exhaustive list of the films to keep an eye out for this autumn

Gwilym Mumford

The next three months or so is one of my favourite spells in the film calendar, as a load of Oscar hopefuls with big stars and auteurs attached come out of hiding. You can catch a decent movie at the cinema every week until Christmas – but you might want a guide to direct you to the right ones. This week’s Guide does exactly that.

What’s more, it’s not exhaustive: there will be films landing from the autumn festivals that haven’t yet been given a release date and a host of big awards movies due in the UK in January (Danny Boyle’s Murdoch movie Ink, Robert Eggers’s Werewulf, Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut). But, this should keep you going until the days start getting longer again.

4 Sept | The Death of Robin Hood
Granted, we begin a little slowly. This reimagining of the final days of the outlaw (played in full, crusty, Logan-style makeup by Hugh Jackman) probably isn’t for everyone, with its ultraviolence and doomy mood, but some critics have chimed with its heady vibe. For more gritty middle-ages drama (that might also be Robin Hood-tinged), Paul Greengrass’s Andrew Garfield-starring The Uprising is due on 9 Oct.

11 Sept | Just an Illusion
A summer hit in France, this coming of age drama seems well timed for the turning of the leaves here. A wistful story of a 13-year-old boy’s first tentative steps into romance, while his parents’ own one is faltering, it has some great French acting talent at its core in the form of Louis Garrel and Call My Agent’s Camille Cottin. May well be in the best international film running at the Oscars.

18 Sept | Bad Apples
This is a last chance to catch Saoirse Ronan on our screens for a while before her schedule is swamped by Sam Mendes’s Beatles quadrilogy (she plays Linda McCartney). Here Ronan is the put-upon primary school teacher who resorts to desperate measures to subdue her class’s most disruptive student in Jonatan Etzler’s twisted little thriller.

25 Sept | Sense and Sensibility
Now we are starting to get some biggies. First up Blue Jean director Georgia Oakley’s take on S&S, a high-wire move given there’s a fondly remembered movie take on the same source material still in most people’s living memories. Daisy Edgar-Jones (pictured above, left) and George MacKay star in the first of two Austin adaptations this autumn: soon on Netflix is Dolly Alderton’s Pride and Prejudice series, starring Emma Corrin and Jack Lowden.

2 Oct | Digger
The single most intriguing film of the year, with Tom Cruise shunning acting hero-dom to star as an oil baron trying to undo his own potentially world-ending foul-up in Alejandro Iñárritu’s climate crisis satire. Iñárritu is the master of the mixed bag, Cruise hasn’t done anything like this in decades and the trailer looks, well, pretty odd. Could be a disaster, could be fantastic – either way it will be talked about.

9 Oct | The Social Reckoning
Another maybe disaster/maybe classic: a sequel to one of the century’s most admired films, plagued by reports of reshoots and a widely disliked trailer. Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is directing this one, rather than David Fincher – another red flag? Still, its subject is fascinating: the 2021 Facebook leak that revealed the company’s knowledge of the harmful effects its platforms were having on society. Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong, as Mark Zuckerberg, star.

16 Oct | Whalefall
While this one is unlikely to trouble the prestige Oscar categories – though it might hoover up some sound/visual/technical nominations – it’s worth flagging here because, good grief what a terrifying premise: scuba diver gets swallowed by a sperm whale and has to find his way back out of it! Oh, and he only has 60 minutes of oxygen in his tank with which to do so. Claustrophobes: stay the hell away.

23 Oct | Fatherland
After the brilliant pair of Ida and Cold War, Paweł Pawlikowski delivers a third stylish, monochrome movie reflecting on postwar life east of the Berlin Wall. This one concerns the return to Berlin in 1949 of famed German author Thomas Mann (Hans Zischler), who is visiting from the US to accept literary awards in both west and east Berlin – a problem for both his CIA handlers and for his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller, pictured above – who between this, Project Hail Mary and Digger, is having quite the 2026).

30 Oct | Primetime
Robert Pattinson is racking up quite the roster of ne’er-do-wells and losers in 2026: there was his snivelling, scheming suitor Antinous in the Odyssey; his brittle groom in The Drama; and his shapeshifting wannabe usurper in the forthcoming Dune 3. Joining that rogues gallery is his performance as Chris Hansen, the ethically murky host of notorious noughties TV series To Catch a Predator, in Primetime, one of the autumn’s most hotly tipped dramas.

6 Nov | Wild Horse Nine
After filming The Banshees of Inisherin, on rainswept, beautiful Inishmore, Martin McDonagh decamps to the more exotic isle of Rapa Nui – AKA Easter Island – where, in his latest, two unscrupulous CIA men are holidaying just before the 1973 coup in Chile gets under way. Chris (John Malkovich) is nearing the end of his career and fancies writing a tell all memoir; Lee (Sam Rockwell) is tasked by the agency with keeping an eye on his loose-cannon mentor. Expect all manner of Oscar buzz for Malkovich.

13 Nov | Fjord
Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) shook up Cannes with this spicy meatball of a movie about a devoutly Christian couple, who after moving from Romania to Norway, are accused of abusing their children by members of a community already suspicious of their evangelistic ways. Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve star in a film that sounds designed to inspire loud post-cinema debate.

20 Nov | A Talent for Murder
A delicious-looking meta-murder mystery for late November nights. Helen Mirren plays a reclusive Patricia Highsmith, hiding away in Switzerland at the end of her career, while Alden Ehrenreich is the lad sent by her publisher to convince her to write one final Tom Ripley novel. She will, but only if he helps her devise a suitably devilish plot – which offers director Anton Corbijn the chance to make a Ripley movie by stealth.

27 Nov | The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth
Like Digger and The Social Reckoning, a big film with big questions around it: this Brad Pitt-starring Tarantino-penned (but not directed, with David Fincher instead in the chair) follow up to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood had to skip the autumn film festivals in order to squeeze in extensive reshoots. Could be in dog’s breakfast territory, but given the quality of the original, we’re still excited.

4 Dec | I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning
This week you have a choice of hotly anticipated movies: there’s Behemoth!, Tony Gilroy’s tale of an itinerant, relationship-phobic concert cellist, starring Pedro Pascal; or this Clio Barnard drama about skint Birmingham twentysomethings, featuring some Great British talent (Anthony Boyle, Jay Lycurgo, Lola Petticrew, pictured above). See both, but if you can only catch one, home bias dictates that we should probably back the Barnard: any film with an extended rendition of The Streets’ Don’t Mug Yourself has us sold.

11 Dec | Onslaught
A lull, with most movies skipping town ahead of the impending arrival of two monster films next week (see below). One of the big festival films might drop into the schedules but for now your best bet is this genre-splicing horror thriller about an army sniper trying to protect her kid from genetically modified super soldiers. Cast looks fun: Adria Arjona, Dan Stevens, Eric Wareheim and Rebecca Hall all feature.

18 Dec | Dune Part 3
Quite why the final instalment of Denis Villeneuve’s space opus and Avengers: Doomsday are arriving in cinemas on the same weekend is beyond the ken of us non-movie execs. Neither film seems willing to budge, meaning that a showdown that has been given the Barbenheimerised moniker of “Dunesday” looks inevitable. We’re siding with Dune, likely to be gigantic, gorgeous and a little bit weird, if the source material of Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah is anything to go by. A possible best picture shout?

Take five

TV | La Mesías

One of the many highly anticipated films that we couldn’t quite squeeze into our week-by-week preview was La Bola Negra, an ambitious multi-generational epic about gay men in 20th century Spain that wowed Cannes earlier this year (in cinemas 6 Nov). For a flavour of what you might expect, its directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, popularly known as Los Javis, also have a TV drama landing on Mubi this week. Jumping between timelines, La Mesías follows a group of sisters forced into a Christian pop act by their controlling mother, and the impact the experience has on their later lives. Expect wild tonal shifts, black comedy and the odd alien invasion.

Want more? It’s a week for returning shows: Guy Ritchie’s The Gentleman (Netflix) and Chad Powers (Disney+) are back for second outings. Plus: here’s seven more shows to stream this week.

PODCAST | Black Box: The Chatbots

Michael Safi’s series on how AI is radically reshaping our lives returns for an eye-opener of a second series focused squarely on peoples’ relationships with chatbots. More than a billion people are regularly communicating with bots in one way or another, in some case using them as life coaches, therapists or even addiction counsellors. But what is that doing to society – and the AI assistants themselves? Across six episodes Safi speaks to those whose lives have been affected in remarkable ways by their interactions with chatbots, and the person lobbying for rights for AIs. You can read Michael’s full article on that last episode in tomorrow’s Guardian, in print and online, while the whole series of Black Box is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Want more? Bill Nighy returns with a new series of agony uncle-ing in Ill Advised, with new eps every Thursday. For our best podcasts of the week click here.

ALBUM | Chat Pile: Who Loves the Sun

Everyone’s favourite Oklahoman end-stage-capitalism-critiquing sludge metallers (well, my ones, at least) return with album number three. By this stage the four-piece have found, if not a formula, then a style that is very much theirs – guitars tuned all the way down, anguished vocals, lyrics decrying corporate greed, mechanised war and environmental degradation – but as ever its elevated both by the fist-pumping ferociousness of their sound, as well as the sharp storytelling skills of vocalist Raygun Bosch.

Want more? Another band with a good handle on what they do well – Arab Strap return with Half-Told Tales, a collection of typically droll electronic-tinged indie.

BOOK | Switzy by Emma Cline

American novelist Emma Cline’s third novel arrives pre-endorsed as a Booker longlistee. It follows David, an American businessman in the final stages of dementia, as he embarks on his last journey: to a euthanasia clinic in Zurich (hence Switzy). He has some unfinished business to complete en route – a catch-up with an old boarding-school friend, Tom – before he arrives. “The last pages of Switzy, which mingle horror, beauty, absurdity, and a sense of profound finality, will probably stay with me for ever,” writes Chris Power in his review.

Want more? This year’s Baillie Gifford Prize longlist has been revealed, with Patrick Radden Keefe, Ben Macintyre and the Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins, among the 13 authors selected for the UK’s premier nonfiction prize.

FILM | The Incomer

It’s always the way: you’re waiting ages for one Wallis Island and then two come along in quick succession. This Scottish comedy has an eerily similar setup: outsider encounters eccentric living on remote isle, gradually warms to their unorthodox lifestyle. Here Dominic Gleeson is the land recovery co-ordinator tasked with removing a strange sibling pair from the place they have lived alone for 30 years, in a film that leans into occultism with its talk of selkies and gull people. In cinemas now.

Want more? Also in selected cinemas now, Late Fame sees Willem Dafoe play a forgotten New York poet who finds his work championed by a new generation. And here are seven films to watch from the comfort of your sofa this week.

Origin story: Seinfeld

Our weekly look at how the Guardian first covered popular culture’s biggest names

Four long years after it debuted in America, and at a point where it had become a sensation across the pond, “the show about nothing” finally reached UK screens, starting, weirdly with its second season. The Guardian previewer offered some measured praise, not overly taken with its titular star – “far from the funniest character on there” – or the show’s habit of its plot frequently “being halted by footage of him working a crowd”, but more taken by Michael Richards’ performance as Kramer, which they reckoned was “possibly the best whacked-out comic performance since Christopher Lloyd’s in Taxi”. After a brief primetime stint on BBC Two, Seinfeld would be moved to the channel’s graveyard shift, never becoming anything like the mammoth hit it was in the US over here.

To dig further into the archive and support the Guardian, sign up for Digital plus and get access to our full 200-year archive.

Read on

As Amelia Dimoldenberg’s Chicken Shop Date pulls down the shutters Stuart Heritage salutes a web show that helped kill off regular old TV.

Autumn arts previews, get your autumn arts previews! Here’s the Guardian’s pick of the best TV, music, film, games, stage and art for the coming months.

Dave Simpson gets an audience with Art Garfunkel to talk about the 60s, Trump and reconciling with you know who.

The best show of 2026? It might just be Furious. Rebecca Nicholson explains why Disney’s feminist revenge thriller has been so exceptional.

You be the Guide

Last week we asked for your favourite adult animations. Here’s what you drew from your memory banks:

“DARIA! I used to switch MTV on in the early 00s in the hope that it would be on – it was the ideal show for a sarcastic, angsty tween (and also a sarcastic, angsty adult)” – Jordan Smith

“The most interesting thing I’ve seen recently is Pantheon. Maddie and Caspian are teenagers in California – she’s being bullied and dealing with the recent death of her dad, while he’s a genius living more online than off to avoid dealing with his abusive father. They start receiving anonymous messages that point to a company conducting research into digitising human minds. It’s a few years old but deals with evergreen issues like tech bros and government abuse, the cast is stacked, and it gets deep – no spoilers, but the finale includes the title card “117 649 Years Later.” – Michael Newton

“I often wonder what happened to Drawn Together, a short-lived parody of a Big Brother scenario housed with a potty-brained, oversexed collective of stereotypical cartoon characters. The racist Disney princess; the fragile superhero; a priapic BobSponge and so on. I only caught a few of its early eps and it only lived for three seasons, but I thought it was hilarious at the time.” – Danielle Seitz

Get involved

Go on then, let’s have your favourite Seinfeld episode. I could pick about 10, but let’s go for The Opposite, where George realises that every decision he has made has been the wrong one, and decides to change course. Let me know yours by replying to this email or contacting me via