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The date 2025 might sound more futuristic. Maybe it's the sound of the consonant "f" in "five". But 2026 signifies a leap forward, a moment where we find ourselves, with each futuristic development – primarily the broad integration of artificial intelligence – appearing dystopian, or perhaps even worse. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-sponsored anti-human technology would actually function a bit better?) Did no one warn us about this?

The response, at least regarding our sci-fi movies from years ago (or occasionally months ago) positioned in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of these prophecies are broadly applicable (worldwide disaster) but specifically implausible (if humanity is inevitably ravaged, we will most likely take the ape population alongside us). Others of them are visionary; the rest just look like poor visual effects. But it's worth examining where different directors, from geniuses to journeymen, thought we'd be positioned by now in our planet's evolution. So let's take a look at some of the movies that have been set in 2026 throughout cinematic history and determine if they have anything to teach us.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this doesn't bode well. According to the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a portal to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the people of Earth can establish a scientific outpost. Now, the negative events – in terms of plot and in terms of over-the-top film versions of a FPS video game – does not actually transpire for another 20 years in the future, so even if we do discover a Martian gateway now, we might have a respite to avoid catastrophe. Were we to discover a passageway to an ancient Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to tell whether Elon Musk would remain extremely excited to dispatch people to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the portal was not a thing he personally paid for, enabling him to claim messianic ownership for humanity's expansion to the cosmos. That's before we consider the collection of extraterrestrial genetics and resulting transformations into horrific creatures. (Again, this is closer to 2046, not to be confused with the acclaimed director's film.) In general, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a good test case for why, exactly we let Mars serve as a long-term hope for humanity. Be it in the director's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely serve as a beacon of hope. If anyone wants to make that questionable red-planet property deal, maybe they should start with at least making the fictional depiction appear appealing.

The Marvel Dregs

One of the goofiest quirks of the current MCU is the way it handles the various world-threatening disasters, including a half-decade leap whose occurrences are largely undepicted in the films themselves; the movies have become like a alarm clock constantly running a few minutes fast – only instead of minutes, it's annual increments. Consequently, there exists a whole bunch of MCU content 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 distant from Earth, and so seem pretty unmoored from our sense of time. But the poorer material is some of the worst the studio has created: the nonsensically meandering TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on this stuff, we're in for a great deal of frustrating wheel-spinning in 2026, along with the related narrative that in truth, this confusing mess happening in front of us is crucial to whatever happens next. Even worse, in the actual world that assertion will likely prove accurate.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Most of the classic five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is located in the further-flung tomorrow of Earth, but the new trilogy that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts closer to home, starting its timeline around 2016. So by the time a virus that knocks out most of Earth’s people has run its course, and simultaneously enhanced the intelligence of apes, it’s only 2026, with additional setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) ahead. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, illustrating how rapidly this virus propagates globally and set around 2019, looks downright eerie in the aftermath of the actual global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* looks more abstract; astonishingly, we’re already half a decade from the spread of Covid-19, and society, though clearly impacted by the still-spreading virus, was not wiped out, and technological infrastructure certainly has not been knocked out. Yet this most pessimistic of the quartet of modern *Apes* movies (at least so far!) nonetheless contains a substantial bummer to offer, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines either, will unavoidably lead to violent conflict, no matter the work of the most well-meaning among us. We’re at the mercy of those who appeal to others’ worst instincts, although those instincts are not held by the majority. Right now, it seems difficult to argue with that, despite the fact that we probably should.

The Silent Classic

Easily the best-known portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie nearing celebrating its 100th anniversary. The director's iconic silent film *Metropolis* is set in a futuristic city where rich businessmen preside over the towers as laborers toil below the surface on the machines that power the city. Rich surface resident Freder, scion of the city’s ruler, has his perspective changed to these massive class divisions when he falls for Maria, an subterranean activist who advocates for a reconciliation of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with more radical plans creates a robot in her likeness, hoping to tear the whole of Metropolis to ruin. Here, a machine designed to mimic a human isn't a tool of the elite, but an entity who desires to witness their downfall; it's a component flipped by the modern world in a future that otherwise appears to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where advanced machinery relies on old-fashioned human toil, which seems like a most logical fusion of conservative contempt for “the working class” and business enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It hasn't yet materialized, but it's easy to imagine a slightly more utilitarian version of Lang’s city expanding out with the promise of a resurgence to industrial production. The trickier, harder-to-imagine accomplishment is the conclusion of the film, where the chasm between the haves and the have-nots is bridged with compassion; not so much with concrete reforms. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; unlike *Dawn*, it appears optimistic about the chance