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Hunting for the best films to watch this July 2026? You’re in luck, because the month is arguably the busiest cinema has seen all year, and not because two of Hollywood’s biggest names, Tom Holland and Zendaya, are headlining the two most-hyped releases. Between a three-hour Homeric epic shot entirely on IMAX film and a Minions film set in 1920s Hollywood, there’s genuinely something here for everyone, whether you’re an Arthouse purist or someone who just wants to watch a demon family eat someone at dinner.
Sam Raimi’s blood-soaked franchise isn’t done chewing scenery. French director Sébastien Vaniček takes the reins this time, sending Souheila Yacoub to a family dinner that turns into a Deadite infestation right after her husband’s funeral. Vaniček has said newcomers don’t need any Evil Dead homework to enjoy it, he was aiming for something that stands on its own while still honouring Raimi’s chaos. If Evil Dead Rise’s 2023 numbers are anything to go by, expect queues.
Christopher Nolan doesn’t do modest, and his adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey is his biggest swing yet, a near three-hour retelling shot entirely on 70mm IMAX film, a first for a feature. Matt Damon plays Odysseus, clawing his way home to Ithaca and Anne Hathaway’s Penelope after the Trojan War, backed by an absurdly stacked cast including Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Tom Holland and Lupita Nyong’o. Damon has called Nolan’s ambition on this one unmatched, noting the director insisted on shooting the whole thing on IMAX, something never attempted before at this scale.
Tom Holland’s fourth outing as Peter Parker is also a soft reset, the opener of a planned new trilogy, with Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi) stepping in for Jon Watts. Thanks to Doctor Strange’s spell from the last film, nobody in Peter’s life remembers he exists, forcing him to navigate his mid-twenties completely alone, while also somehow squaring off against the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), the Punisher (Jon Bernthal) and a squad of ninja assassins. Cretton has described it as Parker finally facing grown-up problems without a safety net.
Millie Bobby Brown returns as Sherlock’s kid sister, this time on the eve of her own wedding to Lord Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge), until Sherlock (Henry Cavill) gets kidnapped and she has to rescue him with Watson (Himesh Patel) and mum Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter). Written by Jack Thorne and directed by Philip Barantini (Adolescence), the threequel reportedly digs into Victorian colonial history the way earlier instalments tackled land and union reform.
The seventh Despicable Me film sends the yellow henchmen to 1920s Hollywood instead of their usual supervillain lair, leaning hard into silent-comedy slapstick, a genre director Pierre Coffin says the Minions were always built for, since audiences follow them through tone and timing rather than actual words. The twist: the Minions decide to shoot their own monster movie, which means an expedition to find a real one.
Disney’s live-action Moana arrives just a decade after the animated original and two years after Moana 2, with Dwayne Johnson finally playing Maui on screen instead of just voicing him. Director Thomas Kail insists this is not a scene-for-scene retread, promising fresh dialogue and new jokes despite the tight turnaround from the animated sequel.
David Wain’s raunchy comedy borrows the old “celebrity sex pass” bit and runs wild with it: Zoey Deutch’s boyfriend cashes in on a chance celebrity sighting, so she heads to LA to seduce Jon Hamm in retaliation, with cameos from Jennifer Aniston, Henry Winkler, Paul Rudd and Elizabeth Banks along the way. Early reviews call it definitely silly in the best possible way.
Documentary maker Ross McElwee, known for turning his own family into his subject matter, revisits his relationship with his late son Adrian, who died of an overdose in 2016, a decade after his earlier film Photographic Memory chronicled their friction. Critics have flagged it as his rawest work yet, equal parts grief and tenderness.
Golshifteh Farahani stars as academic Azar Nafisi in Eran Riklis’s adaptation of Nafisi’s 2003 memoir, tracking her years teaching literature at the University of Tehran before post-revolutionary restrictions push her book club underground. Discussions of Lolita, The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice become acts of quiet defiance. Reviewers have praised Farahani’s presence as commanding even in total silence.
Nicolas Winding Refn’s first film since 2016’s The Neon Demon is, by most early accounts, his strangest yet. Sophie Thatcher plays an actress moving into a fog-wrapped skyscraper ahead of a sci-fi shoot, only to find a supernatural killer stalking the building, while Charles Melton’s soldier fights his way through the city below in scenes styled after Daredevil’s comic-book choreography.
So there it is, ten wildly different reasons to actually show up to a cinema (or just stay on the couch for Enola Holmes) this month. Whatever your genre, Homeric war epic, Minions in flapper dresses, or Refn doing whatever Refn does, the best films to watch this July 2026 make it one of the year’s hardest months to skip the big screen.
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