Tom Cruise, Olivia Colman and the return of Rocky: the best films of autumn 2026

Old favourites Shaun the Sheep, Dune, Jane Austen and Godzilla join Charles de Gaulle, the Peasants’ Revolt and queer identity in Spain

See all of our unmissable autumn arts recommendations here Big tech goes to Hollywood: is Silicon Valley ready for a silver-screen reckoning?

Willem Dafoe is typically grizzled and poetic for this study of a near-retirement postal worker who, it turns out, was a beatnik rhymester of cachet – but no lasting renown – back in the day, and who has now been rediscovered by a new generation of literary hipsters. Director Kent Jones, adapting a novella by Arthur “La Ronde” Schnitzler, was the longtime head of the New York film festival; he might be in for a spot of late fame himself. AP 4 September

Grant Gee’s stylishly monochrome, coolly composed musical biopic finds the great jazz pianist at something of a crisis point in 1961, grieving for his bassist, facing down some demons, painfully thin and heroin addicted – and living with his parents while he tries to kick the habit. Bill Pullman and Laurie Metcalf are terrific as Mr and Mrs Evans, while Anders Danielsen Lie stars as the tortured artist on the cusp of making musical history and quitting. LP 11 September

If you wait long enough, everything will go into development for sequel, but they don’t always happen. This one, almost randomly, has: Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman’s nicely judged 90s witch tale, with equal helpings of empowerment and romance, is broomsticking into cinemas. Bullock and Kidman are back, a quarter century on, with the younger generation represented by Joey King and Maisie Williams. AP 11 September

Another late-period acting masterclass from Tom Courtenay in a shattering drama from Lance Hammer. Courtenay plays Martin, whose wife (Anna Calder-Marshall) is in the grip of dementia. He tries to keep their connection alive with sex. But can she consent? Is it rape? Her daughter by an earlier marriage, played by Juliette Binoche, certainly thinks so, setting the stage for a heartbreakingly emotional confrontation. AP 18 September

National heroes don’t come much more totemic than Charles de Gaulle, wartime resistance leader turned peacetime statesman. This is the second instalment of the two part film in which Simon Abkarian plays the legendary general as the momentum to liberate Paris builds up towards the end of the second world war. AP 18 September

Everyone’s favourite flock is back for a Halloween instalment, 11 years after Shaun the Sheep Movie (masterpiece) and Farmageddon (superb). This plasticine mashup of Frankenstein and Weird Science sees Shaun brewing up a potion to supersize pumpkins ahead of the autumn fair, while the farmer turns to a hair-restoring lotion to pluck up the courage to ask the vet on a date. Hope the two bottles don’t get muddled … Catherine Shoard 18 September

Thirty-one years after Emma Thompson’s swift, witty take on Austen’s classic – still much loved today – Georgia Oakley ( Blue Jean ) gives us a version for the Instagram age, replete with Hamnet -ish strings and many shots of women in fields with closeups on bugs.