Willem Dafoe in Late Fame and Zendaya in Dune: Part Three Composite: Guardian Design/Alamy View image in fullscreen Willem Dafoe in Late Fame and Zendaya in Dune: Part Three Composite: Guardian Design/Alamy Autumn arts preview 2026 Film 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?
All release dates are UK and subject to change
Late Fame View image in fullscreen Poetic postal worker … Willem Dafoe with Greta Lee in Late Fame. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy 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
View image in fullscreen Acting masterclass … Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall in Queen at Sea Photograph: © Seafaring LLC 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
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