Every critic’s midyear list disagrees with the next, which is the fun of them. We didn’t rank 2026 ourselves. This list is built from the ones that came out this month and before: Variety’s Owen Gleiberman and Guy Lodge on film (June 30), Rolling Stone’s TV critics (June 29), and the first-half rundowns from TVLine and /Film. Each entry says who picked it and why.
The mood of the year is better than the headlines suggest. Variety’s verdict on the box office and the movies: “the news isn’t just that movies are alive but that they’re (almost) (kind of) thriving.” Rolling Stone’s TV critics found a different theme, anxiety about money, class, fame and work, and still found some of the funniest TV in years. Films come first, then TV, and nothing here is ranked.
Obsession: the $1 million horror movie that outgrossed Star Wars
Curry Barker’s chiller was budgeted at under $1 million and has made over $200 million, Variety reports, outgrossing a new Star Wars movie in the spring box-office race. Guy Lodge says it works as a straight-up scare machine too, with “a jaw-dropping, star-making performance by Inde Navarrette as a woman trapped in one man’s will.” The wish-gone-wrong story is a monkey’s-paw riff rooted in the politics of codependent relationships.
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert: the king, restored
Baz Luhrmann’s concert documentary uses newly restored footage of Elvis in Las Vegas in 1969 and the early ’70s. Variety’s Gleiberman writes that the early-Vegas Elvis was “an ecstatic gyrating rock dynamo, more electrifying than Freddie Mercury,” and that the film makes you want to applaud every level of its showmanship. It streams on Paramount+.
Power Ballad: John Carney’s music drama
Gleiberman says John Carney’s film “really should have been a bigger hit.” Paul Rudd plays Rick Power, a late-’80s rocker who now sings at weddings in Ireland. When he noodles around with Danny (Nick Jonas), a former boy-band singer, Danny turns a song he stole from Rick into a hit. Gleiberman calls it “the rare authentic drama about the music industry,” with themes of identity and ownership.
The Invite: a dinner party that goes there
Olivia Wilde directs a screenplay by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones in which Seth Rogen and Wilde host neighbors played by Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton. Gleiberman’s verdict: a bravura dinner-party dramedy, like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? remade by the Woody Allen of Husbands and Wives, and a movie he finds “so original, so brimming with surprise” that you watch it “in a state of rapt immersion and delight.”
Blue Heron: Sophy Romvari’s memory film
It turns up on both Variety’s and /Film’s lists. Romvari’s feature debut follows a Hungarian immigrant family settling on Vancouver Island in the 1990s, seen through a young girl’s eyes, before it pivots to a filmmaker making a movie about it. /Film’s Chris Evangelista says it “left me an emotional wreck in a way that only the power of movies can.”
Toy Story 5: the “Abbey Road” of the series
Gleiberman says he christened it the Abbey Road of the Toy Story movies because it is “a sublime summing up,” and that its tablet-versus-toys story asks who we become if we lose the capacity for imaginative play. It’s also the film carrying Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You”.
The Pitt, Season 2: the ER still delivers
Rolling Stone’s Jenna Scherer says critics came for the nostalgia and “Noah Wyle’s big, soulful Basset Hound eyes,” but stayed “for the propulsive pacing, brilliant ensemble, and hyper-realistic depiction of just how intense life in the ED can be.” The karaoke credits scene is “icing on the cake.” The show is also the Emmy leader, with 25 nominations coming in July.
Widow’s Bay: a cross-genre hit
Rolling Stone’s David Fear says Apple TV’s island comedy-horror, from creator Katie Dippold and director Hiro Murai, “finds the exact third-bowl-of-porridge mix between sly laughs and jump scares.” TVLine agrees that the show “fully delivered on both halves of the genre,” and singles out breakout Kate O’Flynn. Matthew Rhys plays the mayor trying to market a cursed island.
Hacks, Season 5: a final bow
TVLine notes that shows like HBO Max’s Hacks “wrapped up their runs with sterling final seasons,” and Rolling Stone’s Scherer writes that the fifth and final season “couldn’t have been a more fitting sendoff for our girls.” Deborah Vance and Ava Daniels “began as enemies,” she adds, “but they ended as one another’s literal reason to live.”
Industry, Season 4: grown up
Rolling Stone’s Maria Fontoura says “Industry has grown up over four seasons,” moving from a salacious trifle about young London traders to a meditation on capitalism, politics, race and class. TVLine adds that it “soared through its fourth season brimming with confidence,” taking on topics like sex trafficking and right-wing fascism.
Bait: Riz Ahmed’s Bond-sized identity crisis
Riz Ahmed’s comedy series stars him as a B-list actor up for the role of a certain British icon, with Patrick Stewart as his supercilious inner voice. Rolling Stone’s Jennifer Silverman credits the “six hilarious, unpredictable, and universally moving episodes,” and Guz Khan as scene-stealing cousin.
Also on the lists
Variety’s intro name-checks The Devil Wears Prada 2, Project Hail Mary, Michael and the concert films Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft alongside EPiC, and /Film’s 41 picks include The Drama, Backrooms and Disclosure Day. The second half of the year is already crowded: our July guide has The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and the Emmy nominations come July 8.
- Film lists drawn on
- Variety (Owen Gleiberman and Guy Lodge, June 30), /Film (first-half rundown)
- TV lists drawn on
- Rolling Stone (June 29), TVLine (first-half rundown)
Sources
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.
