Halfway Through 2026

To list favorite films and albums at a year’s midpoint is to assess what I’ve consumed and what’s sticking; it’s also a speculative game of sorts—which titles will remain near the top of my eventual year-end lists?

Since prestige films both big and small tend to surface during the year’s last quarter (i.e. Awards Season), this is somewhat a lopsided exercise. Occasionally, I’ve seen my top film early in the year (Do Not Expect Too Much From The End of The World, Quo Vadis, Aida?); four films I listed at last year’s midpoint made it into my year-end top ten. Half of the 2026 releases below were seen at IFF Boston in April plus two more at that organization’s Fall Focus last October (The Love That Remains, Sound of Falling). Silent Friend also played the latter but even a recent viewing in one of the Coolidge’s smallest theaters didn’t diminish its impact for me. That leaves surprise hit (by indie standards, anyway) Pillion and Nadav Lapid’s hilarious and incendiary Yes, which I just watched and may write about at another date.

As release schedules go, albums are more luck-of-the-draw situations. At last year’s midpoint, I had already heard what would end up my year-end number one (Doves’ Constellations For The Lonely) and very much expected it to end up in that place (or close to it). Still, most of my other midyear selections ended up honorable mentions outside the top ten, so you never know. Six months in, 2026 seems pretty average for new albums; most of what’s included below are the latest efforts from artists I already love—many of them good (Gonzalez, Ware, Parks, Robyn) rather than great (the Orton just came out but I’m already feeling strongly about it.) I need to spend more time with Lu’s first release in seven years and Harding’s latest, but the key is I want to keep listening to them. The closest to a standout here is the second album from Brit RAYE (and its irresistible single “Where Is My Husband!”), which positively gives off Janelle Monae-circa-The ArchAndroid-theater-kid–vibes minus the sci-fi pretensions. With new releases to come from beabadoobee, Nicole Atkins, The Tubs, Carly Rae Jepsen and more, as usual, we’ll see where things measure up in another six months.

Favorite Films of 2026 so far (alphabetical by title):