Don’t know what to watch? Are you overwhelmed by how many movies there are nowadays? Gordon Briggs’ Reel Talk is here for you. Every month, this column highlights three films from movie history that are worth your time.
2026 has been a turbulent year for movies. Genres that were once guaranteed to be financial successes have stumbled at box office, while smaller, more cult oddities have found unexpected staying power. As we reach the halfway point of the year, it seems fitting to look back and highlight the films that left the biggest impression on me.
What’s strange is how many of these films were released just in the last few months. In fact, summer 2026 gave us something many audiences have been craving: variety. May and June have given us strange time travel movies, memorable horror films, heartfelt murder mysteries, and several movies about the fashion industry that were just plain weird.
“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die”
“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” could be one of the standout films of 2026. It accomplishes something I always enjoy in my science fiction: Taking great big cosmic ideas, strange creatures, and other extraordinary circumstances, then juxtaposing them with the ordinary, everyday places and people you find in life. That contrast between the normal and the absurd always appeals to me. The film is totally mad in all the right ways.
Good luck trying to sum up this film’s plot, a strange brew of “Terminator”-style time travel paradoxes, “Black Mirror”-brand intimate dystopia, and the fun of a choose-your-own-adventure story.
Here, we follow a mysterious man (a frenzied Sam Rockwell) claiming to be from the future, who takes hostages at a Los Angeles diner to recruit unlikely heroes to help him save the world. What’s threatening the world? Artificial intelligence, of course. More specifically, rather than a sudden apocalypse, the film explores a gradual, almost unnoticeable transformation from an analog world to a more synthetic and ultimately stranger reality. Even human grief itself is offloaded onto algorithms.
Those ideas could come across as abstract and cerebral “themes” in lesser hands, but there’s genuine anger to Gore Verbinski’s film and a manic energy to the way it hurls us into this future that is fun to watch.
Most importantly, the film is packed with interesting supporting and lead characters, each of whom are fighting their own personal battles in a world that is growing more artificial and less empathetic. Naturally, a movie this good is playing to empty theaters, so please seek it out on streaming and help it gain the cult audience it deserves. ★★★★
“Is God Is”
I can only describe this one as a female road revenge movie with Biblical overtones. “Is God Is” follows twin sisters Racine and Anaia, who are ordered by their mother to find and kill their abusive father to exact vengeance for the fire that scarred them all.
Adapting her own play, writer-director Aleshea Harris blends the comedy of a buddy movie and the visuals of a road movie with the darkness of Southern Gothic fiction. What gives the film juice is the combative relationship between these two sisters. Even though the two characters can be funny (they can sometimes read each other’s thoughts), their relationship is built on shared trauma and unmistakable codependency.
Plus, I love how they treat the supporting cast. For instance, I dig how the father’s face is largely kept offscreen. For much of the movie, the audience sees him only from the mouth down or only his menacing footwear, which builds tension and paints him as a mythical figure.
You could enjoy the film simply as a revenge story, but what makes a mark is how it lets its two lead characters be freely and unapologetically angry. This film actively rejects the idea that women must endure abuse quietly, suffer with grace, and hide their anger for the sake of societal comfort. That choice not only makes “Is God Is” memorable, but also a little dangerous. ★★★★
“The Sheep Detectives”
This movie is so damn charming, I couldn’t help but love it. Playing like “Babe” meets “Knives Out,” we follow a flock of sheep who become amateur detectives after their beloved shepherd (Hugh Jackman) is murdered. Not only must these sheep solve the murder of their shepherd, but they must also learn to leave the comfortable surroundings of the farm and discover that sometimes humans can be dishonest.
Despite the murder-mystery premise, the focus is on the flock’s emotional journey, aiming to be touching, rather than cynical. A less adventurous film could’ve easily rested on the cuteness of the farm animals and the pastoral setting’s underlying sweetness.
Thankfully, “Sheep Detectives” use the sheep’ perspectives to explore human themes like mortality. For instance, by trying to explain the shepherd’s murder, the younger sheep must grapple with what it means to die. That’s what I love about this movie: It skillfully contrasts the innocent, pastoral views of the sheep with the darkness of the human world. ★★★★
“I Love Boosters”
“I Love Boosters” is such a fun time. It’s one of the standouts of 2026. I dare not spoil the weird places the film goes to, but I will reveal its premise. Here, we follow the “Velvet Gang,” a group of lady thieves who turn shoplifting high-end clothes into a radical act of community service. Their “boosting” eventually draws the attention of a wealthy designer (memorably played by Demi Moore) who promises to destroy the gang.
I loved the stylistic freedom the movie gives itself. “Boosters” never feels fully tethered to just one genre, so it can walk brazenly into another. The movie brings animation, science fiction, and dialects into its critiques of capitalism, critiques that feel humorous and optimistic rather than depressing and dystopian.
I guarantee there will be some who will criticize the film for satirizing consumerism at the expense of narrative cohesion. However, I love the way “Boosters” deliberately rejects conventional storytelling in favor of a type of Afro-Surrealism that I enjoy. This is a movie that knows it’s a movie, and deliberately embraces the medium’s artificiality to craft something special. I encourage you to seek it out. ★★★
“Leviticus”
How can I describe “Leviticus?” Think of “It Follows” and “The Entity,” crossed with “Boy Erased,” and you get this brutal and bloody supernatural horror film with a tender gay love story at its center.
Here, we meet Naim and Ryan, two teenage boys living in a conservative religious community. After a series of mysterious deaths occur, they try to escape from a violent entity that takes the form of the person you desire most.
First things first: I liked Niam and Ryan. Not only does this movie make the religious community feel like a real place, I appreciate how the movie spends most of its first act establishing their awkward romance of coming out to each other and sharing a first kiss before any blood is drawn. Plus, the movie is scary on multiple levels.
The first is on a tactile level of body horror. The supernatural entity doesn’t just mentally torture its prey; it brutally assaults them, leading to plenty of ripped flesh and broken body parts that stand in stark contrast to the physical intimacy between Niam and Ryan.
What’s disturbing is how the monster isn’t nearly as scary as the religious authority figures that desperately try to “cure” our couple through conversion therapy. That’s what appealed to me about this film: Our protagonists are attacked on all sides. Not only must they survive a blood-thirsty monster and fight their community’s homophobia, they also must overcome their own fears of true intimacy with each other. ★★★½
