2026 is only halfway through and VirtueVigil has already reviewed 126 films and series. That is more content than we covered in all of 2023. The ideological spread is as wide as we have ever recorded: Scarpetta lands at the top with a WokeScore of 58, while Exit 8, A Great Awakening, and The Sheep Detectives all sit at or near zero. The gap between the most woke and most traditional releases of 2026 is not a gap. It is a canyon.
This is the complete VirtueVigil mid-year ranking of every 2026 film and series we have scored, 126 titles ranked from most woke to most traditional. Of those, 27 score on the woke side and 99 score on the traditional side. The data is not close. 2026 is shaping up as a banner year for traditionally coded content -- and for aggressively progressive content. The middle is shrinking. Everything is moving toward the poles.
Rankings run from #1 (most woke) to #126 (most traditional). All scores use the VirtueVigil Woke Score methodology. These are not quality ratings. Every entry links to the full review with complete trope breakdowns. Use the list to know what to avoid and what to seek out.
#1: Scarpetta (2026)
This preview is based on available trailers, creative team history, and pre-release information. Scores and verdict reflect our prediction only and will be updated upon release. For three decades, readers have watched Dr.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Scarpetta
#2: Youngblood (2026)
This preview is based on available trailers, creative team history, and pre-release information. Scores and verdict reflect our prediction only and will be updated upon release. Hockey has always been the sport America's cultural arbiters wanted to remake.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Youngblood
#3: Wuthering Heights (2026)
Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights survived 179 years, multiple adaptations, and the entire twentieth century with its reputation intact.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Wuthering Heights
#4: The Moment (2026)
Let's be precise about what this film is: a $4 million mockumentary in which Charli XCX - pop music's reigning progressive icon - produces, co-wrote, and stars in a fictional version of her own real life, distributed by A24, the most ideologically consistent prestige label in Ame...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Moment
#5: Hamlet (2026)
A strongly woke release that scores heavily on progressive ideological content. Full breakdown at VirtueVigil.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Hamlet
#6: The Pitt: Season 2 (2026)
The Pitt Season 2 premiered January 8, 2026 on HBO Max. It follows the same format as Season 1: each episode covers roughly one hour of a single fifteen-hour shift at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, nicknamed 'the Pitt.' This season is set on the Fourth of July, which the w...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Pitt: Season 2
#7: Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 (2026)
Season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again premiered March 24, 2026 on Disney+ and is being released weekly through May 5. What follows is a review based on episodes 1 through 5, which constitute the majority of the season.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2
#8: The Drama (2026)
Let us be direct about what The Drama is doing and what it costs. Kristoffer Borgli, the Norwegian provocateur behind Dream Scenario, has made a film with a single, devastating premise: what happens when you discover the person you love once planned to murder children at their s...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Drama
#9: The Bride! (2026)
Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride! is a film that tells you exactly what it is from the very first frame, and it does not care if you approve.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Bride!
#10: The Night Agent: Season 3 (2026)
Not a woke trap. The Night Agent is one of Netflix's most reliable action properties precisely because it delivers exactly what it promises: a good-looking guy with a badge chasing bad guys through exotic locations. Season 3 doesn't ambush you with ideology.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Night Agent: Season 3
#11: Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026)
The original Ready or Not (2019) was a tight, clever horror-comedy with a clear thesis: old money is a death cult, and the institution of marriage into elite families is a form of entrapment.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Ready or Not 2: Here I Come
#12: I Love Boosters (2026)
Boots Riley made Sorry to Bother You in 2018. That film, about a Black telemarketer who discovers his 'white voice' leads him into complicity with something monstrous, was a Marxist nightmare comedy that earned its politics through sheer formal invention. It wasn't subtle.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of I Love Boosters
#13: The Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026)
The Devil Wears Prada 2 arrives as Hollywood's latest bid to repackage 2000s female-empowerment comfort food for the post-#MeToo moment.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Devil Wears Prada 2
#14: The Last Witness (2026)
A mixed or moderate entry in the 2026 slate. Check the full VirtueVigil review for the complete trope breakdown.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Last Witness
#15: Mother Mary (2026)
Let's be honest about what Mother Mary is before we pretend it's a mystery. A24 has made a David Lowery psychological thriller about two women who used to be everything to each other, the long silence that followed, and what happens when the pop star calls the costume designer b...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Mother Mary
#16: Disclosure Day (2026)
Disclosure Day is Steven Spielberg's return to science fiction spectacle, but thirty years into his career, he is a different filmmaker than the man who made Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The wonder remains. The sense of awe before the unknown remains.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Disclosure Day
#17: Butterfly Dreams (2026)
Director Dee Rees brings formidable craft and genuine humanity to Butterfly Dreams, a coming-of-age drama about a sixteen-year-old trans girl named Maya who leaves her conservative religious hometown in rural Kentucky to live with her estranged grandmother in Louisville and atten...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Butterfly Dreams
#18: Is God Is (2026)
Is God Is arrives on May 15 as one of the most explicitly ideological films of the year. Director Aleshea Harris has been clear about what she's making. A Black feminist revenge myth. A film about women's violent agency against a patriarch who destroyed their family.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Is God Is
#19: Hoppers (2026)
Let us be honest about what Pixar made here. Hoppers is a genuine return to form for a studio that had been coasting on nostalgia sequels and misfires for nearly a decade.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Hoppers
#20: Corporate Retreat (2026)
Corporate Retreat is a survival horror film that uses the corporate team-building setting as a pressure cooker for examining moral choice, loyalty, and the true measure of a person under existential threat.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Corporate Retreat
#21: Bridgerton: Season 4 (2026)
Bridgerton Season 4 is a Cinderella story set in a version of Regency England that has no memory of actual Regency England.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Bridgerton: Season 4
#22: Paradise - Season 2 (2026)
Dan Fogelman built his reputation on This Is Us - a show that knew exactly how to make you cry, that understood emotional architecture with almost clinical precision, and that often used that precision in service of specific progressive narratives about race, identity, and family...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Paradise - Season 2
#23: Return to Silent Hill (2026)
Return to Silent Hill is an adaptation of Silent Hill 2, which has been called the greatest psychological horror narrative ever made.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Return to Silent Hill
#24: Send Help (2026)
Sam Raimi has been making gloriously unhinged movies for over 40 years. From the cabin in the Tennessee woods to the streets of Manhattan to the multiverse itself, the guy runs on one fuel: controlled chaos delivered with a grin.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Send Help
#25: Dead Man's Wire (2026)
The Tony Kiritsis standoff of February 8, 1977 was one of the most extraordinary events in Indianapolis history.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Dead Man's Wire
#26: People We Meet on Vacation (2026)
People We Meet on Vacation is the rom-com BookTok has been waiting for, and it delivers exactly what that audience wants: two impossibly attractive leads with crackling chemistry, beautiful international locations, a will-they-won't-they structure that stretches across a decade, ...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of People We Meet on Vacation
#27: Nightbitch (2026)
Nightbitch opens as a character study of maternal exhaustion - a woman losing her identity in the repetitive isolation of full-time parenthood. The performances are grounded. The frustration feels earned.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Nightbitch
#28: Supergirl (2026)
Tom King wrote Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow in 2021 and 2022, and it won Eisner Awards and generated exactly two kinds of response: progressive critics calling it a feminist masterpiece and traditional fans asking why their character had been replaced by someone who gets drunk on...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Supergirl
#29: Michael (2026)
Michael Jackson is the most complicated subject a biopic could attempt in 2026. He is the most successful recording artist in American history. He may have sexually abused children.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Michael
#30: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)
The Mandalorian and Grogu is Jon Favreau's theatrical expansion of the Mandalorian universe, continuing the story of Din Djarin and the Child (Grogu).
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Mandalorian and Grogu
#31: Scrubs - Season 10 Revival (2026)
The original Scrubs ran nine seasons across NBC and ABC, and at its best it was something genuinely special: a workplace comedy that balanced absurdist fantasy with real emotional stakes, that portrayed medicine honestly enough to earn respect from actual physicians, and that cen...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Scrubs - Season 10 Revival
#32: The Last of Us - Season 2 (2026)
Season 1 earned enormous trust through grounded storytelling and earned emotional beats. Season 2 leverages that trust to introduce ideological reframing that would not have survived scrutiny if presented upfront. The bait-and-switch is architecturally precise.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Last of Us - Season 2
#33: Lorne (2026)
Lorne Michaels once said that he didn't create Saturday Night Live to be a political show. He created it to be a comedy show.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Lorne
#34: Omaha (2026)
Omaha (2026) is a pre-release predicted triumph of quiet American cinema: a stripped-down 84-minute road film about a father who loses his house in the 2008 financial crisis and drives his two young children across the country toward an uncertain future.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Omaha
#35: Faces of Death (2026)
Here's something you don't expect to say about a Faces of Death remake: it has something on its mind. The 1978 original was a fake documentary that presented staged death footage as real, made for $450,000, and became one of the most notorious exploitation films in cinema histor...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Faces of Death
#36: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)
The Bone Temple is better than it has any right to be. After the messy second half of 28 Years Later, expectations for this direct sequel were low.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
#37: Scream 7 (2026)
Kevin Williamson returns to direct the franchise he created 30 years ago, and the result is a film that corrects course from the progressive meta-heavy recent entries without abandoning what makes the franchise tick.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Scream 7
#38: The Christophers (2026)
The Christophers (2026) is a Steven Soderbergh-directed original drama starring Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel about artistic integrity, family betrayal, and what remains when a life's work is reduced to commodity. It scores TRADITIONAL LEAN at +4.84 TRAD with an authIndex of 72.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Christophers
#39: Deadpool 3 (2026)
A mixed or moderate entry in the 2026 slate. Check the full VirtueVigil review for the complete trope breakdown.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Deadpool 3
#40: Toy Story 5 (2026)
Toy Story 5 is Andrew Stanton's meditation on childhood, play, and the siege of imagination by algorithmic entertainment.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Toy Story 5
#41: Coyote vs. Acme (2026)
Coyote vs. Acme has the most dramatic behind-the-scenes story of any film in 2026, and it hasn't even been released yet. Here's the short version: Warner Bros. spent roughly $70 million making a live-action/animated hybrid film about Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme Corporation.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Coyote vs. Acme
#42: How to Make a Killing (2026)
Glen Powell murdering his way through a family tree to reclaim stolen wealth sounds like the pitch for a crowd-pleasing dark comedy - and largely, How to Make a Killing delivers exactly that.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of How to Make a Killing
#43: Shelter (2026)
There is a line of conservative cinema that barely announces itself: the masculine protector story, dressed in action-genre clothes, that has always been one of Hollywood's most durable formulas. Shelter is that film, uncomplicated and unapologetic about it.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Shelter
#44: Over Your Dead Body (2026)
Over Your Dead Body opens with a marriage already in free fall. Dan (Jason Segel), a formerly successful advertising creative, has been reduced to directing pop-up ads. His ambitions are dead.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Over Your Dead Body
#45: Scary Movie 6 (2026)
Twenty-six years after the original and thirteen years after the widely reviled Scary Movie 5, the Wayans brothers are back.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Scary Movie 6
#46: Remarkably Bright Creatures (2026)
Remarkably Bright Creatures follows Tova, an elderly widow who finds unexpected connection and meaning through her work at an aquarium. Sally Field anchors the film with dignity and presence.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Remarkably Bright Creatures
#47: GOAT (2026)
Here is what Stephen Curry apparently remembered about the sports movies that shaped him: the underdog does not win because the system is fixed for him. The underdog wins because he shows up every day, gets better, and earns it.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of GOAT
#48: Dune: Part Three (2026)
Denis Villeneuve completes his Dune trilogy with a film that is simultaneously his most visually ambitious and most explicitly ideological.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Dune: Part Three
#49: Normal (2026)
Normal is exactly the kind of film its title ironically promises it is not: a small-town sheriff thriller that starts quiet and escalates into organized crime warfare, with Bob Odenkirk doing what he now does better than almost anyone in Hollywood. The setup is deceptively simpl...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Normal
#50: The Wizard of the Kremlin (2026)
The Wizard of the Kremlin opens in the United States on May 15 after premiering at Venice in August 2025 and opening in France in January 2026.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Wizard of the Kremlin
#51: Interceptor Protocol (2026)
A mixed or moderate entry in the 2026 slate. Check the full VirtueVigil review for the complete trope breakdown.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Interceptor Protocol
#52: The Odyssey (2026)
PRE-RELEASE ANALYSIS: Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey releases July 17, 2026. This review is based on trailers, production information, cast confirmations, and Nolan's documented approach to the material. Let us be direct: Christopher Nolan adapting Homer's Odyssey is one of the...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Odyssey
#53: They Will Kill You (2026)
Zazie Beetz has spent years being the best thing in movies that did not deserve her. Deadpool 2. Joker. Bullet Train. She arrives, she crackles, she elevates every scene, then the camera cuts away and the film does something lesser with itself.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of They Will Kill You
#54: Desert Warrior (2026)
Three years ago, almost nobody in the West had heard of the Battle of Dhu Qar. If you ask a Saudi, they know it the way Americans know the Alamo. The first time Arabian tribes defeated the Persian Sassanid Empire in open battle.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Desert Warrior
#55: Pressure (2026)
Pressure is Ron Howard's historical submarine drama exploring military decision-making under crisis conditions. The film appears to center on a submarine command facing competing pressures: the mission, crew safety, institutional orders, and individual conscience.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Pressure
#56: Masters of the Universe (2026)
PRE-RELEASE ANALYSIS: Masters of the Universe releases June 5, 2026. This review is based on trailers, production information, cast confirmations, and the franchise's established character values. He-Man is having a moment.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Masters of the Universe
#57: The Stranger (2026)
François Ozon's The Stranger is a significant artistic achievement and a deliberate challenge to contemporary sensibility.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Stranger
#58: Apex (2026)
APEX (2026) **Classification:** - PREDICTED WOKE SCORE: 6.8 / 30 - PREDICTED TRADITIONAL SCORE: 18.4 / 30 - COMPOSITE SCORE: 73 / 100 - MARGIN: +11.6 TRADITIONAL - CONFIDENCE: HIGH - VERDICT: PREDICTED TRADITIONAL LEAN - **SPOILER ALERT** This is a pre-release review based ...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Apex
#59: Spider-Man: Web of Heroes (2026)
Tom Holland's Spider-Man films have maintained something crucial that much contemporary superhero cinema has lost: a genuine moral framework. Peter Parker is not a tortured antihero questioning whether he should use his power.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Spider-Man: Web of Heroes
#60: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026)
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the sequel to the $1.36 billion juggernaut that proved Nintendo's plumber could carry a Hollywood franchise.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
#61: We Bury the Dead (2026)
The Australian zombie film has developed a distinct subgenre identity in recent years, and We Bury the Dead belongs to the thoughtful end of it. This is not a film about survival.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of We Bury the Dead
#62: Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)
PRE-RELEASE ANALYSIS: Spider-Man: Brand New Day releases July 31, 2026. This review is based on trailers, cast and crew confirmations, and the film's premise as described by Marvel and the production team. The 'Brand New Day' title is doing a lot of work here.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Spider-Man: Brand New Day
#63: The Death of Robin Hood (2026)
A24 has built its brand on dark, challenging films that push back against mainstream genre conventions. For most of that library, 'dark and challenging' means ideologically loaded. The Witch. Hereditary. Midsommar.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Death of Robin Hood
#64: The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (2026)
Haymitch Abernathy has been one of cinema's great unexplained characters since Woody Harrelson stumbled through the original Hunger Games films as the perpetually drunk, permanently haunted mentor from District 12. We always knew he survived the Games. We never knew how.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
#65: Project Hail Mary (2026)
Project Hail Mary opens with a man waking up alone on a spacecraft with no memory of who he is or why he is there. It ends with him choosing to stay, alone, in a distant solar system, because someone else needs him more than Earth does.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Project Hail Mary
#66: Crime 101 (2026)
Bart Layton's Crime 101 is the kind of movie Hollywood used to make all the time and rarely bothers with anymore.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Crime 101
#67: Ready or Not 2 (2026)
This preview is based on available trailers, creative team history, and pre-release information. Scores and verdict reflect our prediction only and will be updated upon release. CREATIVE TEAM SUMMARY | Field | Details | | -| -| | Directors | Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gill...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Ready or Not 2
#68: Severance - Season 2 (2026)
The anti-corporate themes are structurally embedded and largely organic to the world-building. Some ideological markers are present but remain secondary to genuine narrative ambition. The series respects its audience enough to present themes rather than sermons.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Severance - Season 2
#69: The Breadwinner (2026)
The Breadwinner has not released at time of writing. But Nate Bargatze, Wonder Project, and the Mr. Mom premise tell you most of what you need to know. Bargatze is one of the most genuinely traditional popular comedians working today.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Breadwinner
#70: Drishyam 3 (2026)
Fifteen years after Jeethu Joseph introduced the world to Georgekutty, the cable TV operator from Goa who outsmarted an entire police department to protect his family, Drishyam 3 asks a question the previous films deliberately avoided: what does it cost to keep winning? The firs...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Drishyam 3
#71: Reminders of Him (2026)
This is a tearjerker built around one of the most traditional premises in modern romance fiction: a mother fighting to know her child. It is not a politically complicated film. It is not interested in being provocative.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Reminders of Him
#72: Mortal Kombat II (2026)
A mixed or moderate entry in the 2026 slate. Check the full VirtueVigil review for the complete trope breakdown.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Mortal Kombat II
#73: Silent Storm (2026)
Director Kathryn Bigelow returns with Silent Storm, a Cold War submarine thriller that represents American military cinema at its finest.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Silent Storm
#74: Greenland 2: Migration (2026)
Greenland 2: Migration is a deeply traditional film wearing the clothes of a post-apocalyptic thriller.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Greenland 2: Migration
#75: Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man (2026)
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man delivers exactly what its six seasons of television promised: a masculine, violent, morally complex crime drama about a deeply flawed man who comes out of hiding to save his son, fight fascists, and protect his family during Britain's darkest hour...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man
#76: Mercy (2026)
Timur Bekmambetov's Mercy arrives with a killer premise and proceeds to do almost nothing interesting with it. An LAPD detective wakes up strapped to an execution chair, put on trial by an AI judge for murdering his wife, given 90 minutes to prove he didn't do it. Strong hook.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Mercy
#77: The Strangers: Chapter 3 (2026)
The original The Strangers (2008) earned its place in horror history with a deceptively simple premise: three masked killers, a couple, an isolated house, no explanation offered and none needed.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Strangers: Chapter 3
#78: Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die (2026)
Hollywood doesn't often make movies that tell you to put down your phone - and mean it. Yet here is Gore Verbinski, the eccentric auteur behind Pirates of the Caribbean and Rango, delivering a sprawling, deranged, 134-minute action comedy whose central villain isn't a foreign des...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
#79: Backrooms (2026)
Here's what Backrooms is: a door opens in the basement of a furniture showroom. That door should not be there. People who go through it find themselves in a space that is geometrically impossible, fundamentally hostile, and completely without apparent exit.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Backrooms
#80: You, Me & Tuscany (2026)
You, Me & Tuscany is a straightforward romantic comedy with no ideological baggage. It celebrates romantic love as transformative, honors family bonds, and shows a woman finding purpose through courage and connection.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of You, Me & Tuscany
#81: Avengers: Doomsday (2026)
This is the review nobody else is writing yet. Avengers: Doomsday does not release until December 18, 2026. The trailers are out. The cast list is longer than a CVS receipt. Robert Downey Jr. is back, not as Tony Stark but as Doctor Doom.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Avengers: Doomsday
#82: Obsession (2026)
Here is what Curry Barker understands that too many horror filmmakers get wrong: the scariest thing isn't a monster. It's what a person does to themselves when they're desperate enough. Obsession has a simple premise. Bear Bailey is in love with Nikki Freeman.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Obsession
#83: Pizza Movie (2026)
A mixed or moderate entry in the 2026 slate. Check the full VirtueVigil review for the complete trope breakdown.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Pizza Movie
#84: Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender (2026)
Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the most beloved animated series ever made. That is not opinion. It is measurement. Three seasons, 61 episodes, and a cultural footprint that has only grown in the eighteen years since it concluded.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender
#85: War Machine (2026)
War Machine is a glorious throwback to the testosterone-fueled sci-fi action films of the 1980s and 1990s, and it does not apologize for it.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of War Machine
#86: Outlander - Season 8 (2026)
This preview is based on available trailers, creative team history, and pre-release information. Scores and verdict reflect our prediction only and will be updated upon release. CREATIVE TEAM SUMMARY | Field | Details | | -| -| | Showrunner | Matthew B.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Outlander - Season 8
#87: Jack Ryan: Ghost War (2026)
Jack Ryan: Ghost War arrives on Prime Video May 20 as something Hollywood has forgotten how to make at consistent quality: a serious American patriotism film.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Jack Ryan: Ghost War
#88: undertone (2026)
Here is what horror films used to understand and largely forgot: the scariest thing in the world is not what you can see. It is what you almost see. What you hear from the next room.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of undertone
#89: Cliffhanger (2026)
There is a version of Cliffhanger (2026) that nobody would want to see. It features a woman who is better than everyone around her because she is a woman, a villain who represents patriarchal power, and a father who needs to be rescued because competent fathers have no place in t...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Cliffhanger
#90: Deep Water (2026)
Deep Water is Renny Harlin's return to the shark-thriller genre that made Deep Blue Sea a classic. The film centers on a ship in open water where a shark encounter forces the crew into a desperate survival situation.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Deep Water
#91: Paddington 3 (2026)
One of the most traditionally coded releases of 2026, with a strong margin favoring traditional values. Full review at VirtueVigil.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Paddington 3
#92: California Schemin' (2026)
California Schemin' is a story about two friends who tried to fake their way to success and faced the consequences. The film's lesson is traditional: authenticity matters, friendships matter, and sustained dishonesty damages both.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of California Schemin'
#93: Evil Dead: Burn (2026)
Evil Dead: Burn is the franchise asking the same question it has asked since 1981: what does it take to survive when the people you love try to kill you? The setup is the series' bleakest entry point yet. Alice has lost her husband Will.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Evil Dead: Burn
#94: The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2026)
The Fantastic Four has been one of the most difficult Marvel properties to adapt to film for twenty years. Two Fox attempts that ranged from disappointing to catastrophic left a generation of comics readers skeptical that the First Family of Marvel could ever work on screen.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Fantastic Four: First Steps
#95: The Optimist: The Bravest Act Is Truth (2026)
The Optimist is the kind of film that should not need a culture war review. It is a small, independent drama about a real Holocaust survivor named Herbert Heller who kept his past secret for 60 years and the friendship that finally gave him the courage to speak. It is not loud.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Optimist: The Bravest Act Is Truth
#96: One Piece - Season 2 (2026)
This preview is based on available trailers, creative team history, and pre-release information. Scores and verdict reflect our prediction only and will be updated upon release. CREATIVE TEAM SUMMARY | Field | Details | | -| -| | Showrunner | Matt Owens & Steven Maeda (return...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of One Piece - Season 2
#97: Ted - Season 2 (2026)
This preview is based on available trailers, creative team history, and pre-release information. Scores and verdict reflect our prediction only and will be updated upon release. CREATIVE TEAM SUMMARY | Field | Details | | -| -| | Creator / Writer / Director | Seth MacFarlane ...
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Ted - Season 2
#98: Psycho Killer (2026)
Andrew Kevin Walker wrote Se7en - one of the most morally coherent crime films of the past thirty years, a movie that understood evil as evil and paid the price for staring too long. That screenplay took years to get made. So did this one.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Psycho Killer
#99: In the Grey (2026)
In the Grey has not released at the time of this review. What we know comes from the trailer, production information, and Guy Ritchie's filmographic track record.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of In the Grey
#100: Minions & Monsters (2026)
Illumination is reliable. Not always great, sometimes very good, occasionally exceptional, but reliably delivering what it promises.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Minions & Monsters
#101: Fuze (2026)
Fuze is a crime heist thriller with traditional values at its core. The military and police work to protect public safety. The criminals plan a heist. The good guys and bad guys are defined by their competence, not their identity politics. The film does not stop to lecture.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Fuze
#102: Fantasy Life (2026)
There is a certain kind of New York romantic comedy that feels like it was made by someone who actually lives in New York and actually believes in love.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Fantasy Life
#103: Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2026)
Thirty years ago, Brian De Palma introduced Ethan Hunt in a film that made everyone who saw it lean forward in their seats. Tom Cruise was not playing a superhero. He was playing a man under pressure who refused to break.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
#104: The Mummy (2026)
The Mummy franchise has a complicated history. The 1932 Boris Karloff original is a genuine horror landmark. The Universal sequels that followed through the 1940s and 1950s ranged from solid to embarrassing.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Mummy
#105: Iron Lung (2026)
This review contains spoilers. Iron Lung earns its ending and the ending requires discussion. The premise is this: most of humanity has vanished in an event called the Quiet Rapture. Stars, planets, most people, gone. Only those on space stations and ships remain.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Iron Lung
#106: 1923 - Season 2 (2026)
Continues the Yellowstone universe's commitment to depicting traditional American values - land stewardship, family loyalty, personal sacrifice - without apology. Characters are defined by their choices and virtues, not by demographic categories.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of 1923 - Season 2
#107: Hunting Matthew Nichols (2026)
Twenty-three years after her brother Matthew vanished without explanation on Vancouver Island, documentary filmmaker Tara Nichols (Miranda MacDougall) assembles a team to investigate the cold case using rediscovered 2001 VHS footage and modern found footage techniques.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Hunting Matthew Nichols
#108: Lee Cronin's The Mummy (2026)
Horror has always been one of cinema's most reliable delivery systems for traditional values. At its best, the genre insists that evil is real, that families are worth fighting for, and that some things are worse than death.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Lee Cronin's The Mummy
#109: Hokum (2026)
Gothic horror has always understood something that secular literary culture keeps forgetting: the past does not stay buried. Hokum opens on Ohm Bauman, a novelist in the middle of a career crisis. His Conquistador trilogy was successful. Now he can't finish the epilogue.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Hokum
#110: The Yeti (2026)
The Yeti (2026) Pre-Release Prediction Review **Classification:** PREDICTED: TRADITIONAL **wokeScore:** 1.56 | **tradScore:** 19.18 **Margin:** +17.62 TRAD **Confidence:** MODERATE **Review by VirtueVigil Editorial Team** - ## Pre-Release Note This is a pre-relea...
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#111: Beast (2026)
Beast is the kind of film that used to be a Hollywood staple and is now almost extinct: a gritty, no-apologies MMA story about a man who gave up fighting to live a quiet life, only to be dragged back into the cage when the people he loves are threatened.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Beast
#112: Jackass: Best and Last (2026)
Twenty-five years is a long time to keep doing anything, let alone keeping the same group of friends together to hurt each other on camera.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Jackass: Best and Last
#113: The Furious (2026)
Let's start with the scorecard, because it's the clearest thing about The Furious. One hundred percent critics score at festivals. 7.7 on IMDB from festival audiences.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Furious
#114: I Swear (2026)
I Swear is one of the most profoundly human and profoundly traditional films in recent cinema. It celebrates family love, personal courage, and the dignity of every human being. It rejects shame, cruelty, and the reduction of persons to their conditions.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of I Swear
#115: Brothers Under Fire (2026)
Kiefer Sutherland has been playing certain characters his entire career. The most famous is Jack Bauer, who spent nine seasons demonstrating what a man trained to do impossible things looks like when he has no choice but to do them. Captain Jordan Wright is not Jack Bauer.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Brothers Under Fire
#116: Mortal Kombat 2 (2026)
The first Mortal Kombat (2021) was one of the franchise's best adaptations. Simon McQuoid understood that the game's appeal is not ironic. The tournament is genuinely meaningful within its mythology. The characters' powers are genuinely tied to their identities and values.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Mortal Kombat 2
#117: Solo Mio (2026)
Solo Mio is the movie Kevin James was born to make. Not the one critics expected, and not the one his sitcom fans were waiting for, but the one that proves this guy has real range when he trusts the material. The setup is simple.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Solo Mio
#118: Independence day (2026)
Independence Day is built on a traditional moral structure centered on individual courage, earned leadership, and collective survival through merit and sacrifice. The narrative elevates flawed but capable individuals who grow into responsibility under pressure.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Independence day
#119: Exit 8 (2026)
Let's start with the premise, because the premise is everything. A man is on a subway platform. Another man berates a mother because her baby is crying. The Lost Man watches. He says nothing. He does nothing. A few minutes later, his phone rings. His girlfriend is pregnant.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Exit 8
#120: Power Ballad (2026)
John Carney has now made five feature films about musicians. Once. Begin Again. Sing Street. Flora and Son. Power Ballad. He makes the same film every time. This isn't a criticism.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Power Ballad
#121: The Sheep Detectives (2026)
Here's the premise: George is a shepherd. He reads detective novels to his sheep every night. He reads them good stories. His sheep listen. His sheep understand. His sheep learn how detectives think and solve problems. Then a real mystery happens in their village.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Sheep Detectives
#122: Busboys (2026)
There is a question that has been circulating in every corner of the comedy-fan internet since the Busboys trailer dropped: is it woke? The short answer is no.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Busboys
#123: A Great Awakening (2026)
Take your family. Take your small group. Take the skeptic in your life who thinks faith stories are all saccharine nonsense. The Whitefield-Franklin friendship is the real deal, one of history's most interesting odd couples, and it deserves to be seen.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of A Great Awakening
#124: Dhurandhar: The Revenge (2026)
Hollywood has been making apology films for a decade. Every American action movie now comes loaded with a second-act speech about institutional corruption, military-industrial complex guilt, or the hero's own problematic violence.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Dhurandhar: The Revenge
#125: Melania (2026)
A spoiler: Melania is not a documentary in any traditional journalistic sense. Melania Trump said this herself during the film's promotion, describing it as 'a created experience' and 'purposeful storytelling' rather than a documentary.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Melania
#126: I Can Only Imagine 2 (2026)
The original "I Can Only Imagine" was a genuine phenomenon in faith-based cinema, pulling in $83 million on a shoestring budget and proving that audiences hungry for sincere Christian storytelling would show up in droves.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of I Can Only Imagine 2
The 2026 Mid-Year Verdict
126 films scored. 27 scoring woke, 99 scoring traditional. The most woke release of 2026 so far is Scarpetta at -16 WOKE, and the most traditional is Exit 8 at +31 TRAD. Both numbers represent the extremes of a year that is making 2024 look moderate by comparison. Check back as VirtueVigil continues to score 2026 releases through the summer and fall -- this list updates with every new review.
Browse every full review in the VirtueVigil database, or explore the genre-specific 2026 rankings: Action, Drama, Thriller, Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Animated and Family.