Movies 2026: What's Worth Your Money in KL & Singapore

Out of everything 2026 has put on a screen so far, five films justify the ticket price: The Odyssey, Obsession, Toy Story 5, Colony and Tarung: Unforgiven. For the rest of the year, one date does the heavy lifting. On 18 December, Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three open against each other.

This has been a strange year at the cinema. The biggest release in Malaysia was not a Hollywood release. A horror film made for US$750,000 has outgrossed most of the studio slate. Two of the loudest franchise titles landed with a shrug. Here is the verified picture as of early August, plus what to put in the calendar.

What are the best movies of 2026 so far?

The Odyssey is the year’s high point and still playing. Obsession is the year’s shock, a micro-budget horror that has passed US$450 million worldwide. Toy Story 5 opened bigger than anything else released in 2026. Colony and Tarung: Unforgiven beat most Hollywood titles across Malaysian screens.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey opened on 17 July to US$124.5 million domestically, the third-largest opening of the year, and cleared US$650 million worldwide inside ten days. That makes it Nolan’s biggest global debut, achieved with an R rating and a 2,700-year-old source text. If you have not gone, our full breakdown of The Odyssey covers runtime, formats and which halls in KL and Singapore are worth the surcharge.

Obsession is the better story. Written and directed by Curry Barker, made for US$750,000, picked up by Focus Features at the 2025 Toronto festival for roughly US$15 million, it had passed US$450 million globally by late July. That makes it the highest-grossing festival acquisition on record, ahead of The Blair Witch Project, and Focus Features’ biggest film ever. Inde Navarrette carries it. Nobody at the studios saw it coming.

Toy Story 5 took US$159 million on its opening weekend in June, the year’s largest, and reviewed well. The premise (a now eight-year-old Bonnie has swapped the toys for an AI tablet) is closer to the bone than a Pixar sequel usually gets. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie remains the year’s top domestic earner in the US at around US$427 million, with the Michael Jackson biopic Michael and Project Hail Mary both past US$340 million.

Why did Asian films beat Hollywood in Malaysia?

They turned up with better films and better timing. Yeon Sang-ho’s South Korean thriller Colony took more than RM30.6 million and became the highest-grossing release of 2026 in Malaysia, local or foreign. It also overtook Train to Busan as the biggest Korean film in Malaysian history. Local action title Tarung: Unforgiven cleared RM23.3 million.

Colony held number one for four straight weeks from 22 May. Tarung held it for three weeks in the same month. Dear You opened on 18 June and led for a fortnight. The Tamil release Jana Nayagan pulled about RM3 million in advance sales before hitting the top spot in late July.

Meanwhile Toy Story 5 and Supergirl both underperformed here against their international numbers. An Astro Shaw executive summed it up in local reporting: established Hollywood franchises still travel, new Hollywood intellectual property does not, at least not the way it did five years ago. If your default is to check what Marvel is releasing, you have been missing the films your colleagues are talking about at lunch.

Which 2026 movies are still coming?

Four dates are confirmed and worth planning around. Digger arrives on 2 October, Street Fighter on 16 October, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping on 20 November, and then the December collision. Malaysian and Singaporean release dates usually fall on the Wednesday or Thursday before the American Friday, so check local listings.

Digger is the interesting one. Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, described in the trailer material as grey, balding and potbellied, an executive whose company may have triggered a trillion-dollar ecological disaster. It is Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s first English-language film since The Revenant, shot in VistaVision by Emmanuel Lubezki, with Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons and John Goodman alongside. Warner Bros has it in the fall festival corridor and is pushing it hard for awards.

Street Fighter has a real director in Kitao Sakurai and was framed for IMAX, which suggests somebody involved took it seriously. Video game adaptations have a poor record. This one at least looks like it was made by people who have played the game.

Is 18 December worth planning around?

Yes, and you should book the day tickets open. Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three are both dated 18 December 2026, and as of early August neither studio has blinked. Reporting puts Doomsday’s budget near US$500 million and Dune: Part Three’s around US$200 million. The internet already calls it Dunesday.

The practical problem is local. Malaysia and Singapore have a limited number of premium large-format halls, and a hall can only run one of these at a time. Expect IMAX and the equivalent premium screens to lock to one title for the first two weeks, with the other film pushed to standard halls or to January. If you want both in the format they were shot for, decide now which one you see in December and which one waits.

What does a cinema ticket cost now?

A standard 2D adult ticket costs roughly RM14 to RM18 in Malaysia and RM24 to RM32 for IMAX. In Singapore, a weekday adult ticket is S$11 at Shaw and S$11.50 at Golden Village, climbing to S$15.50 and S$16 on Fridays, weekends and public holidays. Opening-week titles add a small surcharge.

Ways to pay less that take no effort. In Singapore, GV Movie Club is free to join and knocks S$2 off regular 2D tickets on Mondays and Tuesdays. Students pay around S$7 and seniors aged 55 and over pay from S$4.50 at Shaw, both on weekdays before 6pm with ID at the counter. App bookings add S$0.50 to S$1 per transaction, so buying two tickets in one order beats two separate orders.

In Malaysia, the premium branches sit at the top of the range. KLCC, Pavilion and Mid Valley charge more than a suburban GSC or TGV for the same film on the same day. A Wednesday afternoon in a PJ or Cheras hall costs about what a large popcorn does at KLCC.

What can you skip?

Supergirl opened in late June to split reviews (57 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes across 148 critics, 49 on Metacritic) and a soft start. Milly Alcock comes out of it well. The screenplay does not. The live-action Moana landed on 10 July to poor notices. Wuthering Heights, The Bride! and Scream 7 all finished below what their studios expected.

None of those are catastrophes. They are just films where the RM18 and the two and a half hours could go somewhere better, and this year there is somewhere better almost every week.

So: open the GSC, TGV or Golden Village app tonight and do two things. Set a reminder for when 18 December bookings go live, because the good IMAX seats go in hours. Then buy one weekday ticket for whichever Korean, Chinese or local title is sitting at number one this week. It costs less than a mamak supper, and it is the reason your feed is full of a film you have never heard of. If you are taking someone, our first date ideas guide has the version of this that includes what to do after the credits, and the rest of the culture desk is here.