So far, 2026 has been a big year for movies. There’s been the success of horror films like Backrooms and Obsession. There are movies that have been targeted by the culture wars, like The Odyssey. And there are the smaller films that have gotten critical acclaim like Camp and Is God Is.

All those films are coming out in a landscape that seems hopeful for theaters. In the first half of the year, films in the U.S. have earned more at the box office than in any year since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic. This hour, we’re talking about the year in film for our fourth annual summer movie panel.

GUESTS:

• Nadira Goffe: Staff Writer at Slate

• Walter Chaw: Senior Film Critic for FilmFreakCentral.net, author of A Walter Hill Film: Tragedy and Masculinity in the Films of Walter Hill and Film Instructor at the University of Colorado Denver.

• James Hanley: Co-Founder of the independent movie theater Cinestudio in Hartford in 1970

Recommendations from our panelists:

• Watch The Odyssey (2026) on the largest screen you can

• Revisit Sinners in a theater

• Camp

• Night of the Living Dead

• Is God Is

• You, Me & Tuscany

• 28 Years Later: Bone Temple

• Girls Like Girls

• Hope

• The Wailing

• When you see a great film, watch the creator’s earlier films that brought them to critical acclaim

Photo Credit: Petros Giannakouris