Yes, I'm thrilled that audiences are finally embracing movie theaters again, between Backrooms and Obsession's astronomical box-office wins last weekend. But those aren't the year's only exceptional titles—many of which have been criminally overlooked. Below, film critic Max Cea rounded up his best movies of 2026 so far. —Brady Langmann, senior entertainment editor
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Between Obsession and Backrooms, the kids are taking cinemas by storm.
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The kids may not be alright, but they’ve got some filmmaking chops. The biggest story in cinema right now is a pair of first features from impossibly young new directors. Obsession, from 26-year-old Curry Barker, was made for under $1 million and is making history at the box office. It saw a 39.4 percent jump in its second-week gross on its way to briefly holding the top spot. The film’s popularity has been driven primarily by young moviegoers, who, as it turns out, will indeed show up to theaters if you give them something to talk about.
And now here comes the much-hyped A24 film Backrooms, from 20-year-old Kane Parsons. Backrooms is projected to outperform Obsession, and is similarly provoking impassioned discourse. Your mileage may vary on these two films—as mine did—but, regardless, it’s very exciting to see new blood making waves with original work.
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Chances are you’ve never seen hundreds of grooming products laid out on the table of a conference room as a group of eager editors hovers overhead, ready to snatch up each new release and take it home for extensive testing. Around the Esquire offices, though, it’s not such a novel sight. Each year, we endeavor to identify the very best stuff in the worlds of skin care, hair care, body care, fragrance, and so much more.
This year, we went big, tapping a larger-than-ever group of testers to try out hundreds of new releases and winnow the list down to the winners of our latest annual Grooming Awards.
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I'm not implying that every phone call in your life is of that level of importance. I’m just saying that there is someone, somewhere on the other side of a phone, who wants to hear your voice. The content of the call does not matter. The voice does. You. Yours. On a screen, your texts look just like everyone else’s; there is nothing to differentiate the love of your life from a coworker besides a few grammatical ticks. Your voice will never sound like everybody else’s. Nor will your best friend’s, your wife’s, or your father-in-law’s. The rest of your life is on the other side of the line. Not the screen.
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