AFI Fest 2026 Unveils Red Carpet Premieres, Special Screenings

AFI Fest’s 2026 schedule is starting to fill up.

The American Film Institute has lifted the veil on more titles selected to screen at its upcoming event in Los Angeles, including a handful of fall festival standouts. New to the red carpet premieres section are Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky starring Anthony Ippolito and Netflix’s animated Ray Gunn from Brad Bird featuring the voices of Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell.

Rockwell also stars in Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine opposite John Malkovich, and that film, which broke out as a festival favorite following its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, has been plucked to show as part of AFI’s special screenings section.

It will be joined by Ava DuVernay’s documentary 14th, Diego Luna’s Ashes, Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth! starring Pedro Pascal as a gifted cellist, Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas, Florian Zeller’s Bunker starring couple Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz, Arie and Chuko Esiri’s Clarissa with David Oyelowo, Sophie Okonedo and Ayo Edebiri, Simon Stone’s Elsinore starring Andrew Scott as Ian Charleson, Beth de Araújo’s Josephine starring Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan and Mason Reeves, Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love starring Rami Malek, Rebecca Hall, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Tom Sturridge and Maisy Stella, Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson’s Mouse starring Sophie Okonedo and Katherine Mallen Kupferer, and Leah Nelson’s animated pic about Alzheimer’s, Tangles, featuring an all-star voice cast that includes Seth Rogen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Pamela Adlon, Sarah Silverman, Beanie Feldstein, Abbi Jacobson, Wanda Sykes, Adam Shapiro, Bowen Yang, Phil Rosenthal, Samira Wiley and more.

The milestone 40th installment of AFI Fest is set to take place at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatres on Oct. 21-25. The fest opens with the U.S. premiere of Travis Knight’s animated Wildwood, and will feature showings of Netflix’s The Mosquito Bowl from filmmaker Peter Berg and starring Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgard, Ray Nicholson and Berg, and Sian Heder’s Being Heumann. Also as previously announced, Phil Lord and Chris Miller have been tapped as guest artistic directors. The full fest lineup will be unveiled on Sept. 29. In the meantime, passes are now available for purchase.

“AFI Fest is where the world tells stories in the beating heart of Hollywood,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI president and CEO. “This year, we are proud to celebrate 40 years of bringing artists and audiences together to be inspired in a powerful sense of community.”