What makes a movie worth seeing in the theater? People ask themselves that question anytime they encounter a new trailer. It’s arguably the biggest question for the industry in this age of streaming, when at-home viewing has never been easier, and I imagine it’s front-of-mind for filmmakers and studios at every stage of a movie’s life, from greenlight through to the marketing campaign.

The answer is far more slippery than Hollywood would like, and we often don’t know which films got it right until they finally brave the box office. But, tracking data does give us the possibility to at least take the temperature.

One such tracking service, TheQuorum, surveys 2,000 people every week about movies at varying distances down the calendar. One of their questions – alongside gauges of awareness, interest, and whether they’d be willing to pay to see it – is, where would you prefer to watch this film, in theaters or at home? And the following movies from the rest of this year and 2026 are currently the ten with the highest percentage of “theater” responses, in descending order.

Project Hail Mary

Kicking off the list is a 2026 release that’s already laid plenty of marketing groundwork. Project Hail Mary is the new sci-fi adventure movie from directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, starring Ryan Gosling as an astronaut who awakens alone on an interstellar spacecraft and must piece together how he got there. It adapts the book of the same name by Andy Weir, whose The Martian already proved him capable of A-grade movie source material.

There are plenty of reasons to look forward to this movie, and the Project Hail Mary team made sure to highlight them during a Hall H panel at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. That’s translated well enough for tenth on this list, with 38% of respondents choosing theater, but there’s still plenty of ground to gain before the movie releases on March 20.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu

On the one hand, you might be thinking, A Star Wars movie is only ninth? How the mighty have fallen. And you might have a point. But on the other hand, that’s a pretty great result for what is essentially a movie continuation of a multi-season Disney+ streaming show that’s also the furthest film on this list.

The upcoming film from director Jon Favreau follows on from The Mandalorian season 3, which dropped its finale in April 2023, and will depict the next adventures of the тιтular bounty hunter and his adorable, force-wielding charge-turned-surrogate son. The first Mandalorian & Grogu trailer debuted in September, helping the film earn a theater score of 39%, which the Disney machine will surely look to improve before its release date on May 22, 2026.

The Running Man

2025 has been a great year for Stephen King adaptations in terms of volume – not so great in terms of box office performance. With this take on one of King’s Richard Bachman books, Edgar Wright is hoping to change that on November 14. And, based on this ranking, his chances are looking pretty good.

Starring Glen Powell, The Running Man is set in a dystopian USA and follows a contestant on the тιтular TV game show, which tasks desperate volunteers with eluding both law enforcement and a team of trained killers for as long as they can. The film will hew much more closely to the source text than the ’80s Schwarzenegger version, and it seems prospective audiences have liked what they’ve seen enough for a 40% theater score.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

The Super Mario Bros. Movie was one of the biggest box office hits of 2023, taking in $1.36 billion worldwide, so theater owners probably have every upcoming Nintendo adaptation circled on their calendar. And it seems that audiences do, too.

Revealed not long ago as The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, hinting to fans of the games which тιтle they’d be dipping into for material, the direct sequel is dated for April 3, 2026. We have yet to see anything beyond the тιтle announcement teaser, and already TheQuorum has 41% of respondents saying they’d prefer to see this one in theaters instead of at home. Expect that number to rise when the first real footage makes its way to the respondents’ kids.

Zootopia 2

Last year, Disney put Moana 2 into theaters over Thanksgiving and made a killing. With Zootopia 2, another years-later sequel to a movie that hit at the box office and then became a fixture on Disney+, the studio is hoping lightening strikes twice.

Unlike Moana 2, this new adventure for rabbit Judy Hopps and fox Nick Wilde isn’t a repurposed series – it was always conceived as a theatrical play. And, unsurprisingly, audiences are agreeing, with 42% choosing theatrical viewing over waiting until it’s available at home. There’s still a month to go before its November 26 release date, and even with the second weekend of Wicked: For Good there alongside it, it’s fair to expect this one to be mᴀssive.

Wicked: For Good

Speaking of the not-so-wicked-after-all witch, Wicked: For Good is next on this list, proving that cinemas should expect a feast around the Thanksgiving holiday. The first part of this long-awaited film version of the hit Broadway musical was one of last year’s big success stories, especially domestically, and Universal is expecting big things from this adaptation of the second act.

Wicked: For Good releases on November 21, the same pre-holiday-weekend slot as the first movie. The hope is that it’ll repeat Part One‘s feat of barely experiencing a second-weekend drop at the box office, and if a 42% theater score is any indication, it has a good chance.

Mortal Kombat 2

From a tracking perspective, calling Mortal Kombat 2 a 2026 movie is kind of cheating. It was originally scheduled to release this week, on October 24, but was pushed to May 15, 2026 earlier this year. Why? Reportedly to shore up Warner Bros. financial portfolio next year after this year’s string of successes, suggesting they’re nothing but confident in this film’s ability to deliver.

And it seems that confidence is justified. The sequel to 2021’s Mortal Kombat, which grossed $84 million in theaters despite being released day-and-date on HBO Max during the pandemic, currently sports a 42% theater score from those polled by TheQuorum. The only challenge now will be keeping that momentum going, after much of the planned marketing has already come and gone.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t

In difficult news for The Running Man, one of the only movies to rank above it on this list shares its release date. Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, the third installment in the franchise about a group of illusionists who use their tricks to perpetrate Robin Hood-esque heists, is set to release on November 14. And tracking suggests it’ll open well.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer, this movie will see its Four Horsemen contend with a new group of young magicians, played by rising stars Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, and Ariana Greenblatt. Lionsgate is betting big on this as a theatrical series, reportedly already planning Now You See Me 4, and with a 43% theater score, audiences seem to be agreeing with them.

Scream 7

Surprised? So was I. The Scream franchise experienced a revival in the 2020s by uniting its legacy stars with exciting, new talents, including Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega. Scream 6 became the first entry to gross over $100 million domestic. In that light, 44% of respondents saying they want to see the next movie in a theater makes sense.

But the film has also been dogged by controversy since Barrera was reportedly fired from it in November 2023 for her posts on social media about the war in Gaza. Ortega departed soon after, effectively bringing the Carpenter sisters’ storyline to an abrupt end. The sequel will seemingly lean heavily into the older stars now, bringing back Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott and putting original writer Kevin Williamson in the director’s chair. Whether all this hurts the bottom line remains to be seen, but for now, Scream 7 still gets the second-highest score on this list with 44%.

Avatar: Fire & Ash

As if it could’ve been anything else. James Cameron’s Avatar was a rare breed of global phenomenon when it released in 2009, going on to make $2.9 billion over its lifetime. Cameron’s subsequent plans for a five-movie arc raised some eyebrows, but somehow, he did it again. 13 years after the original, The Way of Water also crossed the $2 billion milestone.

These movies offer a combination of sci-fi spectacle and technological marvel, both in terms of the VFX on screen and the never-better deployment of 3D, that is undeniably better in a theatrical setting. A full 50% of survey respondents agree, putting Avatar: Fire & Ash at the top of this list by a decent margin. While there’s no telling whether it’ll make another $2 billion in a more challenged landscape, it’s clearly the in-theaters event of the next few months in movies.