Florida Film Festival 2026 Unveils Lineup Packed With HMU Favorites, Paul Giamatti, and Judge Reinhold

Florida Film Festival 2026 brings together major premieres, HMU-covered standouts, and special events with Paul Giamatti and Judge Reinhold.

Florida Film Festival 2026 Loads Up With Paul Giamatti, Judge Reinhold, and a Lineup Packed With HMU Favorites

The Florida Film Festival is not playing small for its 35th year.

Set to run April 10–19 at the Enzian Theater in Maitland, Florida, the 2026 edition just dropped a lineup that feels like exactly the kind of program genre heads, indie diehards, and old-school movie lovers can all circle together. You’ve got Paul Giamatti and Judge Reinhold headlining the “An Evening With…” events, Adam Carter Rehmeier’s Carolina, Caroline opening the fest, Jorma Taccone’s Over Your Dead Body holding down the new Centerpiece slot, and a 75th anniversary screening of Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train closing things out.

That alone would be enough to get people moving. But once you dig into the actual lineup, this thing starts looking stacked.

The festival is rolling out 161 films from 31 countries, including 31 narrative features, 18 documentary features, and 112 shorts, with 24 world premieres in the mix. There’s clearly a little bit of everything here, but for us at Horror Movies Uncut, what stands out immediately is how many titles we’ve already been tracking, talking about, and in some cases flat-out championing.

Let’s start with the Centerpiece.

If you’ve been following HMU coverage, then you already know we’ve been loud about Jorma Taccone’s Over Your Dead Body. We’ve already covered it, we’ve already told you it looks like a dark, violent, funny mess in all the right ways, and Florida Film Festival clearly knows what it has here by putting it front and center. With Jason Segel, Samara Weaving, Timothy Olyphant, and Juliette Lewis involved, this was never going to slip through quietly. It feels like one of those titles that will absolutely kill with a crowd if it hits the way we think it will.

And then there’s Curry Barker’s Obsession, another title we’ve been on. HMU already covered Obsession as one of the breakout genre titles people need to keep their eyes on, and its inclusion here only adds to the momentum. That film has been building the kind of word-of-mouth that usually leads to bigger conversations later in the year, and seeing it positioned among Florida’s must-see titles makes perfect sense.

The festival also grabbed Ben Wheatley’s Normal, which has been one of those titles sitting on the edge of everyone’s radar because it’s Ben Wheatley, it’s Bob Odenkirk, and it sounds exactly like the kind of crooked, off-center action-thriller setup that can either become a cult favorite or an all-out crowd pleaser. Either way, it’s hard not to pay attention.

Then you’ve got Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers, Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex, Maude Apatow’s Poetic License, Daniel Roher’s Tuner, and Jeremy Workman’s School for Defectors, all adding more weight to a lineup that already felt heavy.

The opening night pick, Carolina, Caroline, is another one worth circling, especially with Kyle Gallner and Samara Weaving front and center in what sounds like a road movie built on heat, tension, bad decisions, and spiraling consequences. Samara continues to quietly stack one of the most interesting genre-adjacent runs working right now, and Florida putting her in both the opening night and centerpiece conversation says a lot about how much confidence they have in these films landing.

What’s smart about this year’s program is that it doesn’t feel trapped in one tone. There’s prestige here. There’s fun here. There’s late-night energy here. There’s also a lot of stuff that sounds like it could surprise people in a real way.

On the midnight side, you’ve got Damian McCarthy’s Hokum, starring Adam Scott, which immediately earns attention off premise alone. There’s Tyler Cornack’s Mermaid, which sounds like sweaty Florida noir by way of creature feature madness, and Anthony Cousins’ Frogman Returns, which looks ready to feed found-footage weirdos exactly what they’ve been waiting for. Add in Tom Stern’s Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt and the midnight section starts feeling like a proper playground.

The competition titles are also where things get really interesting.

Russell Goldman’s Sender, starring Britt Lower, Jamie Lee Curtis, David Dastmalchian, and Rhea Seehorn, sounds like exactly the kind of paranoid modern thriller that could explode if it sticks the landing. Ride or Die has that dangerous-road-trip energy. Junkie sounds raw and ugly in a way that could leave a mark. The Plan being shot in a single unbroken take already makes it one of those movies you know people are going to come out debating. And Return From Tomorrow, especially as Randy Moore’s follow-up to Escape from Tomorrow, has “what the hell is this?” energy written all over it.

Then there are the docs, where the festival again shows range. Punkie, Santacon!, School for Defectors, Seized, and If These Walls Could Rock all sound like titles that can catch viewers for completely different reasons. That’s probably the biggest strength of this lineup overall: it isn’t trying to hit one kind of cinephile. It’s trying to hit all of them.

And Florida Film Festival knows exactly what it’s doing by pairing all of that with legacy programming and special guests. Getting Paul Giamatti in the building for Sideways and Judge Reinhold for Fast Times at Ridgemont High gives the festival that extra bit of event energy that makes a lineup feel lived in instead of just listed on a page.

For HMU readers specifically, the biggest takeaway is simple: Florida Film Festival 2026 is loaded with titles we’ve already been talking about and titles we’re absolutely going to be talking about more. Over Your Dead Body. Obsession. Normal. Hokum. Carolina, Caroline. This is one of those festival programs where if you’ve been following our radar, you’re going to feel right at home.

And if you haven’t been paying attention yet, this lineup is a pretty good reason to start.