Verdict: 4.5/5 — A lean, gory, unexpectedly funny survival-horror thrill ride that finally understands the assignment. Zach Cregger has delivered not just the best Resident Evil film but the best video game movie ever made. The franchise is reborn.
| Director | Zach Cregger |
| Writers | Zach Cregger, Shay Hatten |
| Cast | Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter Hauser |
| Studio | Sony Pictures / Columbia Pictures |
| Release date | September 18, 2026 |
| Budget | ~$75 million |
| Rotten Tomatoes | 96% critics / 91% audience |
| Bottom line | The gold standard — lean, scary, and hugely entertaining |
Plot Summary (Spoiler-Free)
Medical courier Bryan (Austin Abrams) takes a delivery job that drops him into Raccoon City on the worst night of its existence. As a viral outbreak turns the city into a hunting ground, this ordinary man — no combat training, no hero complex — is flung into a nonstop race for survival.
The smartest decision Cregger makes is the one fans have begged for: an original side story running parallel to the events of the beloved game Resident Evil 2, updated to the present day and set in winter. No Leon. No Claire. No slavish recreation of cutscenes. Just a fresh character in the same nightmare — which turns out to be exactly the formula that lets the horror breathe.
What Works
It finally feels like the games. For the first time in eight films, a Resident Evil movie captures the texture of the games — the dread of a dark corridor, the tension of scarce resources, the sense of a city collapsing around you. That is a remarkable turnaround for a franchise whose previous critical high-water mark was 37%.
The lean runtime is a weapon. At around 90 minutes — the shortest entry in franchise history — there is no fat here. It builds set pieces that balance genuine horror with dark comedy.
Austin Abrams is the perfect everyman. Where the old films gave us superhuman heroines, Abrams plays Bryan as genuinely ordinary — scared, resourceful, out of his depth. That makes every scare land harder. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser give the film real character-actor flavor around him.
Cregger’s horror instincts are elite. The filmmaker behind Barbarian and Weapons brings inventive, mean-spirited craftsmanship — scares staged with spatial intelligence, gore that serves tension rather than replacing it, and pitch-black humor that keeps the film from drowning in misery.
What Doesn’t Work
Very little. Hardcore fans hoping to see game icons on screen will be disappointed — though that discipline is also why the film works. A couple of late-film exposition dumps strain credibility even by horror-movie standards. Footnotes, not flaws.
Box Office: A Franchise Record
The numbers are as emphatic as the reviews. Made for a reported $75 million, Resident Evil cleared that in its opening weekend alone — $60.2 million domestic and $108.3 million globally, both franchise records and the biggest launch of Cregger’s career. It is now the first live-action Resident Evil film to clear $100 million in North America, with worldwide earnings north of $300 million — the highest-grossing film in franchise history. Audiences awarded it a B+ CinemaScore, the best the series has ever earned.
Why This Reboot Exists
After 2021’s Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City underperformed and a planned Netflix series was cancelled, Constantin Film went looking for a new direction. Zach Cregger was hired in January 2025 to direct a ground-up reboot. Filming ran from October 2025 through January 2026, mostly in Prague. Cregger has already expressed interest in adapting Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil Village — and after this, Sony would be mad not to let him.
Our Verdict
Resident Evil (2026) does what no video game movie had quite managed: it takes the essence of the source material — dread, resourcefulness, survival against impossible odds — and builds a great film around it instead of a cosplay pageant. With a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score, it is the highest-rated video game movie ever. If you have ever loved these games, this is the one you have waited twenty-four years for. 4.5 out of 5.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Resident Evil (2026) a reboot or a sequel? A ground-up reboot, unrelated to the Milla Jovovich films and Welcome to Raccoon City.
Do Leon and Claire appear? No — Cregger deliberately left the game’s protagonists out, building an original side story around new character Bryan.
Is Resident Evil 2026 scary? Yes. It returns the franchise to its survival-horror roots — lean, gory, and tense — and critics call it the scariest entry in the series.
How much did it make at the box office? $60.2 million domestic and $108.3 million worldwide on opening weekend, and over $300 million globally since — the franchise’s highest grosser ever.
What is its Rotten Tomatoes score? 96% from critics — the best in franchise history and the highest ever for a video game movie — with a 91% audience score.
Will there be a sequel? Nothing is officially announced, but Cregger has expressed interest in adapting Resident Evil 7 and Village, and the record-breaking success makes a follow-up highly likely.