After dominating the summer of 2024 with her 3x Grammy Award-winning album “Brat”, Charli XCX has set her eyes on taking over the film industry in 2026.
Charli XCX’s 2024 album “Brat” not only disrupted the music industry but completely dominated it. “Brat” took a brash, unrelenting and raw look at the life of a bona fide party girl through electronic beats and piercing lyrics that weighed the glamour and pitfalls of Charli’s real lifestyle as a musician. The sincerity and playful nature of her music broke through her loyal core fan base and soon infiltrated mainstream media, which resonated with people in a very vulnerable way.
The album was so impactful that it officially claimed the summer of its release as its own “Brat Summer”. Even if you weren’t a fan of Charli XCX, you couldn’t help but indulge in her musical genius and admire her commitment to her artistic vision. In collaboration with her longtime creative partner, Terrence O’Connor, Charli created one of the most memorable album rollouts in recent music history and truly changed the way artists marketed themselves to mainstream audiences.
After earning three Grammys (Best Dance/Electronic Album, Best Recording Package and Best Dance Pop Recording), questions swirled about how Charli would follow up what could only be described as a total whirlwind year in 2026. Her answer? Taking on the film industry next.
Charli XCX’s Passion for Film
At the end of Charli XCX’s legendary 2025 Coachella set, she took a second to contemplate what the end of this “Brat” era meant for her and the culture that had rallied so fervently behind this movement. In her weekend two performance, as her set came to a close, the simplistic graphics she had used for the entirety of the “Brat” era flashed behind her to ask if “Brat” Summer had finally come to an end.
The graphics posed the question “maybe it’s time for a different kind of summer?” and then read “maybe it’s time to make way for” before posing a handful of different artists to take her place as the ruling force of summer 2025. Notably, while Charli mentioned many different musician artists with albums being released that summer, she also shouted out to a handful of directors who had films set to premiere during the summer of 2025. Amongst the directors’ names were Paul Thomas Anderson, Ari Aster, Joachim Trier, Celine Song, Darren Aronofsky, and David Cronenberg.
This came as no shock for longtime fans, as back in December of 2024, Charli’s personal Letterboxd account was leaked, cueing fans in to her prolific love for cinema and natural knack for analyzing the key moments and elements that make films truly impactful. She’s spoken about her influences behind her creative process not necessarily being other music, but films and their ability to create three-dimensional worlds where ideas can be explored.
While she initially did not intend to have her Letterboxd publicly known, she has now leaned into her passion for film on both her Letterboxd and her TikTok account. She occasionally posts videos going through her most recent watches with recommendations on films and commentary on things she found most impactful in each of the movies she’s just seen.
Combined, this all seems to be a warm-up to Charli’s entrance into the film industry as a whole. While she has made appearances as herself in several projects and worked on the soundtrack for films like Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, in 2026, audiences will see Charli dive headfirst into several of the most highly anticipated films of the year.
Charli XCX and The Moment
Charli XCX is starting 2026 off strong with the debut of her first film, The Moment, directed by long-time collaborator Aidan Zamiri. The Moment will premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival before it hits theaters on January 30th. The film serves as a mock tour documentary chronicling the experience of Charli preparing to take the “Brat” album on an arena tour.
The film aims to poke at the complexities of fame and the mounting pressure that artists face when trying to promote their projects. Charli stars alongside Alexander Skarsgård, who plays a director trying to completely innovate her touring experience. Jamie Demetriou and Hailey Gates are members of her team trying to keep the tour and star from careening off its tracks, and stars like Rachel Sennott and Kylie Jenner play comedic versions of themselves.
It’s a bold move from Charli, as many artists who have been in her position haven’t dared break the fourth wall of their artistic persona in this way before. While most artists who reach the level of mainstream success like Charli did with “Brat” tend to make tour documentaries chronicling their experience, The Moment seems to want to capture something else entirely. It’s a look into the ridiculousness and absurdity of success in an industry driven by capital and the struggle to maintain artistic integrity when that doesn’t seem to be anyone but the artist’s main prerogative.
Charli XCX’s Involvement in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights
Following the premiere of The Moment in late January, Charli also plays a major role in Emerald Fennell’s highly anticipated upcoming feature Wuthering Heights. Fennell asked Charli to create original songs for the soundtrack of her latest feature that serves as a fantastical adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi star in a film that will place Wuthering Heights in Fennell’s signature world of opulence and grandeur.
While the movie is released on Valentine’s Day, Charli’s concept album that will serve as the backdrop for the film’s events will be dropped a day before, on February 13th. Two of the songs, “House” featuring John Cale and “Chains of Love”, have already been released along with music videos that are giving audiences a peek into what Fennell’s version of Wuthering Heights may feel like.
Both “House” and “Chains of Love” are set to Charli’s signature electric, hyperpop style, but also have a gothic, haunting element to their lyrics. Both songs capture the doomed, yet beautiful nature of the source material, adding a real sense of anticipation for how this film will take on this classic love story. It serves as a full circle moment of sorts for Charli, whose work is notably so influenced by her love of film, to have created an album to accompany the world-building of a major motion picture.
Charli XCX To Take On SXSW with Erupcja
At the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, Charli had her acting debut with the premiere of her upcoming film Erupcja to much critical acclaim. Charli stars alongside Lena Góra in Pete Ohs’s feature that will be having it’s U.S. debut at this year’s SXSW.
Erupcja centers on the relationship between two women who can’t escape their pull towards one another. Nel (Lena Góra), a Polish florist living in Warsaw, shares an indescribable connection with British tourist Bethany (Charli XCX), her friend of many years. Their connection is so intense that every time they get together, a volcano erupts.
While Bethany lives in England, she feels a constant pull to Poland, or maybe it’s a pull towards Nel, but neither of them will acknowledge what this could really mean. When Bethany decides to visit with her new boyfriend, the constantly heightened relationship between her and Nel comes to blows as it’s become clear they have to address whatever it is between them that has proven to be so completely undeniable.
Ohs’s feature credits both Charli and Góra as cowriters on the film, as his directorial style encourages his stars to collaborate with him on the project as a whole. This serves as Charli’s first fully fictitious leading role she will take on, which has already been widely lauded by critics who had the chance to catch the film at TIFF 2025. With its U.S. debut set at SXSW and the film’s distributor looking to release the film after its festival premiere, hopefully, audiences will be able to catch it after March of 2026.
Charli XCX’s Future in Film
The next few months of Charli’s life look to be chalked full of projects set to be the main topic of pop culture conversations, and looking into Charli’s future, she doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. She is a part of the cast of Gregg Araki’s highly anticipated I Want Your Sex with Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman, as well as The Gallerist with Natalie Portman and Jenna Ortega, which are both completed and set to premiere in 2026 as well.
With several highly anticipated collaborations and film releases on the horizon, Charli XCX is taking the film industry by storm in 2026. If 2024 was her year of dominating music, audiences and film lovers better prepare for her to take command of the film space with the same confidence and gusto that allowed Brat to become a complete cultural phenomenon.