The Top 66 Breakout Actors to Watch Across Film & TV This Year, From Inde Navarrette to 'Supergirl's Eve Ridley

Happy Wednesday, folks!

This morning, I woke up early and started watching Spider-Noir, the new Spider-Man series starring Nicolas Cage, who has never done TV before. Hopefully, he sticks with it, as Cage is still in talks to star in the next season of HBO’s True Detective, though he admits that the project has gone quiet in recent months. Don’t worry, I’m told that showrunner Issa Lopez is still fine-tuning the script — with Cage in mind, no doubt.

As for Spider-Noir, it’s okay — a little uneven, but about what I expected. Cage has an undeniable magnetism that holds the screen (I chose to watch in black & white, but there’s a color option available), but going from The Boys finale to this hard-boiled, old-school throwback sure is jarring. In other words, I’m glad Amazon made Spider-Noir, but I’m not sure it’s entirely successful.

Speaking of not entirely successful, today, I caught up with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and I know that the animated movie is for kids, but where are the storytelling standards these days? I liked the Bowser-Bowser Jr. dynamic even though the sequel literally minimizes Jack Black’s role, and I loved Glen Powell’s introduction as Star Fox, but I simply wasn’t into the Peach-Rosalina storyline, as I felt it really distracted from the relationship between Mario and Luigi, who get lost in their own overstuffed movie. The Italian siblings have to compete with a zillion other characters for limited screentime, including Donald Glover’s adorable Yoshi, and the script treats them like an afterthought.

I also watched Tyler Atkins’ MMA movie Beast, starring Daniel MacPherson and Russell Crowe, and it met my modest expectations, though it never quite rose above them despite a committed turn from MacPherson. The trailer leads you to believe that Crowe is gonna be the trainer in his corner, but that’s not quite the case. Still, this one will scratch an itch if you’re a fight junkie, considering that the “big” fights we get these days are PR stunts lasting 17 seconds.

Then again, sometimes, that’s all it takes to turn a chump into a champion, or to turn an unknown actor into a star. And that’s the theme of tonight’s newsletter, in which I identify the 66 breakout stars of 2026 across film and television.

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