Action Thriller Hailed as One of the Year’s Best Debuts New Look at the Onslaught

The action genre has quietly enjoyed a solid year in 2026, though much of that momentum has come from familiar places. Studios have leaned heavily on legacy re-releases, with Terminator 2 and The Fast and the Furious both returning to theaters, while the fall calendar includes franchise titles like Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil reboot. Original R-rated mid-budget action has been harder to find, which is partly why one September release has drawn outsized attention as early reactions from preview screenings began circulating this week. Some of those reactions call it one of the best action movies of the year.

Now A24 has released a new round of marketing for the film, titled Onslaught, and it may be the strongest the campaign has looked so far. The new promo puts Adria Arjona front and center as she loads up on supplies ahead of what looks like a very messy fight. In Onslaught, Arjona plays an Army sniper living in a trailer park who becomes the last line of defense for her young daughter after a squad of genetically engineered super-soldiers escapes a secret military facility and tears through the desert. A24 also unveiled a new IMAX poster alongside the promo, which stands out on its own. Premium large-format screens are usually reserved for bigger studio titles, so the decision to give a lean 92-minute genre film that kind of push suggests real confidence in how it will play with a crowd.

The eight character posters round out the campaign. Arjona is joined by Dan Stevens, who is reportedly playing a German scientist tied in some way to the creation of the soldiers, along with Rebecca Hall, Drew Starkey, Eric Wareheim, UFC champion Alex Pereira, and two pieces of casting that feel like meta nods to past hits. Michael Biehn, who faced a classic cinematic killing machine in The Terminator, and Reginald VelJohnson, still closely associated with Die Hard as Sgt. Al Powell, are both part of the ensemble. With early reactions already comparing Onslaught to The Terminator and Die Hard, those additions don’t feel accidental.

There’s a deeper hook here for longtime Wingard watchers, too. Onslaught reunites the director with writer Simon Barrett, the partnership behind You’re Next and 2014’s The Guest. Wingard has confirmed the new film is set in the same universe as the latter, even the same town. The Guest was a cult project that critics adored and almost nobody saw in theaters, so there’s a slightly poignant second-chance quality to all this. Wingard famously stepped away from Godzilla x Kong: Supernova to make Onslaught instead, trading one of the biggest franchises on the planet for a lean original. Onslaught hits theaters and IMAX on Sept. 4, 2026.