The Dog Stars (2026)

Good Dog, Shame About the Stars - The Dog Stars review by griggs

Ridley Scott is eighty-eight and still cranking out apocalypses like he's got a deadline to beat the actual apocalypse. The Dog Stars is his latest, and it's an impressive amount of stamina for surprisingly little pay-off.

Jacob Elordi plays Hig, drifting across a plague-emptied America in a rickety plane with his dog Jasper, hunting for whatever human connection is left. He's got the cheekbones for grief, but not much else comes through, and grief is supposed to be doing most of the heavy lifting here. Josh Brolin, as trigger-happy apocalypse buddy Bangley, growls his way through every scene like he's determined to wring some life out of the script. The film visibly relaxes whenever he turns up. Margaret Qualley does what she can, but Cima ends up less a person than the human connection the plot's been promising all along.

Scott can still shoot a landscape like nobody's business, and the flying scenes have proper scale. Then a shootout arrives because somebody remembered the budget, and whatever mood had built quietly evaporates.

Jasper remains the most compelling character in the whole thing. Good dog, shame about the stars.