TLDR: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a 2026 animated adventure comedy from Illumination and Nintendo, directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and written by Matthew Fogel. It is the sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) and follows Mario, Luigi, Peach, and their friends on a journey into outer space. The film stars Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, and Keegan-Michael Key reprising their roles, with Brie Larson, Donald Glover, Glen Powell, and Benny Safdie joining as new characters. It grossed $848 million worldwide on a $110 million budget, making it the highest-grossing film of 2026. Critics hated it. Audiences loved it. It is exactly that kind of movie.
Every few years, a film comes along that splits the room completely down the middle. Critics on one side. Families, kids, and Nintendo fans on the other. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is that film for 2026.
I walked in knowing the reviews were rough. I walked out knowing exactly why 848 million dollars worth of people did not care.
This is not a film trying to win awards. It is a film trying to make an eight-year-old’s jaw drop. And at that specific job, it is genuinely excellent.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie — Movie Details
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Title | The Super Mario Galaxy Movie |
| US Release | April 1, 2026 |
| Japan Release | April 24, 2026 |
| Japan Premiere | March 28, 2026 (Minami-za, Kyoto) |
| Director | Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic |
| Written by | Matthew Fogel |
| Based on | Mario by Nintendo |
| Produced by | Chris Meledandri, Shigeru Miyamoto |
| Production | Illumination, Nintendo |
| Distributor | Universal Pictures |
| Animation Studio | Illumination Studios Paris |
| Music | Brian Tyler |
| Runtime | 98 minutes |
| Rating | PG |
| Budget | $110 million |
| Box Office | $848 million worldwide |
| Formats | RealD 3D, IMAX |
What Is The Super Mario Galaxy Movie About?
It picks up some time after the events of The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023).
Bowser has been defeated and shrunk down by Princess Peach. But his son, Bowser Jr., is very much at large — and he has a plan. He kidnaps Princess Rosalina, an otherworldly princess who is the adoptive mother of the star-like Lumas living aboard her Comet Observatory. Bowser Jr. wants to drain Rosalina’s power to create life and use it to fuel a universe-destroying cannon — all in honour of his imprisoned father.
Meanwhile, Mario and Luigi are sent to inspect a disturbance in Tostarena Town, where they discover a green dinosaur named Yoshi. He hatched in Brooklyn — which we get to see in a fun montage — and had accidentally broken a dinosaur skeleton in a museum, ending up on the run back to his home world.
A Luma sent by Rosalina arrives in the Mushroom Kingdom asking Peach and Toad for help. While they head off on that mission, Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi stay behind to protect the kingdom and try to rehabilitate the still-shrunk Bowser.
From there the story expands rapidly — into space, through the Honeyhive Galaxy, the Space Junk Galaxy, and eventually to Planet Bowser. New characters appear. Alliances shift. A Star Fox pilot named Fox McCloud shows up in his Arwing. And the revelation that Peach and Rosalina are long-lost sisters — both born from stardust — forms the emotional core of the film’s second half.
It is a lot. A very, very lot. That is both the film’s biggest strength and its most obvious weakness.
Full Cast Breakdown
| Actor | Character |
|---|---|
| Chris Pratt | Mario — Italian-American plumber from Brooklyn |
| Anya Taylor-Joy | Princess Peach — ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, Rosalina’s long-lost sister |
| Charlie Day | Luigi — Mario’s timid younger twin brother |
| Jack Black | Bowser — King of the Koopas |
| Keegan-Michael Key | Toad — anthropomorphic mushroom from the Mushroom Kingdom |
| Benny Safdie | Bowser Jr. — Bowser’s son and the film’s primary villain |
| Donald Glover | Yoshi — a friendly green dinosaur that Mario and Luigi befriend |
| Glen Powell | Fox McCloud — a red fox mercenary space pilot from the Star Fox series |
| Brie Larson | Princess Rosalina — Peach’s long-lost older sister and adoptive mother of the Lumas |
| Issa Rae | Honey Queen — the ruler of the Honeyhive Galaxy |
| Luis Guzmán | Wart — a toad crime boss who owns the Gateway Galaxy casino |
| Kevin Michael Richardson | Kamek — a Magikoopa serving as Bowser’s advisor |
One detail I found genuinely charming: both Donald Glover and Glen Powell pitched themselves for their roles. They contacted Illumination directly after the first film came out because they wanted to be in a Nintendo film. Meledandri reached back out to both of them. That kind of enthusiasm shows in their performances — Glover’s Yoshi and Powell’s Fox McCloud are two of the most fun new additions the franchise has had.
The New Additions — Yoshi, Fox McCloud, and Rosalina
The best creative decision in the film is introducing these three characters and giving each of them something genuinely interesting to do.
Yoshi is the emotional wildcard. He starts as an innocent dinosaur who does not quite understand the world around him, and that innocence becomes one of the film’s most reliable sources of both comedy and heart. Donald Glover brings a warmth to the voice that makes Yoshi immediately loveable.
Fox McCloud is the film’s biggest surprise — and its most underused asset. Glen Powell makes him charming and capable in every scene he is in, and the Star Fox world feels immediately ready for its own movie. His Arwing sequence is one of the film’s best action beats. The fact that the film does not give him more to do is one of the criticisms worth paying attention to.
Brie Larson as Rosalina is exactly right. The character has been a beloved figure in the games since Super Mario Galaxy (2007) and Larson gives her the gentle, cosmic gravity the character needs. Her relationship with Peach is the emotional story the film wants to tell, and both actors make it work even when the screenplay does not give them enough time to develop it properly.
Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic Return to Direct
The same directors who made The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) a global phenomenon are back, and they bring the same philosophy: go fast, go big, stuff every frame with detail, and trust that the audience will keep up.
The animation, produced at Illumination Studios Paris, is genuinely extraordinary. The galaxy environments in particular — the Honeyhive Galaxy, the Space Junk Galaxy, the Gateway Galaxy — are some of the most visually inventive animated sequences I have seen in a mainstream family film in years. The lighting, the scale, the way the film renders weightlessness and colour in outer space: all of it is exceptional.
What the directors carry over from the first film, for better and worse, is the pacing. This film does not stop. Scenes transition before they fully land. Characters are introduced, do something impressive, and then the next thing happens. For younger audiences, this is pure sensory joy. For anyone who wanted the film to breathe a little, it is the source of real frustration.
The screenplay by Matthew Fogel, who also wrote the first film, is the most criticised element. Critics universally pointed to the plot as underdeveloped and the subplots as half-formed. The Irish Times review noted specifically that the Bowser father-son dynamic and the Peach-Rosalina sisterhood were each introduced and then rushed past before they could land with any weight.
That is a fair reading. It is also true that the film never pretends to be anything other than what it is.
The Games That Inspired This Film
The film takes direct inspiration from Super Mario Galaxy (2007) and Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010), the Wii games that sent Mario into outer space for the first time and are still considered among the greatest platformers ever made. Rosalina, the Lumas, the Comet Observatory, the galaxy-based worlds, and the gravitational mechanics of the games are all translated visually into the film’s design language.
But the film also draws on Super Mario Odyssey, the Star Fox series, Super Mario Bros. 2 (for Wart), and various other Nintendo properties.
Keegan-Michael Key said before release that the sequel would be “broader in scope” and feature “new folks and old favorites and some folks that are really deep cuts.” He was not wrong. For Nintendo fans, this film is packed with references that reward attention. For audiences with no game background, everything is explained clearly enough that none of it is confusing.
Producer Shigeru Miyamoto — who is Mario’s creator and has been involved with both films — originally envisioned the sequel as a Yoshi standalone movie. That idea was reworked into a montage sequence showing Yoshi’s backstory in Brooklyn. Which, honestly, is one of the film’s most fun moments.
The Score — Brian Tyler Composed It From a Hospital Bed
Brian Tyler composed the score for The Super Mario Bros. Movie and returns here. What makes his involvement in this film remarkable is that he composed several pieces from a hospital stay — without telling the staff what he was working on.
The score features a 70-piece orchestra and includes arrangements of themes from the two Super Mario Galaxy games and other Super Mario series installments. The Galaxy games had one of the best scores in gaming history — sweeping, orchestral, and genuinely moving — and Tyler’s film version captures that spirit without simply copying it.
The soundtrack was released on April 1, 2026, the same day as the film’s theatrical release.
Box Office Records This Film Set
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the highest-grossing film of 2026. That alone is extraordinary. But the records it set are worth listing out because they tell you just how big this opening was.
It recorded the biggest global opening at the box office of 2026. It became only the second animated film franchise to have two films open to over $350 million globally. It holds the fifth-biggest global opening for an animated film of all time. It scored the second-biggest global opening for an Illumination film. It earned the second-biggest opening weekend for a film based on a video game. And it logged the fourth-biggest Easter three-day opening of all time, behind its predecessor, Furious 7, and Batman v Superman.
Its opening weekend of $131.7 million domestically outperformed its first-day record from the previous film. By the end of its five-day Easter run in the US, it had earned $190.8 million.
Critics hated it. Audiences went anyway. In enormous, record-breaking numbers.
What Critics Said
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie holds 43% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 209 critic reviews. Metacritic assigned it 37 out of 100 — “generally unfavorable reviews.” That is a genuinely bad score, and the reviews backing it up are not wrong about the film’s flaws.
Variety’s Owen Gleiberman, who praised the first film, described this one as a frenetic and disappointing sequel that trades story for easter eggs. IndieWire gave it a C–, calling it imagination packed into the most corporate and focus-group-approved form possible. The Guardian gave it one out of five. One critic at The Times gave it zero and described periods of physical discomfort.
The positive reviews leaned on the animation, the new voice cast, and the fan-service elements. Deadline’s Glenn Garner praised the Bowser redemption arc, Glover’s Yoshi, and Powell’s Fox McCloud. Time Out gave it three out of five and said it was not deep but made with love and hit the spot.
CinemaScore audiences gave it A−. PostTrak showed 79% positive audience response, with 62% saying they would definitely recommend it.
So: critics, largely no. Families and Nintendo fans, largely yes. The box office made its verdict clear.
You can read the full range of critical takes at Rotten Tomatoes.
What Works
The animation is spectacular. No caveats. The galaxy environments are among the best animated sequences Illumination has ever produced, and the film earns every IMAX ticket sold on the strength of how it looks.
Donald Glover’s Yoshi and Glen Powell’s Fox McCloud are joyful additions to the franchise. Both feel like they were made to be in this world, and both leave you wanting more of them.
The Bowser father-son dynamic — even though it is underdeveloped — is genuinely funny in the moments it gets. Jack Black continues to be the film’s secret weapon. His Bowser is the most consistently entertaining character in both films, and the scene where Bowser Jr. abducts him is played with a comedic confusion that works beautifully.
The score is excellent. Brian Tyler’s orchestral work gives the outer space sequences a weight and grandeur that the visuals alone could not achieve.
At 98 minutes, the film does not drag. It is dense and fast but never boring.
What Does Not Quite Work
The screenplay is the honest problem. There are three or four genuinely interesting emotional stories in this film — Bowser and his son, Peach and Rosalina’s sisterhood, Mario’s relationship with Yoshi, Fox McCloud’s entire world — and none of them get the time they need.
The film keeps cutting to the next thing before the current thing has landed. The reveal that Peach and Rosalina are sisters should be one of the most resonant moments in the franchise. It passes in about two minutes.
Glen Powell’s Fox McCloud is the most underused element by a wide margin. He has enormous screen presence, the Star Fox sequences are genuinely exciting, and then he is essentially sent home. The film clearly knows he is interesting — it just does not give him enough to do.
Critics who called it critic-proof are probably right. The film does not need to be better than it is to do what it does. But the bones of a genuinely great animated sequel are in here, just not assembled with enough care.
What Comes Next — Donkey Kong and Mario 3
The film’s post-credits scene features Princess Daisy, setting up a potential future appearance. Jack Black has also casually revealed — seemingly by accident — that a third Mario movie is coming in 2029.
Beyond Mario, an untitled Nintendo animated film described as a Donkey Kong-centric spinoff already has an April 2028 release date. Nintendo and Universal filed copyright information for an “Untitled Donkey Kong Project” in May 2025, and the date was confirmed in April 2026.
Shigeru Miyamoto was also asked about a Super Smash Bros. crossover film following the Fox McCloud appearance here. He suggested it was not the direction Nintendo was taking — all Nintendo characters would not simply join in one film.
The Nintendo animated universe is expanding. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, whatever its flaws, made sure of that.
Where to Watch
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is currently in cinemas in RealD 3D and IMAX formats. It releases on digital download on May 19, 2026. It will then move to Peacock for the first four months of its pay-TV window before arriving on Netflix for ten months, then returning to Peacock — as part of Universal’s long-term streaming deal.
If you enjoy big, ambitious 2026 sci-fi and adventure films on the big screen, our coverage of Project Hail Mary (2026) is worth a read — another film this year that takes a massive swing in outer space, though in a very different direction. And for everything new hitting cinemas and streaming, keep up with HDMovies4U.
My Final Verdict
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a visually extraordinary, emotionally shallow, impossibly entertaining 98-minute ride through some of the most beautiful animated environments put on a cinema screen in 2026.
The animation is flawless. The new cast additions are excellent. The score is wonderful. The screenplay is the weakest part of both Mario films and this one more so than the first.
But I want to be clear about something: critics and audiences are measuring different things. Critics are asking whether the film is a well-crafted story. Audiences are asking whether it is a great time at the movies. Both groups got the answer they expected.
If you have kids who love Mario, this is an easy choice. Take them. See it in IMAX if you can. The galaxies look stunning on a screen that big.
If you are going in looking for an animated film with the emotional depth of something like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse or the storytelling precision of a Pixar classic, lower your expectations.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars. Visually magnificent, narratively thin, and absolutely bulletproof at the box office. The kids will love it. You might too, if you let yourself.
Check the full cast and crew on the IMDB page for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026).
