The Fritzes 2026 Winners

The Fritzes award honors the best interfaces in a full-length motion picture in the past year. Interfaces play a special role in our movie-going experience, and are a craft all their own that does not otherwise receive focused recognition. (Looking at you, Academy.) Awards are given for Best Believable, Best Narrative, and Best Interfaces (overall). Sometimes I like to call out other things I spotted in my survey and offer other awards befitting the trends. This year there are three of these delightful extras.

Best Believable — The Running Man

These movies’ interfaces adhere to solid computer-human-interaction principles and believable interactions. They engage us in the story world by being convincing.

A collage of images showing individuals capturing and sharing experiences with the keywords 'Record', 'Report', and 'Reward' prominently displayed in bold red text.
A view from inside a car showing a woman driving while a man is standing in front of the vehicle, with digital overlays indicating a warning or alert on the dashboard display.
Close-up of a fare meter displaying 'SELF DRIVE' and a rate of '$3.00 per 1 mile', featuring buttons for 'PULL OVER' and 'STOP'.
A person holding an orange handheld device with a screen displaying a video of another individual adjusting their tie.

This second adaptation of Stephen King’s novel knocks it out of the park for the plot-central interfaces — the runner cuff and R-Cam box, the hideous sousveillance phone app for “fans,” the service design of the “free-v” show, and the in-home snitch interfaces — and layers on a level of everyday-interface worldbuilding that most action films can’t be bothered with. Videophones with shades of Blade Runner, taxi fare displays, citizen-car self-driving, and network-plane piloting. It’s uncluttered, straightforward, and believable. Hard to do in an intense-action movie, but pulled off. Read more and see the other candidates on its page.

Best Narrative — Elio

These movies’ interfaces blow us away with evocative visuals and the richness of their future vision. They engross us in the story world by being spectacular.

A young child interacting with a glowing, futuristic interface, reaching out with their hand to touch a colorful, illuminated display.
A young boy with a patch over one eye is sitting at a futuristic control panel filled with colorful lights and glowing wires, looking surprised or worried.
A close-up of a hand interacting with a glowing, holographic interface featuring colorful lines and shapes on a grid background.
A child stands in awe, gazing at a colorful, shimmering spiral formation of light in a dark, abstract environment.

Pixar continues to do what Pixar does best: craft interfaces that feel at once childlike and alien, purposeful and delightful. Elio’s flight control panels, encylopedia, and personal-environmental controls articulate a universe of wonder and spectacle. Read more and see the other candidates on its page.

Best Interfaces — Star Trek: Section 31

The movies nominated for Best Interfaces manage the extraordinary challenge of being believable and helping to paint a picture of the world of the story. They advance the state of the art in telling stories with speculative technology.

Close-up of a decorative garment featuring a green-lit emblem set against a red fabric background.
A futuristic control interface displaying a warning about 'volatile substance' with various digital graphs and symbols.
A hand interacting with a futuristic display featuring various readouts and a 3D model of a spacecraft.
A group of four people raising glasses in a toast, celebrating together in a stylish venue with vibrant lighting.

Because there is so much to unpack (and maybe a little bit because Star Trek has been victim to the culturally-regressive billionaire media-buyout chopping-block), this year’s winner got a full multi-post breakdown treatment. In turn I reviewed the Mission Briefer, the Phase Pods, Nanokin interfaces, and The Godsend (though that last one had to be panned because come on). Anyway, as the franchise goes into a indeterminate hiatus, let’s toast with our Romulan Ale and say thank you and nice work to its creative teams. Read more and see the other candidate on its intro page.

This year had enough strong work in adjacent territory that I handed out three bonus awards.

Best Comedy-Horror Interface: Bugonia

The beautiful oddity of the singular interface in this film gave me the push I needed to name a trope I’ve been tracking for years: the narrative proxy sequence. The interface itself uses understatement to, you know, destroy all humankind in a single moment, and is hilarious for it.

A mystical figure in elaborate, textured attire stands near a large, steaming basin that holds a miniature world, set in a surreal, otherworldly landscape with organic shapes and glowing elements.
A character in an intricate costume stands near a mystical bowl surrounded by a foggy, alien landscape with dark, organic structures in the background.
A figure in an elaborate, textured garment stands beside a large, round basin emitting steam, set in a surreal, otherworldly environment with organic shapes and a dark, mysterious atmosphere.

Best Robots: The Electric State

Netflix’s adaptation of Simon Stålenhag’s illustrated novel delivers the most distinctive, quirky, and worldbuilding robot design of the year. There were three other candidates, so be sure to see them all.

A large, cartoonish robot character with a cat-like head holding a small figure in a top hat, set against a cloudy sky.
A humanoid robot with a baseball cap and a mustache holds a baseball bat, standing in a colorful indoor setting with flags in the background.
A retro computer with a smiling face on the screen, operated by robotic arms, alongside a whimsical robot character in the background.

Best Assistant(s): M3gan 2.0

A new award, inspired by the publication of my new book Designing Assistant Technology: AI That Makes People Smarter (Rosenfeld Media, March 2026). The full post walks through how M3gan 2.0 had examples for each of the Five Universal Assists — Perceive, Know, Plan, Perform, Reflect — more than any of the other films I reviewed.

A workshop scene featuring a young man wearing a gray shirt and high-tech gloves, lifting a large piece of wood. A woman with curly hair and a patterned shirt watches him from the side, as high-tech equipment and computers are visible in the background.
A close-up view of a computer screen displaying lines of code and software interfaces, with a person's head and headphones partially visible in the foreground.
A close-up of a humanoid robot's face with large green eyes and a neutral expression, displaying a digital screen that resembles a cartoon character.

Congratulations to all the nominees and winners. Thank you for helping advance the art and craft of speculative interfaces in cinema.

A cartoonish robot character with a rounded head and a metallic arm gestures from behind a wooden podium, set against a backdrop of red curtains and various framed pictures.

Is there something utterly fantastic I missed? It’s entirely possible. Let me know in the comments — I’d love to see what you’ve got.