Submissions for the 2026 Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS are now complete. The window of eligibility to enter this year was any Trek fan film released between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2025—although the majority of our submissions were released last year. The longer window allows fan films that didn’t win previously due to stiff competition a “second chance” and even a third one to take home an award—although once an entry wins in a category, it is no longer eligible to earn an additional award in that same category.
This year, we have 23 entries combining for a total of just under 10 hours of viewing for our 12 showrunner judges. For comparison, last year we had 24 entries and the year before there were 27 entires, each with a combined runtime of just under 9 hours. So we decreased by one submission but increased by an entire hour! If you’re curious as to why, spoiler alert: one of our submissions has a run time of 2 hours and 15 minutes just by itself!)
As we’ve done for the previous two years, the winners will be announced on Star Trek‘s anniversary of September 8, 2026. There are 22 categories with three winners in each category: Admiral, Captain, and Commander level. I salute all of our 23 entrants for 2026, and I wish each of them the best of luck. (Honestly, I wish they ALL could win!)
I realize that I say this every year, but once again, we have some really amazing Star Trek fan films this time—of all different runtimes—that cover the gamut from comedic to dramatic to suspenseful to thoughtful to parody/farce. Some are episodes of ongoing fan or fanthology series, others are stand-alone releases. There are fan films shot on sets, on location, on green screens, some with heavy VFX, some light on VFX, a few with elaborate make-up and costuming, cool props, and several really standout acting performances and even original music. We truly have some of the best of the best that the world of Star Trek fan films has to offer this year!
So I strongly encourage you to watch as many of these marvelous productions as you can. Here are all of our entries for 2026 alphabetically by title (with the fan series indicated where applicable)…
BROKEN MIRROR (DREADNOUGHT DOMINION)
CAPTAIN SIMIAN’S FIRST COMMAND (NATURE’S HUNGER)
THE CASSANDRA EFFECT (USS CASSANDRA)
THE DUMBSDAY MACHINE (STALLED TREK)
FARRAGUT 2024
FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE (TREK SHORTS)
THE GREAT EXPERIMENT (TREK SHORTS)
THE HIVE
THE ICARUS MANEUVER (AXANAR UNIVERSE)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Rs5nKJ4RHMo1mQIvj_BcAoQOoYZox-Q_/view?usp=sharing
TO KNOW THINE ENEMY (TREK SHORTS)
LORELEY – PART III: ERSTKONKT (FIRST CONTACT)
MIND LEECH (THE FEDERATION FILES)
REALITY BURNS (TREK SHORTS)
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN – PRODIGY RECKONING (EPISODE 4)
SECOND STAR TO THE LEFT (TALES FROM THE NEUTRAL ZONE)
SLIPSTREAM (THE FEDERATION FILES)
SMOKE AND MIRRORS (WARBIRD VALDORE)
STARCHILD, BUT EVERYONE IS TYLER DUNIVAN
TASK FORCE 78: CAPTAIN ROTH IS IN DEEP MUDD
TASK FORCE 78: WHERE DO YOU GO?
TASK FORCE 78 – PHASE II: DR. TODD’S DECISION
TIME AND TIME AGAIN (STAR TREK FAN PRODUCTIONS INTERNATIONAL)
WHAT’S NEXT (SCI-FI SHORTS)