The 83rd Venice Film Festival slate was announced today and there will be plenty of big names and potential Oscar bait world premiering September 2-12, 2026.
Last year proved a bit disappointing in terms of films that went on to garner Oscar nods. Only Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia fared well picking up nine and three nominations, respectively, including Best Picture. The former won three technical awards. Sadly, terrific work like Kathryn Bigelow’s explosive A House of Dynamite and Gus Van Sant’s gem, Dead Man’s Wire, fell through the awards season cracks. Let’s hope this year proves more fruitful and momentum can be sustained for work that deserves it.
Already announced, Danny Boyle’s Ink will open the Fest. Written by Janes Graham, the film is a cinematic rollercoaster about a group of visionaries and misfits who had an idea for a new kind of news – one that would give the people what they want and would change the face of the world we live in today. The pic stars Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy.
French director Florian Zeller, repped at the 2022 Biennale with the unfairly judge film The Son, is back with Bunker, a dramatic thriller about an architect who accepts a morally ambiguous project — building a survivalist bunker for a tech billionaire — his wife begins to question their marriage after 17 years together. Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz lead a cast that also include Stephen Graham, Paul Dano and Patrick Schwarzenegger. Sony Pictures Classics has the North American release rights.
Martin McDonagh, a double winner for the Silver Lion for Best Screenplay (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Banshees of Inisherin), is back with Wild Horse Nine, a dark comedy set in 1973 about two CIA agents (John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell) who are dispatched from Santiago to Easter island by their bureau chief (Steve Buscemi), right before the Chilean coup. Searchlight Pictures will release the film in the fall.
Robert Pattinson stars as To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen in doc helmer Lance Oppenheim’s debut feature, Primetime, which is an A24 release.
German master filmmaker Werner Herzog had his doc Ghost Elephants in the Biennale (Out of Competition) last year and is back with Bucking Fastard, starring sibs Rooney and Kate Mara as two sisters who are so close that they speak in unison, love the same man, and have the same dreams. The film co-stars Orlando Bloom and Domhnall Gleeson.
Oscar winner Casey Affleck directs Nick Nolte, Ben Mendelsohn and Scoot McNairy in Company, a haunting tale about the complicated ties that bind us generationally, unraveling across three timelines.
Luca Marinelli, Alicia Vikander and Susan Sarandon star in Andrea Pallaoro’s The Echo Chamber, a love story adapted from the last screenplay written by Oscar-winner Bernardo Bertolucci.
Paolo Strippoli’s L’Estranea stars Jasmine Trinca, Adriano Giannini and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and is about a woman who, after many years, reveals a shocking family secret.
Trinca also stars opposite Louis Garrel in Nanni Moretti’s Succederà questa notte (It Will Happen Tonight).
Nicolas Pariser’s Un Peu Avant Minuit (Just Before Midnight) stars Melvil Poupaud and Chiara Mastroianni and is about a man who learns about the death of his biological father, who he never knew, and encounters ghosts from his past.
The out of competition fiction films feature such acclaimed actors as Al Pacino, Ellen Burstyn, Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Huston, Valeria Golino, Pamela Anderson Taika Waititi, Murray Bartlett and Bill Pullman.
Directors that have documentaries that will screen out of competition include Russell Crowe, Alex Gibney (whose Musk is nearly four hours long), Barbara Kopple, Julia Loktev, Wim Wenders and Luca Guadagnino, whose doc on Bertolucci is over seven hours long.
Maggie Gyllenhaal heads the competition jury. Ellen Burstyn and George Clooney will receive Golden Lion Awards for lifetime achievement.
Also, In competition:
Ali Asgari’s Kami Nour (A Bit of Light)
Marco Bechis’s Ritorno a Buenos Aires
Stéphane Brizé’s Un Bon Petit Soldat
Edoardo de Angelis’s Il Fuoco Che Ti Porti Dentro
May el-Toukhy’s Kind Ukendt (Woman Unknown)
Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s Dau
Hirozaku Koreeda’s Look Back
Cedric Kahn’s 15/18 A Place to Heal
Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love
Nicolas Pariser’s Un Peu Avant Minuit
Shinya Tsukamoto’s Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?
Open—Out of Competition — Fiction
Gianni Amelio’s Nessun Dolore (Without Pain) with Valeria Golino and Alessandro Gorghi
Barthélémy Grossmann’s Father Joe with Kiefer Sutherland and Al Pacino
Mario Martone’s Scherzetto (Joke) with Toni Servillo
Kornél Mundruczó’s Place to Be with Ellen Burstyn, Taika Waititi, Pamela Anderson and Murray Bartlett
Paul Schrader’s The Basics of Philosophy with Jack Huston and Bill Pullman
Tristan Seguela’s Un Bon Avocat (A Good Lawyer) Laurent Lafitte, Anthony Bajon, Mélanie Laurent and Carole Bouquet
Alexandre Smia’s Jupiter with Denis Ménochet
Giovanni Veronesi’s Dio Ride (God Laughs) with Pierfrancesco Favino
Halkawt Mustafa’s No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman
Sabu’s Arrested Memory
Open—Out of Competition — Non-Fiction
Francesco Carrozzini’s Be Brave
Russell Crowe’s What Love Builds
Michael Dweck & Gregory Kershaw’s Burgundy
Alex Gibney’s Musk
Amos Gitai’s The Road to Jericho
Ahmed Hassouna’s Citizen Osama
Barbara Kopple’s Union Town
Victor Kossakovsky’s Holy Wood Dust
Andrei Kutsila’s Listy (Letters)
Mariano Llinas’s Biografia de Jorge Luis Borges
Julia Loktev’s My Undesirable Friends Part II – Exile
Luke Lorentzen’s Boatbuilders
Sergei Loznitsa’s Imperium
Takashi Miike’s Shumei – The Living Legacy of Kabuki
Theo Rollason’s Queer Edward II
Dylan Southern & Will Lovelace’s Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger
Tsai Ming-liang’s Dust
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chan’s Everest: The Other Side
Wim Wenders’ From Inside Out – The Architecture of Peter Zumthor
Films on Films
Karen Di Porto’s Juso Per Ferie
Walter Fasano’s Un Film Su Nino Rota
Sophie Fiennes’ The Pervert’s Guide to Utopias
Luca Guadagnino’s Joie De Vivre
Yves Montmayeur’s Twist and Shoot Mister Suzuki
Yonfan’s Intermission
Venice Spotlight
Erik Shirai’s Sumo: Spirit Weighs Nothing (Opening Film)
Muayad Alayan’s Conversation With the Sea
Gael Garcia Bernal’s Hombre Al Agua
Roberto de Paolis Maino’s Serpenti
Rami Kodeih’s Furies
Levan Koguashvili’s Guria
Gabor Reisz’s Ground Floor
Alina Serban’s I Matter
Orizzonti (Horizons) Competition
Alina Marazzi’s La Ragazza con la Leica (Opening Film)
Phuttiphong Aroonpheng Thai’s The Burning Giants
Grzegorz Debowski’s What Belongs to Others
Anna Foglietta’s Una Storia
Edoardo Gabbriellini’s La Citta dei Vivi
Mohsen Gharaei’s Falling House,
Robert Greene’s Too Much Sugar
Rubaiyat Hossain’s The Difficult Bride
Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu’s La Maison du Vent
Tommaso Landucci’s I Figli Della Scimmia
Jacqueline Lentzou’s A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra
Jannis Lenz’s Oase (Oasis)
Jelena Maksimovic’s Until the Day Ends
Jérôme Pierrat’s La Moula
Anuparna Roy’s Lovers in the Blue Night
Ann Sirot, Raphaël Balboni’s Un Detour par Diane
Xavier Tera’s The Color of the Sun
- most loglines adapted from the Biennale site.
