Venice Film Festival Reveals Full 2026 Lineup

The Venice Film Festival is back on the Lido for its 83rd edition, running September 2 to 12 this year. The Italian festival serves as a key launchpad for awards season contenders — last year, for example, “Bugonia” propelled off the Lido all the way to a Best Picture nomination, even as world-premiere awards contenders like “Jay Kelly” and “A House of Dynamite” drifted off into the surrounding lagoon. Remember that, unlike the other fall festivals such as Telluride and Toronto, Venice exclusively showcases world premieres.

As previously announced, the festival will open with director Danny Boyle’s “Ink,” about the early days of Rupert Murdoch amid the news mogul’s acquisition of The Sun. It stars Guy Pearce (a 2025 Best Supporting Actor nominee for Venice winner “The Brutalist”) as Murdoch, and Jack O’Connell as The Sun editor Larry Lamb. “Ink” also marks Boyle’s first trip to Venice as a filmmaker in the selection; his latest will compete for the Golden Lion beside the rest of the competition lineup.

Honorary Golden Lion recipients this year are George Clooney (who already received Film at Lincoln Center’s Chaplin Award this year and is a 2018 recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award) and Ellen Burstyn.

Very early on Thursday morning for East Coasters but reasonably timed for the European press corps, festival artistic director Alberto Barbera revealed the many titles across sections: what’s in competition, what’s out of competition, the Orizzonti sidebar for mainly first and second-time filmmakers, Venice Classics for documentaries about cinema, television, and more.

Competition highlights include: Lance Oppenheim’s “To Catch a Predator” A24 bio-drama “Primetime” with Robert Pattinson; Casey Affleck’s third directorial feature “Company”; “The Father” and “The Son” director Florian Zeller’s “Bunker”; Andrea Pallaoro’s Bertolucci-scripted “The Echo Chamber” with Luca Marinelli, Susan Sarandon, and Alicia Vikander; Hirokazu Koreeda’s second film this year, “Look Back”; Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s multidisciplinary Soviet physicist portrait “DAU”; and many more in an international-heavy section à la this year’s Cannes.

We were already certain Zeller’s “Bunker” (an end-times drama starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem), Martin McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine” (with John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell), Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard” (which he withdrew from Cannes after being offered an out-of-competition spot), and Lee Chang-dong’s “Possible Love” (his first feature since 2018’s “Burning”) would show up in this year’s Venice slate, to name a few more in competition. Lee’s “Possible Love,” which Netflix has, is the second narrative film this year inspired by Krzysztof Kieślowski’s “Dekalog” series, following Asghar Farhadi’s poorly received “Parallel Tales” in Cannes.

‘Possible Love’Netflix

FYI, there is only one female-directed film in competition this year: “Woman Unknown” from Danish-Egyptian director May el-Toukhy (“Queen of Hearts,” which Catherine Breillat remade into the 2023 Cannes title “Last Summer”). You’ll have better luck finding women directors in other sections, such as Orizzonti and the previously announced, independent sidebar Venice Days (which we’ve included below).

The profoundly robust documentary section, typical for Venice in recent years, includes: Luca Guadagnino’s seven-hour Bertolucci documentary “Joie de Vivre”; Alex Gibney’s four-hour Elon Musk documentary “Musk”; the continuation of Julia Loktev’s dissident Russian journalist doc “My Undesirable Friends”; Russell Crowe’s secretive “What Love Builds”; “Truffle Hunters” directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s “Burgundy”; rock doc “Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger”; Viktor Kossakovsky, Wim Wenders, Sergei Loznitsa, Takashi Miike, Tsai Ming-liang, and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin.

Out-of-competition narrative films to watch for include Kornél Mundruczó’s drama about friends returning a lost racing pigeon, “Place to Be,” which reunites him with “Pieces of a Woman” star Ellen Burstyn, alongside Taika Waititi and Pamela Anderson. Also, Paul Schrader’s “The Basics of Philosophy,” which Venice’s Alberto Barbera tipped as a spiritual sequel to “Master Gardener.” There’s also Barthélémy Grossmann’s Luc Besson-scripted “Father Joe,” starring Al Pacino and Kiefer Sutherland, a “pyrotechnic portrait of an avenging priest who steals from drug traffickers to donate to the poor,” per Barbera.

Golden Lion honorary recipient Burstyn also stars in Venice competition jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Marilyn Monroe-centered, out-of-competition short “Flesh Impact,” alongside her husband Peter Sarsgaard and “The Lost Daughter” star Dakota Johnson, and Sepideh Moafi.

Also on the shorts side, past Golden Lion winner Laura Poitras (“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”) and Rachel Mueller debut “They’re Here” out of competition, a film about the ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis in January 2026.

We woke up at the crack o’ dawn to report on this year’s selection live courtesy of YouTube; head over to the Biennale’s channel here if you’d like to follow along.

We expected Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Digger” (led by Tom Cruise) and Tom Ford’s Anne Rice adaptation “Cry to Heaven” (if finished) to show up, but alas, we’ll have to wait til other fall festivals — or in the case of Ford, next year.

See the full lineup below.

Opening Night Film

“Ink,” dir. Danny Boyle (previously announced; in competition)

Main Competition

“Company,” dir. Casey Affleck

“Kami Nour (A Bit of Light),” dir. Ali Asgari

“Ritorno a Buenos Aires,” dir. Marco Bechis

“Un Bon Petit Soldat,” dir. Stéphane Brizé

“Il Fuoco Che Ti Porti Dentro,” dir. Edoardo de Angelis

“Kvinde Ukendt (Woman Unknown),” dir. May el-Toukhy

“Bucking Fastard,” dir. Werner Herzog

“15/18 (A Place to Heal),” dir. Cédric Kahn

“DAU,” dir. Ilya Khrzhanovsky

“Look Back,” dir. Hirokazu Koreeda

“Possible Love,” dir. Lee Chang-dong

“Wild Horse Nine,” dir. Martin McDonagh

“Succederà Questa Notte,” dir. Nanni Moretti

“Primetime,” dir. Lance Oppenheim

“The Echo Chamber,” dir. Andrea Pallaoro

“Un Peu Avant Minuit,” dir. Nicolas Pariser

“L’estranea,” dir. Paolo Strippoli

“Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?,” dir. Shinya Tsukamoto

“Bunker,” dir. Florian Zeller

‘Wild Horse Nine’Searchlight Pictures

Venice Spotlight

“Sumo: Spirit Weighs Nothing,” dir. Erik Shirai (opening film)

“Conversation with the Sea,” dir. Muayad Alayan

“Hombre al Agua,” dir. Gael García Bernal

“Serpenti,” dir. Roberto De Paolis Maino

“Furies,” dir. Rami Kodeih

“Guria,” dir. Levan Koguashvili

“Földszint (Ground Floor),” dir. Gábor Reisz

“Eu Contez (I Matter),” dir. Alina Şerban

Orizzonti (Horizons)

“La Ragazza Con La Leica,” dir. Alina Marazzi (opening film)

“Yak Mai (The Burning Giants),” dir. Phuttiphong Aroonpheng

“Cudze Rzeczy (What Belongs to Others),” dir. Grzegorz Dębowski

“Una Storia,” dir. Anna Foglietta

“La Città Dei Vivi,” dir. Edoardo Gabbriellini

“Moragheb (Falling House),” dir. Mohsen Gharaei

“Too Much Sugar,” dir. Robert Greene

“The Difficult Bride,” dir. Rubaiyat Hossain

“La Maison du Vent,” dir. Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu

“I Figli Della Scimmia,” dir. Tommaso Landucci

“A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra,” dir. Jacqueline Lentzou

“Oasis,” dir. Jannis Lenz

“Until the Day Ends,” dir. Jelena Maksimović

“La Moula,” dir. Jérôme Pierrat

“Lovers in the Blue Night,” dir. Anuparna Roy

“Un Détour Par Diane,” dir. Ann Sirot, Raphaël Balboni

“The Color of the Sun,” dir. Xavier Tera

“Eklipse,” dir. Manuel Wetscher

“Huangyan Shenghuo (Big Little Things),” dir. Michelle Zhou

Special Screening

“Dai Nostri Inviati. La Rai Racconta La Mostra Del Cinema Di Venezia 2001-2012,” dirs. Giuseppe Giannotti, Enrico Salvatori, Nicoletta Bernardi

Out of Competition — Short Films

“Flesh Impact,” dir. Maggie Gyllenhaal

“Halayon (Wild Asparagus),” dir. Avi Mograbi

“They’re Here,” dir. Laura Poitras, Rachel Mueller

Out of Competition — Series

“Peccato,” dir. Valerio Vestoso

Luca Guadagnino at the ‘After The Hunt’ premiere at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on August 29, 2025 in Venice, Italy.Earl Gibson III/Deadline

Out of Competition — Films on Films

“Juso Per Ferie,” dir. Karen Di Porto

“Nino – Un Film Su Nino Rota,” dir. Walter Fasano

“The Pervert’s Guide to Utopias,” dir. Sophie Fiennes

“Joie de Vivre,” dir. Luca Guadagnino

“Twist and Shoot Mister Suzuki,” dir. Yves Montmayeur

“Intermission,” dir. Yonfan

Out of Competition — Documentary

“Be Brave,” dir. Francesco Carrozzini

“What Love Builds,” dir. Russell Crowe

“Burgundy,” dir. Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw

“Musk,” dir. Alex Gibney

“The Road to Jericho,” dir. Amos Gitai

“Al Mowaten Osama (Citizen Osama),” dir. Ahmed Hassouna

“Union Town” dir. Barbara Kopple

“Holy Wood Dust,” dir. Viktor Kossakovsky

“Letters from the Silenced Country,” dir. Andrei Kutsila

“Biografía de Jorge Luis Borges,” dir. Mariano Llinás

“My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile,” dir. Julia Loktev

“Boatbuilders,” dir. Luke Lorentzen

“Imperium,” dir. Sergei Loznitsa

“Shumei — The Living Legacy of Kabuki,” dir. Takashi Miike

“Queer Edward II,” dir. Theo Rollason

“Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger,” dir. Dylan Southern, Will Lovelace

“Weichen (Dust),” dir. Tsai Ming-liang

“Everest: The Other Side,” dir. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin

“From Inside Out — The Architecture of Peter Zumthor,” dir. Wim Wenders

Paul Schrader at the 2021 Gotham Awards held at Cipriani Wall Street on November 29, 2021 in New York CityNina Westervelt/PMC

Out of Competition — Fiction

“Dio Ride,” dir. Giovanni Veronesi (closing night film)

“Nessun Dolore,” dir. Gianni Amelio

“Makikiraan Po (Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors),” dir. Lav Diaz

“Father Joe,” dir. Barthélémy Grossmann

“Scherzetto,” dir. Mario Martone

“Place to Be,” dir. Kornél Mundruczó

“No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman,” dir. Halkawt Mustafa

“Arrested Memory,” dir. Sabu

“The Basics of Philosophy,” dir. Paul Schrader

“Un Bon Avocat,” dir. Tristan Séguéla

“Jupiter,” dir. Alexandre Smia

Venice Days in Competition (previously announced)

“My Notes on Mars,” dir. Lili Horvàt (opening film)

“Sadness Sometimes, Other Times Revolt,” dir. Maria Aparicio

“Agata the Writer,” dir. Kuba Dorabialski

“Balcanica,” dir. Nicola Sorcinelli

“Camouflage,” dir. Mykyta Gibalenko 

“Dear Ajayi,” dir. Damilola Orimogunje

“I Plant My Hand in the Garden,” dirs. Boris Hadžija and Hoda Taheri 

“Les Indes,” Pauline Julier, dir. Nicolas Chapoulier 

“Salón De Bellezza” Nathalia Acevedo

“A Woman Today,” Robert Guédiguian

Venice Days Out of Competition

“Man’s Skin,” dir. Léa Domenach 

Venice Days Special Events

“Al Baraneya,” dir. Ashgan El-Hamus  

“Carla Lonzi, A Feminist Story,” dir. Francesca Archibugi 

“The Phantom,” dirs. Ignacio Masilorens, David Lamelas

“The Massacre,” dir. Cosimo Messeri

“Even if Hell Came,” dir. Samuele Rossi 

Venice Days Women’s Tales Project (shorts made with Miu Miu)

“Discipline,” dir. Mona Fastvold 

“Avec Kim,” dir. Claire Denis