The world’s oldest film festival has returned for its 81st edition – and it’s shaping up to be a stellar year.
This year’s line-up includes a new Pedro Almodóvar drama starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, and sequels to Todd Phillips’ Joker (which will star Lady Gaga) and Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice.
Justin Kurzel is presenting a crime caper, Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino returns with another queer love story, Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson are starring as chief executive and intern in an erotic thriller from Halina Reijn, and Angelina Jolie will transform into Maria Callas for Pablo Larraín’s new biopic.
And the festival’s long-time director, Alberto Barbera, couldn’t be more delighted, saying: "We're going to have the most crowded red carpet in a decade!"
Here’s your crib sheet for some of this year’s buzziest films.
In competition
The Room Next Door
Just put the words Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore and Pedro Almodóvar in the same sentence and cinephiles will come flocking. But the premise of the Spanish Oscar-winning director’s latest project seals the deal: Swinton plays a war correspondent, while Moore plays her resentful daughter. It’s based on Sigrid Nunez’s novel and will be Almodóvar’s first full-length film in English.
The Brutalist
Brady Corbet, director of 2018’s Vox Lux, tells a fascinating story of Hungarian-born Jewish architect, László Tóth (not to be confused with the real-life Hungarian geologist), who moves to the US after surviving the Holocaust. He falls on hard times before eventually connecting with a wealthy client. The title of the film, a double entendre, sets the tone: this is a film about endurance, the battle of ideas, physical and social constructs and integrity. Adrian Brody and Felicity Jones star in the three-and-a-half-hour epic.
Queer
Art house director Luca Guadagnino had been making movies for almost two decades when 2017’s Call Me By Your Name catapulted him to the big leagues: the queer love story starring a fresh-faced Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer touched the heart of millions and launched Chalamet’s career.
Now, hot on the heels of Guadagnino tennis thriller Challengers, comes Queer, a story based on William S Burroughs’ 1985 novel of the same name. Set in Mexico City in the Forties, it stars Daniel Craig as Lee, a man between jobs who becomes obsessed with a discharged American Navy veteran.
The Quiet Son
Sisters Delphine and Muriel Coulin, directors of the award-winning 17 Girls, explore radicalisation in The Quiet Son (Jouer avec le feu) – a topic of growing importance as incels becoming more noticeably prevalent and violent. Starring legendary French actor Vincent Lindon and up-and-comer Benjamin Voisin, the film is about a father of two sons. As one heads off to university, the other becomes more withdrawn, sucked in by far-right ideas.
April
Georgian filmmaker Déa Kulumbegashvili presents a searing film about abortion in America, a topic driving the presidential election agendas of both parties. Since Roe v Wade was overturned in June 2023, the lives of millions of women across 22 states have transformed: in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas for example, abortion is banned after conception, with no stated exceptions for rape and/or incest.
In Kulumbegashvili’s drama film, an obstetrician working in rural Georgia is investigated for secretly helping patients get abortions.
The Order
This thriller starring Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult, based on Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s 1989 non-fiction book, depicts the white supremacist group The Order and its charismatic founder Robert Jay Mathews. It picks up with Mathews in 1983, when an FBI agent links him to a series of robberies and heists. Australian director Justin Kurzel is a tremendous talent – as fans of his brilliant 2015 adaptation of Macbeth, or his truly shocking award-winning crime drama, Snowtown know very well; all eyes are on The Order.
Maria
Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín, director of Jackie (2016), Spencer (2021) and the Oscar-nominated El Conde (2023), is making his third biopic focusing on one of the world’s most famous women. American-Greek soprano Maria Callas, one of opera’s most-celebrated divas, lived an extraordinary life, travelling the world and marrying business magnate Aristotle Onassis. But Angelina Jolie will play Maria in her later, more private and reclusive years, when she lived alone in Paris.
Joker: Folie à Deux
Loosely based on the DC Comics, Todd Phillips’ The Joker followed in the footsteps of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, expanding the superhero genre with its dark tone and bold themes. Starring Joaquin Phoenix and Robert De Niro, and with a score from Hildur Guðnadóttir, it picked up 11 nominations at the Oscars, winning two.
Now, five years later, comes its sequel, a musical thriller starring Lady Gaga as Lee/Harley Quinn, the Joker’s psychotic love interest. The film portrays their love story: the Joker is a patient in a hospital, Lee is his music therapist.
Babygirl
Nicole Kidman has starred in her fair share of impressive thrillers, but Dutch actor-filmmaker Halina Reijn’s Babygirl promises to be a standout. Here, sexuality and power are placed under the microscope as Kidman’s character, a CEO, starts having an affair with a twenty-something intern, played by Harris Dickinson.
Out of Competition
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Opening this year’s festival, is Tim Burton’s sequel to his now classic fantasy-horror, Beetlejuice – 36 years on. Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O'Hara are reprising their old roles, while Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega, and Willem Dafoe are joining the cast.
Wolfs
It’s no longer a phenomenon to see a streamer-backed film at a major film festival. But it’s clear that Jon Watts’ Apple TV+ thriller is getting the Venice treatment because of the astonishing star wattage of its cast members: Brad Pitt and George Clooney, reuniting on screen after 16 years, play professional fixers who end up being hired for the same job.
