Venice, it seems, has done it again.
The line-up for the 2026 Venice Film Festival, unveiled on Thursday, looks like another star-studded affair featuring plenty of titles with strong award-season potential. Bold-faced names including Robert Pattinson, Penélope Cruz, Alicia Vikander and, according to artistic director Alberto Barbara, Oasis rockers Noel and Liam Gallagher, will be heading to the Lido this year.
The 83rd Biennale will also feature new features from festival faves, including Werner Herzog, Hirokazu Koreeda, Lee Chang-dong, Nanni Moretti, and Martin McDonagh.
Irish director McDonagh, whose Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri won Venice’s Golden Lion in 2017 and who was last on the Lido with The Banshees of Inisherin (2022), returns to competition with Wild Horse Nine.
John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell star in the black comedy as a pair of veteran CIA officers who, ahead of the 1973 Chilean coup, are sent far from the action to Easter Island. Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, and Parker Posey co-star. Three Billboards and Banshees both received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, with the former won acting Oscars for stars Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell. McDonagh’s house studio, Searchlight Pictures, will be hoping for a similar run for Wild Horse Nine after its Venice launch next month.
French director Florian Zeller, last on the Lido in 2022 with The Son, returns to comeptition with Bunker. The psychological thriller stars Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz as a couple whose marriage buckles after he, a celebrated architect, accepts a commission to build a bunker for a billionaire. Stephen Graham, Paul Dano and Patrick Schwarzenegger co-star. Sony Pictures Classics has picked up Bunker for North America. FilmNation Entertainment is handling international sales.
Robert Pattinson will hit the Lido red carpet for the world premiere of Primetime, the feature debut of documentary director Lance Oppenheim (Some Kind of Heaven), playing NBC newsman Chris Hansen, whose To Catch a Predator format becomes a media sensation. A24 is releasing the film stateside and handling worldwide sales.
‘Bucking Fastard’ with Rooney Mara, Kate Mara
Courtesy of Lena Herzog
Legendary German director Werner Herzog, whose documentary Ghost Elephants screened out of competition in Venice last year, arrives in the main selection this year with Bucking Fastard. Herzog reportedly turned down an out-of-competition slot in Cannes for his new feature, which stars siblings Rooney and Kate Mara in their first on-screen collaboration. Orlando Bloom and Domhnall Gleeson co-star. Hanway Films is selling Bucking Fastard international, with Gersh is handling U.S. sales. The film is still hunting for a domestic distributor.
‘Woman Unknown’
Andrejs-Strokins
Danish director May el-Toukhy (Queen of Hearts) will make her Venice debut in competition with Woman Unknown. The period drama stars Mathilde Arcel as Marie, a young nanny and housemaid who is set to marry her boss, the wealthy older widower, Christian (Carsten Bjørnlund). But Marie’s past — her shameful affair with a German soldier during occupation — threatens to catch up with her. TrustNordisk is handling world sales.
In a more surprising move, Cannes darling Nanni Moretti will be returning to the Lido. Moretti’s It Will Happen Tonight, a romantic drama starring Louis Garrel and Jasmine Trinca, will premiere in competition. The Italian auteur, winner of the Palme d’Or for The Son’s Room (2001), was last in Venice with Palombella rossa back in 1989. Playtime and Pan-Européenne are handling world sales for It Will Happen Tonight.
Louis Garrel and Jasmine Trinca in ‘It Will Happen Tonight’
Courtesy of the Venice Film Festival
Two of Asia’s most acclaimed directors, Hirokazu Koreeda and Lee Chang-dong, will present their latest features, Look Back and Possible Love, respectively, in competition. Koreeda, fresh of the Cannes competition premiere of Sheep in the Box, arrives on the Lido with his live-action adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s beloved coming-of-age manga, already adapted as an animated feature by Kiyotaka Oshiyama in 2024.
Eight years after Burning, Lee Chang-dong, the elder statesman of Korean arthouse cinema returns with a new melodrama, backed by Netflix and starring Korean screen royalty Jeon Do-yeon and Sul Kyung-gu opposite Zo In-sung and Parasite‘s Cho Yeo-jeong. The film marks Lee’s first Venice appearence since 2002, when he won the best director Silver Lion for Oasis.
Also in competition for the Golden Lion this year are Casey Affleck’s 1970s-set gothic mystery Company starring Nick Nolte and Ben Mendelsohn, and A Bit of Light from Iranian director Ali Asgari.
Jack O’Connell in ‘Ink’
Studiocanal
Venice has already confirmed that Danny Boyle’s Ink, a biographical drama starring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy, about Rupert Murdoch and his British tabloid empire, will open this year’s event, on Sept. 2. Dio Ride, an Italian period drama from director Giovanni Veronesi starring Pierfrancesco Favino (Maria, Rush) will close the fest on Sept. 12, screening out of competition.
Also screening out of competition, in a new section Venice Open Non Fiction, are some of the most hotly-anticipated docs of this year. Alex Gibney’s long-gestating Elon Musk documentary Musk, clocking in at nearly 4 hours, an will have its world premiere on the Lido. As will Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger, a Hulu Original film from Peaky Blinders‘ Steven Knight directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace (Shut Up and Play the Hits) following the band’s triumphant 2025 reunion tour. Barbara said both Liam and Noel Gallagher would be on hand for the film’s premiere in Venice.
‘Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger’
Walt Disney Studios
Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger will open theatrically on IMAX and select theaters on Sept. 11 before streaming on Disney+ and Hulu later this year.
Other can’t-miss docs in Venice this year include My Undesirable Friends Part II – Exile, Julia Loktev’s follow-up to her 2025 film tracing Russia’s crack down on independent journalists; and Union Town from two-time Oscar winner Barbara Kopple (Harlan County U.S.A., American Dream).
Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter, The Bride!) will head up this year’s Venice competition jury as president, picking the winner of the Golden Lion for best film. George Clooney, a Lido regular, will receive an honorary Golden Lion lifetime achievement award.
Among the titles screening out of competition are Place to Be from Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo (Pieces of a Woman) with Ellen Burstyn, Taika Waititi and Pamela Anderson; Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors, the latest from Filipino auteur Lav Diaz (Season of the Devil); Paul Schrader’s new film, The Basics of Philosophy; and the Luc Besson-produced crime thriller Father Joe, from director Barthelemy Grossman starring Kiefer Sutherland and Al Pacino.
Announcing the lineup on Thursday, Venice Festival artistic director Alberto Barbara began with the Venice Spotlight sidebar, whose highlights include Conversation With the Sea from Palestinian director Muayad Alayan, and Hombre Al Agua from Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal. The Spotlight line up looks like a particularly political one this year, with other highlights including Ground Floor from Hungarian director Gabor Reisz, which Barbara described as a metaphor for the Victor Orban “dictatorship;” and I Matter, from director Alina Serban, the first film from a Roma director to screen in the section.
Among the highlights of Venice’s main sidebar, the Orizzonti or Horizons section, include Lovers in the Blue Night, the new film from India’s Anuparna Roy, whose Songs of Forgotten Trees won best director in the section last year; and Too Much Sugar, the new documentary from Procession director Robert Greene.
It remains to be seen if this year’s Biennale will live up to its initial promise. Venice last year included several high-profile premieres, but many — Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite — were award season flops. The only 2025 Venice title to go on to score at the Oscars was Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, which picked up 9 Academy Award nominations, winning three, for Best Costume Design, Best Production Design and Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling. Bugonia, from Yorgos Lanthimos, another Venice world premiere, picked up three Oscar nominations but won none. Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab, which won Venice’s Silver Lion last year, was nominated for Best International Feature but lost out to Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value.
Venice 2026 line up below:
Venice Competition
Ink, dir. Danny Boyle (Opening Film)
Company, dir. Casey Affleck
A Bit of Light, dir. Ali Asgari
Ritorno a Buenos Aires, dir. Marco Bechi
Un Bon Petit Soldat, dir. Stephane Brize
Il Fuoco Che Ti Porti Dentro, dir. Edoardo de Angelis
Woman Unknown, dir. May el-Toukhy
Bucking Fastard, dir. Werner Herzog
A Place to Heal, dir. Cedric Kahn
Dau, dir. Ilya Khrzhanovsky
Look Back, dir. Hirokazu Koreeda
Possible Love, dir. Lee Chang-dong
Wild Horse Nine, dir. Martin McDonagh
It Will Happen Tonight, 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
Venice Spotlight
Sumo: Spirit Weighs Nothing, dir. Erik Shirai (Opening Film)
Conversation With the Sea, dir Muayad Alayan,
Hombre Al Agua, dir. Gael Garcia Bernal
Serpenti, dir. Roberto de Paolis Maino
Furies, dir. Rami Kodeih
Guria, dir. Levan Koguashvili
Ground Floor, dir. Gabor Reisz
I Matter, dir. Alina Serban
Orizzonti Competition
La Ragazza con la Leica, dir. Alina Marazzi (Opening Film)
The Burning Giants, dir. Phuttiphong Aroonpheng Thai
What Belongs to Others, dir. Grzegorz Debowski
Una Storia, dir. Anna Foglietta
La Citta dei Vivi, dir. Edoardo Gabbriellini
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 Maksimovic
La Moula, dir. Jerome Pierrat
Lovers in the Blue Night, dir. Anuparna Roy
Un Detour par Diane, dir. Ann Sirot, Raphael Balboni
The Color of the Sun, dir. Xavier Tera
Venice Open – Films on Film
Juso Per Ferie, dir. Karen di Porto
Nino – Un Film su Nino, 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
Venice Open – Non Fiction
Be Brave, dir. Francesco Carrozzini
What Loves Builds, dir. Russell Crowe
Burgundy, dir. Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw
Musk, dir. Alex Gibney
The Road to Jericho, dir. Amos Gitai
Citizen Osama, dir. Ahmed Hassouna
Union Town, dir. Barbara Kopple
Holy Wood Dust, dir. Victor Kossakovsky
Letters from the Silenced Country, dir. Andrei Kutsila
Biografia de Jorge Luis Borges, dir. Mariano Llinas
My Undesirable Friends Part II – Exile, dir. Julia Loktev
Boatbilders, 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, dirs. Dylan Southern, Will Lovelace
Dust, dir. Tsai Ming-liang
Everest: The Other Side, dirs. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chan
From Inside Out – The Architecture of Peter Zumthor, dir. Wim Wenders
Venice Open – Fiction
Dio Ride, Giovanni Veronesi (Closing Film)
Nessun Dolore, dir. Gianni Amelio
Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors, dir. Lav Diaz
Father Joe, dir. Barthelemy Grossman
Scherzetto, dir. Mario Martone
Place to Be, dir. Kornel Mundruczo
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 Seguela
Jupiter, dir. Alexandre Smia
