{"id":96168,"date":"2025-08-25T15:34:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T15:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/96168\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T15:34:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T15:34:11","slug":"must-see-films-at-venice-tiff-nyff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/96168\/","title":{"rendered":"Must-See Films at Venice, TIFF, NYFF"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ah, what\u2019s that chill in the air? It\u2019s movies. As the summer blockbuster season winds down<\/a>, cinephiles are already turning their attention to the fall film<\/a> festivals<\/a> \u2014 where some of the year\u2019s most anticipated and awards-worthy titles will begin to make their mark (or, in the case of plenty of gems from Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes, get a second wind). <\/p>\n

The trifecta of Venice<\/a>, Toronto<\/a>, and New York<\/a> (and, of course, that wily and secretive Telluride) once again promises a compelling lineup of international auteurs, breakout discoveries, and major studio contenders. In the coming weeks, we will see (and tell you all about) new films from filmmakers like Luca Guadagnino, Yorgos Lanthimos, Sofia Coppola, Chlo\u00e9 Zhao, Steven Soderbergh, Park Chan-wook, Noah Baumbach, Mamoru Hosoda, Nia DaCosta, Rian Johnson, Mona Fastvold, and Romain Gavras, and that\u2019s just the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n

\"CANNES,<\/a> \"'Good<\/a> <\/p>\n

More exciting? All those names we don\u2019t yet know, or are just about to learn. That\u2019s what makes this seemingly typical annual event \u2014 picking new movies to look forward to<\/a> \u2014 so fun and so imprecise. Behold, some seriously educated guesses, with infinitely more names to add soon.<\/p>\n

Bookmark this page for IndieWire\u2019s list of 42 films we can\u2019t wait to see at the Venice<\/a>, Toronto, and New York film festivals this fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

David Ehrlich, Marcus Jones, Ryan Lattanzio, Anne Thompson, and Christian Zilko contributed to this list.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the Hunt\u201d (Venice, NYFF)<\/p>\n

Luca Guadagnino turns slightly away from his usual subjects, sex and love, in this provocative original from actress-turned-screenwriter Nora Garrett. The psychological thriller stars Julia Roberts as Alma, a Yale philosophy professor whose ordered life is uprooted when her prot\u00e9g\u00e9 (Ayo Edebiri) makes assault accusations against her close friend and colleague (Andrew Garfield), who in turn charges her with plagiarism. Who to believe? Alma also fears that a secret from her own past will come to light. <\/p>\n

Michael Stuhlbarg plays Alma\u2019s psychiatrist husband in this Venice world premiere, which will also open the New York Film Festival. Cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed shot the film on 35mm over six weeks in London and at Cambridge University in the summer of 2024. \u201cChallengers\u201d and \u201cQueer\u201d composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross rejoined Team Guadagnino. Guadagnino has said that Roberts gives the \u201cbest performance\u201d of her career in this timely cultural commentary.\u00a0\u2014AT<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2018Bad Apples\u2019Courtesy of TIFF<\/p>\n

\u201cBad Apples\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re of the school of thought that Saoirse Ronan can do anything (read: the only correct school of thought), Jonatan Etzler\u2019s satirical and darkly funny English-language debut is a tasty treat made just for you. Based on Rasmus Lindgren\u2019s\u00a0debut novel \u201cDe O\u00f6nskade,\u201d screenwriter Jess O\u2019Kane adapts the story of one very maligned teacher (Ronan as Maria) and the decision that will change her life (and just about everyone else in her close-knit elementary school) forever.<\/p>\n

Much of the film\u2019s delight is found in just how unpredictably it plays out (surprises galore, the kind that guarantee uncomfortable laughs from an engaged audience), but without spoiling too much, here goes: when Maria makes a shocking choice that leads to the excision of her class\u2019 worst student, it has unexpected consequences. What happens when you forcefully remove a supposed bad apple from an otherwise healthy bunch? And who are you to decide who is said bad apple? This is all, we promise, very funny, but the canny casting of Ronan also helps it to feel palatable and possible, until the real world comes calling. \u2014KE<\/p>\n

\u201cBallad of a Small Player\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

\u201cAll Quiet on the Western Front\u201d director Edward Berger returns to Netflix with his latest, which Rowan Joff\u00e9 adapted from a Lawrence Osborne novel into an awards season hopeful starring Colin Farrell as debt-ridden card shark Lord Doyle and Tilda Swinton as a private investigator on his tail. <\/p>\n

Adapted from the 2014 Osborne novel, Berger\u2019s first post-\u201cConclave\u201d feature follows Doyle as he tussles with a fierce gambling habit in the deluxe casinos of Las Vegas and Macau. The secretive casino employee Dao Ming (Fala Chen) offers him a lifeline, but it may not save Doyle from Swinton\u2019s relentless P.I. As the movie premieres at the fall film festivals, Farrell will accept the Golden Icon Award in Zurich. Oscar-winning cinematographer James Friend shot the film in Macau and Hong Kong. \u2014AT<\/p>\n

\"Jesse\u2018Bugonia\u2019Courtesy of Focus Features \u00a9\u00a02<\/p>\n

\u201cBugonia\u201d (Venice)<\/p>\n

Adapted by Will Tracy from the lauded 2003 Korean film \u201cSave the Green Planet!\u201d from director Jang Joon-hwan, who was going to direct the English-language version but was replaced by Yorgos Lanthimos, \u201cBugonia\u201d brings back Emma Stone for a fifth turn with Lanthimos, in a role originally written as a man, the CEO of a Big Pharma company. Two conspiracists (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis) believe that she is an evil alien who plans to destroy Earth. So they kidnap her and shave her head. (For real.) <\/p>\n

Ari Aster joined the project as producer and hired Tracy to adapt; by February 2024, Lanthimos came on as director, and Stone joined as both actress and producer. Plemons joined the cast that May during Cannes, when Focus Features picked up the film for distribution. For his fourth go-round with Lanthimos, Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan shot the film with 35 mm VistaVision cameras last summer in Milos, Greece and High Wycombe, England. \u2014AT<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Christophers\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

Steven Soderbergh continues to bolster his reputation as the fastest worker in Hollywood. Just months after his smart spy thriller \u201cBlack Bag\u201d hit theaters, the workhorse director returns to TIFF<\/a> with a dark comedy about the children of a deceased painter who reconnect to oversee a forgery operation that allows them to liquidate his unfinished works. With a screenplay by frequent collaborator Ed Solomon (who also wrote Soderbergh\u2019s \u201cNo Sudden Move\u201d and his TV projects \u201cMosaic\u201d and \u201cFull Circle\u201d) and a cast that includes Ian McKellen, Michaela Coel, James Corden, and Jessica Gunning, \u201cThe Christophers\u201d should be a hot title in Toronto. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n

\u201cChristy\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

Sydney Sweeney takes her first swing at a prestige biopic with \u201cChristy,\u201d which sees the \u201cEuphoria\u201d star playing Christy Martin, one of the first major female boxers to break into mainstream sports culture. Martin\u2019s private life was marred by turmoil, most of which stemmed from her marriage to boxing coach Jim Martin (played here by Ben Foster). <\/p>\n

Australian filmmaker David Mich\u00f4d directs the biopic, which promises to shine light on all of the ugly details of Martin\u2019s life, including her struggles with drugs and the domestic violence that plagued her marriage, while still showcasing her inspirational battle against the odds to reach the top of her industry.\u00a0\u2014CZ<\/p>\n

\u201cCover-Up\u201d (Venice, TIFF, NYFF)<\/p>\n

Laura Poitras is back at Venice after winning the Golden Lion in 2022 for her Sackler pharmaceutical family by-way-of-Nan-Goldin takedown \u201cAll the Beauty and the Bloodshed.\u201d The Oscar-winning, co-directing with longtime \u201cFrontline\u201d producer Mark Obenhaus, is out of competition this time with \u201cCover-Up.\u201d The made-in-secret documentary, as virtually all of Poitras\u2019 films are obliged to be due to their intelligence-breaking investigations, charts the legacy of investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who exposed the cover-up of the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam, and covered the Watergate scandal and other U.S. misdeeds throughout his career, including the torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners for The New Yorker. Films like \u201cCitizenfour\u201d and \u201cRisk\u201d proved the former Intercept co-founder was a sharp investigative journalist; \u201cAll the Beauty\u201d proved she was a bracingly cinematic filmmaker capable of harnessing truthful emotion. \u2014RL<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2018Dead Man\u2019s Wire\u2019Stefania Rosini SMPSP\/Courtesy of TIFF<\/p>\n

\u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire\u201d (Venice, TIFF)<\/p>\n

Independent film maverick Gus Van Sant\u2019s recent run of releases, from \u201cSea of Trees\u201d to \u201cDon\u2019t Worry, He Won\u2019t Get Far on Foot\u201d met mixed results with critics and audiences. With \u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire,\u201d the Academy Award-nominated \u201cMilk\u201d director returns to fact-inspired filmmaking, casting Bill Skarsg\u00e5rd as Tony Kiritsis, who in 1977 entered the Meridian Mortgage Company offices with a sawed-off shotgun to hold its president (Dacre Montgomery) hostage. The ripped-from-the-headlines story feels eerily similar to recent news breaks that have turned assassins fighting for the working class into folk heroes. Austin Kolodney pens the script, with Arnaud Potier (\u201cAggro Dr1ft\u201d) handling cinematography. Colman Domingo, Al Pacino, Cary Elwes, and \u201cIndustry\u201d breakout Myha\u2019la also star. \u2014RL<\/p>\n

\u201cL\u2019Etranger\u201d (Venice)<\/p>\n

Prolific French filmmaker Fran\u00e7ois Ozon has tackled cinephile-tailored I.P. before, including the Rainer Werner Fassbinder-inspired \u201cPeter von Kant\u201d from 2022. With his latest film \u201cL\u2019\u00c9tranger,\u201d he adapts Albert Camus\u2019 1942 existentialist novella, about a disaffected French settler in Algiers who kills an Arab man amid a search for meaning in an indifferent world. Ozon reunites with the young French actor Benjamin Voisin, here playing Mersault after breaking out as one half of a gay romance in the director\u2019s lush coming-of-ager \u201cSummer of 85.\u201d The cast also includes Rebecca Marder, Pierre Lottin, Denis Lavant, and \u201cAnatomy of a Fall\u201d internet boyfriend Swann Arlaud, with Belgian cinematographer Manu Dacosse (\u201cLet the Corpses Tan\u201d) shooting in black-and-white to match the novel\u2019s eerie, dislocated World War II-era setting. \u2014RL<\/p>\n

\u201cHamnet\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

Marking \u201cNomadland\u201d Oscar winner Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s return to indie filmmaking after a Marvel detour for \u201cEternals\u201d in 2021, \u201cHamnet\u201d was adapted by Zhao and author Maggie O\u2019Farrell from her 2020 bestseller. (It\u2019s her first book to make it to the big screen after 25 years.) <\/p>\n

Set during the Elizabethan age in the home of Agnes and William Shakespeare (Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal), \u201cHamnet\u201d tracks their early romance and the devastating loss of their 11-year-old son Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) to the plague. Emily Watson plays Hamnet\u2019s grandmother. Zhao convinced the reluctant O\u2019Farrell to work with her on the script. Produced by Steven Spielberg\u2019s Amblin Entertainment, the film was shot by cinematographer \u0141ukasz \u017bal in Wales and will premiere at the fall film festivals. \u2014AT<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Hand of Dante\u201d (Venice)<\/p>\n

Painter and New York filmmaker Julian Schnabel (\u201cThe Diving Bell and the Butterfly,\u201d \u201cBasquiat\u201d) continues his run of history-inspired period pieces after 2018 Oscar nominee \u201cAt Eternity\u2019s Gate,\u201d which starred Willem Dafoe as Vincent Van Gogh. His decade-in-the-making \u201cIn the Hand of Dante\u201d teams him with Oscar Isaac, who plays both a hard-living novelist in present day and Italian poet Dante Alighieri in 14th-century Florence. Nick (Isaac in the 21st century) is tasked by John Malkovich to locate what\u2019s believed to be the originally handwritten manuscript of \u201cThe Divine Comedy,\u201d while accompanied by a quirky mafia assassin played by Gerard Butler. Schnabel tussled with financiers for final cut on the black-and-white and color, two-and-a-half-hour epic, and he got it. The cast also includes Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa in what looks to be the most ambitious screen project of Schnabel\u2019s career. \u2014RL<\/p>\n

\"Hedda\"\u2018Hedda\u2019Prime Video<\/p>\n

\u201cHedda\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

The next few months are poised to be very big indeed for filmmaker Nia DaCosta, who not only bows her imaginative Henrik Ibsen adaptation with star Tessa Thompson at the festival, but will soon bring her very own \u201c28 Years Later\u201d sequel to cinemas in January. DaCosta has always enjoyed good buzz, but suddenly, it seems her incredible range and deep emotional wells are the talk of the town.<\/p>\n

In \u201cHedda,\u201d Thompson takes on the classic, iconic, and titular role of Hedda Gabler with plenty of twists: in DaCosta\u2019s telling, she\u2019s a bored society doyenne manipulating everyone around her for her own fun and games. And perhaps more? The film\u2019s first trailer hinted at something frisky and fun and glossy, with a thrilling underbelly, a sexy and wild outing that will put Ibsen in an entirely new light. DaCosta, too. \u2014KE<\/p>\n

\u201cA House of Dynamite\u201d (Venice, NYFF)<\/p>\n

Eight years after \u201cDetroit,\u201d Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow (\u201cThe Hurt Locker\u201d) is back with another powderkeg political thriller, written by NBC news president Noah Oppenheim (\u201cZero Day,\u201d \u201cJackie\u201d). The contemporary narrative is set at the White House as officials scramble to deal with an incoming single unattributed missile attack on the U.S. How to respond? The sprawling cast includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris, Greta Lee, and Bigelow regular Jason Clarke (\u201cZero Dark Thirty\u201d). Among other projects over the last eight years, Bigelow spent time developing an adaptation of David Koepp\u2019s novel \u201cAurora\u201d for Netflix, but scrapped it in 2022.<\/p>\n

Bigelow believes in using entertainment as a \u201cdelivery method for meaningful messaging,\u201d she told IndieWire in 2017. The film will world premiere in the main competition of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2025, where it\u2019s nominated for the Golden Lion. \u2014AT<\/p>\n

\u201cHow to Shoot a Ghost\u201d (Venice)<\/p>\n

Oscar-winning surrealist filmmaker Charlie Kaufman reunites again with poet\/writer Eva H.D., who provided both a poem for his 2020 Netflix head trip \u201cI\u2019m Thinking of Ending Things\u201d and the script for his 2023 short \u201cJackals and Fireflies.\u201d The Venice-premiering short film \u201cHow to Shoot a Ghost\u201d also reteams him with \u201cEnding Things\u201d star Jessie Buckley, who plays a blue-haired, newly dead woman wandering the streets of Athens with the also-dead Josef Akiki. In a blend of street photography, historical footage, and new material shot by Micha\u0142 Dymek (\u201cThe Girl with the Needle,\u201d \u201cEO\u201d), this evocative meditation on memory and loss recalls the hybrid fiction works of Chris Marker or the ruminative, temporal poetry of Alain Resnais\u2019 \u201cHiroshima, Mon Amour.\u201d Kaufman has given the film to free library streaming service Kanopy for distribution after its festival bow. \u2014RL<\/p>\n

\u201cFather Mother Sister Brother\u201d (Venice, NYFF)<\/p>\n

Cannes was apparently not interested in Jim Jarmusch\u2019s globe-trotting triptych \u201cFather Mother Sister Brother\u201d despite regularly hosting the filmmaker for decades. Skipping the Croisette enabled Jarmusch to take a film to Venice for only the second time (\u201cCoffee and Cigarettes\u201d played out of competition there in 2003) before he gets a Centerpiece showcase at the New York Film Festival. Three chapters set in New Jersey, Dublin, and Paris \u2014 with Frederick Elmes and Yorick Le Saux splitting cinematography duties \u2014 center on adult children and their relationships with their aging parents. The stacked cast includes Jarmusch fave Tom Waits, plus Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Vicky Krieps, Charlotte Rampling, Indya Moore, and Luka Sabbat in what the director describes as an \u201canti-action film.\u201d But any anti-action film from slow cinema poet Jarmusch is more thrilling than most actual action films these days. \u2014RL<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Fence\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

Claire Denis hasn\u2019t directed a new film since her 2022 double feature of \u201cThe Stars at Noon\u201d and \u201cBoth Sides of the Blade,\u201d but she\u2019s set to make a big return to the festival circuit with \u201cThe Fence.\u201d Her adaptation of Bernard-Marie Kolt\u00e8s\u2019 play \u201cBlack Battles with Dogs\u201d takes place on a European-owned construction site in Cameroon, following a supervisor (Matt Dillon) who has to deal with an enraged villager after one of his workers dies on the job. It has all the makings of another Denis classic, featuring some of the auteur\u2019s favorite themes like colonial influence in Africa and the obsessions of men who are left to work together while isolated from the outside world. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2018Frankenstein\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankenstein\u201d (Venice, TIFF)<\/p>\n

When it was announced that Guillermo del Toro would be directing a \u201cFrankenstein\u201d movie for Netflix, you\u2019d be forgiven if your knee-jerk reaction was to hastily check IMDB to confirm that he hadn\u2019t already made one. By now, the Mexican director\u2019s favorite themes \u2014 namely that monsters are often misunderstood creatures who serve as vehicles for the true evil lurking in the hearts of the humans who control them \u2014 are so well-established that it feels like he\u2019s been directing \u201cFrankenstein\u201d movies for his entire career. But a direct take on Mary Shelley\u2019s classic novel has eluded him until now, and the $120 million passion project could put him right back in the heart of the awards race.<\/p>\n

Oscar Isaac stars as a flamboyant version of the eponymous doctor that is loosely inspired by Mick Jagger, while Jacob Elordi plays the monster he brings into existence. The film is almost certain to have some of the best below-the-line craftsmanship you\u2019ll see all season, and watching a living legend dive even deeper into his favorite material is an opportunity that every cinephile should cherish. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n

\u201cFranz\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

Possibly the first movie about Franz Kafka since Steven Soderbergh\u2019s \u201cKafka\u201d in 1991, and\u00a0definitely\u00a0a more straightforward portrait of literature\u2019s most name-brand surrealist, Agnieszka Holland\u2019s \u201cFranz\u201d seems poised to offer the \u201cMetamorphosis\u201d author a somewhat traditional biopic treatment. Emphasis on\u00a0somewhat. A crafty and rebellious filmmaker who\u2019s coming off one of the most vital works of her career (\u201cGreen Border\u201d), Holland supposedly embraces the strictures of the biopic subgenre only so that she can subvert them in turn, as the traditional coming-of-genius stuff (which stars Idan Weiss as a young Czech Jew who\u2019s trying to make his way through the world of pre-war Prague) runs parallel to a present-day timeline in which Kafka is forced to reckon with his legacy.<\/p>\n

It should be fascinating \u2014 and bleakly hilarious \u2014\u00a0to see what he thinks of a 21st century that seems to have hatched straight out of his worst nightmares.\u00a0\u2014DE<\/p>\n

\u201cGhost Elephants\u201d (Venice)<\/p>\n

If filmmaker Werner Herzog is going to do one thing, it\u2019s make a film centered on a figure willingly going on a Sisyphean quest. The latest documentary from the German director, who will also be receiving the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at this year\u2019s Venice Film Festival, focuses on Dr. Steve Boyes, whose \u201cMoby Dick\u201d is in the form of a herd of giant elephants in the highlands of Angola. Though he has gone so far as to recruit master trackers from Namibia to find the elusive animals, the film\u2019s synopsis teases that the endeavor may lead to Boyes\u2019 second-guessing if the elephants are ever meant to be found. \u2014MJ<\/p>\n

\u201cGirl\u201d (Venice, TIFF)<\/p>\n

World renowned Taiwanese actress Shu Qi, who won the prestigious Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actress in the film \u201cYour Place or Mine,\u201d which also stars Tony Leung, makes her directorial debut with what is said to be an artistic drama centered on a young girl who finds a new friend with a similar name to hers, living the life she would like to live. <\/p>\n

In addition to her almost three decades of acting work, Qi has been on several international film festival juries, meaning she already has an idea of how to show her film in the best light that would help it stand out among other more publicized competition titles at this year\u2019s Venice Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival. \u2014MJ<\/p>\n

\"'Good\u2018Good Fortune\u2019Lionsgate<\/p>\n

\u201cGood Fortune\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

A few things have changed about the world since Frank Capra released \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life\u201d in 1946, and Aziz Ansari has apparently decided that we needed another guardian angel movie that reflects the anxieties of 2025. Enter \u201cGood Fortune,\u201d which stars Ansari as a gig worker who loathes his ultra-wealthy employer (Seth Rogen) until a guardian angel (who else but Keanu Reeves) arrives and attempts to teach them both a thing or two about the way the other half lives. Ansari\u2019s directing career has gotten off to a few false starts (through no fault of his own), but \u201cGood Fortune\u201d could be the film that signals the \u201cMaster of None\u201d creator\u2019s entry into the indie film stratosphere. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n

\u201cIs This Thing On?\u201d (NYFF)<\/p>\n

Bradley Cooper\u2019s directorial career thus far has been defined by heavy stories of musical geniuses who struggled to control their vices and avoid tragedy. But for his third feature behind the camera, he appears to be taking things in a lighter direction. \u201cIs This Thing On?\u201d is set inside the world of standup comedy, starring Will Arnett (who co-wrote the film with Cooper and Mark Chappell) as a recently divorced man who tries his hand at comedy as a way of coping with a midlife crisis. Cooper also stars alongside Laura Dern, Sean Hayes, Amy Sedaris, and Peyton Manning. The film will have its world premiere at the New York Film Festival, where fans will get their first look at how far Cooper\u2019s directorial range extends beyond his favorite subjects. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n

\u201cJay Kelly\u201d (Venice)<\/p>\n

In a fun bit of art imitating life, Noah Baumbach is bringing his latest Netflix film, in which George Clooney begrudgingly attends a European film festival to accept a prestigious tribute, to the competition at the Venice Film Festival 2025. Co-written with actress and screenwriter Emily Mortimer, the cast of the highly anticipated dramedy is filled out by Kelly\u2019s publicist Liz, played by Laura Dern, whose last collaboration with Baumbach earned her an Oscar nomination, and the actor\u2019s manager Ron, played by Adam Sandler, who is coming off a year of successes ranging from a spotlight moment on \u201cSNL 50\u201d to long-awaited sequel \u201cHappy Gilmore 2\u201d (also a Netflix film). \u2014MJ<\/p>\n

\u201cKim Novak\u2019s Vertigo\u201d (Venice)<\/p>\n

Swiss-American filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe more than demonstrated his cinema savvy with the film-centric essay films \u201cLynch\/Oz,\u201d which traced David Lynch\u2019s career-long fascination with \u201cThe Wizard of Oz,\u201d and \u201c78\/52,\u201d which gave a frame-by-frame close reading of the \u201cPsycho\u201d shower scene. He turns back to Hitchcock for \u201cKim Novak\u2019s Vertigo,\u201d premiering in Venice where the namesake subject will receive the Golden Lion for career achievement. Philippe funnels his obsession with Hitch\u2019s heady psychosexual mind-bender \u201cVertigo\u201d into a tapestry of the life and career of Novak, who of course played both Judy (the object and victim of James Stewart\u2019s perverse fixation) and her made-up alter-ego Madeleine\u201d \u2014 inadvertently or intentionally, however you want to dice it, commenting on a director\u2019s controlling and manipulating Svengali-like influence over an actress. But this documentary shows us Novak as the fiercely independent iconoclast who left Hollywood on her own terms. \u2014RL<\/p>\n

\u201cLate Fame\u201d (Venice, TIFF, NYFF)<\/p>\n

Influential film critic and programmer Kent Jones made a seamless leap to the other side of the screen with his quietly shattering narrative debut, \u201cDiane,\u201d which towered over the rest of the competition at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, where it premiered. His follow-up is deservedly swimming in some deeper waters, with some much bigger fish, as \u201cLate Fame\u201d will debut at Venice before screening at TIFF and in the main slate at NYFF<\/a>, where Jones once served as the chairman of the festival\u2019s selection committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Boasting a cast worthy of this brighter spotlight (and a script adapted from the Arthur Schnitzler novel of the same name by \u201cMay December\u201d breakout Samy Burch!), the film stars Willem Dafoe as Ed Saxberger, a forgotten New York poet who\u2019s spent the last 40 years of his life working at the post office. But obscurity has a way of inflaming enthusiasm in this town, and all it takes is one extroverted kid with esoteric tastes (Edmund Donovan) to launch Ed back into the arts scene, where he\u2019s forced to contend with a new generation of aspirant creatives led by a Greta Lee. It\u2019s hard to say how things will pan out for Ed, but Kent\u2019s chances of whiffing on his second at bat seem just about nil.\u00a0\u2014DE<\/p>\n

\"Maddie's\u2018Maddie\u2019s Secret\u2019TIFF<\/p>\n

\u201cMaddie\u2019s Secret\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

All we need to know: semi-secret film from John Early, in which he directs himself as the titular Maddie: a wannabe influencer who has built her life on all manner of lies. The film promises to be very funny indeed, but with a dark and wise center about actually heady matters. No fake followers here. \u2014KE<\/p>\n

\u201cMarc by Sofia\u201d (Venice)<\/p>\n

Director Sofia Coppola and fashion designer Marc Jacobs, a pair of longtime friends and icons who transcend past the artistic trades that they are known for, team up for the former\u2019s first-ever documentary feature. Though there are few public details about the film, which will have its world premiere at Venice, even the prospect of a filmed conversation between them would be a fashion lover\u2019s dream, involving insights on brands ranging from Chanel and Louis Vuitton to Gap and Perry Ellis. What a rare treat to see someone\u2019s muse turn the spotlight back toward them. \u2014MJ<\/p>\n

\u201cMile End Kicks\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

In addition to programming the obvious heavy-hitters and big-time Oscar players, TIFF also excels at championing rising Canadian cinema, offering up true discoveries and fresh features alongside the usual suspects. Three years after debuting her first film, \u201cI Like Movies,\u201d at the festival, Chandler Levack returns with another feature pulled from her rich background of loving (and making) all sorts of art.<\/p>\n

Barbie Ferreira stars as Grace, our Levack surrogate, who is spending the summer in Montreal writing music criticism (something Levack herself did in 2011 and thereabouts, in which the film is set with hilarious detail) and dealing with all sorts of personal and professional upheavals. While Levack adopts the shape and form and feel of a rom-com or a coming-of-age comedy, the specificity of her story lends her sophomore debut real gravitas. If you ever read a David Foster Wallace novel not just to impress some bro, but to feel as if you\u2019re part of a cultural conversation not necessarily welcoming to you, \u201cMile End Kicks\u201d will really speak to you (just like it spoke to me). \u2014KE<\/p>\n

\"No\u2018No Other Choice\u2019Neon<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Other Choice\u201d (Venice, TIFF, NYFF)<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most dazzlingly operatic auteur in the world, Park Chan-wook loves to torture us by making a masterpiece \u2014 the most recent of them being 2022\u2019s \u201cDecision to Leave\u201d \u2014 and then abandoning the cinema for a few years in favor of television, a medium whose production schedule and narrative structure are anathema to his clockwork genius. It\u2019s even more frustrating because Park is only growing more confident and ambitious as a filmmaker as he gets older.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Needless to say, his diehard fans couldn\u2019t be more excited to see him return to the movies with a project he\u2019s been dreaming about since 2005: A darkly comic adaptation of Donald Westlake\u2019s \u201cThe Ax,\u201d starring Lee Byung-hun as a man so desperate to find a job that he starts murdering all of the other applicants. And just in time for Trump to crater the economy! Brace for another virtuosic profile of humanity at its worst and most mounded.\u00a0\u2014DE<\/p>\n

\u201cNormal\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

Ben Wheatley was once among the most promising directors on the planet, but recent years have been a bumpy ride for those of us who went all in on his stock after \u201cKill List.\u201d \u201cMeg 2: The Trench\u201d and his Netflix adaptation of \u201cRebecca\u201d were both dire in their own ways, but Wheatley\u2019s \u201cIn the Earth\u201d was a resourceful pandemic riff that suggested he still had some gas in the tank, and it does seem like only a matter of time before a filmmaker of his talent manages to make good on it again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Enter: \u201cNormal,\u201d a neo-Western starring Bob Odenkirk as the new sheriff of a small town that\u2019s in the clutches of a vast criminal organization (Henry Winkler is the presumably overmatched mayor). Written by \u201cNobody\u201d and \u201cJohn Wick\u201d screenwriter Derek Kolstad, and promising to combine ultra-violent action with Hitchcockian mystery, \u201cNormal\u201d has the potential to be a coiled blast of midnight fun \u2014\u00a0and the potential to restore our faith in Wheatley\u2019s orgiastic approach to genre thrills.\u00a0\u2014DE\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNuestra Tierra\u201d (Venice)<\/p>\n

Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel\u2019s (\u201cZama,\u201d \u201cThe Headless Woman\u201d) first documentary feature is her long-gestating true-crime-and-then-some portrait of the 2009 murder of Indigenous leader Javier Chocobar in her home country. The Chuschagasta native tried to defend his community\u2019s ancestral land against three mining entrepreneurs who claimed ownership of the territory, armed with firearms. The film integrates chilling cell-phone footage of the movie that feels ripped from a found-footage horror movie, as well as recordings of the court proceedings as they opened in 2018 and innovative, self-reflexive drone camerawork for a panorama of colonial unrest that spans generations. The men were all freed shortly after their sentencing, but Martel still makes the case that this was a hard-won act of defiance and self-reservation by the Chuschagasta people. \u2014RL<\/p>\n

\u201cOrphan\u201d (Venice)<\/p>\n

Nearly a decade after his holocaust film \u201cSon of Saul\u201d won the Oscar for Best International Feature on behalf of his native Hungary, director L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Nemes returns with a coming-of-age story involving the Communist occupation of Budapest circa 1957. The new project premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival stars a young Jewish boy named Andor, played by Loppert Martin Tibor, and later Bojtorj\u00e1n Barabas, who begins to question everything he knows about his family after meeting a brutish man bearing earth-shattering news. <\/p>\n

In his director\u2019s statement, the filmmaker reveals that the historical drama mines from his own family\u2019s trauma, linking the effects that both the holocaust and the rise in communism in Hungary had on him and his loved ones. \u2014MJ<\/p>\n

\u201cRental Family\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

What looks to be the most tender film of this year\u2019s TIFF, Oscar winner Brendan Fraser stars as an American expat who has long lived and worked in Tokyo, but is struggling to find work as an actor. In HIKARI\u2019s feature, that struggle brings Fraser\u2019s character into an unexpected job: taking on roles from a \u201crental family\u201d agency that slots him in where he\u2019s seemingly needed most. We suspect he\u2019ll find what he needs to, and that audiences will likely spark to what looks like a feel-good feature for all. \u2014KE<\/p>\n

\"Channing\u2018Roofman\u2019Davi Russo<\/p>\n

\u201cRoofman\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

After almost a decade away from the big screen (and with one thrilling stopover in TV land, care of \u201cI Know This Much Is True\u201d), Derek Cianfrance is poised to make his triumphant return to features this fall with \u201cRoofman,\u201d a true\u2011crime dramedy that\u2019s already generating serious buzz. While the film might not sound too Cianfrance-y at the outset (Channing Tatum stars as Jeffrey Manchester, a former Army Ranger who robbed dozens of McDonald\u2019s by breaking in through their roofs and ultimately went on the lam, ultimately hiding inside a Toys \u201cR\u201d Us for six months), early reports hold that the filmmaker\u2019s emotional realism is more pronounced here than originally expected.<\/p>\n

As he told IndieWire\u2019s Screen Talk last year<\/a>, the film has been a long-time passion project, and fans of the \u201cBlue Valentine\u201d director should be just as excited for it as movie-goers who simply love a true crime story (with a little \u201cCareer Opportunities\u201d flair). \u2014KE<\/p>\n

\u201cRose of Nevada\u201d (Venice, TIFF)<\/p>\n

One of the buzziest discoveries heading into this year\u2019s fall festival corridor, \u201cRose of Nevada\u201d promises a time-traveling, sci-fi-tinged mystery from Cornish director Mark Jenkin (\u201cEnys Men,\u201d \u201cBait\u201d). The filmmaker, known for crafting atmospheric landscapes keener on mood than narrative, directs George MacKay and Callum Turner as fishermen on a boat that has returned to harbor after disappearing 30 years prior. The voyage, though, takes them back in time, finding themselves mistaken for the original crew. \u201cRose of Nevada\u201d bloomed during the pandemic as Jenkin observed the resilience of his Cornwall community; it\u2019s first world-premiering in the Orizzonti section at Venice, dedicated to edgy titles and emerging filmmakers that push cinematic form. \u2014RL<\/p>\n

\u201cSacrifice\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

An inspired heist thriller that never got the U.S. release that was dumped on Netflix after its riotous debut at Cannes, 2018\u2019s \u201cThe World Is Yours\u201d made it abundantly clear that Romain Gavras was ready to move beyond his father Costa-Gavras\u2019 shadow. Four years later, the even\u00a0more\u00a0incendiary (if less substantial) \u201cAthena\u201d made it just as clear that the former music video auteur had become one of modern cinema\u2019s most formidable stylists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now Gavras\u2019 English-language debut represents his best chance to put it all together and connect with a wider audience, as the explosive action-comedy \u2014 anchored by Anya Taylor-Joy as the leader of a doomsday eco-cult who storm a celebrity-studded environmental conference and begin offering celebrities as a blood sacrifice to mother nature \u2014\u00a0has all the ingredients for the filmmaker\u2019s hypnotically confrontational brand of shock-and-awe social commentary. Billionaires in peril? Check. Chris Evans as a self-embarrassed movie star? Check. A supporting performance by Charli XCX and a presumably banging soundtrack to match? Check check check. If one TIFF premiere has a shot at stealing the spotlight from the more broadly anticipated likes of \u201cWake Up Dead Man\u201d and \u201cFrankenstein,\u201d it has to be \u201cSacrifice.\u201d\u00a0\u2014DE<\/p>\n

\u201cScarlet\u201d (TIFF, NYFF)<\/p>\n

The last time Japanese animator Mamoru Hosoda released a film, he dazzled anime lovers around the world with his cyberpunk take on a tale as old as time with the \u201cBeauty and the Beast\u201d update \u201cBelle.\u201d Now he\u2019s set to return with another princess saga that might even be more ambitious in scope. \u201cScarlet\u201d takes place in between the realms of life and death, following a murdered princess who is forced to do battle in the afterlife to prevent her soul from perishing forever. Hosoda\u2019s mastery of his medium makes any film he releases a must-see event, and \u201cScarlet\u201d could emerge as one of the year\u2019s best animated films. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n

\u201cSilent Friend\u201d (Venice, TIFF)<\/p>\n

Hungarian director Ildik\u00f3 Enyedi has run hot and cold after returning from an 18-year hiatus with 2017\u2019s Golden Bear-winning \u201cOn Body and Soul\u201d (her follow-up, \u201cThe Story of My Wife,\u201d was so pummeled at Cannes that it never made it across the ocean), but her latest epic boasts what might be the single best premise of any movie this year: What if Bertrand Bonello\u2019s \u201cThe Beast\u201d had co-starred Tony Leung? It would be almost impossible to improve on George MacKay\u2019s performance in that film, but we don\u2019t have any complaints if one of modern cinema\u2019s greatest actors wants to give it a whirl.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Less romantic than \u201cThe Beast\u201d but similarly compelled by inter-generational connections and the invisible forces that shape our world, Enyedi\u2019s \u201cSilent Friend\u201d is another three-part, century-spanning epic starring L\u00e9a Seydoux as a woman with a complicated relationship with the past. Only here, the French actress \u2014\u00a0along with the rest of the cast \u2014 is confined to a single timeline, as the story\u2019s only constant across its 1908, 1972, and 2020-set chapters is a Ginkgo biloba tree that can live for 1,000 years. Here\u2019s hoping it bears fruit.\u00a0\u2014DE<\/p>\n

\"'The\u2018The Smashing Machine\u2019A24<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Smashing Machine\u201d (Venice, TIFF)<\/p>\n

The idea of Dwayne \u201cThe Rock\u201d Johnson fronting A24\u2019s awards season kickoff at Venice did not sound plausible even five years ago, when the WWE superstar emeritus was more focused on starring in the types of CGI-heavy blockbusters that are $1 billion-or-bust. But leave it to Benny Safdie, in his solo feature directorial debut, to showcase a new side of Johnson as an actor, playing early Ultimate Fighting Championship favorite Mark Kerr. <\/p>\n

Sharing a name with the 2002 documentary that spotlighted the fighter who came to fame right as UFC was gaining global appeal, the sports biopic also reteams Johnson with his \u201cJungle Cruise\u201d co-star Emily Blunt, in what already seems to be another scene-stealing performance as Dawn Staples, Kerr\u2019s wife at the time. \u2014MJ<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Testament of Ann Lee\u201d (Venice)<\/p>\n

Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet have a good thing going. The creative and life partners have found success co-writing each other\u2019s films while taking turns in the directorial spotlight, most notably with Corbet\u2019s 2024 masterpiece \u201cThe Brutalist.\u201d Now, Fastvold returns to the director\u2019s chair with a film that appears to be every bit as ambitious in terms of artistry and historical scope. \u201cThe Testament of Ann Lee\u201d is a musical drama about the Shaker movement, starring Amanda Seyfried as the eponymous founder of the utopian sect of Evangelical Christianity.<\/p>\n

Shot on 70mm film and featuring a supporting cast that includes Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Christopher Abbott, and Tim Blake Nelson, \u201cThe Testament of Ann Lee\u201d should be one of the cinematic events of the season for arthouse enthusiasts. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n

\u201cWake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery\u201d (TIFF)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tradition now: a twisty new Rian Johnson murder mystery at TIFF, all big names and better surprises, playing to a very enthusiastic crowd. That\u2019s all we\u2019d need to know to get excited for Johnson\u2019s third \u201cKnives Out\u201d movie, but we\u2019ll give you still more to get jazzed about.<\/p>\n

This one, hinted to be a bit darker than Johnson\u2019s previous entries, boasts a secretive plot (of course) and a murderer\u2019s row of stars, including Daniel Craig back as private detective Benoit Blanc, with Josh O\u2019Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Church. Let\u2019s solve a crime, but, more importantly, let\u2019s have fun while doing it! \u2014KE<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Wizard of the Kremlin\u201d (Venice, TIFF)<\/p>\n

Once more famous for his looks than for his film performances (despite being a rather excellent actor right from the jump), Jude Law has made a meal of middle age by re-establishing himself as a virtuosic character actor with extraordinary range. Henry VIII. Captain Hook. The hot Pope. But not even the most chameleonic of Law\u2019s previous roles \u2014\u00a0nor the most receding of their hairlines \u2014 has sufficiently prepared us for the idea of watching him play an upstart Vladimir Putin in an epic Olivier Assayas thriller set during the final years of the Soviet Union.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adapted from a Giuliano da Empoli novel and starring Paul Dano as a fictional artist who rises high in the ranks of the Russian government while coming across all sorts of disreputable figures in the process, \u201cThe Wizard of the Kremlin\u201d finds Assayas mounting his most outwardly ambitious \u2014 or at least his longest \u2014 feature since \u201cCarlos\u201d in 2010. The movie\u2019s ensemble also includes Alicia Vikander, Jeffrey Wright, and Tom Sturridge, but this is said to be Dano\u2019s show, with Law\u2019s Putin a malevolent presence who shadows his every move.\u00a0\u2014DE\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ah, what\u2019s that chill in the air? It\u2019s movies. As the summer blockbuster season winds down, cinephiles are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,28908,1554,337,53077,15896,18296],"class_list":["post-96168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-festivals","tag-film","tag-movies","tag-nyff","tag-tiff","tag-venice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}