{"id":870117,"date":"2026-10-04T04:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T04:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/870117\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T04:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T04:38:11","slug":"denver-film-festival-unveils-2026-lineup-and-honorees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/870117\/","title":{"rendered":"Denver Film Festival Unveils 2026 Lineup and Honorees"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThis year\u2019s Denver Film Festival<\/a> has fallen into view. <\/p>\n

\n\tDenver Film today unveiled the roster of movies and boldfaced name honorees that will make up the 49th edition of the Colorado capital city\u2019s marquee film event, which is scheduled for Oct. 22-Nov. 1. In all, 129 features, documentaries and shorts will hit screens inside the Sie FilmCenter, Ellie Caulkins Opera House, MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater, and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fest will open with Peter Farrelly\u2019s I Play Rocky starring Anthony Ippolito (as Sylvester Stallone) at Ellie Caulkins Opera House (with writer Peter Gamble in attendance and participating in a later conversation), and close with James Gray<\/a>\u2018s Paper Tiger<\/a> starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson<\/a> and Miles Teller at the MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater. Centerpiece picks in between include Danny Boyle\u2019s Ink starring Jack O\u2019Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy, and Tony Gilroy<\/a>\u2018s Behemoth! <\/a>starring Pedro Pascal as a gifted cellist. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPaper Tiger<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCannes Film Festival<\/p>\n

\n\tThe special presentations section features many standout films from the fall festival circuit and beyond. Those selections include (in alphabetical order) Stephanie Ahn\u2019s Bedford Park, Si\u00e2n Heder\u2019s Being Heumann, Pedro Almod\u00f3var\u2019s Bitter Christmas, Jordan Firstman\u2019s Club Kid, Jesse Eisenberg\u2019s The Debut, Simon Stone\u2019s Elsinore, Marie Kreutzer\u2019s Gentle Monster, Beth de Ara\u00fajo\u2019s Josephine, Guy Nattiv\u2019s The Liberation, Andrew Haigh\u2019s A Long Winter, Noah Segan\u2019s The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, Brad Bird\u2019s animated Ray Gunn, Liz Sargent\u2019s Take Me Home, Anton Corbijn\u2019s A Talent for Murder, Leah Nelson\u2019s animated Tangles, Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fisher\u2019s Wicker, and Martin McDonagh\u2019s Wild Horse Nine.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tClub Kid<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA24<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s worth noting that the showings of Josephine and Take Me Home are being co-presented with the Sundance Film Festival, which is heading to Denver Film Festival\u2019s backyard in Boulder, Colorado<\/a> in 2027. Also notable: Other picks include standout international films like TIFF\u2019s People Choice Award winner La Bola Negra from Netflix, Ryusuke Hamaguchi\u2019s All of a Sudden, and Andrey Zvyagintsev\u2019s Minotaur which won a Grand Prix in Cannes. <\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of awards, Denver Film will dole out a few during the fest\u2019s run. Carrie Coon has been tapped to receive an excellence in acting award for her thus far critically acclaimed work in The Liberation as a woman who stuns her family by joining a cult led by Lily James. John Cho will be feted with an Outlaw Award for work opposite Mahershala Ali<\/a> in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.<\/p>\n

\n\tSargent will take a spin in the spotlight as breakthrough director for Take Me Home, which was based on her short film of the same name about a woman caring for her aging parents. Fred Hechinger, who broke out in The White Lotus and Gladiator II, will receive a rising star prize after a screening of his latest, A Long Winter. Others set to receive awards include Benedetta Porcaroli with a Maglione Italian Film Award for The Kidnapping of Arabella, David Acord with an excellence in sound design for Behemoth!, and experimental filmmaker Michael Gitlin will accept an annual Stan Brakhage Award, presented along with a retrospective of his work.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCarrie Coon in The Liberation<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Bleecker Street<\/p>\n

\n\tSome other notable titles among this year\u2019s selections are Ron Howard\u2019s Avedon, Nanette Burstein\u2019s Carl Sagan: We Are Made of Star Stuff, Lukas Dhont\u2019s Coward, Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski\u2019s Fatherland, Petra Volpe\u2019s Frank & Louis, Rachel J. Morrison\u2019s Joybubbles, Ken Russell\u2019s The Devils, Lee Chang-dong\u2019s Possible Love, Markus Schleinzer\u2019s Rose starring Sandra H\u00fcller, Mike Leigh\u2019s Tender Loving Care, Barbara Kopple\u2019s Union Town, Dawn Porter\u2019s When a Witness Recants, and Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fisher\u2019s Wicker. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis year\u2019s program highlights the remarkable ways cinema captures human connection and resilience, and it delivers a lineup that is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking,\u201d explained Denver Film Festival artistic director Matthew Campbell. \u201cFrom sharp, high-altitude Colorado comedies to award-winning festival circuit fare, captivating documentaries and stories born here in our own community, these films demonstrate the pure joy and impact of great storytelling. We\u2019re looking forward to welcoming our audiences to experience this dynamic mix of bold international cinema, new voices and brilliant local talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAdded Denver Film CEO Kevin Smith: \u201cForty-nine years in, the Denver Film Festival is still driven by what has always mattered most: bringing our community together around great movies and the people who make them. We\u2019re incredibly proud to be a long-standing part of Denver\u2019s vibrant arts and cultural landscape and I can\u2019t imagine a better way to open our 49th Festival than with I Play Rocky, an underdog story that captures the determination, creativity and spirit of independent film we celebrate every year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film festival is funded by the Colorado Office of Film and Television, Bonfils Stanton Foundation, Denver Arts & Venues and SCFD (Scientific and Cultural Facilities District) with media sponsors CBS Colorado, Axios, City Cast Denver, Colorado Public Radio, Denverse, Metromode, Rocky Mountain Public Media, and marquee sponsors William LaBahn, Epicurean, Next50, Amazon, AOR, Halcyon, Sheila K. O\u2019Brien, Crusonia Wealth Advisors, Dormer Harpring, LLC, Anna and John Sie Foundation, Betsy Mordecai Heyman and Gareth Heyman, Julie Mordecai, Mercedes-Benz of Denver, and HW Home.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe full lineup \u2014 including documentaries, shorts and more \u2014 can be found here<\/a>, including intel on tickets. Fun fact: The Denver Arts & Venues and the 2026 Arts Complex Creates grant program makes it so that all three public screenings at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House will be offered with an allotment of sliding-scale \u201cPay-What-You-Can\u201d admissions. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPedro Pascal in Behemoth! <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Searchlight Pictures<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year\u2019s Denver Film Festival has fallen into view. Denver Film today unveiled the roster of movies and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,366803,88,261087,21704,279316,4114,57178],"class_list":["post-870117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-denver-film-festival","tag-entertainment","tag-james-gray","tag-mahershala-ali","tag-paper-tiger","tag-scarlett-johansson","tag-tony-gilroy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}