Venice Film Festival announces lineup, including premieres from Safdie, Lanthimos, and more

Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia, Ben Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, Kathryn Bigelow’s A House Of Dynamite, and Luca Guadagnino's After The Hunt will all premiere.

Venice Film Festival announces lineup, including premieres from Safdie, Lanthimos, and more
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Awards watch is in full swing. The Hollywood Reporter was right in characterizing this year’s Venice lineup as featuring “a frankly absurd number of must-see movies.” While it’s been an up and down year for cinema thus far, the auteurs are bringing their A-game for festival season. Venice will see the premieres of multiple highly anticipated films, including Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, which stars Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi, Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, which follows the story of two-time UFC heavyweight champion Mark Kerr (played by Dwayne Johnson), and Luca Guadagnino’s dark academic thriller After The Hunt, starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri, which will premiere out of competition.

Del Toro, Safdie, and Guadagnino are far from the only filmmakers who will be walking the carpet. Frequent collaborators Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone are back with Bugonia, an adaptation of Jang Joon-Hwan’s Save The Green Planet!. The two had a pretty good fest back in 2023, when they took home the Golden Lion for four-time Oscar winner Poor Things. Speaking of Oscars, Mona Fastvold, who co-wrote The Brutalist with Brady Corbet, has her own “historical drama musical” in competition titled The Testament Of Ann Lee. Other major directors like Noah Baumbach (Jay Kelly) Kathryn Bigelow (A House Of Dynamite), Park Chan-wook (No Other Choice), and Laszlo Nemes (Orphan) are also in competition. 

Alexander Payne will be in attendance although he isn’t screening a film. The Holdovers director and two-time Oscar winner is heading the jury, which also includes actor Fernanda Torres, Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, French director Stéphane Brizé, Italian director Maura Delpero, actor Zhao Tao, and Romanian director Cristian Mungiu. The 2025 festival runs from August 27 to September 9. Check out the full lineup, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, below:

Opening Film

La Grazia, dir. Paolo Sorrentino (Italy) (In competition)

Closing Film

Dog 51, dir. Cedric Jimenez (France)

Competition

The Wizard of the Kremlin, dir. Olivier Assayas (France)
Jay Kelly, dir. Noah Baumbach (USA, UK, Italy)
The Voice of Hind Rajab, dir. Kaouther Ben Hania (Tunisia, France)
A House of Dynamite, dir. Kathryn Bigelow (USA)
Sun Rises on Us All, dir. Cai Shangjun (China)
Frankenstein, dir. Guillermo Del Toro (USA)
Elisa, dir. Leonardo Di Costanzo (Italy, Switzerland)
À pied d’œuvre, dir. Valérie Donzelli (France)
Silent Friend, dir. Ildikó Enyedi (Germany, France, Hungary)
The Testament of Ann Lee, dir. Mona Fastvold (UK)
Father Mother Sister Brother, dir. Jim Jarmusch (USA, Ireland, France)
Bugonia, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos (United Kingdom)
Duse, dir. Pietro Marcello (Italy)
Un film fatto per Bene, dir. Franco Maresco (Italy)
Orphan, dir. László Nemes (Hungary, United Kingdom, Germany, France)
The Stranger, dir. François Ozon (France)
No Other Choice, dir. Park Chan-wook (South Korea)
Sotto le nuvole, dir. Gianfranco Rosi (Italy)
The Smashing Machine, dir. Benny Safdie (Canada, USA, Japan)
Girl, dir. Shu Qi (Taipei)
La Grazia, dir. Paolo Sorrentino (Italy)

Out of Competition (Fiction)

Boşluğa xütbə (Sermon to the Void), dir. Hilal Baydarov (Azerbaijan, Mexico, Turkey)
L’isola di Andrea, dir. Antonio Capuano (Italy)
Il Maestro, dir. Andrea Di Stefano (Italy)
After the Hunt, dir. Luca Guadagnino (USA)
Hateshinaki Scarlet, dir. Mamoru Hosoda (Japan)
The Last Viking, dir. Anders Thomas Jensen (Denmark, Sweden)
Chien 51, dir. Cédric Jimenez (France)
In the Hand of Dante, dir. Julian Schnabel (USA, Italy)
La valle dei sorrisi, dir. Paolo Strippoli (Italy, Slovenia)
Dead Man’s Wire, dir. Gus Van Sant (USA)
Orfeo, dir. Virgilio Villoresi (Italy)

Out of Competition (Non-Fiction)

Kabul, Between Prayers, dir. Aboozar Amini (The Netherlands, Belgium)
Ferdinando Scianna – Il fotografo dell’ombra, dir. Roberto Andò (Italy)
Marc by Sofia, dir. Sofia Coppola (USA)
I diari di Angela – Noi due cineasti. Capitolo terzo, dir. Yervant Gianikian, Angela Ricci Lucchi (Italy)
Ghost Elephants, dir. Werner Herzog (USA)
My Father and Qaddafi, dir. Jihan K (USA, Libya)
The Tale of Sylian, dir. Tamara Kotevska (North Macedonia)
Nuestra Tierra, dir. Lucrecia Martel (Argentina, USA, Mexico, France, The Netherlands, Denmark)
Remake, dir. Ross McElwee (USA)
Kim Novak’s Vertigo, dir. Alexandre Philippe (USA)
Cover-up, dir. Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus (USA)
Broken English, dir. Jane Pollard, Iain Forsyth (United Kingdom)
Notes of a True Criminal, dir. Alexander Rodnyansky, Andriy Alferov (Ukraine, USA)
Director’s Diary, dir. Alexandr Sokurov (Russia, Italy)
Back Home, dir. Tsai Ming-liang (Taipei)

Out of Competition (Series)

Un prophète – La série, dir. Enrico Maria Artale (France)
Portobello, dir. Marco Bellocchio (Italy, France)
Etty, dir. Hagai Levi (France, Germany, The Netherlands)
Il mostro, dir. Stefano Sollima (Italy)

Out of Competition – Film & Music

Nino. 18 giorni, dir. Toni D’Angelo (Italy)
Piero Pelù. Rumore dentro, dir. Francesco Fei (Italy)
Newport and The Great Folk Dream, dir. Robert Gordon (USA)
Francesco De Gregori Nevergreen, dir. Stefano Pistolini (Italy)

Venice Spotlight

Hijra, dir. Shahad Ameen (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, United Kingdom)
Un cabo suelto (A Loose End), dir. Daniel Hendler (Uruguay, Argentina, Spain)
Made in EU, dir. Stephan Komandarev (Bulgaria, Germany, Czech Republic)
Motor City, dir. Potsy Ponciroli (USA)
It Would Be Night in Caracas, dir. Mariana Rondón, Marité Ugás (Mexico, Venezuela)
Silent Rebellion, dir. Marie-Elsa Sgualdo (Switzerland, France, Belgium)
Calle Malaga, dir. Maryam Touzani (Morocco, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium)
Ammazzare stanca, dir. Daniele Vicari (Italy)

Horizons Competition

Divine Comedy, dir. Ali Asgari (Iran, Italy, France, Germany, Turkey)
Hiedra, dir. Ana Cristina Barragan (Ecuador, Mexico, France, Spain)
Il rapimento di Arabella, dir. Carolina Cavalli (Italy)
Strange River, dir. Jaume Claret Muxart (Spain, Germany)
Lost Land, dir. Akio Fujimoto (Japan, France, Malaysia, Germany)
Grand Ciel, dir. Akihiro Hata (France, Luxembourg)
Rose of Nevada, dir. Mark Jenkin (United Kingdom)
Late Fame, dir. Kent Jones (USA)
Milk Teeth, dir. Mihai Mincan (Romania, France, Denmark, Greece, Bulgaria)
Pin de Fartie, dir. Alejo Moguillansky (Argentina)
Father, dir. Tereza Nvotová (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland)
En el camino, dir. David Pablos (Mexico, France)
Songs of Forgotten Trees, dir. Anuparna Roy (India)
Un anno di scuola, dir. Laura Samani (Italy, France)
The Souffleur, dir. Gastón Solnicki (Austria, Argentina)
Barrio triste, dir. Stillz (Colombia, USA)
Mother, dir. Teona Strugar Mitevska (Belgium, North Macedonia, Sweden, Denmark, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Human Resource, dir. Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit (Thailand)
Funeral Casino Blues, dir. Roderick Warich (Germany)

 
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