Venice Film Festival unveils full competition lineup

The lineup for Venice Film Festival has finally arrived in full, and the array of films on this year’s Lido reflect a spread of star-studded awards contenders, arthouse favorites, and compelling documentaries.

It was previously announced that Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise would kick off the festival, marking Baumbach’s return to the Lido after he was last featured with 2019's Marriage Story. Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig star as a midwestern professor and his wife attempting to navigate the difficulties of nuclear family life, all while an “airborne toxic event” looms large over the world. Bookending the festival is The Hanging Sun, Francesco Carrozzini’s drama based on Jo Nesbø’s bestselling thriller. The film, which stars Alessandro Borghi, Jessica Brown Findlay, Peter Mullan and Charles Dance, will close Venice on September 10.

This year marks the first time a Netflix film will open Venice— White Noise is one of three Lido offerings from the streamer this year, along with the Ana De Armas-led Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde from director Andrew Dominik and Romain Gavras’ Athena. Netflix is also presenting Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths, the director’s first Mexican film since his 2000 debut Amores Perros.

Luca Guadigno, a Venice favorite, is also on the docket again with another collaboration with Call Me By Your Name star Timotheé Chalamet. Bones And All stars Chalamet and Lost In Space’s Taylor Russell as two troubled drifters with an unquenchable passion for both each other and cannibalism who roadtrip across the U.S. Darren Aronofsky, who won the Golden Lion in 2008 for the unflinching drama The Wrestler, is also back on the Lido with The Whale, starring Sadie Sink, Brendan Fraser and Samantha Morton. The film follows a severely overweight English teacher who, fighting off reclusive tendencies, makes one last attempt to connect with his estranged daughter. Todd Fields conductor drama Tár starring Cate Blanchett, Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter with Tilda Swinton, and Florian Zeller’s The Father follow-up The Son are also in competition this year.

Venice has also moved forward with a lineup that’s anything but politically middling. The festival will screen recently detained Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s latest No Bears, which was shot entirely in secret. Out of competition, two documentaries on Ukraine will see a premiere at the festival: Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom from Evgeny Afineevsky and The Kiev Trial from Sergei Loznitsa.

“It’s often said that film festivals are a widow on the world,” Venice director Alberto Barbera shared, per Variety. “From this window we are witnessing things that we would rather not see, such as the war of aggression on Ukraine.”

Some of the buzziest features out of competition this year include Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, which will see its world premiere at Venice. The film stars Florence Pugh and Harry Styles as a married couple living in an idyllic suburban company town that happens to have a sinister underbelly. Ti West’s X prequel Pearl, Bill Pohlad’s Donnie and Jo Emerson biopic Dreamin’ Wild, Oliver Stone’s latest documentary Nuclear, Paul Schrader’s Master Gardener, and Walter Hill’s Western Dead For A Dollar starring Christoph Waltz and Willem Dafoe also secured non-competition spots on the Lido.

On the small screen side, Venice is placing it’s bets on two well-known and controversial auteurs—Lars von Trier and Nicolas Winding Refn. Trier’s new series The Kingdom Exodus and Refn’s neo-noir Copenhagen Cowboy will also both premiere out of competition this year.

For the full lineup, see below.