Venice Film Festival Reveals 2026 Lineup (Updating Live)

The Venice Film Festival is back on the Lido for its 83rd edition, running September 2 to 12 this year. The Italian festival serves as a key launchpad for awards season contenders — last year, for example, “Bugonia” propelled off the Lido all the way to a Best Picture nomination, even as world-premiere awards contenders like “Jay Kelly” and “A House of Dynamite” drifted off into the surrounding lagoon. Remember that, unlike the other fall festivals such as Telluride and Toronto, Venice exclusively showcases world premieres. As previously announced, the festival will open with director Danny Boyle’s “Ink,” about the early days of Rupert Murdoch amid the news mogul’s acquisition of The Sun. It stars Guy Pearce (a 2025 Best Supporting Actor nominee for Venice winner “The Brutalist”) as Murdoch, and Jack O’Connell as The Sun editor Larry Lamb. “Ink” also marks Boyle’s first trip to Venice as a filmmaker in the selection; his latest will compete for the Golden Lion beside the rest of the competition lineup. Honorary Golden Lion recipients this year are George Clooney (who already received Film at Lincoln Center’s Chaplin Award this year and is a 2018 recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award) and Ellen Burstyn. Very early on Thursday morning for East Coasters but reasonably timed for the European press corps, festival artistic director Alberto Barbera revealed the many titles across sections: what’s in competition, what’s out of competition, the Orizzonti sidebar for emerging filmmakers, Venice Classics for documentaries about cinema, television, and more. We’re up at the crack o’ dawn to report on this year’s selection live courtesy of YouTube; head over to the Biennale’s channel here if you’d like to follow along. So far, we’re quite certain Florian Zeller’s “Bunker” (an end-times drama starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem), Martin McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine” (with John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell), Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Digger” (led by Tom Cruise), Tom Ford’s Anne Rice adaptation “Cry to Heaven” (if it’s finished), Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard” (which he withdrew from Cannes after being offered an out-of-competition spot) and Lee Chang-dong’s “Possible Love” (his first feature since 2018’s “Burning”) will show up in this year’s Venice slate, to name a few. Follow along for live updates below. Opening Night Film “Ink,” dir. Danny Boyle (previously announced; in competition) Venice Spotlight “Sumo: Spirit Weighs Nothing,” dir. Erik Shirai (opening film) “Conversation with the Sea,” dir. Muayad Alayan “Hombre al Agua,” dir. Gael García Bernal “Serpenti,” dir. Roberto De Paolis Maino “Furies,” dir. Rami Kodeih “Guria,” dir. Levan Koguashvili “Földszint (Ground Floor),” dir. Gábor Reisz “Eu Contez (I Matter),” dir. Alina Şerban Orizzonti (Horizons) “La Ragazza Con La Leica,” dir. Alina Marazzi (opening film) “Yak Mai (The Burning Giants),” dir. Phuttiphong Aroonpheng “Cudze Rzeczy (What Belongs to Others),” dir. Grzegorz Dębowski “Una Storia,” dir. Anna Foglietta “La Città Dei Vivi,” dir. Edoardo Gabbriellini “Moragheb (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 Maksimović “La Moula,” dir. Jérôme Pierrat “Lovers in the Blue Night,” dir. Anuparna Roy “Un Détour Par Diane,” dir. Ann Sirot, Raphaël Balboni “The Color of the Sun,” dir. Xavier Tera “Eklipse,” dir. Manuel Wetscher “Huangyan Shenghuo (Big Little Things),” dir. Michelle Zhou Special Screening “Dai Nostri Inviati. La Rai Racconta La Mostra Del Cinema Di Venezia 2001-2012,” dirs. Giuseppe Giannotti, Enrico Salvatori, Nicoletta Bernardi Out of Competition — Short Films “Flesh Impact,” dir. Maggie Gyllenhaal Out of Competition — Series “Peccato,” dir. Valerio Vestoso Main Competition Out of Competition — Fiction Out of Competition — Documentary Venice Classics