Everything You Need To Know About The Venice Film Festival 2026
Daniele Venturelli
As the oldest cinematic showcase of its kind, Venice Film Festival provides a heady cocktail of all-out glamour and high-brow prestige – the glittering annual event to which A-listers from across the globe flock, usually via water taxi with a pink lagoon sunset as their backdrop, to debut a string of hefty awards contenders. There are showstopping ballgowns, highly chaotic premieres, lengthy standing ovations, exclusive parties on distant islands and Select spritzes galore – and the forthcoming 83rd edition, with its bumper line-up and already confirmed special guests, looks set to be a memorable one. Here’s absolutely everything you need to know ahead of opening night.
What is Venice Film Festival?
Established in 1932, the Venice Film Festival – a part of the wider Venice Biennale – is dedicated to promoting exceptional, boundary-pushing cinema. In its first few decades, the festival honoured the works of pioneering filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Roberto Rossellini, Andrei Tarkovsky, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti and Luis Buñuel. In recent years, it’s become a crucial incubator for Oscar hopefuls, with the likes of Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things, Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, Todd Phillips’s Joker, Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma and Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water parlaying Golden Lion wins into significant Hollywood awards campaigns and seismic victories. Alongside Cannes, Berlin, Sundance and Toronto, Venice remains one of the most important and impactful film festivals in the world.
When is Venice Film Festival?
Venice Film Festival usually falls towards the end of August, but, this year, is slightly later, running from 2 to 12 September. The showcase will open with the premiere of Danny Boyle’s Ink, the tale of Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce) acquiring The Sun in the late ’60s, and end with a splashy awards ceremony.
Where is Venice Film Festival?
Venice, of course, but, more specifically, the Lido, a seven-mile island in the Venetian lagoon, a short vaporetto ride from the tourist hub of Piazza San Marco. Each year, the festival takes over the Lido’s central belt, the area surrounding the Palazzo del Cinema, for its various celebrations and events.
Who will be at Venice Film Festival?
Those with major releases on the Venice line-up this year include (deep breath): Dakota Johnson, Penélope Cruz, Robert Pattinson, Pamela Anderson, Javier Bardem, Alicia Vikander, Claire Foy, Susan Sarandon, John Malkovich, Jack O’Connell, Sam Rockwell, Orlando Bloom, Stephen Graham, Paul Dano, Parker Posey, Phoebe Bridgers (who is making her formal acting debut in the A24 thriller Primetime), and two pairs of distinguished siblings: Kate and Rooney Mara, and Noel and Liam Gallagher, the latter of whom are promoting their new Oasis documentary, Don’t Look Back in Anger. Star-packed and with a high potential for drama, then.
Who is the jury president of Venice Film Festival?
Taking on a role previously occupied by luminaries including David Lynch, Cate Blanchett, Bong Joon-ho, Julianne Moore and Isabelle Huppert, this year’s main competition jury president will be Maggie Gyllenhaal. The actor and filmmaker previously scooped Venice’s Best Screenplay prize for her impressive directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, in 2021, and will be debuting a new short film out of competition this year – Flesh Impact, a 17-minute exploration of Marilyn Monroe’s life and legacy, starring a blonde, red-lipped Dakota Johnson. Joining Gyllenhaal on her jury will be The Voice of Hind Rajab’s helmer Kaouther Ben Hania, The Brutalist’s Oscar-winning composer Daniel Blumberg, film theorist Francesco Casetti and directors Xavier Giannoli, Shahrbanoo Sadat and Johnnie To.
Who is receiving Venice Film Festival’s lifetime achievement awards?
This year, the two Golden Lions for lifetime achievement will be presented to 93-year-old screen legend Ellen Burstyn – who happens to be in two movies on this year’s roster, Kornél Mundruczó’s whimsical drama Place to Be, and the aforementioned Flesh Impact, as an older Marilyn Monroe – and 65-year-old Venice regular George Clooney. Here’s hoping the latter will be accompanied by his wife, Amal, who always brings a dose of va va voom glamour to the Lido.
When will the Venice Film Festival schedule be released?
The full schedule for the Venice Film Festival will be released closer to the time, outlining the order of premieres and official events.
What are the biggest films coming to Venice Film Festival?
The most hotly anticipated releases in contention for the Golden Lion this time around include Martin McDonagh’s Oscar-tipped, ’70s-set black comedy Wild Horse Nine with John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell; Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime, the Robert Pattinson-led portrait of To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen; Bunker, Florian Zeller’s marital drama centred on Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem; Werner Herzog’s long-awaited, mind-boggling Bucking Fastard, with Kate and Rooney Mara; Casey Affleck’s third directorial effort, Company; Andrea Pallaoro’s romance The Echo Chamber, with Alicia Vikander and Susan Sarandon; and new movies from Lee Chang-dong (Burning) and Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters).
Meanwhile, out of competition, you’ll find Paul Schrader’s The Basics of Philosophy starring Jack Huston and Sofia Boutella; Kornél Mundruczó’s Place to Be with Ellen Burstyn, Taika Waititi and Pamela Anderson; They’re Here, a Laura Poitras co-directed short about ICE; documentarian Alex Gibney’s four-hour study of Elon Musk; a seven-hour Bernardo Bertolucci documentary from Luca Guadagnino; the Marilyn Monroe-focused Flesh Impact; and the Oasis tour documentary.
What are the controversies surrounding Venice Film Festival?
One thing in short supply, though? Women directors. Of the 20 films vying for the Golden Lion, only one is helmed by a woman – May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown – a sharp decline from previous editions. Venice Film Festival’s artistic director, Alberto Barbera, has been at pains to stress that there are many more women-directed films out of competition, and his jury president is, of course, a woman director, too. But, still, expect the criticism (from various Italian film bodies and beyond) to intensify over the coming weeks, in the run-up to opening night.
How can I get Venice Film Festival tickets?
Tickets will go on sale to the general public in mid August, so watch this space.
What are the biggest prizes at Venice Film Festival?
Venice Film Festival’s top prize is the Golden Lion for Best Film, followed by the second-place Grand Jury Prize, and the third-place Special Jury Prize. There is also a Silver Lion for Best Director, the Volpi Cups for Best Actor and Actress, a Best Screenplay award, and the Marcello Mastroianni Award, which recognises an emerging performer.
Who will win Venice Film Festival in 2026?
The winners are decided by the competition jury and, as a result, are basically impossible to predict. Having said that, though, the last four American jury presidents (Alexander Payne, Damien Chazelle, Julianne Moore, Annette Bening) all awarded the Golden Lion to English-language releases (Father Mother Sister Brother, Poor Things, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, The Shape of Water), which could give films like Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine and Florian Zeller’s Bunker a distinct advantage this time around.
This article was originally published on Vogue.com.