24/08/2026 - The themes impacting the modern-day world are mirrored in the selected films, featuring comebacks by directors such as Nanni Moretti, Werner Herzog and Lee Chang-dong, alongside new talents

UPDATE (24 August 2026): The documentary Naza by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor (two of the four co-directors of the 2025 Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land) has also been added to the Venice competition. It has been produced by The Guardian and James Wilson (JW Films), and executive-produced by Jonathan Glazer.

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“Films are the hashtags of the contemporary world,” stated Alberto Barbera, artistic director of the Venice International Film Festival, at the press conference presenting the gathering’s 83rd edition (running 2 - 13 September). Reflecting on this year’s rich programme, “the idea of cinema as an extraordinary tool for understanding reality emerges very powerfully. All the major issues of our times are reflected in the films, which don’t limit themselves to mere reportage – that’s the job of television and the media – but which become stories and narratives shaped by the most powerful language that exists: cinema. Wars, climate change, migration, family rifts and conflicts, teenagers’ hopes and fears, social tensions, the legacy of historical events: all of this finds space and form in today’s films.”

The number of films submitted to the festival is continually growing: “this year we went from 4,200 to 4,500 titles, including features, documentaries and shorts […] Sceptics need only set foot in a movie theatre where Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is currently screening to realise that cinema is anything but moribund: it’s a living organism, capable of constantly regenerating itself and producing visual epiphanies and miracles.”

As previously announced, the festival will open with the world premiere of Danny Boyle’s Ink, which will also vie for the Golden Lion (read our news). In the Official Competition, the standout name is Nanni Moretti, who’s returning to Venice with It Will Happen Tonight - based on a collection of stories by Israeli author Eshkol Nevo and starring Louis Garrel and Jasmine Trinca (read our news) - 37 years on from the controversial exclusion of Palombella Rossa (eight years after Sweet Dreams won the Silver Lion - Grand Jury Prize in 1981). Moretti leads the Italian contingent in the quest for the Golden Lion, battling it out against Back to Buenos Aires by Marco Bechis (previously selected in Venice’s Cinema of the Present section with Children), The Fire Within You by Edoardo De Angelis (whose previous film The Commander was selected as the festival’s opening film), The Echo Chamber by Andrea Pallaoro (previously showcased in the Horizons section via Medeas and in competition with Hannah and Monica), which is based on a screenplay by Bernardo Bertolucci and which stars Luca Marinelli, Alicia Vikander and Susan Sarandon, and The Spiral by Paolo Strippoli (screened out of competition last year by way of The Holy Boy), which is a family saga starring Jasmine Trinca and Adriano Giannini (read our news).

Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher is headlining a new chapter in Stéphane Brizé’s filmography about the world of work, with the latter returning to Venice for the fourth time (after A Woman’s Life, Another World and Out of Season) to present A Good Little Soldier. A first-time appearance in Venice is on the cards, meanwhile, for another French director in competition, Nicolas Pariser (Alice and the Mayor, The Green Perfume) thanks to One Minute to Midnight, starring Melvil Poupaud, Chiara Mastroianni and Golshifteh Farahani (news). Frenchman Cédric Kahn also showcased out of competition in Venice in 2023 with Making of and is taking part again by way of A Place to Heal. And Florian Zeller, who won an Oscar for the screenplay behind The Father and who previously competed in Venice with The Son, is returning with Bunker, a psychological thriller co-produced by France and Spain, and starring Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz.

An especially hotly anticipated movie in the offing is the Irish-American production Bucking Fastard by German master Werner Herzog, revolving around the Chaplin sisters who were famous in the 1980s, played here by Kate and Rooney Mara. Another eagerly awaited title is Wild Horse Nine by Brit Martin McDonagh, who triumphed in Venice for the screenplays shoring up Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Banshees of Inisherin. From Denmark comes Woman Unknown by acclaimed director May el-Toukhy (of Queen of Hearts and the series The Crown). And rounding off the European slate is Dau by Russian filmmaker Ilya Khrzhanovsky, who’s offering up a new instalment in his macro-project which has already spawned several other films, including Dau: Natasha and Dau: Degeneration. Meanwhile, Iranian director Ali Asgari - who was in the Horizons section last year with Divine Comedy - is making his debut in the official competition with A Bit of Light, which is co-produced by Europe.

From the United States comes Company by Casey Affleck, who’ll be in Venice for the first time with his film starring Nick Nolte, Ben Mendelsohn and Scoot McNairy, and Primetime, which is Lance Oppenheim’s fiction debut starring Robert Pattinson. Last but not least, Venice habitué and Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda is making a welcome return with Look Back, his second film this year after Sheep in the Box premiered in Cannes, as is the Netflix title Possible Love by Korea’s Lee Chang-Dong, who won the Silver Lion with Oasis in 2002.

Key names gracing the Fiction line-up of the Out of Competition strand, now renamed Venice Open, are Hungary’s Kornél Mundruczó (selected in Competition with Pieces of a Woman, which earned the Volpi Cup for Vanessa Kirby) with Place to Be, which is an Australian production starring Taika Waititi, Pamela Anderson and Ellen Burstyn; Italy’s Mario Martone (after his Cannes selections via Nostalgia and Fuori), who’s returning with Trick; US filmmaker Paul Schrader with The Basics of Philosophy; and Norway’s Halkawt Mustafa with No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman.

In the Venice Open – Non Fiction strand, hot tickets include Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, From Inside Out – The Architecture of Peter Zumthor by Wim Wenders, Imperium by Sergei Loznitsa, and The Road to Jericho by Amos Gitai.

Finally, the titles from Biennale College Cinema, as well as those in the Orizzonti and Venezia Spotlight sections (read our news), complete the festival’s official selection.

The selected films are as follows:

Competition

Ink - Danny Boyle (UK, opening film)
Naza - Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor (UK)
Company - Casey Affleck (Canada/USA/United Arab Emirates)
A Bit of Light - Ali Asgari (Iran/Switzerland/Italy/Canada/Turkey)
Back to Buenos Aires - Marco Bechis (Italy/Brazil)
A Good Little Soldier - Stéphane Brizé (France)
The Fire Within You - Edoardo De Angelis (Italy)
Woman Unknown - May El-Toukhy (Denmark/Sweden/Latvia)
Bucking Fastard - Werner Herzog (Ireland/USA)
A Place to Heal - Cédric Kahn (France)
Dau - Ilya Khrzhanovsky (Germany/France/Ukraine/Sweden)
Look Back - Hirokazu Koreeda (Japan)
Possible Love - Lee Chang-dong (South Korea)
Wild Horse Nine - Martin McDonagh (UK/USA/Chile)
It Will Happen Tonight - Nanni Moretti (Italy/France/Spain)
Primetime - Lance Oppenheim (USA)
The Echo Chamber - Andrea Pallaoro (Italy/Belgium)
One Minute to Midnight - Nicolas Pariser (France)
The Spiral - Paolo Strippoli (Italy/France/Belgium)
Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People? - Shinya Tsukamoto (Japan/USA/Thailand/Vietnam)
Bunker - Florian Zeller (France/Spain)

Venice Open – Out of Competition

Fiction

Dio ride - Giovanni Veronesi (Italy, closing film)
No Pain - Gianni Amelio (Italy)
Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors - Lav Diaz (Philippines)
Father Joe - Barthélémy Grossmann (France)
Trick - Mario Martone (Italy)
Place to Be - Kornél Mundruczó (Australia)
No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman - Halkawt Mustafa (Norway/Iraq/United Arab Emirates/Sweden)
Arrested Memory - Sabu (Taipei/Japan)
The Basics of Philosophy - Paul Schrader (USA)
The Good Lawyer - Tristan Séguéla (France)
Jupiter - Alexandre Smia (France)

Non Fiction

Be Brave - Francesco Carrozzini (Italy)
What Love Builds - Russell Crowe (Australia)
Burgundy - Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw (France)
Musk - Alex Gibney (USA)
The Road to Jericho - Amos Gitai (France/UK/Israel)
Citizen Osama - Ahmed Hassouna (France/Palestine)
Union Town - Barbara Kopple (USA)
Holy Wood Dust - Victor Kossakovsky (Italy/Spain/Germany)
Letters from the Silenced Country - Andrei Kutsila (Poland/Germany/Lithuania)
Biografía de Jorge Luis Borges - Mariano Llinás (Argentina)
My Undesirable Friends: Part II - Exile - Julia Loktev (USA)
Boatbuilders - Luke Lorentzen (USA)
Imperium - Sergei Loznitsa (Germany/Italy/France/Lithuania)
Shumei - The Living Legacy of Kabuki - Takashi Miike (Japan)
Queer Edward II - Theo Rollason (UK)
Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger - Dylan Southern, Will Lovelace (UK)
Dust - Tsai Ming-Liang (Taipei/Spain)
Everest: The Other Side - Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin (USA/China/Nepal)
From Inside Out - The Architecture of Peter Zumthor - Wim Wenders (Germany/Switzerland)

Film on Films

Juso per ferie - Karen Di Porto (Italy)
Nino - Un film su Nino Rota - Walter Fasano (Italy)
The Pervert's Guide to Utopias - Sophie Fiennes (Ireland/UK/Slovenia/Netherlands/Norway)
Joie de Vivre - Luca Guadagnino (Italy)
Twist and Shoot Mister Suzuki - Yves Montmayeur (France)
Intermission - Yonfan (Hong Kong SAR)

Short Films

Flesh Impact - Maggie Gyllenhaal (USA)
Wild Asparagus - Avi Mograbi (Portugal/France)
They're Here - Laura Poitras, Rachel Mueller (USA)

Series

Peccato - Valerio Vestoso (Italy)

Biennale College Cinema

Demeter in Exile – Maria Giovanna Cicciari (Italy)
Tijuana, todavía – Gabriel Gutierrez Morales (Mexico)
Gu Shi – Amie Song (USA /Hong Kong/Thailand)
Moonfish – Daniel Zvereff (USA)

(Translated from Italian)