Posted By: Sorbet
As the race for awards season kicks off in Venice, these are the standout titles dominating our festival watchlist.
September has arrived, and while the rest of the world returns to meetings and deadlines, cinema’s brightest stars are arriving in speedboats draped in haute couture for the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. Taking over the Lido di Venezia from September 2 to 12, the festival serves as the ultimate glamorous launchpad for awards season, boasting appearances from heavyweights like Robert Pattinson, Penélope Cruz, Werner Herzog, and Luca Guadagnino.
Here are the seven films we are most looking forward to at this year’s festival:
BUCKING FASTARD – Dir Werner Herzog
Directed by Werner Herzog, the film stars real-life sisters Kate and Rooney Mara as Jean and Joan Holdbrooke, two sisters joined by a bond so absolute it borders on the surreal. They don’t just share a familial connection; they mirror each other’s aspirations, speak in unnerving unison, and find themselves drawn to the same man. Herzog charts what happens when such an insular world meets public scrutiny, caught between sensationalized press coverage, intense courtroom battles, opportunistic exploiters, and well-meaning allies.
PRIMETIME – DIR. LANCE OPPENHEIM
Robert Pattinson is trading his dramatic turn alongside Zendaya to step into the shoes of former To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen in A24’s Primetime. Directed by Lance Oppenheim (Ren Faire), the 2006-set crime drama chronicles Hansen’s meteoric rise and moral unraveling as his sensational Dateline sting operations become a cultural lightning rod. Co-starring Merritt Wever and Phoebe Bridgers, the film will premiere at the Venice International Film Festival ahead of its theatrical release on September 25.
OASIS: DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER – DIR. DYLAN SOUTHERN & WILL LOVELACE
A decade after A24’s emotional chronicle Oasis: Supersonic, the Britpop legends return to the screen in Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger. Directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, the documentary captures the explosive impact of Liam and Noel Gallagher’s triumphant Live ’25 reunion tour, featuring never-before-seen rehearsal footage, a celebration of their generational legacy, and their first joint interviews in over 25 years.
15/18 (A PLACE TO HEAL) – DIR. CÉDRIC KAHN
Upon returning to an adolescent psychiatric ward, 17-year-old Lucia reconnects with her long-term friend Eloise and falls in with a tight-knit group of teenagers confronting their own inner battles. As an overstretched medical team works tirelessly to guide them through fragile moments of recovery and hard-won hope, the delicate balance of the ward is thrown into turmoil by the arrival of a mysterious new patient named Enzo.
THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO UTOPIAS – DIR. SOPHIE FIENNES
Philosopher Slavoj Žižek returns as an irreverent cultural guide in The Pervert’s Guide to Utopias, mapping modern illusions across cinema, music, social media, and webcasts with his signature brand of startling, subversive wit. Concluding a two-decade creative partnership with director Sophie Fiennes, the film caps the celebrated documentary trilogy behind The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema and The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, using the mirror of movies to decipher who we truly are.
JOIE DE VIVRE – DIR. LUCA GUADAGNINO
HanWay Films has acquired worldwide sales rights to Luca Guadagnino’s Joie De Vivre, an epic seven-hour Bernardo Bertolucci documentary premiering at the Venice Film Festival in two parts. Featuring insights from Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuarón, and Margot Robbie, the project re-examines the Italian master’s borderless cinematic legacy. Guadagnino will also receive Venice’s Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award ahead of its debut.
WOMAN UNKNOWN – DIR. MAY EL-TOUKHY
On the verge of marrying Christian, the wealthy older widower she works for, young housemaid Marie seems poised to secure her future. But her new standing is threatened by a buried wartime secret: an intimate affair with a German soldier. As post-war chaos closes in, Marie must fight ruthlessly to protect her hard-won status before her past destroys her.
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