It starts with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to George Clooney, welcomed by Laura Dern, and with “Ink” by Danny Boyle. Among the 89 feature films running in the lagoon, here are the ones that raise expectations the most
They will immediately be Danny Boyle & George Clooney at the Venice Film Festival 2026scheduled at the Lido from 2 to 12 September. To the Oscar-winning director for Slumdog Millionaire the honor of opening the 83rd edition of the lagoon festival with his new film Ink. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement was awarded to one of the most celebrated actors and directors in Hollywood.
Laura Derna lifelong colleague and friend, since the time of the shared set in 1983 for Grizzly II: The Predatorwill give the laudatio for George on Wednesday 2 September during the opening night in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema. You can bet that they will be words of love and irony. The opening ceremony is conducted by Greta Scarano.
Not just Boyle. From Nanni Moretti’s return to the Lido after 37 years to maestro Herzog who inserts his sharp gaze into a disturbing true story of sisterhood, up to the faithful Irishman Martin McDonagh who doesn’t make a single mistake, there is already trepidation. Among the 89 feature films that will populate the Official Selection of the 2026 Venice Film Festival, here are the 10 most anticipated films. Our leader of expectations? Wild horse nine.
1) Wild horse nine by Martin McDonagh
We love Martin McDonagh, who has never been missing at the Lido lately. His works are always a mix of humanity and cynicism, funny and biting. His filmography speaks for itself: In Bruges – The conscience of the murderer, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The spirits of the island.
He returns to Venice in competition with a crackling duo of actors, Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich. They play two CIA agents who, shortly before the Chilean coup d’état of 1973, are sent from Santiago to Easter Island by their section chief (Steve Buscemi). Among the island’s iconic statues, the two longtime partners wrestle with their dark pasts and the conspiracies of the present. Until a couple of rebellious students (Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas) threaten to ruin their trip.
2) Bucking Fastard by Werner Herzog
Last year Venice celebrated the great German director with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Now he welcomes him in competition with Bucking Fastarda film based on a true story.
Kate Mara and Rooney Marareal-life sisters for the first time together on set, play Jean and Joan Holbrooke, characters inspired by British twin sisters Freda and Greta Chaplinwho became famous in the 80s for their perfect symbiosis, to the point of synchronizing gestures, speech and loves. On the screen, they speak in unison, love the same man and even share the same dreams. On the fringes of society and suspended between the contemporary city and the wild landscapes of Ireland, they seek an imaginary place where true love is possible.
Also in the cast Orlando Bloom and Domhnall Gleeson.
3) Ink by Danny Boyle
Opening film of the 2026 Film Festival, Ink marks the director’s first time in Venice Trainspotting.
Boyle reconstructs the purchase of the newspaper The Sun by publisher Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce) in 1969. He entrusted its direction to the unscrupulous Larry Lamb (Jack O’Connell), which made it the best-selling English tabloid, at the expense of its rival The Mirror. Brash, irreverent and daring, the bubbly tabloid challenged the establishment and remade our world for the modern age.
Ink is in the running for the Golden Lion. The jury headed by Maggie Gyllenhaal will judge the 21 feature films in competition.
4) It will happen tonight by Nanni Moretti
The last time in Venice for Nanni Moretti was in 1989 with Red Palombellawhen it was placed out of competition with controversy. Since then the Roman director has always preferred the Cannes Film Festival. But now here it is again, in competition obviously, and it’s already an event.
With It will happen tonight he returns to screenwriting from a book by the Israeli Eshkol Nevo, from the collection of short stories Ties. And let’s hope that this time the outcome is better than Three floors (2021), which translated the book of the same name into a film.
Set in Rome, it explores the theme of family ties and the complexity of feelings. Greta (Jasmine Trinca) is the mother of a teenage girl, Anna (Elisabetta Traversa), while Matteo (Louis Garrel) is the father of a boy. The two meet by chance and chase each other throughout their lives. A tormented love that spans the years, changing together with its protagonists.
5) Woman unknown by May el-Toukhy
Danish director and screenwriter who gained recognition with DronningenAudience Award at Sundance 2019, May el-Toukhy is the only woman in the competition at the Venice Film Festival 2026.
“War does not have a woman’s face,” writes the Belarusian author Svyatlana Aleksievič in her work of the same name. Woman unknown instead it gives voice to female figures who rarely find space in the collective story. The protagonist of the film is Marie (Mathilde Arcel), a young nanny and housekeeper who, in Post-World War II Denmarkis about to marry Christian (Carsten Bjørnlund), the wealthy, older widower she works for. But Marie hides a “shameful” secret: during the Second World War, she had an intimate relationship with a German soldier. Now her past threatens to catch up with her and she is forced to fight to preserve her new status.
6) Look back by Hirokazu Kore’eda
Lately the Japanese director has lost a bit of his touch as a delightful observer of human relationships, which found its peak in the wonderful A family affairPalme d’Or in Cannes. And at the Côte d’Azur festival Kore’eda delivered another film this year, Sheep in the Boxwhich confirmed a certain clouding. Let’s hope that the best has been preserved for Venice.
Live-action adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s 2021 manga of the same name, shot in 35mm, Look back it is the coming-of-age of two teenage girls, one confident in her abilities, the other shy and solitary. They become friends by drawing their first manga at school and pursue the dream of becoming professionals during a thirteen-year journey.
7) The girl with the Leica by Alina Marazzi
Alina Marazzi, an appreciated Italian naturalized Swiss documentary filmmaker who works extensively on images of memory and female subjectivity, is entrusted the opening of the Horizons section of Venice 83.
The girl with the Leica recall Gerda Tarothe first photojournalist to die on the battlefield, a woman who embodied a time when everything still seemed possible. Emilia Schüle plays her.
Gerda Taro spends time in Paris in 1937 with her great love Robert Capa (Aaron Altaras) and the friends with whom she fled Nazi Germany on the last day before returning to the Spanish front with her Leica. Past and present intertwine to outline the portrait of a determined woman who used her camera as an instrument of struggle and freedom.
8) Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace
The Lido of Venice on Saturday 5 September will be able to contain the enthusiasm that will welcome the impossible brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher? After years of resentment and silence, the two are back together, writing a new page of Oasis. The documentary film that tells the story of the unimaginable reunion has its out-of-competition premiere in Venice. And the two stormy Gallaghers will be there!
Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger tells the story of triumph “Oasis Live ’25” tourone of the most anticipated rock comebacks of our times. Capture the experience and emotions of the band and their fans around the world, access rehearsals, backstage and on stage and film Noel and Liam’s first joint interview in more than 20 years.
9) The Echo Chamber by Andrea Pallaoro
There are five Italian films in competition. In addition to Moretti, inevitably the most awaited, there will be The fire you carry inside you by Edoardo De Angelis, The stranger by Paolo Strippoli that we await with curiosity, Return to Buenos Aires of the appreciated Marco Bechis, who was missing for a long time, and… The Echo Chamber by Andrea Pallaoro. And here we focus: because the screenplay is the last one signed by Bernardo Bertolucciwritten with Ilaria Bernardini and Ludovica Rampoldi.
The cast has an intriguing international allure: Luca Marinelli, Alicia Vikander and Susan Sarandon.
At the center of the narrative is a love story in which the boundaries between presence and absence, care and dependence, desire and control blur until they dissolve.
10) Eklipse by Manuel Wetscher
The first work by the Austrian Manuel Wetscher with a semi-documentary style, it is the coming-of-age story of two teenagers amidst a sense of marginalization, mistrust and prejudice due to the spread of AIDS.
Why are we so attracted to the film by an unknown director, in competition at Orizzonti? Because we trust the director of the Exhibition Alberto Barberawho during the presentation of the Venezia 83 program said he was very impressed by Eklipse. «He seems like a director to me great talent what I look forward to seeing at the next tests.”
Protagonists Tomy (Moritz Hohlrieder) and his best friend Chris (Finley Brown). They spent the summer of 1999 on a mountain dairy farm. As they discover new worlds, Tomy’s mother keeps the true reason for his father’s hospitalization a secret from her son. When Chris learns that he is in hospital for “gay disease”, he is scared. Tomy suddenly finds himself having to face rejection from others and silence from his own family.
