films

Ah, what’s that chill in the air? It’s movies. As the summer blockbuster season winds down, cinephiles are already turning their attention to the fall film festivals — where some of the year’s most anticipated and awards-worthy titles will begin to make their mark (or, in the case of plenty of gems from Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes, get a second wind).

The trifecta of Venice, Toronto, and New York (and, of course, that wily and secretive Telluride) once again promises a compelling lineup of international auteurs, breakout discoveries, and major studio contenders. In the coming weeks, we will see (and tell you all about) new films from filmmakers like Luca Guadagnino, Yorgos Lanthimos, Sofia Coppola, Chloé Zhao, Steven Soderbergh, Park Chan-wook, Noah Baumbach, Mamoru Hosoda, Nia DaCosta, Rian Johnson, Mona Fastvold, and Romain Gavras, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

More exciting? All those names we don’t yet know, or are just about to learn. That’s what makes this seemingly typical annual event — picking new movies to look forward to — so fun and so imprecise. Behold, some seriously educated guesses, with infinitely more names to add soon.

Bookmark this page for IndieWire’s list of 42 films we can’t wait to see at the Venice, Toronto, and New York film festivals this fall. 

David Ehrlich, Marcus Jones, Ryan Lattanzio, Anne Thompson, and Christian Zilko contributed to this list. 

“After the Hunt” (Venice, NYFF)

Luca Guadagnino turns slightly away from his usual subjects, sex and love, in this provocative original from actress-turned-screenwriter Nora Garrett. The psychological thriller stars Julia Roberts as Alma, a Yale philosophy professor whose ordered life is uprooted when her protégé (Ayo Edebiri) makes assault accusations against her close friend and colleague (Andrew Garfield), who in turn charges her with plagiarism. Who to believe? Alma also fears that a secret from her own past will come to light.

Michael Stuhlbarg plays Alma’s psychiatrist husband in this Venice world premiere, which will also open the New York Film Festival. Cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed shot the film on 35mm over six weeks in London and at Cambridge University in the summer of 2024. “Challengers” and “Queer” composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross rejoined Team Guadagnino. Guadagnino has said that Roberts gives the “best performance” of her career in this timely cultural commentary. —AT

“Bad Apples” (TIFF)

If you’re of the school of thought that Saoirse Ronan can do anything (read: the only correct school of thought), Jonatan Etzler’s satirical and darkly funny English-language debut is a tasty treat made just for you. Based on Rasmus Lindgren’s debut novel “De Oönskade,” screenwriter Jess O’Kane adapts the story of one very maligned teacher (Ronan as Maria) and the decision that will change her life (and just about everyone else in her close-knit elementary school) forever.

Much of the film’s delight is found in just how unpredictably it plays out (surprises galore, the kind that guarantee uncomfortable laughs from an engaged audience), but without spoiling too much, here goes: when Maria makes a shocking choice that leads to the excision of her class’ worst student, it has unexpected consequences. What happens when you forcefully remove a supposed bad apple from an otherwise healthy bunch? And who are you to decide who is said bad apple? This is all, we promise, very funny, but the canny casting of Ronan also helps it to feel palatable and possible, until the real world comes calling. —KE

“Ballad of a Small Player” (TIFF)

“All Quiet on the Western Front” director Edward Berger returns to Netflix with his latest, which Rowan Joffé adapted from a Lawrence Osborne novel into an awards season hopeful starring Colin Farrell as debt-ridden card shark Lord Doyle and Tilda Swinton as a private investigator on his tail.

Adapted from the 2014 Osborne novel, Berger’s first post-“Conclave” feature follows Doyle as he tussles with a fierce gambling habit in the deluxe casinos of Las Vegas and Macau. The secretive casino employee Dao Ming (Fala Chen) offers him a lifeline, but it may not save Doyle from Swinton’s relentless P.I. As the movie premieres at the fall film festivals, Farrell will accept the Golden Icon Award in Zurich. Oscar-winning cinematographer James Friend shot the film in Macau and Hong Kong. —AT

“Bugonia” (Venice)

Adapted by Will Tracy from the lauded 2003 Korean film “Save the Green Planet!” from director Jang Joon-hwan, who was going to direct the English-language version but was replaced by Yorgos Lanthimos, “Bugonia” brings back Emma Stone for a fifth turn with Lanthimos, in a role originally written as a man, the CEO of a Big Pharma company. Two conspiracists (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis) believe that she is an evil alien who plans to destroy Earth. So they kidnap her and shave her head. (For real.)

Ari Aster joined the project as producer and hired Tracy to adapt; by February 2024, Lanthimos came on as director, and Stone joined as both actress and producer. Plemons joined the cast that May during Cannes, when Focus Features picked up the film for distribution. For his fourth go-round with Lanthimos, Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan shot the film with 35 mm VistaVision cameras last summer in Milos, Greece and High Wycombe, England. —AT

“The Christophers” (TIFF)

Steven Soderbergh continues to bolster his reputation as the fastest worker in Hollywood. Just months after his smart spy thriller “Black Bag” hit theaters, the workhorse director returns to TIFF with a dark comedy about the children of a deceased painter who reconnect to oversee a forgery operation that allows them to liquidate his unfinished works. With a screenplay by frequent collaborator Ed Solomon (who also wrote Soderbergh’s “No Sudden Move” and his TV projects “Mosaic” and “Full Circle”) and a cast that includes Ian McKellen, Michaela Coel, James Corden, and Jessica Gunning, “The Christophers” should be a hot title in Toronto. —CZ

“Christy” (TIFF)

Sydney Sweeney takes her first swing at a prestige biopic with “Christy,” which sees the “Euphoria” star playing Christy Martin, one of the first major female boxers to break into mainstream sports culture. Martin’s private life was marred by turmoil, most of which stemmed from her marriage to boxing coach Jim Martin (played here by Ben Foster).

Australian filmmaker David Michôd directs the biopic, which promises to shine light on all of the ugly details of Martin’s life, including her struggles with drugs and the domestic violence that plagued her marriage, while still showcasing her inspirational battle against the odds to reach the top of her industry. —CZ

“Cover-Up” (Venice)

Laura Poitras is back at Venice after winning the Golden Lion in 2022 for her Sackler pharmaceutical family by-way-of-Nan-Goldin takedown “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.” The Oscar-winning, co-directing with longtime “Frontline” producer Mark Obenhaus, is out of competition this time with “Cover-Up.” The made-in-secret documentary, as virtually all of Poitras’ films are obliged to be due to their intelligence-breaking investigations, charts the legacy of investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who exposed the cover-up of the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam, and covered the Watergate scandal and other U.S. misdeeds throughout his career, including the torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners for The New Yorker. Films like “Citizenfour” and “Risk” proved the former Intercept co-founder was a sharp investigative journalist; “All the Beauty” proved she was a bracingly cinematic filmmaker capable of harnessing truthful emotion. —RL

“Dead Man’s Wire” (Venice, TIFF)

Independent film maverick Gus Van Sant’s recent run of releases, from “Sea of Trees” to “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot” met mixed results with critics and audiences. With “Dead Man’s Wire,” the Academy Award-nominated “Milk” director returns to fact-inspired filmmaking, casting Bill Skarsgård as Tony Kiritsis, who in 1977 entered the Meridian Mortgage Company offices with a sawed-off shotgun to hold its president (Dacre Montgomery) hostage. The ripped-from-the-headlines story feels eerily similar to recent news breaks that have turned assassins fighting for the working class into folk heroes. Austin Kolodney pens the script, with Arnaud Potier (“Aggro Dr1ft”) handling cinematography. Colman Domingo, Al Pacino, Cary Elwes, and “Industry” breakout Myha’la also star. —RL

“L’Etranger” (Venice)

Prolific French filmmaker François Ozon has tackled cinephile-tailored I.P. before, including the Rainer Werner Fassbinder-inspired “Peter von Kant” from 2022. With his latest film “L’Étranger,” he adapts Albert Camus’ 1942 existentialist novella, about a disaffected French settler in Algiers who kills an Arab man amid a search for meaning in an indifferent world. Ozon reunites with the young French actor Benjamin Voisin, here playing Mersault after breaking out as one half of a gay romance in the director’s lush coming-of-ager “Summer of 85.” The cast also includes Rebecca Marder, Pierre Lottin, Denis Lavant, and “Anatomy of a Fall” internet boyfriend Swann Arlaud, with Belgian cinematographer Manu Dacosse (“Let the Corpses Tan”) shooting in black-and-white to match the novel’s eerie, dislocated World War II-era setting. —RL

“Hamnet” (TIFF)

Marking “Nomadland” Oscar winner Chloé Zhao’s return to indie filmmaking after a Marvel detour for “Eternals” in 2021, “Hamnet” was adapted by Zhao and author Maggie O’Farrell from her 2020 bestseller. (It’s her first book to make it to the big screen after 25 years.)

Set during the Elizabethan age in the home of Agnes and William Shakespeare (Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal), “Hamnet” tracks their early romance and the devastating loss of their 11-year-old son Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) to the plague. Emily Watson plays Hamnet’s grandmother. Zhao convinced the reluctant O’Farrell to work with her on the script. Produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, the film was shot by cinematographer Łukasz Żal in Wales and will premiere at the fall film festivals. —AT

“In the Hand of Dante” (Venice)

Painter and New York filmmaker Julian Schnabel (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” “Basquiat”) continues his run of history-inspired period pieces after 2018 Oscar nominee “At Eternity’s Gate,” which starred Willem Dafoe as Vincent Van Gogh. His decade-in-the-making “In the Hand of Dante” teams him with Oscar Isaac, who plays both a hard-living novelist in present day and Italian poet Dante Alighieri in 14th-century Florence. Nick (Isaac in the 21st century) is tasked by John Malkovich to locate what’s believed to be the originally handwritten manuscript of “The Divine Comedy,” while accompanied by a quirky mafia assassin played by Gerard Butler. Schnabel tussled with financiers for final cut on the black-and-white and color, two-and-a-half-hour epic, and he got it. The cast also includes Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa in what looks to be the most ambitious screen project of Schnabel’s career. —RL

“Hedda” (TIFF)

The next few months are poised to be very big indeed for filmmaker Nia DaCosta, who not only bows her imaginative Henrik Ibsen adaptation with star Tessa Thompson at the festival, but will soon bring her very own “28 Years Later” sequel to cinemas in January. DaCosta has always enjoyed good buzz, but suddenly, it seems her incredible range and deep emotional wells are the talk of the town.

In “Hedda,” Thompson takes on the classic, iconic, and titular role of Hedda Gabler with plenty of twists: in DaCosta’s telling, she’s a bored society doyenne manipulating everyone around her for her own fun and games. And perhaps more? The film’s first trailer hinted at something frisky and fun and glossy, with a thrilling underbelly, a sexy and wild outing that will put Ibsen in an entirely new light. DaCosta, too. —KE

“A House of Dynamite” (Venice, NYFF)

Eight years after “Detroit,” Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”) is back with another powderkeg political thriller, written by NBC news president Noah Oppenheim (“Zero Day,” “Jackie”). The contemporary narrative is set at the White House as officials scramble to deal with an incoming single unattributed missile attack on the U.S. How to respond? The sprawling cast includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris, Greta Lee, and Bigelow regular Jason Clarke (“Zero Dark Thirty”). Among other projects over the last eight years, Bigelow spent time developing an adaptation of David Koepp’s novel “Aurora” for Netflix, but scrapped it in 2022.

Bigelow believes in using entertainment as a “delivery method for meaningful messaging,” she told IndieWire in 2017. The film will world premiere in the main competition of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2025, where it’s nominated for the Golden Lion. —AT

“How to Shoot a Ghost” (Venice)

Oscar-winning surrealist filmmaker Charlie Kaufman reunites again with poet/writer Eva H.D., who provided both a poem for his 2020 Netflix head trip “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” and the script for his 2023 short “Jackals and Fireflies.” The Venice-premiering short film “How to Shoot a Ghost” also reteams him with “Ending Things” star Jessie Buckley, who plays a blue-haired, newly dead woman wandering the streets of Athens with the also-dead Josef Akiki. In a blend of street photography, historical footage, and new material shot by Michał Dymek (“The Girl with the Needle,” “EO”), this evocative meditation on memory and loss recalls the hybrid fiction works of Chris Marker or the ruminative, temporal poetry of Alain Resnais’ “Hiroshima, Mon Amour.” Kaufman has given the film to free library streaming service Kanopy for distribution after its festival bow. —RL

“Father Mother Sister Brother” (Venice, NYFF)

Cannes was apparently not interested in Jim Jarmusch’s globe-trotting triptych “Father Mother Sister Brother” despite regularly hosting the filmmaker for decades. Skipping the Croisette enabled Jarmusch to take a film to Venice for only the second time (“Coffee and Cigarettes” played out of competition there in 2003) before he gets a Centerpiece showcase at the New York Film Festival. Three chapters set in New Jersey, Dublin, and Paris — with Frederick Elmes and Yorick Le Saux splitting cinematography duties — center on adult children and their relationships with their aging parents. The stacked cast includes Jarmusch fave Tom Waits, plus Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Vicky Krieps, Charlotte Rampling, Indya Moore, and Luka Sabbat in what the director describes as an “anti-action film.” But any anti-action film from slow cinema poet Jarmusch is more thrilling than most actual action films these days. —RL

“The Fence” (TIFF)

Claire Denis hasn’t directed a new film since her 2022 double feature of “The Stars at Noon” and “Both Sides of the Blade,” but she’s set to make a big return to the festival circuit with “The Fence.” Her adaptation of Bernard-Marie Koltès’ play “Black Battles with Dogs” takes place on a European-owned construction site in Cameroon, following a supervisor (Matt Dillon) who has to deal with an enraged villager after one of his workers dies on the job. It has all the makings of another Denis classic, featuring some of the auteur’s favorite themes like colonial influence in Africa and the obsessions of men who are left to work together while isolated from the outside world. —CZ

“Frankenstein” (Venice, TIFF)

When it was announced that Guillermo del Toro would be directing a “Frankenstein” movie for Netflix, you’d be forgiven if your knee-jerk reaction was to hastily check IMDB to confirm that he hadn’t already made one. By now, the Mexican director’s favorite themes — namely that monsters are often misunderstood creatures who serve as vehicles for the true evil lurking in the hearts of the humans who control them — are so well-established that it feels like he’s been directing “Frankenstein” movies for his entire career. But a direct take on Mary Shelley’s classic novel has eluded him until now, and the $120 million passion project could put him right back in the heart of the awards race.

Oscar Isaac stars as a flamboyant version of the eponymous doctor that is loosely inspired by Mick Jagger, while Jacob Elordi plays the monster he brings into existence. The film is almost certain to have some of the best below-the-line craftsmanship you’ll see all season, and watching a living legend dive even deeper into his favorite material is an opportunity that every cinephile should cherish. —CZ

“Franz” (TIFF)

Possibly the first movie about Franz Kafka since Steven Soderbergh’s “Kafka” in 1991, and definitely a more straightforward portrait of literature’s most name-brand surrealist, Agnieszka Holland’s “Franz” seems poised to offer the “Metamorphosis” author a somewhat traditional biopic treatment. Emphasis on somewhat. A crafty and rebellious filmmaker who’s coming off one of the most vital works of her career (“Green Border”), Holland supposedly embraces the strictures of the biopic subgenre only so that she can subvert them in turn, as the traditional coming-of-genius stuff (which stars Idan Weiss as a young Czech Jew who’s trying to make his way through the world of pre-war Prague) runs parallel to a present-day timeline in which Kafka is forced to reckon with his legacy.

It should be fascinating — and bleakly hilarious — to see what he thinks of a 21st century that seems to have hatched straight out of his worst nightmares. —DE

“Ghost Elephants” (Venice)

If filmmaker Werner Herzog is going to do one thing, it’s make a film centered on a figure willingly going on a Sisyphean quest. The latest documentary from the German director, who will also be receiving the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at this year’s Venice Film Festival, focuses on Dr. Steve Boyes, whose “Moby Dick” is in the form of a herd of giant elephants in the highlands of Angola. Though he has gone so far as to recruit master trackers from Namibia to find the elusive animals, the film’s synopsis teases that the endeavor may lead to Boyes’ second-guessing if the elephants are ever meant to be found. —MJ

“Girl” (Venice, TIFF)

World renowned Taiwanese actress Shu Qi, who won the prestigious Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actress in the film “Your Place or Mine,” which also stars Tony Leung, makes her directorial debut with what is said to be an artistic drama centered on a young girl who finds a new friend with a similar name to hers, living the life she would like to live.

In addition to her almost three decades of acting work, Qi has been on several international film festival juries, meaning she already has an idea of how to show her film in the best light that would help it stand out among other more publicized competition titles at this year’s Venice Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival. —MJ

“Good Fortune” (TIFF)

A few things have changed about the world since Frank Capra released “It’s a Wonderful Life” in 1946, and Aziz Ansari has apparently decided that we needed another guardian angel movie that reflects the anxieties of 2025. Enter “Good Fortune,” which stars Ansari as a gig worker who loathes his ultra-wealthy employer (Seth Rogen) until a guardian angel (who else but Keanu Reeves) arrives and attempts to teach them both a thing or two about the way the other half lives. Ansari’s directing career has gotten off to a few false starts (through no fault of his own), but “Good Fortune” could be the film that signals the “Master of None” creator’s entry into the indie film stratosphere. —CZ

“Is This Thing On?” (NYFF)

Bradley Cooper’s directorial career thus far has been defined by heavy stories of musical geniuses who struggled to control their vices and avoid tragedy. But for his third feature behind the camera, he appears to be taking things in a lighter direction. “Is This Thing On?” is set inside the world of standup comedy, starring Will Arnett (who co-wrote the film with Cooper and Mark Chappell) as a recently divorced man who tries his hand at comedy as a way of coping with a midlife crisis. Cooper also stars alongside Laura Dern, Sean Hayes, Amy Sedaris, and Peyton Manning. The film will have its world premiere at the New York Film Festival, where fans will get their first look at how far Cooper’s directorial range extends beyond his favorite subjects. —CZ

“Jay Kelly” (Venice)

In a fun bit of art imitating life, Noah Baumbach is bringing his latest Netflix film, in which George Clooney begrudgingly attends a European film festival to accept a prestigious tribute, to the competition at the Venice Film Festival 2025. Co-written with actress and screenwriter Emily Mortimer, the cast of the highly anticipated dramedy is filled out by Kelly’s publicist Liz, played by Laura Dern, whose last collaboration with Baumbach earned her an Oscar nomination, and the actor’s manager Ron, played by Adam Sandler, who is coming off a year of successes ranging from a spotlight moment on “SNL 50” to long-awaited sequel “Happy Gilmore 2” (also a Netflix film). —MJ

“Kim Novak’s Vertigo” (Venice)

Swiss-American filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe more than demonstrated his cinema savvy with the film-centric essay films “Lynch/Oz,” which traced David Lynch’s career-long fascination with “The Wizard of Oz,” and “78/52,” which gave a frame-by-frame close reading of the “Psycho” shower scene. He turns back to Hitchcock for “Kim Novak’s Vertigo,” premiering in Venice where the namesake subject will receive the Golden Lion for career achievement. Philippe funnels his obsession with Hitch’s heady psychosexual mind-bender “Vertigo” into a tapestry of the life and career of Novak, who of course played both Judy (the object and victim of James Stewart’s perverse fixation) and her made-up alter-ego Madeleine” — inadvertently or intentionally, however you want to dice it, commenting on a director’s controlling and manipulating Svengali-like influence over an actress. But this documentary shows us Novak as the fiercely independent iconoclast who left Hollywood on her own terms. —RL

“Late Fame” (Venice, TIFF, NYFF)

Influential film critic and programmer Kent Jones made a seamless leap to the other side of the screen with his quietly shattering narrative debut, “Diane,” which towered over the rest of the competition at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, where it premiered. His follow-up is deservedly swimming in some deeper waters, with some much bigger fish, as “Late Fame” will debut at Venice before screening at TIFF and in the main slate at NYFF, where Jones once served as the chairman of the festival’s selection committee. 

Boasting a cast worthy of this brighter spotlight (and a script adapted from the Arthur Schnitzler novel of the same name by “May December” breakout Samy Burch!), the film stars Willem Dafoe as Ed Saxberger, a forgotten New York poet who’s spent the last 40 years of his life working at the post office. But obscurity has a way of inflaming enthusiasm in this town, and all it takes is one extroverted kid with esoteric tastes (Edmund Donovan) to launch Ed back into the arts scene, where he’s forced to contend with a new generation of aspirant creatives led by a Greta Lee. It’s hard to say how things will pan out for Ed, but Kent’s chances of whiffing on his second at bat seem just about nil. —DE

“Maddie’s Secret” (TIFF)

All we need to know: semi-secret film from John Early, in which he directs himself as the titular Maddie: a wannabe influencer who has built her life on all manner of lies. The film promises to be very funny indeed, but with a dark and wise center about actually heady matters. No fake followers here. —KE

“Marc by Sofia” (Venice)

Director Sofia Coppola and fashion designer Marc Jacobs, a pair of longtime friends and icons who transcend past the artistic trades that they are known for, team up for the former’s first-ever documentary feature. Though there are few public details about the film, which will have its world premiere at Venice, even the prospect of a filmed conversation between them would be a fashion lover’s dream, involving insights on brands ranging from Chanel and Louis Vuitton to Gap and Perry Ellis. What a rare treat to see someone’s muse turn the spotlight back toward them. —MJ

“Mile End Kicks” (TIFF)

In addition to programming the obvious heavy-hitters and big-time Oscar players, TIFF also excels at championing rising Canadian cinema, offering up true discoveries and fresh features alongside the usual suspects. Three years after debuting her first film, “I Like Movies,” at the festival, Chandler Levack returns with another feature pulled from her rich background of loving (and making) all sorts of art.

Barbie Ferreira stars as Grace, our Levack surrogate, who is spending the summer in Montreal writing music criticism (something Levack herself did in 2011 and thereabouts, in which the film is set with hilarious detail) and dealing with all sorts of personal and professional upheavals. While Levack adopts the shape and form and feel of a rom-com or a coming-of-age comedy, the specificity of her story lends her sophomore debut real gravitas. If you ever read a David Foster Wallace novel not just to impress some bro, but to feel as if you’re part of a cultural conversation not necessarily welcoming to you, “Mile End Kicks” will really speak to you (just like it spoke to me). —KE

“No Other Choice” (Venice, TIFF, NYFF)

Perhaps the most dazzlingly operatic auteur in the world, Park Chan-wook loves to torture us by making a masterpiece — the most recent of them being 2022’s “Decision to Leave” — and then abandoning the cinema for a few years in favor of television, a medium whose production schedule and narrative structure are anathema to his clockwork genius. It’s even more frustrating because Park is only growing more confident and ambitious as a filmmaker as he gets older. 

Needless to say, his diehard fans couldn’t be more excited to see him return to the movies with a project he’s been dreaming about since 2005: A darkly comic adaptation of Donald Westlake’s “The Ax,” starring Lee Byung-hun as a man so desperate to find a job that he starts murdering all of the other applicants. And just in time for Trump to crater the economy! Brace for another virtuosic profile of humanity at its worst and most mounded. —DE

“Normal” (TIFF)

Ben Wheatley was once among the most promising directors on the planet, but recent years have been a bumpy ride for those of us who went all in on his stock after “Kill List.” “Meg 2: The Trench” and his Netflix adaptation of “Rebecca” were both dire in their own ways, but Wheatley’s “In the Earth” was a resourceful pandemic riff that suggested he still had some gas in the tank, and it does seem like only a matter of time before a filmmaker of his talent manages to make good on it again. 

Enter: “Normal,” a neo-Western starring Bob Odenkirk as the new sheriff of a small town that’s in the clutches of a vast criminal organization (Henry Winkler is the presumably overmatched mayor). Written by “Nobody” and “John Wick” screenwriter Derek Kolstad, and promising to combine ultra-violent action with Hitchcockian mystery, “Normal” has the potential to be a coiled blast of midnight fun — and the potential to restore our faith in Wheatley’s orgiastic approach to genre thrills. —DE  

“Nuestra Tierra” (Venice)

Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel’s (“Zama,” “The Headless Woman”) first documentary feature is her long-gestating true-crime-and-then-some portrait of the 2009 murder of Indigenous leader Javier Chocobar in her home country. The Chuschagasta native tried to defend his community’s ancestral land against three mining entrepreneurs who claimed ownership of the territory, armed with firearms. The film integrates chilling cell-phone footage of the movie that feels ripped from a found-footage horror movie, as well as recordings of the court proceedings as they opened in 2018 and innovative, self-reflexive drone camerawork for a panorama of colonial unrest that spans generations. The men were all freed shortly after their sentencing, but Martel still makes the case that this was a hard-won act of defiance and self-reservation by the Chuschagasta people. —RL

“Orphan” (Venice)

Nearly a decade after his holocaust film “Son of Saul” won the Oscar for Best International Feature on behalf of his native Hungary, director László Nemes returns with a coming-of-age story involving the Communist occupation of Budapest circa 1957. The new project premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival stars a young Jewish boy named Andor, played by Loppert Martin Tibor, and later Bojtorján Barabas, who begins to question everything he knows about his family after meeting a brutish man bearing earth-shattering news.

In his director’s statement, the filmmaker reveals that the historical drama mines from his own family’s trauma, linking the effects that both the holocaust and the rise in communism in Hungary had on him and his loved ones. —MJ

“Rental Family” (TIFF)

What looks to be the most tender film of this year’s TIFF, Oscar winner Brendan Fraser stars as an American expat who has long lived and worked in Tokyo, but is struggling to find work as an actor. In HIKARI’s feature, that struggle brings Fraser’s character into an unexpected job: taking on roles from a “rental family” agency that slots him in where he’s seemingly needed most. We suspect he’ll find what he needs to, and that audiences will likely spark to what looks like a feel-good feature for all. —KE

“Roofman” (TIFF)

After almost a decade away from the big screen (and with one thrilling stopover in TV land, care of “I Know This Much Is True”), Derek Cianfrance is poised to make his triumphant return to features this fall with “Roofman,” a true‑crime dramedy that’s already generating serious buzz. While the film might not sound too Cianfrance-y at the outset (Channing Tatum stars as Jeffrey Manchester, a former Army Ranger who robbed dozens of McDonald’s by breaking in through their roofs and ultimately went on the lam, ultimately hiding inside a Toys “R” Us for six months), early reports hold that the filmmaker’s emotional realism is more pronounced here than originally expected.

As he told IndieWire’s Screen Talk last year, the film has been a long-time passion project, and fans of the “Blue Valentine” director should be just as excited for it as movie-goers who simply love a true crime story (with a little “Career Opportunities” flair). —KE

“Rose of Nevada” (Venice, TIFF)

One of the buzziest discoveries heading into this year’s fall festival corridor, “Rose of Nevada” promises a time-traveling, sci-fi-tinged mystery from Cornish director Mark Jenkin (“Enys Men,” “Bait”). The filmmaker, known for crafting atmospheric landscapes keener on mood than narrative, directs George MacKay and Callum Turner as fishermen on a boat that has returned to harbor after disappearing 30 years prior. The voyage, though, takes them back in time, finding themselves mistaken for the original crew. “Rose of Nevada” bloomed during the pandemic as Jenkin observed the resilience of his Cornwall community; it’s first world-premiering in the Orizzonti section at Venice, dedicated to edgy titles and emerging filmmakers that push cinematic form. —RL

“Sacrifice” (TIFF)

An inspired heist thriller that never got the U.S. release that was dumped on Netflix after its riotous debut at Cannes, 2018’s “The World Is Yours” made it abundantly clear that Romain Gavras was ready to move beyond his father Costa-Gavras’ shadow. Four years later, the even more incendiary (if less substantial) “Athena” made it just as clear that the former music video auteur had become one of modern cinema’s most formidable stylists. 

Now Gavras’ English-language debut represents his best chance to put it all together and connect with a wider audience, as the explosive action-comedy — anchored by Anya Taylor-Joy as the leader of a doomsday eco-cult who storm a celebrity-studded environmental conference and begin offering celebrities as a blood sacrifice to mother nature — has all the ingredients for the filmmaker’s hypnotically confrontational brand of shock-and-awe social commentary. Billionaires in peril? Check. Chris Evans as a self-embarrassed movie star? Check. A supporting performance by Charli XCX and a presumably banging soundtrack to match? Check check check. If one TIFF premiere has a shot at stealing the spotlight from the more broadly anticipated likes of “Wake Up Dead Man” and “Frankenstein,” it has to be “Sacrifice.” —DE

“Scarlet” (TIFF, NYFF)

The last time Japanese animator Mamoru Hosoda released a film, he dazzled anime lovers around the world with his cyberpunk take on a tale as old as time with the “Beauty and the Beast” update “Belle.” Now he’s set to return with another princess saga that might even be more ambitious in scope. “Scarlet” takes place in between the realms of life and death, following a murdered princess who is forced to do battle in the afterlife to prevent her soul from perishing forever. Hosoda’s mastery of his medium makes any film he releases a must-see event, and “Scarlet” could emerge as one of the year’s best animated films. —CZ

“Silent Friend” (Venice, TIFF)

Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi has run hot and cold after returning from an 18-year hiatus with 2017’s Golden Bear-winning “On Body and Soul” (her follow-up, “The Story of My Wife,” was so pummeled at Cannes that it never made it across the ocean), but her latest epic boasts what might be the single best premise of any movie this year: What if Bertrand Bonello’s “The Beast” had co-starred Tony Leung? It would be almost impossible to improve on George MacKay’s performance in that film, but we don’t have any complaints if one of modern cinema’s greatest actors wants to give it a whirl. 

Less romantic than “The Beast” but similarly compelled by inter-generational connections and the invisible forces that shape our world, Enyedi’s “Silent Friend” is another three-part, century-spanning epic starring Léa Seydoux as a woman with a complicated relationship with the past. Only here, the French actress — along with the rest of the cast — is confined to a single timeline, as the story’s only constant across its 1908, 1972, and 2020-set chapters is a Ginkgo biloba tree that can live for 1,000 years. Here’s hoping it bears fruit. —DE

“The Smashing Machine” (Venice, TIFF)

The idea of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson fronting A24’s awards season kickoff at Venice did not sound plausible even five years ago, when the WWE superstar emeritus was more focused on starring in the types of CGI-heavy blockbusters that are $1 billion-or-bust. But leave it to Benny Safdie, in his solo feature directorial debut, to showcase a new side of Johnson as an actor, playing early Ultimate Fighting Championship favorite Mark Kerr.

Sharing a name with the 2002 documentary that spotlighted the fighter who came to fame right as UFC was gaining global appeal, the sports biopic also reteams Johnson with his “Jungle Cruise” co-star Emily Blunt, in what already seems to be another scene-stealing performance as Dawn Staples, Kerr’s wife at the time. —MJ

“The Testament of Ann Lee” (Venice)

Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold have a good thing going. The creative and life partners have found success co-writing each other’s films while taking turns in the directorial spotlight, most notably with Corbet’s 2024 masterpiece “The Brutalist.” Now Fastvold returns to the director’s chair with a film that appears to be every bit as ambitious in terms of artistry and historical scope. “The Testament of Ann Lee” is a musical drama about the Shaker movement, starring Amanda Seyfried as the eponymous founder of the utopian sect of Evangelical Christianity.

Shot on 70mm film and featuring a supporting cast that includes Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Christopher Abbott, and Tim Blake Nelson, “The Testament of Ann Lee” should be one of the cinematic events of the season for arthouse enthusiasts. —CZ

“Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” (TIFF)

It’s a tradition now: a twisty new Rian Johnson murder mystery at TIFF, all big names and better surprises, playing to a very enthusiastic crowd. That’s all we’d need to know to get excited for Johnson’s third “Knives Out” movie, but we’ll give you still more to get jazzed about.

This one, hinted to be a bit darker than Johnson’s previous entries, boasts a secretive plot (of course) and a murderer’s row of stars, including Daniel Craig back as private detective Benoit Blanc, with Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Church. Let’s solve a crime, but, more importantly, let’s have fun while doing it! —KE

“The Wizard of the Kremlin” (Venice, TIFF)

Once more famous for his looks than for his film performances (despite being a rather excellent actor right from the jump), Jude Law has made a meal of middle age by re-establishing himself as a virtuosic character actor with extraordinary range. Henry VIII. Captain Hook. The hot Pope. But not even the most chameleonic of Law’s previous roles — nor the most receding of their hairlines — has sufficiently prepared us for the idea of watching him play an upstart Vladimir Putin in an epic Olivier Assayas thriller set during the final years of the Soviet Union. 

Adapted from a Giuliano da Empoli novel and starring Paul Dano as a fictional artist who rises high in the ranks of the Russian government while coming across all sorts of disreputable figures in the process, “The Wizard of the Kremlin” finds Assayas mounting his most outwardly ambitious — or at least his longest — feature since “Carlos” in 2010. The movie’s ensemble also includes Alicia Vikander, Jeffrey Wright, and Tom Sturridge, but this is said to be Dano’s show, with Law’s Putin a malevolent presence who shadows his every move. —DE