In September, you’ll notice when it’s Venice Film Festival: your social media will suddenly be flooded by clips of Hollywood stars on boats as they sail towards the Lido for movie premieres that will sink or catalyse their Oscar campaign. As expected, this year’s lineup is populated by major names, whether it’s actors (Robert Pattinson, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz), international filmmakers (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders), or musicians who haven’t composed anything listenable since 1995 (Noel and Liam Gallagher). Even if you’re stuck in Venice’s gutters, it’s hard not to look up at the stars.

Up there with Cannes as the glitziest, most auteur-driven festival, Venice selected this year’s offerings from 1,972 submissions, which makes it more puzzling that only one of the 20 films competing for the Golden Lion is directed by a woman. (Alberto Barbera, the festival’s artistic director, told Screen International, “But if we cannot find them, what can we do?”) Well, at least this year’s official competition jury is headed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, and in other strands there are highly anticipated features from May el-Toukhy, Julia Loktev, and Jacqueline Lentzou.

Another headline from this year’s line-up is political films. There’s Alex Gibney’s Musk documentary versus Danny Boyle’s Rupert Murdoch-skewering Ink. Elsewhere, there are marathon-length features, with 5.5 hours of My Undesirable Friends: Part II versus Luca Guadagnino’s seven-hour Joie de Vivre versus your bladder. Below, we’ve picked our highlights from this year’s lineup.

BUCKING FASTARD (DIR. WERNER HERZOG)

Not to be confused with Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk doc, Herzog’s return to fiction storytelling is actually based on real people. In the 1980s, two York-based twin sisters received a restraining order from stalking the same man; in Herzog’s version, the duo are played by Rooney Mara and her slightly older sister, Kate. Early footage reveals the Mara sisters dressed identically and speaking in unison. Given Herzog’s obsession with the “ecstatic truth”, the film can only head into stranger territory – or at least the novelty of seeing two Maras at the same time.

OASIS: DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER (DIR. DYLAN SOUTHERN & WILL LOVELACE)

Is this a film festival or Glastonbury? Monobrows were raised when Venice confirmed that the Gallagher brothers will walk the red carpet to support their new documentary. Since the reunion, Noel and Liam have done minimal press: there’s no confirmation of why they reformed, if they mended their sibling rivalry for financial reasons, or if there are plans to record “new” music with the same three open chords that Noel loves to strum. If the doc is accurate, it’ll delve into how any video footage of Oasis playing live reveals how much piss is thrown in the crowd.

POSSIBLE LOVE (DIR. LEE CHANG-DONG)

If the rumours are true, Possible Love will be a remake of at least one of the chapters of Kieślowski’s Dekalog. What’s certain is that Lee hasn’t directed a feature since 2018’s Burning, and so expectations are sky-high. In Possible Love, the Korean auteur has cast Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Zo In-sung, and Cho Yeo-jeong as two couples whose marriages overlap during the shooting of a documentary. Little else is known, but Lee has never directed a dud, and the Dekalog stories are so specific to Poland that a Korean version can’t be a mere retread.

LOOK BACK (DIR. HIROKAZU KORE-EDA)

Look Back, a Japanese manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto, was hugely popular on its own, and then once again as a feature-length anime in 2024. What does a live-action movie have to offer when the original iteration was published only five years ago? The answer is Kore-eda, a specialist in coming-of-age dramas. In Look Back, two lonely schoolgirls bond over their shared passion for creating their own comic. It is, then, a story about the transformative power of art when it comes to real life, and Kore-eda’s involvement adds a further meta element.

MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART II – EXILE (DIR. JULIA LOKTEV)

Shot entirely on an iPhone, My Undesirably Friends: Part I was a riveting, essential doc about female journalists in Russia determined to tell the truth about life under Putin. The film also ended, after five-and-a-half hours, on a cliffhanger: in 2022, the reporters are forced out of Russia and unsure where they’ll live. 355 minutes in length, Part II picks up two days later. Loktev told Dazed: “It follows them as they continue to report on this criminal war to Russians… At the same time, they crack inappropriate jokes at inappropriate moments.”

WILD HORSE NINE (DIR. MARTIN McDONAGH)

With McDonagh, you never know who’ll live, die, or willingly cut their fingers off to spite a former friend. The pattern continues with the Irish director’s follow-up to The Banshees of Inisherin, once again working from an original screenplay and eye-catching cast: John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi, Sam Rockwell, and Ema star Mariana di Girolamo. In 1973, a pair of ageing male CIA officers are sent to Chile, where they’re confronted by politically motivated students. With the action set on Easter Island, expect one-liners in front of a gorgeous backdrop.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JO: CHAPTER PHAEDRA (DIR. JACQUELINE LENTZOU)

In her follow-up to Moon, 66 Questions, Lentzou has written and directed another coming-of-age feature with an esoteric title. In Athens, 15-year-old Jo decides that in the next 24 hours she will ask out her crush, Phaedra, except a tragic incident scuppers everyone’s plans. With the film exploring how a loved one’s presence can still linger after death, it’s what a producer on the film calls “the depiction of the light that is within and never goes out”.

WOMAN UNKNOWN (DIR. MAY EL-TOUKHY)

The only female-directed film in this year’s official competition, Woman Unknown marks May el-Toukhy’s follow-up to Queen of Hearts. The Danish drama stars Mathilde Arcel as a young housekeeper whose upcoming wedding is jeopardised by an affair she had with a German soldier during the Second World War. The Danish-Egyptian director has said, “With Woman Unknown I want to explore the idea of the female body as a public domain, a public matter for society to pass judgement on regardless of time and place.”

PRIMETIME (DIR. LANCE OPPENHEIM)

Since To Catch a Predator went off the air, the reality TV show has increasingly been dissected for its murky ethics. Last year, there was the documentary Predator, and now A24 have Primetime, a 2006 period drama starring Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen. In the show, Hansen would lure child abusers with an actor pretending to be a kid, and then try to arrest them on camera. As Oppenheim (Spermworld) has only previously directed docs, there’s intrigue over his approach to dark, disturbing material – as an extra curveball, the cast includes Phoebe Bridgers.

JOIE DE VIVRE (DIR. LUCA GUADAGNINO)

Guadagnino has always cited Bernardo Bertolucci as his hero. If anything, it’s a surprise that Joie de Vivre, his long-awaited doc on Bertolucci, is only seven hours long – only slightly longer than 1900. Guadagnino already co-directed Bertolucci on Bertolucci in 2013. However, his second non-fiction celebration of his artistic mentor comprises new interviews with other filmmakers. The doc will also provide context for Guadagnino’s filmography – for example, the water-drinking scene in Call Me By Your Name is a direct reference to 1900, which used the same location.

BIG LITTLE THINGS (DIR. MICHELLE ZHOU)

Making her directorial debut, Zhou has written a lesbian romance about a woman trapped in two worlds. In America, Lei has a girlfriend that her Chinese family don’t know exists. In fact, when Lei visits her relatives in Harbin for New Year’s Eve, she brings along a fake boyfriend to disguise her sexuality. The drama then takes a turn when Lei’s girlfriend unexpectedly arrives in China. The CEO of Moebius Entertainment, who picked up international sales, declared, “Michelle Zhou captures the quiet but profound conflicts that define many lives today – the tension between personal truth and the roles we inherit.”

Venice Film Festival 2026 will run from September 2 to September 12