It is that time of year again, and soon, all the eyes of cinema will turn to Isle of Venice and the Venice International Film Festival, also known as La Biennale di Venezia. This year, for the 81st edition, Venice has set itself apart again as the premier place where the stars are increasingly choosing to debut their most avant-garde properties. A jury led by French cinema legend Isabella Huppert will decide who will take home their highest honor, the Golden Lion.
(Photo by Photo by APEGA International/Everett Collection)
Each year, the trifecta of TIFF, Telluride, and Venice Film Festival vie for bragging rights over who screens next year’s award winners. And looking over the lineups this year, we must give the Italians the edge. Alberto Barbera and his programming team have invited Luca Guadagnino, Angelina Jolie, Joaquin Phoenix, Tim Burton, Cate Blanchett, Jude Law, Pedro Almodóvar, Micheal Keaton, Lady Gaga, as well as some of the buzziest indie titles of the year, and bonafide Oscar frontrunners that have yet to be screened. Not just a place for award-worthy cinema, Venice also is boasting some of the biggest titles of the fall this year with an opening night screening of Warner Brothers’ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and a homecoming of sorts for the team behind the 76th edition’s Golden Lion winner, Joker.
Though nothing will compete with the drama surrounding Don’t Worry Darling at Venice in 2022, increasingly, the storylines surrounding the festival are just as vibrant as what’s happening inside the theaters. So please continue reading for our recap of the eight can’t miss titles set to premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, and check RottenTomatoes.com for our scorecard of every film. We’ll give you updates from our coverage throughout the festival.
Read on for our eight must-watch films set to premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival.
In a departure from the previous edition, the two buzziest titles of the Venice Film Festival are sequels, Joker: Folie à Deux and Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. And though sequels are not necessarily what we would typically see as a Venice edition, word has it that Warner Brothers and Tim Burton have crafted a story that matches the original’s energy, intensity, fever, and family fun. The opening night selection of the festival, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice sees stars Catherine O’Hara, Winona Rider, and Michael Keaton as our fast-talking bio-exorcist returning to Burton’s vivid stop motion and Salvador Dali-inspired version of the afterlife. Here’s hoping the right pieces are set to capture lightning in a bottle yet again.
One reason we’re more than a little excited to see what this new edition has in store is the casting of Wednesday star Jenna Ortega as Deetz’s (Rider) teenage daughter. If you need to know more about the story before it hits theaters, check out our explainer, which breaks down everything you need to know before you head to the theater.
Maria
(Photo by Photo courtesy Venice International Film Festival)
Pablo Larraín has a pretty impressive track record with single-name features that garnered Oscar nominations, whether Natalie Portman in Jackie or Kirsten Stewart in Spencer; when we heard Maria’s casting, logline, and title, we knew the likely outcome. With Angelina Jolie returning in the starring role as the famed and scandalous opera singer Maria Callas, dare we posit that the third time could be the charm.
Jackie and Spencer earned their stars and Oscar nominations, but none have managed to win. Like Lorrain’s previous entries, we anticipate that this will not be a standard biopic but rather a surgical look into the iconic singer’s life at a very particular moment that informs who she is and how the world sees her. The Chilean filmmaker clearly has an eye for biopics on complicated and often put-upon women, and the life of Maria Callas has enough drama, tragedy, and triumph to make an entire mini-series worth of drama. Needless to say, we are signed up, and if it brings Jolie back to the Oscar race, we will welcome it even more.
Many, including us, questioned the wisdom when Todd Phillips announced that he would take Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix, to the Venice Film Festival for its premiere in 2019. Still, as history proved, The Hangover helmer knew better as not only was it well received, but the movie took home the Golden Lion on its way to a billion-dollar box office juggernaut and two Academy Awards, including a Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix. So when it was announced the sequel would return to Venice, we weren’t surprised, and we passed the point of second-guessing anything the team behind this movie had in store.
This second installment is framed in the same visual style as the original, but the feature is a whole new creation. A jukebox musical drama with one of the premier songstresses of our generation (Lady Gaga) starring as Harley Quinn, certainly ups the stakes for a sequel. And many anxiously anticipate what we will find in this dark retelling of the Joker and Harley Quinn falling in love. Early buzz around Gaga’s performance leads us to believe that Phoenix might have some company if he makes another Best Actor run next year. A prison psychiatrist who falls in love with her charismatic patient on the verge of parole is plenty of drama to keep audiences interested but adding that this is one of the most beloved and iconic comic heroines played by an Oscar-winner and a global pop star —queue up the bops, we are sat.
(Photo by Photo courtesy Venice International Film Festival)
Halina Reijn’s last film, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, was not necessarily a box office success but was beloved by the Gen Z set and critics. This year, we see her return to TIFF with something that, let’s say, the kids might yet again find all right. Borrowing a bit of Gen-Z slang, Babygirl stars Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson in a steamy age-gap romance that looks like it was ripped from the mind of every 40-something woman’s wildest fantasy.
With some apparent Adrian Lyne thriller throwback vibes, the A24 feature feels like an earnest effort to protest against the desexualization of cinema. An apparent steamy thriller, and we all know that Harris Dickinson has a face that was meant to be admired, but it is his work in Beach Rats, Triangle of Sadness, and Iron Claw that leads us to believe this effort will go deeper than the sexual intrigue promised in the logline. The chemistry between Kidman and Dickinson radiates from the first-look image. And we anticipate the film will explore the power dynamics between an older woman and a younger man who works for her. That could provide fertile ground for some underexplored questions about gender and power.
(Photo by Photo courtesy Venice International Film Festival)
Next up, we have The Order, starring Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, and Jude Law in a faithful life retelling of a crime spree perpetrated by a white supremacist group from the ’80s. Off a script from Oscar-nominated screenwriter Zach Baylin and directed by Justin Kurzel, The Order will chronicle the exploits of the white nationalist groups and how they were all so enthralled by their charismatic and deadly leader Robert Jay Mathews, played by Hoult. Based on the 1989 nonfiction book The Silent Brotherhood, the events of the book kick off when a lowly Idaho FBI agent notices that a string of robberies and counterfeit operations were not as disparate and unrelated as they’d thought but part of a complex racketeering scheme to fund a proper white nationalist movement.
A slight consolation prize after he could not open the Venice Film Festival in 2023 with Challengers due to the SAG/WGA strike, Luca Guadagnino is finally going to have his moment in the Venice Sun with Queer. Already the subject of awards talks for his work in the Zendaya tennis feature Challengers, Queer is likely closer to the director’s heart. A passion project 40 years in the making, the Italian director cast Daniel Craig in the lead role as an older gay man who becomes infatuated with a younger man during a “vacation” in Mexico City. The Call Me by Your Name director was behind the camera with a script from Challengers screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes for the second time this year. We have heard whispers that the film is still being tweaked but some screenings have happened and one common refrain is unanimous praise for Daniel Craig and his Outer Banks co-star Drew Starkey in what could be his feature film breakout role. With all that buzz behind it Queer just might be one of the most coveted tickets of the festival.
Marco
(Photo by Photo courtesy Venice International Film Festival)
Another feature we’re buzzing about is Marco, a dramatic retelling of Enric Marco, a famed Holocaust survivor who reached international fame recounting his harrowing tale of imprisonment and redemption. He became not only a household name in Spain but received one of the highest civilian honors you could receive — and then it all came crumbling down when his story was revealed to be a complete fabrication. Discovered by a university researcher, the film recounts the invented truth and the motivations behind it. It is a thrilling and tragic tale that keeps the tension together as we follow along while they try to unravel the complicated decades-long deception.
Brad Pitt and George Clooney are returning to Venice, their first re-teaming on screen since Burn After Reading. The film’s title subtly references a character from the 1997 Oscar-winning feature Pulp Fiction—remember “The Wolf” played by Harvey Keitel? Wolfs are the ultimate fixers who can help you dispose of a body after a precarious situation, no questions asked.
For our tale, it’s Amy Ryan, not Jules, and Vincent, looking to dispose of a corpse. The twist, however, is that ‘wolves’ work alone, but on our fateful night, two lone wolfs show up after the call is made. This sets up a hilarious action comedy that keeps our wolfs, played by Pitt and Clooney, and the audience guessing all the way until the credits role. In his first post-Marvel feature, Spider-Man director Jon Watts serves as writer-director, with Pitt and Clooney serving as producers. It is a long-awaited and exciting re-teaming for the Ocean’s Eleven stars that most folks will forgive for any shortcomings because we just want to see these two gentlemen on screen and don’t need much else to be entertained.
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The Venice International Film Festival runs from August 27th-September 8
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