The 2026 Venice Film Festival got underway on Wednesday, September 2, with Oscar-winning English director Danny Boyle’s Ink — starring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy — kicking off an 83rd edition that includes films starring the likes of Robert Pattinson, Penelope Cruz & Javier Bardem, Jack Huston & Sofia Boutella, Dakota Johnson, John Malkovich & Sam Rockwell, Alicia Vikander & Susan Sarandon, Nick Nolte and Kate & Rooney Mara in their first movie together.
Along with Ink, this year’s competition lineup includes such buzzy titles seeking awards-season glory as Florian Zeller’s Bunker, Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime, Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love, Andrea Pallaoro’s The Echo Chamber, Casey Affleck’s Company and Warner Herzog’s Bucking Fastard.
Studio titles largely are absent this year, but the overall lineup also includes new films by Luca Guadagnino, Paul Schrader and Wim Wenders along with Laura Poitras’ short about ICE protests in Minnesota, and Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace’s doc on the comeback of rock band Oasis.
Watch on Deadline
Check out Deadline’s reviews out of Venice, and keep checking back as we add more. Click on each to read our full review.
Netflix
Section: Competition
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce, Claire Foy, Jonathan Hyde, Lucy Russell, Abigail Amin, Bertie Carvel, Brian Gleeson, Christopher Fulford, Patrick Kennedy, Blake Harrison, Georgie Henley
Deadline’s takeaway: Danny Boyle with his whip-smart, in-your-face stye is the perfect filmmaker to bring this world set in 1969 London to life as the brash if trash visionary Rupert Murdoch and his hand-picked editor-in-chief launch what would become a new era of tabloid journalism, changing the media world for better or worse in the process. Here all the cylinders are firing, and it is thrilling stuff indeed. — PH
