Which movies will premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival? Here are our predictions of 10 films we might see at the Biennale’s Mostra del Cinema this year!
UPDATE: READ OUR LIST OF 30 MOVIES TO WATCH AT THE 2024 VENICE FILM FESTIVAL!
It’s that time of the year again! The 2024 Venice Film Festival less than two months away, which means we’re going to find out which movies will premiere at the Mostra del Cinema very soon! The official announcement isn’t until later this month, but we already know that Isabelle Huppert will preside the Jury, Sigourney Weaver will be awarded a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, and Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will be the opening film. But what are the other movies we might see at the Lido this year? Here’s a list of 20 films that we think have a good chance of being added to the 2024 Venice Film Festival lineup! Scroll till the end for more predictions, the dates to remember, and more!
1. JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX
Director: Todd Phillips
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Zazie Beetz, Jacob Lofland, Catherine Keener, Brendan Gleeson, Steve Coogan, Ken Leung
Country: USA
Let’s start with the obvious choice! Todd Phillips’ sequel to the highly successful Joker (2019) will be released on October 4, 2024, and keeping in mind that the first movie also premiered at the Venice Film Festival, we’re probably going to see Folie à Deux at the Lido this year. Variety recently wrote that it “secured a coveted Venice berth,” so we’d be pretty surprised if it wasn’t in the lineup.
Joaquin Phoenix reprises his role as Arthur Fleck in Joker 2, but he’s not alone anymore. Lady Gaga joins him as Harley Quinn, and the trailer gives us plenty of reasons to be excited. From what we can tell, it looks like most of the film will take place at Arkham Asylum, but how long has passed since the first film’s final scene is unclear. Many actors are in the cast, including Zazie Beetz, Catherine Keener, Brendan Gleeson, Steve Coogan, Ken Leung, Jacob Lofland – the latter playing an inmate who becomes friends with Arthur. And yes, Folie à Deux is a musical, but most of it will take place in Joker and Harley’s minds, which means that the possibilities are endless.
For more information about Joker 2, here’s everything we know about Joker: Folie à Deux!
2. MARIA
Director: Pablo Larraín
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Valeria Golino, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alba Rohrwacher, Pierfrancesco Favino
Country: Germany, USA, United Arab Emirates, Italy
Here’s another title that many sources confirmed as very likely to premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. Prolific Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín has brought many films to Venice in the past, including the Kristen Stewart-starring Spencer (2021) and last year’s El Conde. Maria is another biopic, this time
of US-born Greek soprano Maria Callas, played by Angelina Jolie. The film was partly produced in Italy, with Italian stars Valeria Golino, Pierfrancesco Favino and Alba Rohrwacher also in it, alongside Kodi Smit-McPhee and more.
3. QUEER
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Starring: Daniel Craig, Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville, Drew Starkey, David Lowery
Country:
It hasn’t been long since Luca Guadagnino brought Suspiria (2018) and Bones and All (2022) to Venice. But the Call Me By Your Name director was also supposed to return to the Lido last year, when Challengers was announced as the opening film only to be removed from the programme due to the SAG-AFTRA strikes. It makes even more sense for Queer, Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burrough’s novel of the same name, to premiere at the Mostra del Cinema this year.
The protagonist of William S. Burroughs’ autobiographical novel is a man named Lee, who goes from bar to bar in early 1950s Mexico City, pursuing his desires in a self-destructive way. It’s a political novel filled with dark humor, and it sparked controversy in 1985, when it was published (though it was written in 1952). At its core, the novel is about the ugliest side of the American Dream, and we cannot wait to see Guadagnino tackle this subject. Queer was 35 years in the making for Guadagnino. It was shot entirely in Cinecittà, it is currently in post-production, and Daniel Craig plays the lead.
4. MODÌ
Director: Johnny Depp
Starring: Riccardo Scamarcio, Al Pacino, Stephen Graham, Eva-Jane Willis, Antonia Desplat, Sally Phillips, Luisa Ranieri
Country: UK
Guitarist Corcho Rodriguez recently posted a photo on instagram of himself and director Johnny Depp raising their glasses, with the tagline “Rumbo al Festival de Venezia” (“Heading to the Venice Film Festival”). Even though nothing has been officially confirmed yet, this pretty much makes it a festival title to us. Modì is a biopic of Italian painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani, played by Riccardo Scamarcio, and Al Pacino is also in the film as art collector Maurice Gangnat.
5. WOLFS
Director: John Watts
Starring: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Amy Ryan, Austin Abrams, Poorna Jagannathan
Country: USA
Both George Clooney and Brad Pitt have attended many editions of the festival, but could 2024 be the year where they’ll both be at the Lido? John Watts’ Wolfs, which marks the two stars’ reunion since the Ocean’s saga and the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading (which also premiered in Venice), is scheduled to hit theaters on September 20 this year, which makes it a very strong candidate for Venice.
Co-produced by Apple and Sony’s Columbia Pictures, this action comedy is about a professional fixer (Clooney) hired for the cover up of a high profile crime. But when he arrives at the crime scene, another fixer (Pitt) is there too. As the two come to terms with the fact that they will have to work together, insanity ensues in a night that quickly spirals out of control. Clooney and Pitt are both producers, and Amy Ryan is also in the cast.
6. THE BRUTALIST
Director: Brady Corbet
Starring: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird
Country: UK
Remember Brady Corbet, who brought the absolute gem that was Vox Lux to Venice in 2018? The writer-director has a new project, which he co-wrote with frequent collaborator Mona Fastvold and which many hoped to see in Cannes earlier this year. The film has an all-star cast that includes Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn and Emma Laird, alongside Raffey Cassidy and Stacy Martin, who were both in Vox Lux.
The Brutalist tells the true story of architect László Toth, who move to the States in 1947 with his wife Erzsébet to escape post-war Europe. There, they start building a life for themselves and earn their place in the ever-changing, modern world, until they meet a wealthy client who threatens to destroy everything they worked so hard to achieve. The film has been in the works for a while, but it has wrapped shooting and Focus Features bought the international rights for ditribution. It should be ready in time for Venice.
7. I’M STILL HERE
Director: Walter Salles
Starring: Fernanda Montenegro, Maeve Jinkings, Selton Mello, Fernanda Torret, Carla Ribas
Country: Brazil
No, not that I’m Still Here. This I’m Still Here – or, in its original title, Ainda Estou Aqui – is a very promising project from Brazil, from The Motorcycle Diaries and Paris, I Love You director Walter Salles. It was one of the movies at the 2024 Cannes market, Sony Pictures Classics acquired its distribution rights in various countries. It’s been exactly ten years since Salles’ previous feature, Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang, which makes us very excited for this project.
I’m Still Here is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir of the same name, depicting the time when his father was captured by the military regime in 1960s Brazil, and became one of the many people who were tortured by the dictatorship, without a process, and later disappeared. Paiva’s mother was then forced into a life of activism, determined to solve her husband’s disappearance, and the book mainly focuses on her life.
Biopics are what Salles’ does best, and I’m Still Here – co-written by Murilo Hauser (Mariner of the Mountains) and Heitor Lorega (Karim Aïnouz’s Un Certain Regard Award-winning Invisible Life) – sounds like another story that needs to be told. Its North American premiere will be at TIFF, but this means it could come to Venice first. It wouldn’t be Salles’ first time at the festival: in 2013, he directed a short as part of the documentary feature Venice 70: Future Reloaded, which premiered there.
8. CONCLAVE
Director: Edward Berger
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, Lucian Msamati, Sergio Castellitto
Countries: UK, USA
We were hoping to see this one in Cannes, but since it didn’t make its way to the Croisette, it would make sense for it to premiere in Venice. It would make even more sense since on July 18 Focus Features released the trailer! Directed by German filmmaker Edward Berger (2022’s All Quiet on the Western Front), Conclave is set in Italy but was produced in the US and UK.
It takes place at the Vatican, where Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is tasked with leading the titular Conclave – a mysterious event that has been taking place since ancient times, leading to the choosing of a new Pope. As if that wasn’t daunting enough, the Cardinal soon finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy that might threaten the Church’s very existence. Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, Lucian Msamati and Sergio Castellitto are also in the cast.
9. CHOCOBAR
Director: Lucrecia Martel
Country: Argentina
Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel (The Headless Woman) has a new film, the first since 2017’s Zama, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Since then, she also presided the International Jury in 2019, so it would make sense for her to bring her new movie to the Lido too. Chocobar is a documentary about the murder of the titular indigenous activist, Javier Chocobar, which led to his community being deprived of their ancestral land in Argentina.
10. THE ORDER
Director: Justin Kurzel
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Jurnee Smollett, Jude Law, Tye Sheridan, Odessa Young, Marc Maron
Country: USA
Here’s another title that acquired distribution at this year’s Cannes Market. Australian director Justin Kurzel‘s (Macbeth, Nitram) The Order was acquired by Vertical for US distribution and will have its North America premiere at TIFF. Back in 2021, Nitram was screened at multiple festivals, so we think The Order has good chances of having its World Premiere in Venice – even more so since it would be Jude Law’s second project at the Mostra – before it heads to TIFF a few days later.
Nicholas Hoult plays the lead in the Pacific Northwest-set The Order: the only FBI agent who thinks the bank robberies taking place to be the work not of thieves looking for money, but of a network of local terrorists. Also starring Tye Sheridan, Odessa Young, Jurnee Smollett, and more.
11. DUSE
Director: Pietro Marcello
Starring: Noémie Merlant, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Vincenzo Nemolato
Countries: Italy, France
Director Pietro Marcello was last seen at the Venice Film Festival in 2019, when he brought the Luca Marinelli-starring Martin Eden to the Lido. His new movie is a biopic titled Duse after its protagonist, Italian stage diva Eleonora Duse. The actress, who was born in 1858 and passed away 100 years ago, became a symbol of modern theatre and we cannot wait to see her depicted on screen. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (Anaïs in Love) will play her in Marcello’s film, and Noémie Merlant is also in the cast. Duse was produced by Palomar and its international sale is handled by The Match Factory. The film is ready, so it’s very likely to premiere in Venice.
12. THE SALT PATH
Director: Marianne Elliott
Starring: Gillian Anderson, Jason Isaacs, James Lance
Country: UK
Gillian Anderson, Jason Isaacs, and Trent Crimm, The Independent James Lance star in this promising BBC production. Adapted from Raynor Winn’s memoir of the same name, it’s the debut feature of Laurence Olivier and Tony Award-winning British theatre director Marianne Elliott, mainly known for her Royal National Theatre production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2015), and her National Theatre projects, War Horse (2007) – co-directed with Tom Morris – and Angels in America (2018).
The Salt Path is a Cannes Market title, acquired by Black Bear for UK distribution. The film is about a couple who suddenly find themselves without a home. When the husband discover he has a terminal illness, they embark on an arduous, 630-mile year-long trek on the UK’s South West Coast. Get your tissues ready!
13. THE HAND OF DANTE
Director: Julian Schnabel
Starring: Al Pacino, Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Sabrina Impacciatore, Franco Nero
Countries: UK, Italy, Chile, USA
One of the most exciting movies we might see at the 2024 Venice Film Festival is Julian Schnabel’s The Hand Of Dante, which was actually partly shot in Venezia Lido last year. The film is currently in post-production but it should be finished in time for the festival. There’s a very strong chance we’ll see it at the Mostra del Cinema, even more so considering that one of its production companies is the Johnny Depp-founded Infinitum Nihil, and Al Pacino, who is in the cast of Modì, is also in The Hand Of Dante.
We last saw Julian Schnabel at the Venice Film Festival in 2018, with At Eternity’s Gate, but many more movies of his (Before Night Falls, Basquiat, Miral) had their world premiere there – yet another reason why we’re hoping to see The Hand Of Dante there too.
The premise of this crime drama is the manuscript of Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy” being passed from a to a New York City mob boss – and eventually reaching a US journalist who is tasked with checking its authenticity. The rest of its all-star cast includes (brace yourself) Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, Jason Momoa, John Malkovich, Sabrina Impacciatore, Franco Nero, and more. But that’s not all: we hear Martin Scorsese does a cameo in the movie too.
14. THE ROOM NEXT DOOR
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Starring: Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola
Country: Spain
Pedro Almodóvar loves the Venice Film Festival, and we love him all the more for it. Variety confirmed that his new film, The Room Next Door, might premiere at the Lido this year, and they think that it might even be in competition. It would make sense, since so was Parallel Mothers back in 2021, when Penélope Cruz won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. Julianne Moore, Tinda Swinton and a great cast star in his new film, which is also the Almodóvar’s first English language movie. It takes place in New England and it’s about a mother and a daughter who are estranged and resentful due to a misunderstanding. Get your “we should all be feminists” t-shirts ready!
15. PEDRO PÁRAMO
Director: Rodrigo Prieto
Starring: Mayra Batalla, Giovanna Zacarías, Gabriela Núñez
Country: Mexico
Venice likes to host World Premieres of Netflix projects, and the streamer has brought many acclaimed movies to the Lido in the past. Last year alone, El Conde, Maestro, The Killer, Society of the Snow, and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar all premiered at the Mostra. So did the Oscar-winning The Power of the Dog a few years ago, among others.
It’s hard to tell which movies Netflix will bring to Venice in 2024. Some of their most anticipated releases, like Susannah Grant’s Lonely Planet, McG’s adaptation of Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies, and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, might not be ready in time. Others, like Malcolm Washington’s The Piano Lesson and Tyler Perry’s Six Triple Eight, are incredibly promising, but we think they’re more likely to be headed to TIFF.
We think Netflix’s presence at the Venice Film Festival will be less prominent than past years, due to how the strikes affected production. Yet, we might still see Rodrigo Prieto’s Pedro Páramo, an adaptation of Juan Rulfo’s cult novel of the same name. The film is cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto’s (Brokeback Mountain, The Wolf of Wall Street, Barbie) feature directorial debut, and it might just be the surprise of the festival. Juan Rulfo has a unique way of using magic realism to tell deeply human stories that stay with you for a long time, and we cannot wait to see how Prieto adapted this hypnotic tale for the screen. Keep your fingers crossed for this one: you’d be in for a treat.
16. BATTLEFIELD
Director: Gianni Amelio
Starring: Alessandro Borghi, Federica Rosellini, Giovanni Scotti, Gabriel Montesi
Country: Italy
Both director Gianni Amelio and lead Alessandro Borghi are Venice Film Festival veterans. Their latest collaboration, Battlefield (Campo di Battaglia), is currently in post-production, so we might see it at the Lido this year. The WWI, Udine-set drama revolves around two doctors and a nurse silently competing with one another when the Spanish flu hits.
17. NAPLES TO NEW YORK
Director: Gabriele Salvatores
Starring: Omar Benson Miller, Pierfrancesco Favino, Tomas Arana
Country: Italy
This one is a long shot, as it’s currently in post-production and we don’t know if it would be completed in time for Venice. Yet, here’s hoping we’ll see this Italian production at the Biennale! Iconic director Gabriele Salvatores (Mediterraneo, I’m Not Scared) teams up with star Pierfrancesco Favino (Comandante) for Naples to New York (Napoli – New York), a period drama about two Neapolitan kids who take the titular journey to emigrate to New York and escape post-war Italy. It’s based on a story that Federico Fellini wrote before he started directing: we couldn’t be more excited.
18. HARVEST
Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari
Starring: Caleb Landry Jones, Harry Melling, Frank Dillane
Country: UK
We would love to see Greek producer, writer and director Athina Rachel Tsangari’s (Chevalier) Harvest at the 2024 Venice Film Festival! The movie is a neo-western about two childhood friends – a farmer (Caleb Landry-Jones) and the lord of the manor (Henry Melling) – in a village with no name. One day, modernity arrives, in the form of three strangers who move to the village, and the community soon makes them their scapegoat. Shot entirely in Scotland, Harvest is adapted from Jim Crace’s bestselling novel of the same name.
19. DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT
Director: Embeth Davidtz
Starring: Embeth Davidtz, Andreas Damm, Zikhona Bali
Country: South Africa
The Venice Film Festival loves debut, and star Embeth Davidtz’s new film has a good chance of being added to the lineup. Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight is adapted from Alexandra Fuller’s 2015 bestselling novel and takes place in 1970s Rhodesia during the Civil War. It will have its Canadian Premiere at TIFF, which means that it might also have Venice World Premiere!
20. THE END
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Starring: Michael Shannon, Tilda Swinton, George MacKay, Lennie James, Moses Ingram
Country: Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Italy, UK, USA, Sweden
The multi-award-winning director of The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence has just completed his first fictional movie, and it’s a (wait for it) post-apocalyptic, Golden Age-style musical about the last human family to inhabit the Earth. We don’t know if we’ll see The End in Venice: it already has a US distributor (Neon), so it might be headed to Telluride or TIFF instead. Here’s hoping!
VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2024: OTHER MOVIES WE MIGHT SEE
We think the films below have a good chance of being added to the 2024 Venice Film Festival slate this year! They haven’t been announced as premiering at other festivals yet (unlike Steve McQueen’s Blitz and Audrey Diwan’s Emmanuelle, which will have their world premieres at London and San Sebastián, respectively) and they should all be ready by the time the festival starts.
- Baby Invasion, Harmony Korine
- Cloud, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
- Disappearance, Kirill Serebrennikov
- Fuori, Mario Martone
- Iddu, Antonio Piazza
- L’Abbaglio, Roberto Andò
- Lucca Mortis, Peter Greenaway
- The Light, Tom Tykwer
- M: Son of the Century, Joe Wright (series)
- Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Jim Jarmush
- Those Who Find Me, Dea Kulumbegashvili
- Maldoror, Fabrice du Welz
- La Vallée des Fous, Xavier Beauvois
- Uprising, Sang Man Kim (Netflix)
- Vermiglio, The Mountain Bride, Maura Delpero
- Wake of Umbra, Carlos Reygadas
- When Autumn Comes, François Ozon
ANTICIPATED TITLES WE WOULD LOVE TO SEE AT THE FESTIVAL
These movies are highly anticipated, and though we are strongly campaigning for them to be at the festival (Biennale, do you copy?), it’s unlikely we’ll see them in Venice this year. With TIFF and Telluride also taking place soon, and Sundance in January, many big US productions might premiere there instead. Some of them, like Michel Franco’s latest, might not be ready in time. However, the Venice Film Festival has surprised us before, so we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed!
- Dreams, Michel Franco
- Here, Robert Zemeckis
- Juror #2, Clint Eastwood
- Mother Mary, David Lowery
2024 VENICE FILM FESTIVAL: DATES TO REMEMBER
The 2024 Venice Film Festival will take place at Venice Lido on August 28 – September, 7 2024. The Biennale will be announce the lineup at a press conference on July 23, 2024. The list of films will go live on the Biennale’s website on the same day. The Virtual Reality strand of the festival, Venice Immersive, will be announced on July 18. The Giornate degli Autori and Settimana della Critica announcements are on July 19 and July 22, respectively. The calendar with dates and times of the screenings won’t be announced till mid-August. Keep an eye on the site for more updates and don’t forget to follow us on our socials:
