The 13 Most Anticipated Films at the Venice Film Festival 2025
The Venice Film Festival is always a splashy moment, but this year’s 82nd edition is one of its starriest yet. That’s true in front of the camera, with boldfaced names like George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Cate Blanchett, Laura Dern, Emma Stone, Ayo Edebiri, Amanda Seyfried, Emily Blunt, Greta Lee, Idris Elba, Oscar Isaac, and Jacob Elordi all leading films in the competition.
But it’s behind the scenes, too, where this year’s lineup includes heavy-hitting filmmaking legends and the return of several auteurs following years-long breaks, including Kathryn Bigelow, Guillermo del Toro, Jim Jarmusch, Noah Baumbach, Park Chan-wook, Gus Van Sant, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Luca Guadagnino. Plus, with Sofia Coppola’s first-ever documentary, about longtime friend Marc Jacobs, premiering, the Lido is sure to be an especially fashionable affair this year.
Below, the 13 most anticipated films of the 2025 Venice Film Festival, which runs from August 27 to September 6:
After the Hunt (Luca Guadagnino)
Luca Guadagnino has had a handful of films premiere at Venice (most recently, 2024’s Queer), and this year his entry is the morally charged thriller After the Hunt. The film stars Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield as college professors and friends who get caught up in allegations by a star student, played by Ayo Edebiri. Based on the trailer, After the Hunt will take aim at cancel culture and the kind of on-campus generational divides that dominate op-ed section discourse. Jonathan Anderson is doing the costumes, with frequent Guadagnino collaborators Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross once again doing the score.
Marc by Sofia (Sofia Coppola)
Sofia Coppola will tell the story of her dear friend and collaborator, Marc Jacobs, in her first documentary: Marc by Sofia. The film promises rare access to Jacobs’s creative world, anchored by decades of the pair’s mutual influence on one another. Fashion documentaries don’t always receive proper cinematic treatment, but with an eye like Coppola behind the lens, Marc by Sofia is sure to be compelling.
Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro)
Guillermo del Toro will bring his singular vision to an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic 1818 novel with Frankenstein. The long-awaited film stars Oscar Isaac as Victor and Jacob Elordi as his grotesque invention. Mia Goth also joins the cast in two separate roles. The Gothic film will stream on Netflix in November following its Venice premiere. Del Toro has a history of success at Venice; the last time the Mexican director debuted a film there, 2017’s The Shape of Water, it went on to receive 13 Academy Award nominations (and multiple wins) after taking home the festival’s Golden Lion for Best Film.
Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Yorgos Lanthimos returns to Venice this year with Bugonia, a dark sci-fi comedy based on the 2003 South Korean cult hit Save the Green Planet. In the film, Emma Stone plays a girlboss CEO who gets kidnapped by a conspiracy theorist played by Jesse Plemons. The Greek director won the festival’s Golden Lion prize in 2023, for the Stone-starring (and later, Oscar-winning) Poor Things. In 2023, Lanthimos praised his frequent muse, telling W of Stone, “There is absolutely nothing that Emma cannot do. She is fearless.”
The Smashing Machine (Benny Safdie)
The Smashing Machine brings Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) and Uncut Gems director Benny Safdie together for two career highs: a serious dramatic role for the former, and his first solo feature for the latter. The Smashing Machine, which also stars Emily Blunt, is a gritty biopic of MMA legend Mark Kerr, with Johnson in the lead role. Shot on 16mm film, The Smashing Machine appears to be a raw portrait of the personal cost of stardom and athletic obsession. Hopefully, it’s not as devastating as The Iron Claw or as gruesome as Magazine Dreams.
Father Mother Sister Brother (Jim Jarmusch)
Both legendary director Jim Jarmusch and the relatively new Saint Laurent Productions will make their competition debut at Venice with Father Mother Sister Brother. The film, which was also written by Jarmusch, boasts an eclectic ensemble led by Adam Driver and Cate Blanchett (and featuring Tom Waits, naturally). Father Mother Sister Brother marks Jarmusch’s first feature since 2019’s The Dead Don’t Die, and while plot details are still under wraps, the director has called it a “very subtle film; it’s very quiet…Funny and sad.”
Jay Kelly (Noah Baumbach)
Noah Baumbach returns to Venice for the first time since 2022’s White Noise, this time with a dramedy about an aging movie star, Jay (George Clooney), grappling with his legacy. Adam Sandler plays Clooney’s agent, Lauren Dern his publicist, and Riley Keough his eldest daughter. Given the casting, it’s a very meta moment.
A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow)
Not much is known about Kathryn Bigelow’s first film in eight years, except that it falls in line with the renowned Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty director’s penchant for politically charged thrillers. A House of Dynamite, which reportedly follows a group of White House officials as they “scramble to deal with” a missile attack on the U.S., stars an ensemble cast that includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Greta Lee, Anthony Ramos, and Moses Ingram.
The Wizard of the Kremlin (Olivier Assayas)
It may be Wicked season, but Oz this is not: French director Olivier Assayas’s political thriller The Wizard of the Kremlin delivers us Jude Law as a young Vladimir Putin while rising to power during the final years of the Soviet Union and the start of the Russian Federation. Paul Dano plays the fictional character of Vadim Baranov, Putin’s right hand, in a story based on the 2022 novel of the same name by Giuliano da Empoli. Alicia Vikander, Zach Galifianakis, Tom Sturridge, and Jeffrey Wright round out the cast.
The Testament of Ann Lee (Mona Fastvold)
Musical historical drama The Testament of Ann Lee stars Amanda Seyfried as the titular Ann, who founded the Shakers religious sect in the 18th century (Seyfried, of course, long ago proved her singing chops with Mamma Mia!). The film, which also features Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, and Christopher Abbott, was directed by Norwegian filmmaker Mona Fastvold, who co-wrote the script with her longtime partner, Brady Corbet. Just last year, Corbet took home Venice’s Silver Lion (not to mention Best Director at the Golden Globes and several Oscar nods) for the Adrien Brody-starring The Brutalist.
No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook)
Park Chan-wook won Best Director at Cannes for 2022’s Decision to Leave, a neo-noir romantic mystery. But the esteemed filmmaker’s Venice entry this time around is more comedic: No Other Choice stars Korean cinema royalty Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin in a darkly comic thriller about a man who seeks to get revenge on his competitors after losing his longtime job.
Dead Man’s Wire (Gus Van Sant)
Gus Van Sant’s first feature since 2018, Dead Man’s Wire, is a retelling of a surreal 1970s crisis, in which distressed Indiana man Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) took his mortgage broker, Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery) hostage with a loaded gun attached to his head. Colman Domingo, Myha’la, and Al Pacino are also in the featured cast. Van Sant first competed at Cannes with 1991’s My Own Private Idaho, which launched Keanu Reeves’s career as a serious actor and won River Phoenix the festival’s Volpi Cup. This year, he’ll be recognized with Venice’s Campari Passion for Film Award, marking his decades-long standing as a key figure in American indie cinema and his lasting influence with films like Good Will Hunting, Elephant, and Milk.
In the Hand of Dante (Julian Schnabel)
Another American director will be honored on the Lido this year—Julian Schnabel will receive the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award, given to someone who has made an especially original contribution to film. Alongside the award, Schnabel will also present his film In the Hand of Dante, adapted from the 2002 novel of the same name by Nick Tosches. Oscar Isaac plays both Tosches and Dante, and leads an ensemble cast that includes Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, Al Pacino, John Malkovich, Martin Scorsese, and Jason Momoa.
