Author: Jack Salvadori

A fresh breeze swept through the international film circuit this week as Alberto Barbera, Artistic Director of La Biennale Cinema, unveiled the official line-up for the 82nd Venice Film Festival. Running from 27 August to 5 September, this year’s selection has teeth. It blends heavyweight auteurs, bold names, and just enough Oscar bait to make the Lido feel like the official start of awards season.

First off, a course correction worth applauding. After last year’s prestige TV incursion, the festival has quietly remembered its roots. This is a film festival again. And while Cannes 2025 played the sedate game of cerebral chic, Venice is back in full peacock mode, unfurling feathers of star power and swagger. Sure, 2025 isn’t shaping up to be a golden year for cinema, but the best of it, it seems, will be screening on the Lido.

The competition, chaired by Alexander Payne as jury president, kicks off with La Grazia by Paolo Sorrentino. It stars long-time muse Toni Servillo and arrives with all the pomp of a national monument unveiling. After the navel-gazing misstep that was Parthenope, Sorrentino seems desperate for a return to grace. Let’s hope it’s less perfume ad and more political introspection.

Guillermo del Toro drops Frankenstein, arguably one of the year’s hottest tickets. Oscar Isaac plays the doctor, Jacob Elordi his stitched-up creature. Barbera calls it “a visionary reimagining” with “emotional force worthy of the myth.” Yes, we’ve seen a hundred Frankensteins and no, we probably didn’t need another one, but if anyone can give the tale a pulse, it’s del Toro. This could be soulful, not just spooky.

Noah Baumbach is back with Jay Kelly, a satirical dramedy starring George Clooney and his stock company of Adam Sandler, Laura Dern and Greta Gerwig. Baumbach’s White Noise was DOA at Venice 2022, so expectations are high for a return to the emotional precision that once made him New York’s contemporary auteur.

Olivier Assayas casts Jude Law as Vladimir Putin in The Wizard of the Kremlin. Yes, you read that right. Barbera claims it’s “a profound reflection on contemporary power.” Everyone else? They’re bracing for the world’s weirdest character study. Let’s be honest: Law with that haircut might be more unsettling than anything else screening this year.

Kathryn Bigelow returns with A House of Dynamite, a missile-strike thriller starring Idris Elba. She’s one of the few directors who shoots tension like it’s tangible. If it lands, it’ll be peak Bigelow. If not, expect geopolitics for dummies and a lot of grim monologues in crisis rooms.

Jim Jarmusch brings Father Mother Sister Brother, a multi-strand anthology featuring Adam Driver, Cate Blanchett, and Tom Waits. This one was poached from Cannes, and might be the comeback Jarmusch sorely needs after the lifeless The Dead Don’t Die. Let’s hope it’s cool melancholy, not deadpan disaster.

Yorgos Lanthimos, now firmly in his imperial phase, returns with Bugonia, once again starring Emma Stone. After The Favourite, Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness, the duo has become the weirdest power couple in cinema. Lanthimos could film Stone reading IKEA instructions and still get a standing ovation. Venice is his playground, and if the stars align, he might just take home a twin to his 2023 Golden Lion.

Then there’s The Smashing Machine by Benny Safdie, directing solo for the first time. Dwayne Johnson plays MMA legend Mark Kerr, with Emily Blunt adding some dramatic weight to the corner. Barbera called it “a true Oscar contender”, not a phrase anyone expected to hear about The Rock. But with a Safdie at the helm, expect chaos, sweat, and something deeper than a standard sports biopic. That is, unless the brother was the talented one in the duo.

Park Chan-wook returns with No Other Choice, an adaptation of Donald Westlake’s novel starring Lee Byung-hun. Barbera called it “visionary and paranoid,” which is basically Park’s whole aesthetic. With his flair for the operatic and the deranged, this could be a stylish gut-punch, and a serious Golden Lion contender.

László Nemes presents Orphan, reportedly his most personal film to date. Based on his father’s memories of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, it’s unlikely to be a crowd-pleaser, but it’s almost certainly going to be searing, claustrophobic, and deeply felt.

Speaking of summer movies, Alexander Sokurov brings Director’s Diary, a five-hour experimental odyssey that Barbera openly warned “isn’t easy to follow.” That might be the understatement of the year. But if Sokurov’s your thing, bring snacks. The existential crisis is complimentary. It may also be the most original picture in the line-up, and maybe of the year.

And then there’s In the Hand of Dante, starring Al Pacino, Jason Momoa, and an Emmy-nominated newcomer: Martin Scorsese. Yes, that Scorsese. He’s apparently acting now, because why not. A meta-literary fever dream, this could be the weirdest spectacle on the Lido.

Meanwhile, Luca Guadagnino turns up out of competition with After the Hunt, starring Julia Roberts in an academic drama that takes on #MeToo from a safe, tasteful distance. The cultural moment may have passed, but Guadagnino’s eye for mood might still give it bite.

Charlie Kaufman resurfaces with How to Shoot a Ghost, a short film reportedly stuffed with enough meta madness to make your frontal lobe twitch. 

And then there’s Megadoc, the behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. Honestly? Way more intriguing than the actual film. If this turns out to be a portrait of a legendary director unravelling in real time, it might just become the documentary event of the year. 

But then, of course, there’s Werner Herzog. The eternal mad wanderer descends into the Angolan jungle in Ghost Elephants, a poetic, mythic journey filled with fog, mud and philosophical voiceovers. The legendary filmmaker will also be honoured with a Career Golden Lion, alongside Hollywood icon Kim Novak, who thankfully will not appear in the elephants doc but will be celebrated simply for being Kim Novak. Long overdue.

And then, the elephant not in the room: Paul Thomas Anderson. His new film One Battle After Another, backed by Warner Bros, was heavily rumoured to premiere here but vanished without a trace. PTA’s never been big on the festival circuit, and after Joker 2 faceplanted at Venice last year, maybe the studio decided to wait it out. A shame. The line-up is bold, but his absence leaves a tantalising hole.

Still, the roster is stacked with visionaries, provocateurs, and just enough chaos to keep things weird. Venice 2025 isn’t really playing it safe, and that’s exactly what a film festival should do.

Let the lion roar.

Jack Salvadori is an Italian-born, London-based film critic, columnist, and filmmaker. With award-winning short films showcased at over 60 international festivals, he’s now developing both, a feature film and a theatre play. A familiar face at Cannes, Venice, and London Film Festivals, Jack spends most of his time at the BFI, watching everything from old classics to niche gems. He lives in London with his cactus.