For a while, it was thought that the SAG-AFTRA strike in Hollywood might scupper this year’s autumn festival season. The opening film of this year’s Venice Film Festival — Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers — got pulled from its slot and its official release postponed from September to April next year.
But even if there’s little chance of movie stars showing up on the red carpet, there’s still a wealth of arthouse cinema to explore in the coming festival months. Among them: a Jacob Elordi-starring biopic from Sofia Coppola, the buzzy arrival of a fresh set of young and hungry British filmmakers, yet another eccentric Wes Anderson picture; new Lanthimos, Fincher, and Larraín. So, let’s get into it. Here are 10 movies set to make a splash at the 2023 edition of the Venice Film Festival.
1. Priscilla (Sofia Coppola)
The director of The Virgin Suicides and The Bling Ring delves back into the real world with her new project: a biopic of Elvis’ wife, Priscilla Presley. Based on Priscilla’s own biopic, Elvis and Me, it sees Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi assume the central roles. Those who’ve seen it are already calling the A24-produced picture one of her best.
2. Hoard (Luna Carmoon)
A name we’re hearing lots of recently is Luna Carmoon’s. The first-time British director is arriving at Venice Film Festival with her debut feature Hoard, a drama about a mother-daughter relationship in the Britain of the 80s and 90s, starring Joseph Quinn of Stranger Things fame and Beau is Afraid breakout Hayley Squires.
3. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello)
He caused chaos with his controversial terrorism movie Nocturama and unpicked the life of one of France’s most iconic designers in Saint Laurent. Now, for his next project, Bertrand Bonello is adapting the madhatter book The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James. Starring Léa Seydoux and George Mackay, it’s a dystopian sci-fi about two people who meet in a world artificially sapped of emotional connection, and believe they’ve somehow met before.
4. The Royal Hotel (Kitty Green)
Kitty Green’s last film, The Assistant, was a buzzy and frank depiction of the life of an abusive movie exec’s junior assistant released in the wake of the Weinstein trial. Her next looks like an equally compelling portrayal of power play. In The Royal Hotel, two backpackers in the Australian Outback take up a job at a strange, rural hotel bar. But when the banter of the jovial patrons turns dark, so too does their situation. Neon, the US distributor of Parasite, will release it after its festival run.
5. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
The Japanese director behind the Murakami-inspired 2021 heartbreaker Drive My Car will return in 2023 with a duo of films, titled Evil Does Not Exist and Gift. The former will premiere at Venice, and the latter at Film Fest Gent in Belgium, where composer Eiko Ishibashi will perform its score live. According to the festival site, their collaboration was “developed in conjunction with” Evil Does Not Exist, “which takes a different approach to the same footage and scenario.” Intriguing!
6. Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Emma Stone is set to have a truly deranged main character moment in Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest, a playfully surreal take on Frankenstein. As Belle Baxter, she plays a woman whose brain has been replaced with that of an unborn child — her creator (Willem Dafoe) is a mad scientist-type, responsible for this and several other disconcerting experiments.
7. The Killer (David Fincher)
Starring Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton and more, the Fight Club filmmaker’s latest is — you guessed it — yet another psychological thriller, this time on the action side of the genre. Based on a French graphic novel series by the writer Matz and artist Luc Jacamon, the story follows an assassin as he fights for his life against his employers.
8. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Wes Anderson)
Shot entirely in 16mm, Wes Anderson’s new film (based on an adult-oriented Roald Dahl anthology) is said to explore a variety of stories, but its main thread follows Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch), a man with the ability to “see through objects and predict the future with the help of a book he stole.” Also starring Dev Patel, Richard Ayoade and others, expect a stacked cast for this straight-to-Netflix tale.
9. Aggro Dr1ft (Harmony Korine)
For a few years now, rumours have been floating around of a Harmony Korine–Travis Scott team-up. What we know about the underground A24 film is scarce, only that it’s an “action-oriented” feature starring the rapper alongside actor Jordi Mollà, with The Film Stage reporting that the whole movie was shot in infrared.
10. El Conde (Pablo Larraín)
The Chilean auteur behind Spencer is back with an allegorical black comedy. Its star? Alfredo Castro as infamous dictator Augusto Pinochet, who has been living secretly as a vampire for the past 250 years. It tracks! Speaking to Variety, the director explains he wanted to explore “the idea of evil being able to feed itself in order to exist over the years”. “In many countries in Europe, and particularly in Chile, we’ve seen how this political right is exploring new ways to conquer voters and to conquer power.”