The 81st Venice Film Festival culminaated with Pedro Almodovar’s The Room Next Door winning the Golden Lion.
Screen’s critics were on the ground at the Lido, and have selected 11 stand-out titles, plus five that are bubbling under.
Compiled by Fionnuala Halligan.
Festival hits
April
Dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili
Our critic said: “The second feature from Kulumbegashvili, April is a formidable, defiantly esoteric work. It demands considerable investment from the audience, but does repay it.”
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Babygirl
Dir. Halina Reijn
Our critic said: “Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson are excellent as carnal combatants, each of their characters jockeying for control.”
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The Brutalist
Dir. Brady Corbet
Our critic said: “For his third feature Corbet has adopted a more American tone, mixing the amplitude of Kubrick or Paul Thomas Anderson with the myth-making tenor of The Fountainhead.”
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Familiar Touch
Dir. Sarah Friedland
Our critic said: “There’s a profound tenderness in Friedland’s affecting first feature and a rare empathy.”
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Happy Holidays
Dir. Scandar Copti
Our critic said: “Palestinian filmmaker Scandar Copti’s compelling new drama places an Arab-speaking Israeli family at the hub of a wheel of intersecting stories.”
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I’m Still Here
Dir. Walter Salles
Our critic said: “Fernanda Torres delivers a standout performance as a real-life matriarch in military-ruled Brazil of the 1970s.”
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The New Year that Never Came
Dir. Bogdan Mureşanu
Our critic said: “With his accomplished feature debut, Mureşanu views a pivotal moment in Romanian history – the fall of the Ceausescu regime – through the eyes and the interconnected stories of six ordinary people.”
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The Room Next Door
Dir. Pedro Almodóvar
Our critic said: “Almodovar has managed to leave his linguistic comfort zone while remaining entirely, inimitably himself.”
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September 5
Dir. Tim Fehlbaum
Our critic said: “This 1972 Munich Olympics hostage drama recounts that tragic day with a combination of electricity and dread, drawing on strong performances for a meditation on the media’s responsibilities during such a volatile situation.”
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Vittoria
Dir. Alessandro Cassigoli, Casey Kauffman
Our critic said: “A working-class Naples mother dreams of adding to her family in this affecting and very real drama.”
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Wolfs
Dir. Jon Watts
Our critic said: “George Clooney and Brad Pitt hit the comedy bullseye as two solitary fixers forced to work together.”
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Bubbling under
Maldoror
Dir. Fabrice du Welz
Our critic said: “Vigorously evokes the epic tales of crime and punishment that became a Sidney Lumet hallmark in 1970s American cinema.”
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Maria
Dir. Pablo Larrain
Our critic said: “Larrain uses the familiar narrative structure of the flashback and adds some operatic grace notes to deliver a performance-led film that is never less than expected – but also never less than watchable.”
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Mistress Dispeller
Dir. Elizabeth Lo
Our critic said: “A delicately realised examination of marriage in modern China.”
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Queer
Dir. Luca Guadagnino
Our critic said: “This first half of the film exhibits the kind of daring that has made Guadagnino the success that he is.”
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Riefenstahl
Dir. Andres Veiel
Our critic said: “A clear-eyed portrait of Third Reich German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl and her post-War attempts to rehabilitate her image.”
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