From September 2 to 12, the Lido of Venice once again transforms into the world capital of cinema. The 83rd Venice International Film Festival, directed by Alberto Barbera, brings together once again great names of international cinema, works by emerging directors, restorations, documentaries, series, and immersive projects.
The heart of the Festival is naturally Venice 83, the international competition that will award the Golden Lion, but the program includes several official sections: Venice 83, Venice Open – Out of Competition, Orizzonti, Venice Spotlight, Venice Classics, Venice Immersive, and Biennale College Cinema, in addition to Special Screenings.
Here are all the titles to note before setting sail for the Lido!
Venice 83 – Competition
There are 20 films competing for the Golden Lion. Among the most anticipated names are Danny Boyle, Nanni Moretti, Werner Herzog, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Martin McDonagh, Lee Chang-dong, and Casey Affleck.
Ink — Danny Boyle
Bucking Fastard — Werner Herzog
Wild Horse Nine — Martin McDonagh
15/18 (A Place to Heal) — Cédric Kahn
Nelson san, anata wa hito wo koroshimashitaka? (Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?) — Shinya Tsukamoto
Primetime — Lance Oppenheim
Succederà questa notte (It Will Happen Tonight) — Nanni Moretti
Ga-neung-han sa-rang (Possible Love) — Lee Chang-dong
The Echo Chamber — Andrea Pallaoro
Kvinde Ukendt (Woman Unknown) — May el-Toukhy
Look Back — Hirokazu Kore-eda
L’estranea — Paolo Strippoli
Bunker — Florian Zeller
Company — Casey Affleck
Dau — Ilya Khrzhanovsky
Un bon petit soldat — Stéphane Brizé
Il fuoco che ti porti dentro (The Fire Within You) — Edoardo De Angelis
Un peu avant minuit — Nicolas Pariser
Kami nour (A Bit of Light) — Ali Asgari
Ritorno a Buenos Aires — Marco Bechis
A gem
The festival opens with Ink, Danny Boyle's new film, which is also in competition. The cast includes Jack O'Connell, Guy Pearce, and Claire Foy.
And presiding over the jury that will award the Golden Lion is Maggie Gyllenhaal, joined by Kaouther Ben Hania, Daniel Blumberg, Francesco Casetti, Xavier Giannoli, Shahrbanoo Sadat, and Johnnie To.
Venice Open – Out of Competition
This is the most free-spirited section: it gathers films by established authors, non-narrative works, documentaries, films about cinema, short films, and even series and miniseries.
Fiction
Nessun dolore — Gianni Amelio
Makikiraan po (Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors) — Lav Diaz
Father Joe — Barthélémy Grossmann
Scherzetto — Mario Martone
Place to Be — Kornél Mundruczó
No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman — Halkawt Mustafa
Arrested Memory — Sabu
The Basics of Philosophy — Paul Schrader
Un bon avocat — Tristan Seguela
Jupiter — Alexandre Smia
Dio ride — Giovanni Veronesi
Non Fiction
Be Brave — Francesco Carrozzini
What Love Builds — Russell Crowe
Burgundy — Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw
Musk — Alex Gibney
The Road to Jericho — Amos Gitai
Al Mowaten Osama (Citizen Osama) — Ahmed Hassouna
Union Town — Barbara Kopple
Holy Wood Dust — Victor Kossakovsky
Listy (Letters from the Silenced Country) — Andrei Kutsila
Biografía de Jorge Luis Borges — Mariano Llinás
My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile — Julia Loktev
Boatbuilders — Luke Lorentzen
Imperium — Sergei Loznitsa
Shumei: The Living Legacy of Kabuki — Takashi Miike
Queer Edward II — Theo Rollason
Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger — Dylan Southern, Will Lovelace
Weichen (Dust) — Tsai Ming-liang
Everest: The Other Side — Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin
From Inside Out – The Architecture of Peter Zumthor — Wim Wenders
Film on Films
Juso per ferie — Karen Di Porto
Nino – Un film su Nino Rota — Walter Fasano
The Pervert’s Guide to Utopias — Sophie Fiennes
JOIE DE VIVRE... — Luca Guadagnino
Twist & Shoot Mister Suzuki — Yves Montmayeur
Intermission — Yonfan
Short Films
Flesh Impact — Maggie Gyllenhaal
Halayon (Wild Asparagus) — Avi Mograbi
They’re Here — Laura Poitras, Rachel Lauren Mueller
Series
Peccato — Valerio Vestoso, featuring an ensemble cast including Emanuela Fanelli, Francesca Archibugi, Alessandro Borghi, Paola Cortellesi, and many others.
Horizons
Horizons is the second major competition of the festival: it is dedicated to new aesthetic and expressive trends in international cinema, with a particular focus on debuts, young authors, independent cinema, and lesser-known cinematographies.
Feature Films in Competition
Yak Mai (The Burning Giants) — Phuttiphong Aroonpheng
Cudze rzeczy (What Belongs to Others) — Grzegorz Dębowski
Una storia — Anna Foglietta
La città dei vivi — Edoardo Gabbriellini
Moragheb (Falling House) — Mohsen Gharaei
Too Much Sugar — Robert Greene
The Difficult Bride — Rubaiyat Hossain
La maison du vent (House of the Wind) — Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu
I figli della scimmia — Tommaso Landucci
Mia mera sti zoi tis tzo: kefalaio Faidra (A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra) — Jacqueline Lentzou
Oase (Oasis) — Jannis Lenz
Do kraja dana (Until the Day Ends) — Jelena Maksimović
La ragazza con la Leica — Alina Marazzi
La Moula — Jérôme Pierrat
Lovers in the Blue Night — Anuparna Roy
Un détour par Diane — Ann Sirot, Raphaël Balboni
The Color of the Sun — Xavier Tera
Eklipse — Manuel Wetscher
Huangyan shenghuo (Big Little Things) — Michelle Zhou
Horizons also includes 13 short films, while two others will be presented out of competition. Among the titles are Angelo azzurro, Mothmama, Sasso, carta, forbici by Virginia Mori, and Paper Plane, directed by Saoirse Ronan.
The 13 in competition are:
Angelo azzurro (My First Day of Summer) — Tommaso Acquarone
Tesztpálya (Test Track) — Lydia Cornett
Mothmama — Jessica DiCosta
Una fortaleza — Alba Gaviraghi
Los poderes — Salim Jaller
Head of a Camel — Shannon Lee
Tropikos tou thrinountos gkeko — Stavros Markoulakis
Bleu au loin (Distant Blue) — Amir Houshang Moein
Sasso, carta, forbici — Virginia Mori
Man Made Lake — Annie Ning
Paper Plane — Saoirse Ronan
Quelques instants de bonheur — Shaden Safieddine Tazi
Silence — Pavlo Shpegun
Venice Spotlight
This is not a competition: it is a selection of eight works without genre constraints, designed to stand out for innovation and originality in their relationship with the audience.
Hiwar ma’ albahr (Conversation With The Sea) — Muayad Alayan
Hombre al agua — Gael García Bernal
Serpenti — Roberto De Paolis Maino
Furies — Rami Kodeih
Guria — Levan Koguashvili
Földszint (Ground Floor) — Gábor Reisz
Eu contez (I Matter) — Alina Şerban
Sumo: Spirit Weighs Nothing — Erik Shirai
A little curiosity: among these is Hombre al agua, directed by Gael García Bernal, who thus arrives at the Lido not only as an actor but also as a director.
Venice Classics
For those who love film history, Venice Classics brings 19 restorations presented in world premiere to Venice.
Among the titles:
Col cuore in gola — Tinto Brass
English, August — Dev Benegal
La ilusión viaja en tranvía — Luis Buñuel
Minnie and Moskowitz — John Cassavetes
Lo zio di Brooklyn — Ciprì e Maresco
The Wild Angels — Roger Corman
Los de la mesa 10 — Simón Feldman
The Blue Eyes of Yonta — Flora Gomes
The Story of Woo Viet — Ann Hui
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders — Jaromil Jireš
Yesterday Girl — Alexander Kluge
To Be or Not to Be — Ernst Lubitsch
On the Beat — Ning Ying
Cul-de-sac — Roman Polanski
Viaggio in Italia — Roberto Rossellini
Brutti, sporchi e cattivi — Ettore Scola
The Catch — Shinji Sōmai
La lunga notte del '43 — Florestano Vancini
Ashes and Diamonds — Andrzej Wajda
For enthusiasts: the section opens with Col cuore in gola by Tinto Brass, a 1967 film made with the collaboration of Guido Crepax.
Venice Immersive
Here, Venice completely changes its language: the section is dedicated to VR, AR, MR, XR, immersive installations, and virtual worlds.
In 2026, it is particularly special because Venice Immersive celebrates its tenth anniversary: it presents 68 projects from 26 countries, with 30 in competition, 35 out of competition, and 3 developed within the Biennale College Cinema – Immersive.
Among the 30 projects in competition, we find, for example:
Amsterdam 1652: The Hands of the City
Anokhya: The Origin
Artou — Abderrahmane Sissako
Back to the Experience
Being in You
Bowie: Unseen Unheard
DisneyNature's Wolf: An Immersive Experience
Empire at Sea
Everest: The First Ascent
Eyes of Shame
Finding Frida
Galapagos: The Last Eden
Honeyboys
Nel Blu
Nevatars — Andy Serkis, Josh Nelson Youssef
Nothing to See Here
Nox
Octopocalypse
Ôl (Haunts)
Out of the Ashes
Outrenoir
Raj'in (We Shall Return)
Shifting Connections
Smithsonian Starstruck: An Immersive Experience
Solwata
Sunset Motel
The Pigeon Ring
Tomori
And this is one of the most beautiful gems of the edition: Venice Immersive was the first competition dedicated to virtual reality organized by a major international category A festival.
Biennale College Cinema
Finally, there is Biennale College Cinema, the workshop dedicated to discovering new talents and producing micro-budget feature films. This year, four films are presented:
Demetra in esilio — Maria Giovanna Cicciari
Tijuana, todavía — Gabriel Gutierrez Morales
Gu shi — Amie Song
Moonfish — Daniel Zvereff
Special Screenings
Completing the official selection are two special screenings:
Dai nostri inviati. La Rai racconta la Mostra del Cinema di Venezia 2001-2012 — Giuseppe Giannotti, Enrico Salvatori, Nicoletta Berardi
Il desiderio di essere inutile – Hugo a Venezia — Stefano Knuchel
Who will award the Golden Lion?
The jury of Venice 83 is presided over by Maggie Gyllenhaal and includes Kaouther Ben Hania, Daniel Blumberg, Francesco Casetti, Xavier Giannoli, Shahrbanoo Sadat, and Johnnie To. On September 12, they will award, among others, the Golden Lion, Grand Jury Prize, Silver Lion for Best Director, Volpi Cups for acting, Special Jury Prize, Screenplay Award, and Marcello Mastroianni Award.
Two career awards to watch
This year, Venice will present the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to George Clooney and one to Ellen Burstyn.