Venice Film Festival 2026: Musk Doc, Dark CIA Comedy Lead Lineup
The 83rd Venice Film Festival has unveiled its 2026 lineup, headlined by Alex Gibney’s four-hour Elon Musk documentary “Musk,” Martin McDonagh’s dark CIA comedy “Wild Horse Nine,” and Danny Boyle’s Rupert Murdoch biopic “Ink” as the opening film. The festival, running from September 2 to 12 on the Lido, features 20 competition titles vying for the Golden Lion.
A Star-Studded Slate
Artistic director Alberto Barbera announced the selection on Thursday, describing a program that “bolsters the idea of cinema as an extraordinary tool to understand the real world,” according to Variety. The lineup reflects a festival that, like Cannes earlier this year, is notably lighter on Hollywood studio films, dominated instead by independent and international cinema.
Danny Boyle’s “Ink” opens the festival on September 2, dramatizing Rupert Murdoch’s 1969 acquisition of The Sun newspaper. Guy Pearce stars as Murdoch, with Jack O’Connell as editor Larry Lamb and Claire Foy as his fictional wife. Netflix has acquired U.S. and Latin American rights to the film, which also plays in competition.
Martin McDonagh returns to Venice — where he previously premiered “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and “The Banshees of Inisherin” — with “Wild Horse Nine,” a dark comedy about CIA agents dispatched to Easter Island on the eve of the 1973 Chilean coup. The film stars John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, and Parker Posey, as AP News reported.
Documentaries Take Center Stage
Alex Gibney’s “Musk” is one of the festival’s most anticipated titles. The four-hour documentary is described as “an epic investigation behind the public persona of one of the world’s most influential and controversial business figures,” screening out of competition. The Oasis reunion documentary “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace and produced by Steven Knight, will also premiere at the festival. Noel and Liam Gallagher are expected to attend, per Barbera. The film opens theatrically on IMAX on September 11 before streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
Other notable nonfiction entries include Barbara Kopple’s labor documentary “Union Town,” Julia Loktev’s “My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile” about Russian independent journalists, and Francesco Carrozzini’s “Be Brave,” made almost entirely using artificial intelligence.
Competition Highlights
The main competition features a formidable roster of international auteurs. Florian Zeller follows up “The Son” with “Bunker,” a psychological thriller starring real-life spouses Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz as a couple commissioned to build a bunker for a billionaire. Werner Herzog returns with “Bucking Fastard,” starring sisters Rooney and Kate Mara in their first on-screen collaboration, alongside Orlando Bloom and Domhnall Gleeson.
Robert Pattinson stars in Lance Oppenheim’s “Primetime,” playing “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen in an A24-produced drama. Hirokazu Kore-eda brings “Look Back,” a live-action adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga about two aspiring manga artists, while Lee Chang-dong returns to Venice for the first time since winning Best Director in 2002 with “Possible Love,” a Netflix-backed melodrama.
Nanni Moretti makes his Venice competition return for the first time since 1989 with “It Will Happen Tonight,” and Casey Affleck competes with the gothic mystery “Company,” starring Nick Nolte and Ben Mendelsohn.
Jury and Awards
Maggie Gyllenhaal presides over the competition jury, joined by Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To, Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat, French director Xavier Giannoli, composer Daniel Blumberg, and film academic Francesco Casetti. Gyllenhaal will also screen her Marilyn Monroe-inspired short “Flesh Impact” out of competition.
George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn will receive Golden Lion lifetime achievement awards, as The Hollywood Reporter confirmed.
Gender Parity Concerns
A notable point of criticism is the sharp decline in female representation in competition. Only one female director — May El-Toukhy with “Woman Unknown” — appears among the 20 competition titles, a significant drop from six in 2025. This backslide comes nearly a decade after Barbera signed the “50/50 by 2020” pledge to improve gender parity, as The Guardian noted.
EU Funding Controversy
Venice Biennale chairman Pietrangelo Buttafuoco used the lineup announcement to criticize the European Commission for withdrawing a €2 million ($2.3 million) grant over Russia’s participation in the Biennale arts exhibition. Comparing the Commission to “wolves” and the Biennale to “lambs,” he called the decision “political, not legal, and certainly not cultural.”
What to Watch For
The festival closes on September 12 with Giovanni Veronesi’s Italian period drama “Dio Ride” (“God Laughs”). With several films positioned as potential Oscar contenders — including McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine,” Zeller’s “Bunker,” and Boyle’s “Ink” — this year’s Venice edition promises to set the stage for the awards season ahead, even as questions linger about Hollywood’s retreat from the festival circuit and the industry’s ongoing gender representation challenges.