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Venice Film Festival 2023: 10 movies we're excited about

By Euan Franklin on 26/7/2023

Following the SAG-AFTRA strikes in Hollywood, the Venice Film Festival takes a slightly different tone this year. The eagerly anticipated Luca Guadagnino film Challengers – a menage à trois tennis drama starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist – was pulled from the coveted Opening Night slot. Most of the actors in American productions are not attending, so the glamorous red carpet photographs will not include Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Michael Fassbender, Lily James, Carey Mulligan, Emma Stone or Tilda Swinton (among others). However, filmmakers like Sofia Coppola, David Fincher and Yorgos Lanthimos are still set to attend. Controversially, the selection also includes new films by Woody Allen and Roman Polanski (sigh). The festival is running from Wednesday 30 August to Saturday 9 September. Here are 10 films we’re excited to see

Priscilla, dir. Sofia Coppola

After Baz Luhrmann’s bombastic and overly long biopic Elvis last year, you’d think there’s little more to tell about the King of rock 'n' roll. Not as far as Sofia Coppola is concerned, entering the festival with her own film that takes a more female perspective: that of Elvis’s queen, Priscilla Presley. Based on the latter's memoir, Priscilla traces their relationship from its morally dubious beginnings (when he was 24, and she was 14) to a tempestuous marriage at the height of his fame.

Mare of Easttown actor Cailee Spaeny plays Priscilla, with Euphoria’s Jacob Elordi tackling the King himself.

Photo: A24

Maestro, dir. Bradley Cooper

Another biopic about a musician’s work and marriage, Maestro examines the life of legendary composer Leonard Bernstein and his relationship with actor Felicia Montealegre. The marriage wasn’t perfect, as Bernstein was divided in his sexuality, but Montealegre accepted that fact and they held a deep connection as artists.

This is the sophomore feature by actor-turned-director Bradley Cooper, following his Oscar-winning debut A Star is Born. He also portrays Leonard alongside Carey Mulligan as Felicia and Maya Hawke as the couple's daughter Jamie.

Photo: Netflix

Ferrari, dir. Michael Mann

After his portrayal of the assassinated Maurizio Gucci in House of Gucci, Adam Driver is perfectly cast as Italian entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann’s latest film. Just the surname alone makes him destined for the part.

Like Priscilla and Maestro, Ferrari takes place in the 50s when Enzo faces marital issues, potential bankruptcy, and the death of his son. He hinges his bets on the infamous Mille Miglia race of 1957, which resulted in the deaths of 11 people after driver Marquis Alfonso de Portago lost control of his Ferrari – killing him, his co-driver and nine spectators. With Driver, Penelope Cruz also stars as Enzo’s wife Laura and Shailene Woodley plays his mistress Lina Lardi.

Photo: Sky

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, dir. Wes Anderson

Hold on – haven’t we just had a Wes Anderson movie? Indeed, his whimsical sci-fi film Asteroid City was released in UK cinemas in June this year. But The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar – his second Roald Dahl adaptation after The Fantastic Mr. Fox – is a 37-minute short. It’s the latest entry in a wider Dahl-iverse produced by Netflix, which includes the five-star Matilda musical.

Starring Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel and Richard Ayoade, Henry Sugar tells the story of a rich man who learns of a guru who can see with his eyes closed. Wanting to be a successful gambler (and cheat), he wishes to learn the guru’s skill.

Photo: Netflix

Poor Things, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

Director Yorgos Lanthimos was birthed out of the Greek Weird Wave, a surrealist film movement engendered out of economic upheaval. His English-language films The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer gained a cult following, and he received wider notoriety for his historical drama The Favourite with Olivia Colman and Emma Stone.

For Lanthimos’s new film Poor Things, he reunites with Stone and co-writer Tony McNamara for a Frankensteinian fairytale. The young and formerly deceased Bella Baxter (Stone) is resurrected by the unconventional scientist Dr Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Desperate to learn about the world, she escapes across continents with debauched lawyer Duncan (Mark Ruffalo) to seek her own sense of equality and liberation.

Photo: Searchlight Pictures

WHEN

UK cinema release date: Friday 8 September

The Killer, dir. David Fincher

Throughout his bleak and bloody back catalogue (Se7en, Fight Club, Gone Girl), David Fincher has taken lighter diversions before returning to the dark. Following his curious Citizen Kane biopic Mank, he comes back to the psychologically macabre with The Killer.

The Netflix logline sounds like a vague, if thrilling, premise: ‘After a fateful near-miss an assassin battles his employers, and himself, on an international manhunt he insists isn't personal’. The Killer stars Michael Fassbender as the titular hitman, alongside Tilda Swinton in an unspecified role.

Photo: Netflix

WHEN

Netflix UK release date: Friday 10 November

Origins, dir. Ava DuVernay

Ava DuVernay is one of the most prominent Black female directors in Hollywood, her projects often piercing the systemic racism built into the US (Selma, 13^th, When They See Us, Colin in Black and White). Based on Isabel Wilkerson's non-fiction book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, DuVernay’s latest film is even more ambitious: detailing the rigid hierarchies that serve to divide the country.

In the festival’s 80-year history, Origins is the first film by an African-American woman to show In Competition. It stars Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (King Richard), Vera Farmiga (The Many Saints of Newark ), Nick Offerman (The Last of Us) and Victoria Pedretti (You, The Haunting of Bly Manor).

Photo: Sky/HBO. Ava DuVernay on the set of When They See Us, Netflix

Finally Dawn (Finalmente l'alba), dir. Saverio Costanzo

Saverio Costanzo was one of the minds behind HBO’s My Brilliant Friend, which is excellent not only as an adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novels but also as a cine-literate depiction of the 20^th century. As the seasons progress into the different decades, so do the filmmaking styles – matching the cinematic evolutions of the period. That innate love of cinema feeds Costanzo’s latest film Finally Dawn (his most personal project to date), set in the famous Italian film studio Cinecittà during the 1950s.

Over the course of a single day, the teenage extra Mimosa (newcomer Rebecca Antonaci) goes on a movie world adventure involving the set of an epic pharaoh drama. The cast includes Lily James, Willem Dafoe, Joe Keery (Stranger Things) and Rachel Sennott (The Idol).

Photo: Fremantle

Evil Does Not Exist, dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

Evil Does Not Exist (Aku Wa Sonzai Shinai), dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi surprised global cinema with the success of his three-hour, grief-stricken epic Drive My Car, winning the Best International Film Oscar in 2022. (It was also Culture Whisper’s favourite film of 2021.) But whereas that film is psychologically eerie and concerned with the mysteries of human beings, Hamaguchi’s latest work Evil Does Not Exist grazes on the political.

Takumi and his daughter Hana live modestly amid nature in a village near Tokyo. Local residents become aware of corporate plans to change their long-existing environment, turning an area near Takumi’s home into a glamping site for city-dwellers. This project threatens the village's water supply and its ecological balance.

Photo: Modern Films Entertainment. Hidetoshi Nishijima and Toko Miura in Drive My Car.

The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, dir. William Friedkin

Considering they changed cinema forever, it’s always apt to keep up with the New Hollywood directors – the movie brat pack of the late 60s and 70s who ruffled established genres. Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader and Steven Spielberg have continued making decent films. It’s a less optimistic case for Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) and William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection), who’ve become less productive in recent years. Thankfully, both directors have projects in the works with Friedkin bringing his latest to the festival.

The Caine Mutiny Court Martial is based on the Pulitzer-winning Herman Wouk novel about a fictional mutiny on an American WWII vessel. Friedkin updates it for the modern day, setting the mutiny on a ship in the Gulf of Hormuz – a key shipping route that wields a lot of tensions with Iran. Stars Kiefer Sutherland and the late Lance Reddick.

Photo: Doc & Film International. William Friedkin in Friedkin Uncut, Sky Arts.

Venice Film Festival 2023: 10 movies we're excited about

Priscilla, dir. Sofia Coppola

Maestro, dir. Bradley Cooper

Ferrari, dir. Michael Mann

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, dir. Wes Anderson

Poor Things, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

The Killer, dir. David Fincher

Origins, dir. Ava DuVernay

Finally Dawn (Finalmente l'alba), dir. Saverio Costanzo

Evil Does Not Exist (Aku Wa Sonzai Shinai), dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, dir. William Friedkin

Priscilla

Sofia Coppola

Jacob Elordi

Maestro

Bradley Cooper

Carey Mulligan

Maya Hawke

Ferrari

Michael Mann

Adam Driver

Penelope Cruz

Wes Anderson

Ralph Fiennes

Poor Things

Yorgos Lanthimos

Emma Stone

Mark Ruffalo

The Killer

David Fincher

Michael Fassbender

Lily James

Ryusuke Hamaguchi

William Friedkin

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