Venice Film Festival shakes up Oscar and Bafta races

Long considered the preeminent film festival to launch a title into awards season, Venice experienced a modest wobble last year – at least in comparison to Cannes.

Venice titles earned two of the 10 best picture Oscar nominations (The Brutalist, I’m Still Here) versus three from Cannes (The Substance, Emilia Perez and Oscar’s big winner Anora). In addition to The Brutalist and I’m Still Here, several other films ended last year’s Venice Film Festival as seeming contenders – notably Queer, Babygirl and Golden Lion winner The Room Next Door – but then failed to score any actual nominations at either Oscar or the Bafta Film Awards.

Venice competitor Joker: Folie A Deux was positioned as an awards contender going into the festival, and then saw its chances of Oscar glory evaporate on impact with the Lido. 

So how will this year’s Venice Film Festival, which ends tomorrow (September 6), impact the upcoming film awards season? Few would disagree that the one film that has received the biggest boost from its Venice selection is The Voice Of Hind Rajab. Selected by Tunisia as its international feature Oscar entry, Kaouther Ben Hania’s film might have hoped to emerge from Venice with improved chances of landing a nomination in that category.

But following minutes of sustained applause at the film’s September 3 press screening (a rarity at Venice), followed by even more astonishing scenes at the public screening the same evening, this urgent docudrama must now be considered a serious contender across multiple categories, including for direction and editing. Executive producers lending their names as support include Alfonso Cuaron, Jonathan Glazer, Rooney Mara, Joaquin Phoenix and Brad Pitt. James Wilson (The Zone Of Interest) and Odessa Rae produce. 

No other film at Venice elicited such intense warmth from attendees, but there was wide – albeit more tempered – support for both Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice (already selected as South Korea’s Oscar entry) and Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother – the latter a portmanteau trilogy of family tales, aptly described by several here as a “small gem”. Original screenplay could be the film’s most fertile category. 

Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine likewise has earned broad approval in Venice, and A24 should be able to launch a credible campaign on behalf of lead actor Dwayne Johnson, who plays real-life UFC champion Mark Kerr. Voters love a campaign narrative, and Johnson’s conversion from franchise action star to Oscar-calibre actor is an alluring one. His physical transformation to play the role doesn’t hurt – so look out for a campaign on behalf of two-time Oscar-winning makeup designer and trailblazing prosthetics artist Kazu Hiro. (More sceptical voices are saying: is it really such a transformative stretch for The Rock to play a wrestler?)  

Netflix’s triple threat 

Netflix unveiled three major films in Venice Competition: Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, Guillermo de Toro’s Frankenstein and Kathryn Bigelow’s A House Of Dynamite. All three films remain in contention for film awards, but seemingly with decreased heat in the case of Jay Kelly, which elicited reactions from wildly positive to wildly negative, and everything in between. Adam Sandler, who plays the manager of George Clooney’s titular film star character, is the consensus pick for MVP, and he could be headed for his first nominations at Oscar and Bafta, if Netflix throws its weight behind him. 

The widely-liked A House Of Dynamite, from an original screenplay by Noah Oppenheim (Jackie), definitely received an assist from its Venice bow. The film – which sees White House staffers and various members of the US military scrambling to respond to a nuclear weapon headed from the Pacific to a major US city – currently looks like Netflix’s most credible best picture nominee from the Venice trio, and its blend of character-driven drama, high-stakes peril and urgent global political relevance seems well-calibrated to entice voters. 

The Venice consensus is that Frankenstein will be a serious threat in craft, and should by no means be discounted in major categories. Reactions out of Toronto International Film Festival, where del Toro’s film will play on Monday (September 8), will help clarify. 

The same might be said of Mona Fastvold’s The Testament Of Ann Lee, which has Brady Corbet as both a producer and joint screenwriter, and earned many admirers in Venice for its bold approach. Few would estimate its Oscar chances in the same league as The Brutalist’s. Amanda Seyfried stars as the titular founding leader of the Shaker religion, and her committed performance could well resonate with voters. Daniel Blumberg’s music (including original songs) could see him once again in contention for major awards, following his Oscar and Bafta triumph with The Brutalist. 

Two years ago, Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things was awarded the Golden Lion at Venice, setting the film up nicely for Searchlight Pictures’ awards campaign – and eventually five Bafta and four Oscar wins, including best leading actress for Emma Stone. Last year, Kinds Of Kindness launched at Cannes, earned a middling reception, and did not achieve major film awards nominations. 

Lanthimos is back at Venice this year with Bugonia, reuniting Kinds Of Kindness stars Stone and Jesse Plemons. Stone’s performance as a kidnapped company CEO is plenty admired, but judged to be in a somewhat-similar register to her other recent Lanthimos films.  

Star power 

Julia Roberts was last Bafta/Oscar-nominated back in 2014 for August: Osage County, and her sole win with both film academies was in 2001 with Erin Brockovich. In other words, few will have cause to think: oh, her again. Luca Guadagnino’s #MeToo campus drama After The Hunt, which played out of competition at Venice, will put her back in the awards conversation. Backers Amazon MGM Studios (releasing in North America) and Sony (international) will want to see the film make a big awards splash, not just for their leading actress, and all will become clearer after the New York Film Festival, which After The Hunt opens on September 26. 

Joining The Voice Of Hind Rajab and No Other Choice as a serious contender for the international feature Oscar is Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia – as long as Italy selects the film, that is. In an interview, Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera suggested that La Grazia’s January 2026 release in Italy via PiperFilm would make it ineligible for the category; Mubi’s December release in US makes the film eligible for every other relevant Oscars category. Toni Servillo, playing a fictional Italian president, could pop in leading actor. 

In documentary, Venice selection Below The Clouds from Gianfranco Rosi (whose Fire At Sea was Oscar-nominated at the 2017 awards) has earned its place in the conversation. Rosi’s black-and-white portrait of the city of Naples is playing in Venice’s Competition, and a prize from Alexander Payne’s jury would also help the film win attention in what is always a very crowded field of contenders in documentary feature.

Ross McElwee’s Remake, which played Venice out of competition – a very moving archive-based film about the filmmaker’s deceased son – earned wide praise at the festival, and will emerge with enhanced awards heat. 

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