Third edition, 20 July 2026. Barbera unveils the 83rd Venice line-up on 23 July.
Toronto published its Gala and Special Presentations programmes this morning, and the premiere labels attached to each title ought to do half the work of a Venice prediction for us. A film cannot world-premiere on the Lido and world-premiere in Toronto, so a World Premiere tag rules a title out, but International Premiere for a film that hasn’t come out yet suggests it’ll play elsewhere first… Here are the updated predictions…
In Competition
Look Back
Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
A live-action adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga, following two schoolgirls whose shared passion for drawing brings them together before tragedy drives them apart. Acquired by GKids for North America and the UK, sold internationally by Goodfellas. Kore-eda was at Cannes in May with Sheep in a Box, which is precisely the point: Look Back was held back as his second film of the year, and the Hollywood Reporter reported it as positioned for a Venice launch. Toronto has it as a North American Premiere, and unlike several of its neighbours in that tier the tag is not contradicted by a spring festival appearance.
Possible Love
Dir. Lee Chang-dong
Lee’s first feature since Burning in 2018, and the most consequential Asian title in circulation this autumn. A North American Premiere in Toronto’s Special Presentations, and absent from Cannes, Berlin and Sundance. Lee’s own history runs through Cannes rather than Venice, which makes this a genuine coup for Barbera if it lands.
The Hole
Dir. Kim Jee-woon
New to this edition. Kim’s first film since Cobweb, adapting Hye-young Pyun’s Shirley Jackson Award-winning novel, scripted by Christopher Chen. Theo James plays a professor left bedridden after the crash that killed his wife, cared for by his mother-in-law, played by Yeom Hye-ran, who begins uncovering what the marriage actually was while digging progressively larger holes in the garden. Hoyeon and Christian Slater complete the cast. Produced by Esmail Corp, K Period Media and Anthology Studios, with Amazon MGM attached and The Veterans handling international rights.
In post-production, absent from Toronto, Cannes, Berlin and Sundance. Kim took The Age of Shadows to Venice while Cobweb and The Good, the Bad, the Weird went to Cannes, so the Lido relationship is real. The strategic case is stronger still: Toronto has taken world premieres from Hur Jin-ho, Yeon Sang-ho and Edmund Yeo, stripping Venice of the Korean genre tier almost entirely. If Barbera wants one Korean title with teeth to sit beside Lee Chang-dong, this is the one available to him.
The Wolf Will Tear Your Immaculate Hands
Dir. Nathalie Álvarez Mesén
New to this edition. A gothic horror and Álvarez Mesén’s English-language debut after Clara Sola, co-written with Sjón, shot by Hélène Louvart and cut by Marie-Hélène Dozo. Set in the 1860s Pacific Northwest, it follows Isabel, a Native American woman educated at a Christian missionary school, hired as governess to the daughters of a British widower. As the eldest daughter’s arranged marriage approaches, a connection between the women and the surrounding forest emerges that the father is desperate to sever. Darla Contois plays Isabel, Alexander Skarsgård the widower, with Pernilla August, Forrest Goodluck, Bronte Carmichael and Lily LaTorre. A Sweden, Belgium, United Kingdom and Iceland co-production, eighty minutes, distributed in Sweden by TriArt.
Production wrapped in December, and IONCINEMA named Venice as the likeliest first festival ahead of Toronto, San Sebastián and London. Not in Toronto’s Galas or Special Presentations, and absent from every spring line-up. Sjón, Louvart, Dozo, folk horror, a decolonial frame and a werewolf: on paper this is the most on-brand title available to this site in the entire autumn.
Sweetsick
Dir. Alice Birch
New to this edition. Birch’s directorial debut from her own screenplay, with Cate Blanchett as a mercurial woman able to see what others most intimately need, at considerable personal cost, setting out on a journey home. Spike Fearn, Tilly Walker and Julia Westcott-Hutton support. Shot by Michał Dymek, produced by House Productions with Blanchett’s Dirty Films and Film4, distributed by Searchlight. Principal photography ran from October 2025 in the United Kingdom and Greece, and the British Council database listed it in post-production in May.
Absent from Toronto, Cannes, Berlin and Sundance. Searchlight has a long Lido habit, and Birch’s writing credits, from Lady Macbeth to Dead Ringers, put her closer to this site’s register than a Searchlight prestige debut usually sits.
Coward
Dir. Lukas Dhont
Belgium, a North American Premiere in Toronto, and not in any Cannes list despite early reports grouping it with the Croisette titles. Dhont’s history is entirely Cannes, where Close took the Grand Prix, so a Venice competition berth would represent a switch of allegiance.
Bunker
Dir. Florian Zeller
France and Spain, with Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Stephen Graham, Paul Dano and Patrick Schwarzenegger. A Toronto Gala carrying a North American Premiere tag, and no spring festival history. Zeller has not previously been a Lido director, but a European co-production of this scale launching outside North America in early September has very few other places to go.
Tender Loving Care
Dir. Mike Leigh
Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, Kate O’Flynn and Alice Bailey Johnson, produced through Film4, Studiocanal and Cornerstone, with Bleecker Street releasing in the United States on 4 December. Toronto has it as a Canadian Premiere, which establishes an American berth before 10 September and nothing more: Bleecker Street’s slate announcement named Venice, Telluride and Toronto collectively across four films, and one of those four, A Talent for Murder, world-premieres in Toronto.
The argument for Venice is that Telluride is a poor world-premiere venue for a film in this position, with no press conference, no competition and no market visibility, while a Lido slot followed by a Telluride berth costs nothing and delivers considerably more. Leigh also appeared on Screen International’s Venice long list in May. Against that, he has no Venice habit at all: Hard Truths world-premiered in Toronto in 2024 and Mr. Turner went to Cannes. Likely rather than safe.
A Long Winter
Dir. Andrew Haigh
Canada and the United Kingdom, a Canadian Premiere in Toronto, with no appearance in the Cannes or Berlin competitions. On the Screen list. The same reasoning as Leigh applies, with the same caveat: Haigh has no established Venice relationship, and a Sundance or SXSW launch earlier in the year would explain the tag equally well.
The Basics of Philosophy
Dir. Paul Schrader
Reported as already accepted. Schrader is a Lido fixture, with Oh, Canada and Master Gardener both having taken festival slots of this kind.
Bucking Fastard
Dir. Werner Herzog
Rejected by Cannes, where the Hollywood Reporter listed him among the names that did not make the cut alongside Coen, Miike and Gray, and now widely reported as Venice-bound. The Cannes-reject route to Venice competition is well worn, and by most working estimates accounts for between a third and two fifths of the field in a given year.
The Social Reckoning
Dir. Aaron Sorkin
A standalone follow-up to The Social Network, with Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg and Mikey Madison as Frances Haugen, built around the 2021 Facebook Papers disclosures. Variety reported that Barbera was set to screen the film imminently, with talks underway with Sony for a Lido premiere. Whether what he saw is deemed worthy of competition or steered out of it is the open question.
Jack of Spades
Dir. Joel Coen
Named by the Hollywood Reporter among the directors Cannes passed over this year. Absent from Toronto’s document entirely. The complication is history: Venice passed on The Tragedy of Macbeth in 2021 and Coen took the New York Film Festival instead, and NYFF has announced only its opening night so far. Genuinely open, with the Lido no better than even.
The Silent Illustrator
Dir. Mario Martone
Toni Servillo plays a celebrated illustrator drawn into a strange duel with his small, fiercely imaginative grandson, in a chamber piece pitched to the Italian slot the competition reserves every year. Martone has been a competition regular and Servillo is Venice’s most reliable draw.
Untitled Stéphane Brizé
Dir. Stéphane Brizé
Brizé has screened his last three features in competition at Venice, and Gaumont has set a French release for late November, which makes an autumn festival bow all but certain. One of the safest predictions on this list.
Here Comes the Flood
Dir. Fernando Meirelles
A heist thriller for Netflix with Denzel Washington, Robert Pattinson and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Netflix’s principal asset this season and a studio with a long-standing Lido relationship. Toronto has not taken it. Competition or out of competition is the only real question.
Atonement
Dir. Reed Van Dyk
United States, a Toronto Gala carrying a North American Premiere tag, with Boyd Holbrook, Kenneth Branagh and Hiam Abbass. Kino Lorber acquired it out of the Cannes market rather than an official section, so it has been seen by buyers but has not premiered.
All About Corinne
Dir. Marc Fitoussi
France, a Toronto Gala, North American Premiere, no spring festival history. Fitoussi is a commercial French director rather than a competition name, which makes Orizzonti or Giornate degli Autori the better fit, but the premiere status places the launch in Europe in early September.
Out of Competition
Ink
Dir. Danny Boyle
Confirmed as the Venice opening film. Toronto carries it as a Canadian Premiere, which is exactly what a Lido launch followed by an American berth produces. The only entry here that is not a prediction.
Digger
Dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Tom Cruise leads what Iñárritu has described as a comedy of catastrophic proportions. Named in the Hollywood Reporter’s Venice buzz list. Toronto has not taken it, and the scale makes an out of competition gala the natural shape. Cruise’s absence from Cannes this year leaves the autumn open.
Alpha Gang
Dirs. David and Nathan Zellner
Cate Blanchett, Chris Pine, Riley Keough, Dave Bautista and Lily-Rose Depp in an alien comedy. Toronto has it as an International Premiere. The cast and register both suggest an out of competition gala, and Blanchett’s Venice history is deep.
Dune: Part Three
Dir. Denis Villeneuve
Named in the Hollywood Reporter’s Venice buzz list in June and absent from Toronto’s document. Villeneuve took pre-release festival berths for both previous instalments.
The Studio, season two
Dirs. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg
Rumoured for an out of competition berth following location shooting in Venice that included a Madonna cameo.
The Debut
Dir. Jesse Eisenberg
A community theatre dramedy with Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti, carrying an International Premiere tag in Toronto.
Orizzonti and the sidebars
Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?
Dir. Shinya Tsukamoto
Japan, a North American Premiere in Toronto, and absent from every spring line-up. Tsukamoto is one of Venice’s most durable relationships, with Killing in competition in 2018 and Shadow of Fire in Orizzonti in 2023. Whether Barbera elevates him to the main competition is the more interesting question, and on the evidence of the last two features he has earned it.
Peaches
Dir. Jenny Suen
New to this edition. Sophie Thatcher and Havana Rose Liu as Nora and Bing Bing, best friends who scam sugar daddies for a living and, on discovering that a gifted Hermès Birkin is counterfeit, find their marks and their crimes catching up with them across Hong Kong. Explicitly inspired by Věra Chytilová’s Daisies. Produced by Coco Francini, executive-produced by Blanchett and Andrew Upton for Dirty Films, with Independent Film Company on North America and mk2 selling internationally. In post-production, absent from every festival so far.
Suen co-directed The White Girl with Christopher Doyle, and a Daisies riff from that lineage, sold by mk2, is Orizzonti or Giornate degli Autori material rather than competition.
The Unknown
Dir. Arthur Harari
France, North American Premiere in Toronto, no spring history. Harari’s Onoda played Cannes Un Certain Regard, and an Orizzonti berth would be a natural step across.
Hombre al agua
Dir. Gael García Bernal
Mexico, and García Bernal’s move behind the camera. A North American TIFF Premiere tag places the launch in Europe.
Clarissa
Dirs. Arie and Chuko Esiri
Nigeria and the United States, North American Premiere in Toronto. The Esiris’ Eyimofe was a Berlinale title; Orizzonti is the natural home for the follow-up.
Elsinore
Dir. Simon Stone
United Kingdom, a Canadian Premiere in Toronto with no appearance in the Cannes or Berlin competitions.
Downgraded
Everest: The Other Side (dirs. Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi) and Tenzing (dir. Jennifer Peedom) both carry Canadian Premiere tags. On the corrected reading these are as consistent with a domestic American launch as a European one, and for two mountaineering documentaries Telluride is the obvious home, requiring no European leg at all.
Awards and strands already confirmed
Maggie Gyllenhaal presides over the main competition jury. Lifetime Achievement Golden Lions go to George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn. Her previously reported short Flesh Impact is under review here, since a jury president screening her own work in the same edition would be awkward at best.
The Orizzonti shorts competition is locked: thirteen world premieres in competition and two out of competition, drawn from two and a half thousand submissions, screening 10 and 11 September.
Venice Classics comprises nineteen restorations curated by Barbera with Federico Gironi, including Cassavetes, Buñuel, Rossellini, Wajda and Corman, alongside Polanski’s Cul-de-sac, Somai’s The Catch, Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be, Jaromil Jires’ Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, and Tinto Brass’s Col cuore in gola opening the strand.
Ruled out: Toronto world premieres
Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo (dir. Takashi Miike) world-premieres in Special Presentations. This was the most confident genre prediction in the first edition of this list and it was wrong. Miike was also among the directors Cannes passed over, which makes Toronto his third choice of the year and raises the question of whether Barbera passed or the sales agent chose a market-adjacent launch, with TIFF: The Market debuting alongside the festival.
A Talent for Murder (dir. Anton Corbijn), with Helen Mirren, Alden Ehrenreich and Olivia Cooke, world-premieres as a Gala ahead of a 23 October Bleecker Street release. There is no separate Corbijn film called Switzerland, only one film circulating under two names.
The Assassin(s) (dir. Hur Jin-ho), Paradise Lost (dir. Yeon Sang-ho), The Age of Goodbyes (dir. Edmund Yeo) and Happily Ever After (dir. Feng-I Fiona Roan) all world-premiere at Toronto.
Official announcements July 23!