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James Mottram

With the 81st Venice Film Festival parading Hollywood’s finest – including Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brad Pitt and George Clooney – it felt like a return to normality after 2023’s SAG-AFTRA strike, which meant the stars were largely absent from the red carpet that year.
This year, however, journalists were up in arms over the decision of many studios to not hold press junkets for movies both in and out of competition, a worrying development for many freelancers. The heat that caused felt apt given the soaring temperatures throughout.
At least one film got things spot on. 2073, Asif Kapadia’s state-of-the-planet drama-documentary, felt utterly prescient.
Here is our pick of the 10 best films unveiled at this year’s festival.
1. The Room Next Door


Somehow, it took Pedro Almodóvar 45 years to win the top prize at a film festival. Turns out all he needed to do was make a film in English.
The festival jury, headed by Isabelle Huppert, awarded The Room Next Door the Golden Lion, a popular choice judging by the tears of joy in the auditorium.
His first full-length English-language feature, this euthanasia tale featured Almodóvar’s usual exquisite design – striking red, greens and yellows abound – and fantastic performances from Tilda Swinton, as a cancer-stricken woman who wants to take her own life, and Julianne Moore, as the friend reluctantly helping her.
2. The Brutalist

Brady Corbet’s mammoth 215-minute drama came complete with an old-fashioned intermission, allowing audiences to soak up this tale of Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survived the Holocaust and made a new life for himself in America.
Adrien Brody, given his best role since his Oscar-winning turn in The Pianist, leads an impressive cast, including a wonderful Guy Pearce as the businessman who hires Toth to design a cultural centre on his estate.
Putting architecture at the forefront, former actor Corbet’s audacious work cements his growing reputation as a filmmaker of note, following The Childhood of a Leader (2015) and Vox Lux (2018). The jury gave him best director; the film deserved the Golden Lion.
3. Maldoror

Famed for beguiling genre pictures such as Calvaire (2004) and Vinyan (2008), Fabrice du Welz turned his lens on one of his native Belgium’s darkest episodes for Maldoror. The backdrop is the case of Marc Dutroux, the notorious Belgian serial killer, rapist and child molester, whose crimes shocked the nation in the 1990s.
Here, du Welz casts the excellent Anthony Bajon as a hot-headed (and fictional) rookie cop whose hunt for a predator, inspired by Dutroux, causes him to become increasingly unstable.
Playing out of competition, Maldoror recalls Sidney Lumet’s The Offence (1973), which saw Sean Connery unravel as a cop haunted by similar crimes.
4. April

Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili (Beginning) took the Special Jury Prize for this stark, strange abortion drama. Unlike, say, the 2007 Cannes-winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, which was a methodical look at backstreet abortions, this is a more curious affair.
Set in a world where sexual violence is almost the norm, Ia Sukhitashvili plays a doctor who is known for secretly organising illegal terminations. Long, static takes and surreal moments of horror are mixed in with excruciatingly graphic footage, including a birth, with the director crafting an unsettling film that resists easy interpretation.
5. From Darkness to Light

Of all the documentaries playing at the festival, this felt like a real unicorn. Directed by Michael Lurie and Eric Friedler, it traces the making of the infamous unfinished drama The Day the Clown Cried by comedian Jerry Lewis.
Directed by Lewis in 1972, the film saw him play a German clown in a concentration camp. But the project fell apart, remaining incomplete, with Lewis left distraught.
From Darkness to Light includes several never-before-seen clips from the film, along with interview footage with Lewis, before he died in 2017, where he finally unpacked this high-profile failure.
With the likes of Martin Scorsese (who directed Lewis in The King of Comedy) and Harry Shearer also featured, this is a must-see.
6. Basileia


Closing the Venice Days sidebar, Isabella Torre’s feature debut proved to be a highly atmospheric modern-day fairy tale.
Taking inspiration from her 2018 short Nymphs, this story sees Danish actor Elliott Crosset Hove (Godland) play an archaeologist digging deep in southern Italy’s Aspromonte mountains. Like a latter-day Indiana Jones, his treasure-hunting unleashes mythical sirens.
It is a delicate film that leaves much unexplained, but there were not many other debuts this ambitious or rich at this year’s festival.
7. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass


Unveiled in Venice Days, this film saw American surrealists Timothy and Stephen Quay (Institute Benjamenta) return with an hour-long take on stories by Polish writer Bruno Schulz, whose work The Street of Crocodiles inspired the Quays’ 1986 stop-motion short of the same name.
Remarkably, the brothers revealed at the after-screening Q&A that this dizzying film has been 19 years in production, including 10 days of live-action shooting and 3,500 days of animation.
Almost impossible to describe, but filled with startling imagery, this hand-spun work is a true wonder to behold.
8. Queer


Luca Guadagnino’s take on William Burroughs’ novel split critics, but there was still a lot of love for this faithful adaptation.
Daniel Craig demolishes his masculine 007 image as the gay, drug-addicted William Lee, Burroughs’ alter-ego, who is living his shabbiest life in Mexico City.
The authentic 1950s milieu plays well, although the film’s second half, as Lee and his younger companion Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) go looking for a mind-warping plant in the jungles of Ecuador, never quite holds your attention.
Still, after Guadagnino’s mainstream hit Challengers, this shows him as the uncompromising artist he is.
9. Babygirl

Nicole Kidman has a long history of exploring sexuality on screen, from Eyes Wide Shut to Birth and The Paperboy. Once again she comes up trumps with Babygirl.
Her steely performance – playing a married CEO who has an affair with an intern (Harris Dickinson), tapping into her submissive desires – saw her take the Volpi Cup for best actress.
Written and directed by Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies), the film initially masquerades as an erotic thriller, threatening to move into Fatal Attraction terrain, but it ultimately morphs into something equally timely: a Gen Z-leaning story about consent and workplace etiquette.
10. Maria


Chilean director Pablo Larraín returned with another biopic of a 20th-century icon, following Jackie (2016) and Spencer (2021). This time, his subject is the sublime opera singer Maria Callas, with the film focusing on the last week of her life.
Maria left empty-handed, but you can imagine Angelina Jolie, who gives a fine account of herself as Callas, will be in the awards conversation in the coming months. Her elegant turn sits centre stage in this finely crafted work that examines a superstar struggling with her swansong from life.
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American cinema

Venice 2024: 10 of the festival’s best films, from The Room Next Door to The Brutalist

Nicole Kidman (left) and Harris Dickinson in a still from Babygirl. Photo: Niko Tavernise

Julianne Moore (left) and Tilda Swinton in a still from The Room Next Door, which won the Golden Lion award at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. Here are our picks of the best from the event. 

Adrien Brody (left) and Felicity Jones in a still from The Brutalist.

Anthony Bajon in a still from Maldoror. Photo: Sofie Gheysens

Ia Sukhitashvili in a still from April.

Jerry Lewis in a still from From Darkness to Light.

Venice 2024: Broken Rage movie review – Takeshi Kitano’s deliciously meta yakuza comedy

Takeshi Kitano in a still from Broken Rage (category TBC), also directed by Takeshi Kitano. Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori co-star.

Takeshi Kitano in a still from Broken Rage.

(From left) Takeshi Kitano, Tadanobu Asano and Nao Omori in a still from Broken Rage.

Takeshi Kitano in a still from Broken Rage. 

Venice 2024: Youth (Homecoming) movie review – a riveting look at China’s migrant workers

A still from Youth (Homecoming).

A still from Youth (Homecoming), Wang Bing’s compelling documentary about migrant workers in China.

A still from Youth (Homecoming), directed by Wang Bing.

Venice 2024: Stranger Eyes movie review – unsettling Singaporean drama about surveillance

A still from Stranger Eyes. Photo: Akanga Film Asia

Wu Chien-ho in a still from Stranger Eyes (category TBC), directed by Yeo Siew Hua and co-starring Lee Kang-sheng. Photo: Akanga Film Asia

Pete Teo in a still from Stranger Eyes. Photo: Akanga Film Asia

Lee Kang-sheng in a still from Stranger Eyes. Photo: Akanga Film Asia

Venice 2024 movie review – Joker: Folie à Deux puts Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga in musical

Lady Gaga (left) and Joacquin Phoenix in a still from Joker: Folie à Deux. Photo: Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Lady Gaga in a still from Joker: Folie à Deux. Photo: Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Joacquin Phoenix in a still from Joker: Folie à Deux. Photo: Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Venice 2024: Mistress Dispeller movie review – documentary’s unique look at love in China

Mistress Fei Fei (a pseudonym) getting a haircut in a still from Mistress Dispeller. Photo; Marcona Media

Wang Zhenxi is a mistress dispeller based in Luoyang, China. Elizabeth Lo, a Hong Kong-born film director, follows her for her new film, Mistress Dispeller. Photo: Mistress Dispeller

Mr and Mrs Li in a still from Mistress Dispeller. The film follows the couple as they navigate the mistress dispelling process. Photo: Mistress Dispeller

Mistress Fei Fei (a pseudonym) getting a haircut in a still from Mistress Dispeller. Photo: Marcona Media

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Here is our pick of the best movies from the 2024 Venice Film Festival, including Golden Lion winner The Room Next Door


Here is our pick of the best movies from the 2024 Venice Film Festival, including Golden Lion winner The Room Next Door.
