Venice 2025: 10 of the festival’s best films, from The Smashing Machine to No Other Choice

One of the biggest surprises of the 82nd Venice Film Festival was saved until the very end, when Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother took the Golden Lion for best film. Starring Adam Driver, Tom Waits and Cate Blanchett, this slight, minimalist triptych study of familial relations recalled last year’s winner, Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, in the sense that a director who has never won a major festival top prize finally did so with a relatively middling film. The film was presumably chosen as a safe bet. Rumour had it the jury, headed by director Alexander Payne, was split over the festival’s most powerful movie, Palestinian drama The Voice of Hind Rajab. With that film causing a genuine outpouring of emotion, it became the focal point for one of the strongest selections in memory. Here are 10 of the best movies seen at the festival this year. 1. Dead Man’s Wire For pure enjoyment, this 1970s-set thriller was right up there. Inspired by the true story of the kidnapping of a mortgage broker in Indianapolis in 1977, it stars a sensational Bill Skarsgard as the abductor, Tony Kiritsis, who wants his debts wiped out after a business deal goes south. Directed by Gus Van Sant, this out-of-competition entry was a respectful homage to Sidney Lumet and his bank robbery drama Dog Day Afternoon, especially with the casting of that film’s star Al Pacino in a key role. Also featuring Dacre Montgomery, Cary Elwes, Colman Domingo and a radio-friendly soundtrack, this was sheer bliss. 2. The Smashing Machine Making his first solo outing following a series of films co-directed with his brother Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie won best director for this true-life tale of UFC competitor Mark Kerr. Taking place between 1997 and 2000, it stars Dwayne Johnson as Kerr, a man who struggles with opioid addiction and the bruising nature of the win-at-all-costs sport. Johnson wept at the premiere, such was the positive reaction to his performance. He is almost unrecognisable, despite bringing all his experience as a former wrestler to the role. If the film was sometimes a little low-key, Johnson is surely a shoo-in for a first Oscar nomination. 3. A House of Dynamite Kathryn Bigelow’s taut White House-set tale went full Rashomon, replaying three times from different perspectives the sheer panic that sets in when an unidentified nuclear missile is launched towards the US. British actor Idris Elba is the President (yes, there is no Donald Trump-alike in the Oval Office here), with a credible cast that includes Tracy Letts, Rebecca Ferguson and Past Lives’ Greta Lee. It is a terrifying watch, even if not quite as traumatising as the BBC’s classic nuclear drama Threads. 4. The Voice of Hind Rajab The film that reduced critics to tears and gained a record 24-minute ovation at the premiere, Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s harrowing work was many people’s favourite for the Golden Lion. In the end, it walked away with the second-place Grand Jury Prize. But this film, all set in a Red Crescent Emergency Centre and using real audio, will not be forgotten easily, recreating a devastating cry for help from a five-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in a car as the Israelis shell the Gaza Strip. Already Tunisia’s entry for the best international feature film Oscar next year, this was a jarring watch. 5. No Other Choice There weren’t many comedies playing in competition, but Korean director Park Chan-wook’s workplace satire had audiences in fits of laughter. For this writer, it isn’t on a par with his “vengeance” trilogy in the early 2000s or 2019’s procedural Decision to Leave, but it is still a delightfully labyrinthine tale of a paper company employee (Lee Byung-hun) who loses his job and decides to eliminate his rivals in the hope he’ll find a new gig. Loosely based on Donald Westlake’s novel The Ax, No Other Choice is a shrewd look at the way AI and automation are gradually erasing our vocational opportunities and our dignity. 6. Ish One of the few British films at the festival, this black-and-white gem played in the Critics’ Week sidebar. Co-written by Irish playwright Enda – who previously penned Steve McQueen’s Hunger – and director Imran Perretta, it follows two young boys, Ish (Farhan Hasnat) and Maram (Yahya Kitana), living in Luton. An area north of London that has sadly been tainted as a hotbed of far-right activity, this gives a view from those who might be targets of bigotry. There are haunting sequences where the boys are racially profiled by the authorities, but this has a more poetic feel as it muses on friendship in multicultural Britain. 7. The Stranger Bafflingly overlooked by the jury, François Ozon’s latest – his 24th film in 27 years, a staggering achievement in itself – is one of his best. Adapting Albert Camus’ existentialist novel about a taciturn Frenchman put on trial for shooting a young Arabic man in Algeria, The Stranger is a beautifully made and constructed work that truly captures the enigmatic spirit of the book. Benjamin Voisin, who lost out in the best actor race to Toni Servillo’s politician from Paolo Sorrentino’s middling festival curtain-raiser La Grazia, was quite sensational as the tight-lipped murderer. And props for including The Cure’s debut single “Killing an Arab” in the end credits. 8. Cover-Up Last time director Laura Poitras came to Venice, in 2022, she walked away with the Golden Lion for All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. This time, the documentarian, who was also behind the Hong Kong-set Citizenfour about whistle-blower Edward Snowden, co-directs with Mark Obenhaus. The reluctant subject here is Seymour Hersh, a spiky, maverick investigative journalist who probably has more scoops than an ice cream parlour. Cover-Up is truly inspiring – a powerful look at a man trying to report on corruption and cover-ups, right back to the Vietnam war. 9. The Last Viking Danish writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen’s out-of-competition crowd-pleaser was an utter joy. Nikolaj Lie Kaas plays a criminal who comes out of prison after a long spell, looking for the loot he entrusted to his psychologically fractured brother (Mads Mikkelsen). Getting him to reveal where it is will involve The Beatles, ABBA and a lot of violence. There’s a whiff of early Quentin Tarantino about it, though The Last Viking is much funnier than anything the American filmmaker has ever done. It is also filled with moments that surprise, including one scene that saw the audience I was with burst into spontaneous applause. 10. The Wizard of the Kremlin French filmmaker Olivier Assayas has form when it comes to weaving an epic tale around modern politics: see his brilliant 2010 work Carlos, about the 1970s Opec-raiding terrorist. But here, he dives into recent Russian history, looking at the rise of Putin from the point of view of “the new Rasputin”, Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano). Inspired by the real-life Vladislav Surkov, Dano’s character goes from TV producer to political kingmaker. The focus is likely to be on British actor Jude Law, who plays Putin (with some wobbles), but Dano is brilliant as the power-hungry pawn. Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook

Venice 2025: 10 of the festival’s best films, from The Smashing Machine to No Other Choice

You won’t find the Golden Lion winner on this list, which includes harrowing Palestinian drama The Voice of Hind Rajab and British film Ish

1. Dead Man’s Wire