Saturday Night Delights and More

The 51st Telluride Film Festival gets underway Friday with a number of world and North American premieres highlighting an impressive lineup of movies, many of them Oscar hopefuls. The Colorado gathering, along with the concurrent Venice and upcoming Toronto film festivals, signals the start of the six-month-long Oscar season.

Telluride keeps its selections close to vest and only just announced the entire lineup Thursday morning as much of the industry is on a plane heading to the mountains, though pundits pretty much already had figured out the lineup. Don’t be surprised to see some films not on the list as the fest always likes to throw in some “sneaks.”

Check out the full lineup below.

Among the films appearing in the mountains for the first time anywhere are director Jason Reitman’s ode to the 1975 first episode of SNL, Saturday Night; the film version of August Wilson’s acclaimed stage play The Piano Lesson, a Washington family affair with producer Denzel, director Malcolm and star John David; Oscar winner Edward Berger’s papal thriller Conclave; Scott Magehee and David Siegel’s heartwarming The Friend, starring Naomi Watts, Bill Murray and scene-stealing Great Dane Bing (it’s also a sales title, and look for the dog to hit town to help it along); and MGM, Orion and Plan B’s Nickel Boys, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel.

RELATED: ‘Saturday Night’ Cast: Who’s Who In ‘SNL’ Opening-Night Movie From Jason Reitman

Also making their debuts will be a couple of original musicals including The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey’s Better Man, an…ine Oscar contenders. Among past Best Picture winners that made their North American debuts first at Telluride were Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, The Artist, Argo, 12 Years a Slave, Moonlight, Parasite, The Shape of Water and more.

Here is the complete schedule:

FEATURE FILM & EPISODIC WORKS

· ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (d. Payal Kapadia, France-India-Netherlands-Luxembourg, 2024)

· ANORA (d. Sean Baker, U.S., 2024)

· APOCALYPSE IN THE TROPICS (d. Petra Costa, Brazil-U.S.-Denmark, 2024)

· BETTER MAN (d. Michael Gracey, Australia, 2024)

· BIRD (d. Andrea Arnold, U.K., 2024)

· BLINK (d. Daniel Roher, Edmund Stenson, U.S.-Canada, 2024)

· CARVILLE: WINNING IS EVERYTHING, STUPID! (d. Matt Tyrnauer, U.S., 2024)

· CONCLAVE (d. Edward Berger, U.K., 2024)

· DISCLAIMER (d. Alfonso Cuarón, U.K.-U.S., 2024)

· DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT (d. Embeth Davidtz, South Africa, 2024)

· EMILIA PÉREZ (d. Jacques Audiard, France, 2024)

· IN WAVES AND WAR (d. Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, U.S., 2024)

· JEAN COCTEAU (d. Lisa Immordino Vreeland, U.S., 2024)

· LEONARDO DA VINCI (d. Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon, U.S., 2024)

· MARIA (d. Pablo Larraín, Germany-Italy-U.S.-Hungary-France-Greece, 2024)

· MARTHA (d. R.J. Cutler, U.S., 2024)

· MEMOIR OF A SNAIL (d. Adam Elliot, Australia, 2024)

· MISERICORDIA (d. Alain Guiraudie, France-Spain-Portugal, 2024)

· NICKEL BOYS (d. RaMell Ross, U.S., 2024)

· NO OTHER LAND (d. Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, Palestine-Norway, 2024)

· ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO (d. Kevin Macdonald, U.K., 2024)

· PIECE BY PIECE (d. Morgan Neville, U.S., 2024)

· SANTOSH (d. Sandhya Suri, U.K.-Germany-France, 2024)

· SATURDAY NIGHT (d. Jason Reitman, U.S., 2024)

· SEPARATED (d. Errol Morris, U.S., 2024)

· SEPTEMBER 5 (d. Tim Fehlbaum, Germany, 2024)

· SOCIAL STUDIES (d. Lauren Greenfield, U.S., 2024)

· THE END (d. Joshua Oppenheimer, Ireland-Germany-Italy-Sweden-Denmark-U.K., 2024)

· THE FRIEND (d. David Siegel, Scott McGehee, U.S., 2024)

· THE OUTRUN (d. Nora Fingscheidt, U.K.-Germany, 2024)

· THE PIANO LESSON (d. Malcolm Washington, U.S., 2024)

· THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG (d. Mohammad Rasoulof, Germany-France-Iran, 2024)

· THE WHITE HOUSE EFFECT (d. Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, Pedro Kos, U.S., 2024)

· WILL & HARPER (d. Josh Greenbaum, U.S., 2024)

· ZURAWSKI V TEXAS (d. Maisie Crow, Abbie Perrault, U.S., 2024)

SHORT FILM IN MAIN PROGRAM

· A SWIM LESSON (d. Rashida Jones, Will McCormack, U.S., 2024)

· ALOK (d. Alex Hedison, U.S., 2024)

· THE TURNAROUND (d. Kyle Thrash, Ben Proudfoot, U.S., 2024)

Kenneth Lonergan, this year’s festival Guest Director, presents the following film selections:

· ARCH OF TRIUMPH (d. Lewis Milestone, U.S., 1948)

· BARRY LYNDON (d. Stanley Kubrick, U.K.-U.S., 1975)

· DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (d. David Lean, U.K.-Italy-U.S., 1965)

· GRAND HOTEL (d. Edmund Goulding, U.S., 1932)

· MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (d. John Ford, U.S., 1946)

BACKLOT

· A SUDDEN GLIMPSE TO DEEPER THINGS (d. Mark Cousins, U.K