We’re just one day away from the kickoff of fall-film-festival season—considered the most wonderful time of year for Oscar obsessives like us.This ye
We’re just one day away from the kickoff of fall-film-festival season—considered the most wonderful time of year for Oscar obsessives like us.
This year’s crop is full of promise, with a slew of previously Oscar-nominated directors debuting recent projects. Some are making much-anticipated returns, like Kathryn Bigelow, who hasn’t released a film since 2017. Others are finally bringing to life long-awaited passion projects, like Guillermo del Toro with Frankenstein. Noah Baumbach and Bradley Cooper are both back in the mix with personal projects, and Yorgos Lanthimos and Paul Greengrass are also aiming to surprise audiences with their recent films.
Basically, there’s something for everyone. Here, Vanity Fair rounds up the 20 most promising films debuting at the Venice International Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival.
After the Hunt (Venice, New York)
The ever productive Luca Guadagnino returns with a thriller-drama about a college professor caught in a controversy of campus ethics. After the Hunt, with a script by Nora Garrett, has been touted as a #MeToo movie—Andrew Garfield plays a professor accused of some kind of impropriety with a student. But knowing Guadagnino, it’s likely that the film will venture into some less obvious corners too. And while that all sounds intriguing enough, it’s the presence of Julia Roberts that really has us curious. Roberts, one of the last great movie stars, doesn’t go gloomy like this very often. But it’s typically a thrill when she does. —Richard Lawson
A House of Dynamite (Venice, New York)
The first woman to win a best-director Oscar hasn’t released a film in eight years. Kathryn Bigelow’s last effort, Detroit, was a bleak and controversial drama that very few people saw. Here’s hoping her latest, about an American presidential administration dealing with an impending (and likely nuclear) missile attack, restores Bigelow as one of the premier purveyors of procedural, technical suspense. A House of Dynamite also sports a, well, dynamite cast: Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Greta Lee, and Kaitlyn Dever are among the reliable names. Early buzz for this one is forceful enough to suggest that the film is not only a jangly fall thriller, but also a true Oscar contender. —R.L.
The Wizard of the Kremlin (Venice, Toronto)
Journeyman oddball filmmaker Olivier Assayas takes aim at Russia in his recent film, an adaptation of a novel about a reality TV producer turned highly connected official in Vladimir Putin’s government. Paul Dano plays the calculating master of misinformation, while Jude Law takes the Putin role. Assayas is not the most obvious pick for material like this—his films tend to have an idiosyncratic tempo that feels like an ill fit for a political process movie—but maybe his dash of Euro madness is just what a story about an almost absurd real-world government requires. Good or bad, the movie is sure to stoke controversy when it premieres in Italy. —R.L.
Frankenstein (Venice, Toronto)
Guillermo del Toro takes a crack at Mary Shelley’s sci-fi monster novel, going for baroque as usual. Oscar Isaac plays misguided resurrectionist Victor Frankenstein, while Jacob Elordi, one of the pretty boys du jour, plays Frankenstein’s monster. An early trailer suggests something focused more on action than on gothic considerations of the Industrial Revolution, which is probably fine. A visually ravishing del Toro spectacular is never unwelcome, even if this film does not initially appear to be the sedate, high-minded take on a classic text for which some had hoped. —R.L.
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