I’m a film critic attending Venice 2025 – I can’t wait for these 10 movies

The Venice Film Festival line-up is stuffed to the gills with talent and exciting movies for 2025, solidifying its reputation as a natural home to films seeking the spotlight.

Last year, the festival showcased the likes of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Babygirl, Maria, Joker: Folie à Deux and awards season darling The Brutalist.

Ahead of reporting from the Lido again, here are my picks as a film critic of the movies I’m most excited to see in my ever-shuffling list.

There are 10 here, but at least a further eight more I’d love to see (realistically, having been to Venice before, it won’t happen).

With so many to choose from, several not officially included here deserve honourable mentions, such as Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother, which stars Cate Blanchett and Adam Driver, among others.

But without further ado… 

Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro returns to the gothic genre with his star-studded take on Mary Shelley’s classic creature feature for Netflix, starring Oscar Isaac as the eccentric titular doctor and Jacob Elordi as his unorthodox creation.

Judging from del Toro’s past work with Crimson Peak and Pan’s Labyrinth, I’m confident he’ll bring the scares as well as a ghoulish style.

Christoph Waltz, Mia Goth and Fantastic Four’s Ralph Ineson are also in the cast.

He’s a revered filmmaker who has had past Oscars success with The Shape of Water – which won him both best picture and director – and 2022 stop-motion dark delight Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.

I predict lavish period visuals, terror and some genuinely heartbreaking performances.

The Wizard of the Kremlin

Jude Law will appear as a young Vladimir Putin in this upcoming political thriller from Olivier Assayas, based on a highly-regarded French novel – that’s Oscar bait enough.

But the film’s premise is fascinating too, following the fictional Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano) on his journey from young artist in the 1990s to government spin doctor.

Its supporting cast is an exciting one, with previous Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander, Jeffrey Wright, Zach Galifianakis and Tom Sturridge along for the intrigue.

Assayas has thrilled French audiences and international critics alike previously with films such as Summer Hours and Something in the Air (a winner at Venice in 2012), but Clouds of Sils Maria in 2014 brought him to wider attention with its blockbuster international cast, including Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart.

It feels like he’s overdue wider international attention again, and this could be the headline-grabbing film to do it: I’m certainly intrigued.

Jay Kelly 

Noah Baumbach has teamed up with Emily Mortimer to write this Netflix comedy drama about a successful actor going through an identity crisis.

Said actor will be portrayed by the one and only George Clooney, so I can already imagine how he could charm the pants off critics and fans alike – but he also has the chops to pull off vulnerability and deeper material.

Netflix has one of its stalwarts in the cast as Adam Sandler plays Jay’s manager, travelling through Europe with the star in what is sure to be a curious pairing, while it truly is an embarrassment of riches in the ensemble cast: Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Isla Fisher, Jim Broadbent, Baumbach’s Barbie-directing wife Greta Gerwig and more.

Baumbach has a great track record with his eclectic previous films including Barbie (co-writer), Marriage Story (which he also directed and received a best picture nod) and The Squid and the Whale.

It’s hard to tell ahead exactly what we’ll be in store for this time, but I know it will be meticulously crafted.

The Testament of Ann Lee

Not only is this based on the absorbing story of the founder of the Shakers religious movement in the 18th century, but it’s billed as a historical drama musical – already a slightly unusual mix.

Starring Amanda Seyfried as the real-life figure referred to by her followers as the female representation of God, The Testament of Ann Lee’s cast also features Lewis Pullman, Thomasin McKenzie, Tim Blake Nelson and Christopher Abbott.

I’m already seated for this, but the final enticement is that it’s the next film from the writing pair Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, after The Brutalist took Venice and then awards season by storm just last year.

It’s shot in 70mm, like The Brutalist, and Seyfried has said she ‘went to hell and back’ filming this back-to-back with crime mini-series Long Bright River.

This time it’s Fastvold in the directorial chair, and I’m expecting big things.

After the Hunt

Another to return to Venice for a second consecutive year is Luca Guadagnino, and his latest movie is likely to make even more noise than Queer, which starred Daniel Craig.

In After the Hunt, Julia Roberts plays celebrated college professor Alma who must grapple with her own secretive past after her protégée Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) accuses her colleague Hank (Andrew Garfield) of assault.

Guadagnino excels at examining relationships – as we learned from Challengers and Call Me By Your Name – and he’s reteamed with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the movie’s soundtrack.

It’s Roberts’ first trip to the Lido and has the potential to be her juiciest role since her Oscar-winning turn in 2000’s Erin Brockovich.

This one will be conversation starter, for sure.

A House of Dynamite

The first woman to win the best director Oscar, The Hurt Locker filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow is at the helm of this political thriller for Netflix.

Unfolding in real time, A House of Dynamite follows a group of White House officials as they grapple with an incoming missile attack on the US.

Bigelow has a long history of combining political machinations and action scenes with aplomb, as Zero Dark Thirty, K-19: The Widowmaker and Detroit also attest.

This time her knockout (and massive) cast, led by Idris Elba, includes Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris, The Night Agent’s Gabriel Basso, Anthony Ramos, Jonah Hauer-King, Willa Fitzgerald, Greta Lee and Zero Dark Thirty’s Jason Clarke.

A House of Dynamite might be the most exciting film at the 2025 festival – and that’s saying something.

The Smashing Machine 

This film puts Dwayne Johnson in a role he was born to play as former wrestling legend and MMA fighter Mark Kerr, allowing him to exercise both his wrestling muscles and his acting chops.

The Smashing Machine could elevate Johnson to the awards circuit for the first time too, after his blockbuster movie success, with the support of his Oscar-nominated former Jungle Cruise co-star Emily Blunt and the film’s writer and director Benny Safdie.

It’s Safdie’s first film without brother and collaborator Josh, but the pair made waves previously with the likes of Good Times starring Robert Pattinson and 2019 crime favourite Uncut Gems with an arguably career-best turn from Adam Sandler.

Could the same be in store for Johnson? I think with this sort of tailormade material at his fingertips, the answer is already an undeniable yes.

Bugonia

Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos appear to be bringing us another off-beat treat after following up their 2024 Oscars triumph Poor Things with the bizarre and sometimes depraved anthology movie Kinds of Kindness.

Jesse Plemons returns too for Bugonia after the latter, as one of two conspiracy obsessed young men (the other is played by Aidan Delbis), who kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company (Stone) after becoming convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.

This science fiction black comedy is a remake of the 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet! and also stars Alicia Silverstone and American stand-up Stavros Halkias.

After the trailer’s comically dramatic sound cues and use of Green Day’s Basket Case, I think Bugonia could be another delightfully weird and entertaining hit for Lanthimos.

In the Hand of Dante

Director Julian Schnabel’s first film in seven years boasts an almost absurdly star-studded cast: Oscar Isaac (again), Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Franco Nero, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Al Pacino and legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese.

If that’s not intrigued you enough already, Isaac plays Dante Alighieri himself, with the film charting the journey of a handwritten manuscript of his masterpiece poem The Divine Comedy from the Vatican library to a New York mob boss to journalist Nick Tosches (also Isaac), to verify its authenticity.

Tosches wrote the book the movie’s based on, and The Diving Bell and Butterfly director Schnabel has been attached to helm this project since 2011.

With all of that in mind, I’m expecting In the Hand of Dante to be a bold and fascinating film, however it turns out.

Dead Man’s Wire

Award-winning Good Will Hunting director Gus Van Sant is returning to the Lido with his latest film Dead Man’s Wire, based on the true story of kidnapper Tony Kiritsis.

Bill Skarsgård stars as Kiritsis, who took his mortgage broker hostage in 1977 after he refused to give him extra time to pay, wiring the muzzle of a sawn-off shotgun to the back of his head which was also connected to the gun’s trigger.

Iconic indie filmmaker Van Sant, whose flick My Own Private Idaho competed at the festival in 1991, has launched the careers of major stars including River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, Joaquin Phoenix, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.

The cast also includes Stranger Things actor Dacre Montgomery as mortgage broker Richard Hall, Colman Domingo, Industry actress Myha’la, Cary Elwes and Al Pacino (again).

Any new film from him is always worth sitting up and taking notice of, and I predict this will be a taut and propulsive crime thriller.

The Venice Film Festival runs from Wednesday August 27 – Saturday September 6, 2025.

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