Each new outing for the Denver Film Festival promises surprises, from last-minute celebrities to awards-season titles that delight and challenge audiences like no other art form can.
The 48th festival, produced by the nonprofit Denver Film, runs Friday, Oct. 31, through Sunday, Nov. 9, with screenings and events at the festival home base of the Sie FilmCenter, red carpets at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, and more at the MCA Holiday Theater, Denver Botanic Gardens, the Kirk of Highland and other venues.
Here’s a quick guide to some of this year’s most attention-worthy films and guests, as well as how-to tips on the featured screenings, shorts, awards ceremonies, panels, parties and other programming.
Tickets and a full schedule are available at denverfilm.org/programs/denverfilmfestival.
The lowdown
The Denver Film Festival this year will feature some 140 narrative features, documentaries, and shorts — last year, there were 185 — and spans genres and formats including music videos and episodic shows. It offers red carpets, special presentations and individual screenings among ticket tiers, as well as packages.
Individual screenings cost $20, with $32.56 for special presentations and $43 for red carpets/galas (all fees included). Note: Some events are already sold out or on standby, so check availability and buy in advance. This year is expected to draw more than 40,000 attendees over its Oct. 31-Nov. 9 run. Thankfully, that’s spread out over a week-plus of programming.
John Elway + Netflix
This year’s programming coup is undoubtedly the John Elway documentary “Elway,” which follows the former Denver Bronco’s four-decade career. It will be released on Netflix just after its DFF premiere.
Elway will be in attendance for the fest’s closing-night screening and red carpet walk, which is killer advertising for the fest to non-cinephiles. The doc is produced in part by Peyton Manning (another local Broncos hero) and the NFL, and looks every bit as outsized as Elway himself. 7 p.m. on Nov. 8 at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House
More celebs
Film festivals are much more than their celebrity guests, but it’s notable this year that DFF has managed to secure an unusually large number of stars, both behind and in front of the camera.
After a 2024 event that nabbed Anthony Mackie (the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s new Captain America) for his Colorado-shot movie “Elevation,” DFF this year has landed influential director Gus Van Sant (“My Own Private Idaho,” “Dead Man’s Wire”), Delroy Lindo (“Sinners”), Lucy Liu (“Rosemead”), Ben Foster (“Christy”), Zoey Deutch (“Nouvelle Vague”), Niecy Nash-Betts (CinemaQ LaBahn Ikon Award Recipient), Imogen Poots (“The Chronology of Water”), and the aforementioned Elway.
That’s a pretty great lineup, but one that only scratches the surface of the bedrock talent the fest typically features. Check out more screenings, speaking events and awards ceremonies via denverfilmfestival.eventive.org.
Titles on tap
There are too many buzzy films to list, from the critically divisive “Hamnet,” which looks at William Shakespeare’s tragic family life, to the French sci-fi “Arco,” which follows a 10-year-old boy’s journey back to the past (of 2075) and won the Annecy Cristal Award for Best Feature at Cannes earlier this year. If you’re looking for screenings of films like George Clooney’s wry “Jay Kelly,” however, you’ll have to wait for tickets on standby.
We’re particularly excited about the opening-night feature of “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” a star-studded murder-comedy directed by Denver’s own Rian Johnson, at the Ellie on Oct. 31. He was in attendance at the DFF in 2019 when the first “Knives Out” had its Colorado premiere at the Ellie (notably, DFF programmer Matthew Campbell and crew seem to have Netflix on speed dial these days, which is valuable in advance of the attention-sucking Sundance Film Festival coming to Boulder in 2027).
There’s also “The Testament of Ann Lee,” directed by Norwegian screenwriter and actor Mona Fastvold. Awards-watchers may recall that her Colorado-reared husband, Brady Corbet, directed last year’s Oscar-winning “The Brutalist,” which also screened at DFF 47 (and which Fastvold co-wrote). And the Late Night Showcase is always a blast with horror titles that you’ve probably never seen on the big screen (and likely won’t again), this year including “Primate” and “Sinners.”