The 16 Best New Films That Premiered at the Fall Festivals

The fall festivals — starting with Venice and through Telluride and Toronto — give us a map of what the rest of the year in movies looks like. These are the films that will dominate year-end discussions, top 10 lists, and, of course, the Oscars and the awards that precede and predict them. These are the movies that maybe you adore or anticipate now, but might get sick of hearing about by March 2, the date of the Oscars. So turns the awards season wheel, but at least the Oscars are closer to February again.

And the tone-setting trifecta of Venice, Telluride, and TIFF isn’t even the half of it, as regional festivals continue to pop up through December and, of course, New York and AFI Fest are still to come. This year’s New York Film Festival is lacking in top-ticket world premieres but still offers a robust greatest-hits selection of the fall fests that were, along with an artfully curated sampling of discoveries and buried gems. AFI, meanwhile, hosts the world premiere of Clint Eastwood’s “Juror No. 2,” with the 94-year-old filmmaker returning to the festival that in 2019 premiered “Richard Jewell.” The film stars Nicholas Hoult as a juror on a trial who realizes he may have been responsible for the victim’s death; it’ll close AFI Fest.

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IndieWire was on the ground at the three major festivals and is here to report back on the 16 new films we loved the most. That means only world premieres in this case, though there were plenty of Cannes movies we loved that popped in Italy, Colorado, and Canada, like “All We Imagine as Light,” “Anora,” “Emilia Pérez,” and “The Substance”; plus, animated Annecy premiere “Memoir of a Snail” played Telluride, too.

Christian Blauvelt, Sophie Monks Kaufman, and Christian Zilko contributed to this story.

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