Fall Festival Preview: 29 Must-See Films Playing at the Venice, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals

The advent of the fall festival season is always one of the biggest events of the year for cinephiles, but movie lovers from around the world have additional reasons to underline the dates on their calendars this year. The SAG-AFTRA strike turned last year’s Venice, Toronto, Telluride, and New York film festivals into shells of their former selves as films were forced to debut with star-less red carpets or, in some cases, pull out of festivals altogether. While many pointed out that the increased attention on smaller films wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, this year’s return to star-studded festival glory is long overdue. 

While the asterisk still hasn’t fully been removed due to the impact that last year’s production slowdowns had on this year’s releases, festival attendees will still be able to enjoy a diverse feast of cinematic offerings. Who could possibly complain about a slate that includes Daniel Craig swinging for the fences in a Luca Guadagnino romance, two new Amy Adams star vehicles, a LEGO music biopic, gastropod stop-motion, a first-person baby shooter, Brad Pitt and George Clooney bro-ing out, Angelina Jolie as a storied opera singer, new footage from Jerry Lewis’ “The Day the Clown Cried,” and musicals galore including a return to the director’s chair from the man behind “The Greatest Showman,” a post-apocalyptic Joshua Oppenheimer songbook starring Tilda Swinton, and of course, the destined-to-be-divisive “Joker: Folie à Deux?” And that’s before you even get to the new films from Steve McQueen, Edward Berger, Alex Ross Perry, Hong Sang-soo, Ron Howard, Jason Reitman, Errol Morris, and multiple Coppolas. 

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While this list is primarily focused on films making their world premieres this fall, it’s also worth noting that many acclaimed films from Cannes and Sundance will be resurfacing on the festival circuit. Films like Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” Sean Baker’s “Anora,” Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance,” and Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man” are all set to screen at North American with the hopes of picking up (or simply maintaining) ground in an awards race that’s about to get very crowded, very quickly. 

Keep reading for IndieWire’s list of 28 films we can’t wait to see at the Venice, Toronto, and New York film festivals this fall. 

Samantha Bergeson, Kate Erbland, David Ehrlich, Alison Foreman, Jim Hemphill, Chris O’Falt, Harrison Richlin, and Anne Thompson contributed to this list. 

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