Ciao! The 82nd annual Venice Film Festival is underway and the stars have hit the canals, with this year’s world premieres including Yorgos Lanthimos kidnap thriller “Bugonia,” Noah Baumbach’s showbiz dramedy “Jay Kelly,” Guillermo del Toro’s lavish adaptation “Frankenstein,” Luca Guadagnino’s college campus thriller “After the Hunt” and Benny Safdie’s UFC biopic “The Smashing Machine.”
New films from Mona Fastvold, Kathryn Bigelow, Paolo Sorrentino, Jim Jarmusch, Park Chan-wook, Gus Van Sant, Lucrezia Martel, László Nemes and Kaouther Ben Hania are also in the lineup. This year’s jury is headed by Alexander Payne, the director of films like “The Holdovers,” “Election” and “Sideways.”
Venice often serves as the launch of awards season, coming ahead of an onslaught of other fall festivals including Telluride, Toronto and New York that distributors use to lay the foundation for campaigning in the coming months.
See all of Variety’s reviews from the 2025 Venice Film Festival below. The roundup will be updated throughout the festival to include the most recent reviews.
‘No Other Choice’ (dir. Park Chan-wook)
Read Variety’s review: Park Chan-wook’s dazzling murder comedy is a masterclass in controlled chaos. The Korean director of “Oldboy,” “The Handmaiden” and “Decision to Leave” lights up the Venice competition darkly, with a deliriously entertaining satire on the derangement of being downsized.
‘At Work’ (dir. Valérie Donzelli)
Read Variety’s review: A writer is both inspired and exploited by the gig economy in Valérie Donzelli’s perceptive character study. Bastien Bouillon is wonderful as a shambling, self-unmade hero in this French drama, a quiet gem in Venice competition.
‘After the Hunt’ (dir. Luca Guadagnino)
Read Variety’s review: Luca Guadagnino’s sexual-accusation drama plays like a muddled “Tár,” with Julia Roberts as a scheming professor. The film is made with craft and intrigue, yet too much of it leaves us scratching our heads.
‘Cover-Up’ (dir. Laura Poitras)
Read Variety’s review: Laura Poitras’ enthralling portrait of Seymour Hersh makes you ask, “Where have all the investigative reporters gone?” Fifty years later, the stories that Hersh reported — like the My Lai massacre — now look iconic. But the documentary captures how uncovering corruption is always a mountain to climb.
‘Jay Kelly’ (dir. Noah Baumbach)
Read Variety’s review: George Clooney plays a version of himself in Noah Baumbach’s lightly diverting but overly soft inside-Hollywood drama. The lead character is a beloved movie star just like Clooney… except for the cold dark side we don’t quite believe.
‘Bugonia’ (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
Read Variety’s review: Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons descend into a riveting duel in Yorgos Lanthimos’ scaldingly topical kidnap thriller. The director is at the top of his visionary nihilistic game in a movie about what’s happening to the world.
‘Orphan’ (dir. László Nemes)
Read Variety’s review: László Nemes returns with a heavy dose of sepia-tinted childhood torment. The “Son of Saul” director’s portrait of a 12-year-old boy confronted with ugly family secrets in 1950s Soviet-occupied Hungary is handsomely mounted but narratively inert.
‘Memory’ (dir. Vladlena Sandu)
Read Variety’s review: A haunting memorial collage crafted from a child’s experience of war, Ukrainian director Vladlena Sandu’s strikingly illustrated recollections of war-torn Grozny form an anguished, urgent, mesmerizing portrait of self-replicating generational trauma.
‘La Grazia’ (dir. Paolo Sorrentino)
Read Variety’s review: Paolo Sorrentino opens the Venice Film Festival with a presidential drama more understated than usual for him, and better for it. Toni Servillo plays the president of Italy, who is staid to a fault (just like the movie), though with hidden depths.
