10 Highly Anticipated Movies At The 2022 Venice Film Festival

The Venice Film Festival is one of the most traditional and important international festivals out there, older than the prestigious Cannes Film Festival itself. The 79th edition will take place on September 10 and offers one of the most exciting lineups of the century so far, with plenty of prominent directors competing for the Golden Lion, as well as a good mix of international features to watch out for.

Often working as an exciting radar to movies that make it to the award season and the Oscars, this year's Venice Film Festival will deliver long-anticipated Netflix releases as well as the comeback of controversial filmmakers.

The Banshees Of Inisherin

The Banshees Of Inisherin has everything to be the weirdest movie in the Venice selection, which doesn't come as surprise considering director Martin McDonagh's style. The mind behind the popular dark comedy, In Bruges, McDonagh brings Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson together again for his upcoming movie to once again portray an unconventional friendship.

The film will tell the story of two lifelong friends at an impasse when one of them abruptly ends their relationship, with alarming consequences for both of them. The trailer teases lots of heavy accents, blackmails, a 1923 Irish setting, and McDonaugh's main trademark: sharp hints of dark humor.

The Eternal Daughter

Joanna Hogg has established herself as one of the most sophisticated directors of her generation with The Souvenir I and II, a polished semi-autobiographical meditation about love, cinema, and moving on.

Collaborating for the third time with the renowned Tilda Swinton, her upcoming movie The Eternal Daughter will be distributed by the popular A24 and offer a chilling mystery drama. In the film, an artist and her elderly woman face long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now haunted by its mysterious past.

White Noise

Noah Baumbach, famous for his intricate and deeply conversational stories, took the challenge of adapting one of America's most acclaimed novels of all time to the screen, and with a weighty cast to give life to Don Delillo's words.

White Noise will follow Adam Driver as a college professor of Hitler studies and the father of an unconventional family made of four children/stepchildren he shares with his wife, played by Greta Gerwig. When a mysterious "Airborne Toxic Event" shakes the family's systematic routine, White Noise uses tragedy and fear as vehicles to deliver a clever satire on consumerism and mortality.

The Son

Florian Zeller is back for another adaptation of his plays to the cinema. His deeply tear-jerking debut, The Father, offered the heartbreaking story of an aging man presenting signs of dementia, earning Anthony Hopkins another Oscar. Following the same emotional approach, The Son will star Hugh Jackman in the role of a father who sees his life turn upside down after his ex-wife turns up with their estranged teenage son.

Hugh Jackman has an extensive filmography, but is overdue for an Oscar ever since his deserved Best Actor nomination in 2013. Zeller's The Father offered a roller coaster of feelings and The Son has everything to be a movie as heartfelt as his debut, hopefully filled with outstanding performances that match Hopkins and Colman's work.

Bardo, False Chronicles Of A Handful Of Truths

Iñárritu's filmography is all about portraying characters to their extremes, being it the extremes of fame, which is the case with Birdman, or the extremes of survival, as in The Revenant. With Bardo, he intends to do something different, especially after admitting to making several impossible choices on set and exposing his crew to unwanted danger in previous productions.

Back to his roots, Bardo will tell the story of a renowned Mexican journalist and filmmaker who returns home in an attempt to come to terms with his existential crisis and shattered psyche. It's likely to be one of those movies where it's up to viewers to discern where the film draws the line between fantasy and reality.

Bones And All

Luca Guadagnino's movies tend to be a box of surprises but all of them share the same sophisticated style and sensorial beauty. Having previously worked in horror, with Suspiria, and romance, with Call Me By Your Name, Guadagnino blends the two genres into one with Bones and All.

Starring Taylor Russel and Timothée Chalamet, who has previously worked with Guadagnino in Call Me By Your Name and delivered what's believed to be his best performance yet, the movie follows a mysterious couple of outsiders on a road trip, but both of them are troubled by a terrifying dilemma as they acknowledge they can't outrun their compromising past. It's rumored to be a love story with lots of gore, something fans will definitely fall for.

The Whale

Five years after releasing his most controversial movie to date, mother!, Darren Aronofsky returns all of a sudden. Known for his provocative narratives and psychologically-heavy dramas that verge on horror, his films tend to be a challenge to sit through and fans should not let their guards down at The Whale's seemingly sensitive, emotional approach.

Counting on Stranger Things star Sadie Sink, and starring Brandon Fraser, the film will follow a reclusive English teacher suffering from severe obesity in a heart-rendering attempt to reconnect with his estranged daughter. Called a story of redemption, viewers should watch out for the names in the cast for they're highly likely to show up at next year's Oscars.

Don't Worry Darling

The basic premise of Don't Worry Darling and the actors involved alone are enough to get the internet psyched on it: Harry Styles and Florence Pugh play a husband and wife living the perfect life in an experimental community, but the housewife soon begins to suspect the place hides disturbing secrets.

Don't Worry Darling promises to be as sexy as it is sinister, and the 1950s setting ensures the story will be told in the most stylish way possible. The mysterious synopsis indicates it's the kind of movie best going in completely blind about the plot, thus the highly-esteemed cast works perfectly as a way to arouse people's curiosity.

Pearl

Perhaps the best way to maintain a film's buzz is by releasing a sequel, or in this case, a prequel, in the same year. Ti West's X is one of the most innovative horror movies of the year and was a huge success. The fact that Pearl was already being produced before X was even released shows that A24 and Ti West were expecting satisfying results from the get-go.

Set in 1918, around 50 years before the events of X, Pearl will follow the film's main antagonist when she was young and as beautiful as Maxine from X, which explains why she'll be played by the same actress that played Maxine, Mia Goth. Fans can expect a slasher as dynamic as its origin story and lots of blood, considering the film is sort of a killer origin story.

Blonde

The amount of buzz Blonde has generated even without any promotional teasers has been going on for quite a while, and now with the first images and a teaser trailer revealed the internet is going wild. While the exciting casting of Ana de Armas as the Hollywood muse was already enough to get people psyched on Blonde, the movie's official NC-17 rating is a clear indication that the film will likely be controversial and prompt plenty of arguments and discussions.

Based on the best-selling book by Joyce Carol Oates, the film will present a fictionalized take on the life of America's legendary actress Marilyn Monroe. Addressing themes such as fame and power, Blonde will reportedly also bring serious topics such as abuse and the actress' controversial relationships to the table.

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