6 Most Anticipated Films of the 2024 Venice Film Festival

FALL IS HERE!

As the summer months wane, the fall season is upon us. The first of the major fall festivals is the Venice Film Festival (one of my favorites). While this year’s festivals will no doubt be stifled by the constant delays brought upon by the Actors and Writers strikes from last fall, there’s no doubt many exciting titles. So, here are six major titles I’m looking forward to.

(Venice Film Festival, 2005)

Joker: Folie à Deux (Dir. Todd Phillips)

We could all see this one coming. Philipps is back at the Lido after winning the Golden Lion five years ago for the first installment of the Joker franchise. I don’t typically get excited about franchise films nowadays, especially ones in the ‘superhero’ genre. However, Philipps’ Joker was a resounding surprise. Released in the thick of the superhero frenzy in 2019, Joker managed to stick out as an ambitious artistic venture. While no doubt an adaptation of the Scorsese Masterpieces Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, it was still wonderfully realized with an exceptional performance from Joaquin Phoenix. Then, it was a few years ago that a sequel was announced and my antennae sprouted up. Why would such a strong film need a sequel other than to cash in on the billion-dollar box office of the first film? I couldn’t come up with any answers until I heard that Philipps wanted to go in a complete 180 and adapt it into a musical. What! Instead of adapting the gritty Scorsese crime films, Philipps is taking inspiration from two infamous 70s/80s musicals: Scorsese’s New York, New York, and Coppola’s One From the Heart. Bold. Not well received upon release, these two musicals straddle between cult and footnotes in both filmmakers’ illustrious careers. Both musicals chart a rocky relationship grounded in realism in a world full of artifice. As a particular fan of One From the Heart, it’ll be interesting to see how Phillips brings the same dynamic to a notorious supervillain couple. Still, a superhero musical is unheard of. Starring Joaquin Phoenix as the titular character and Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, Philipps aims to once again inject a popular movie franchise with adult themes and more importantly, QUALITY. The film will chart the romance between Joker and Harley Quinn during the former’s stay in Arkham Asylum, where musical mayhem is bound to occur. With two trailers already released, Philipps looks like he’s delivered with stunning photography and set designs. Here’s looking to see if Philipps can recreate the buzz from 5 years ago. 

(The Room Next Door, 2024)

The Brutalist (Dir. Brady Corbet)

Easily the most ambitious of the bunch. Brady Corbet in his third feature following Vox Lux will treat us with a three-and-a-half-hour epic charting the lifetime of a Holocaust surviving immigrant played by Adrien Brody. What could be better? The film is supposed to focus on Brody’s character as he emigrates to America to pursue the elusive “American Dream”. Joined by others like Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, and Joe Alwyn, The Brutalist sounds like an epic undertaking. Granted, a film’s runtime is not an indicator of quality especially as of late However, it’s clear that Corbet is attempting something akin to the second Godfather film or Heaven’s Gate in terms of scope. If that doesn’t tickle your interest, I don’t know what will. I’ll freely admit that I’ve never seen Vox Lux or The Childhood Leader but that’s not going to stop me from seeing The Brutalist this fall. Hopefully, Corbet’s film will allow Adrien Brody to put his hat in the ring for a second Oscar after his all-timer performance in The Pianist over twenty years ago. There’s always the chance that The Brutalist falls flat on its face given its scale and unrelenting subject matter. But, I'd rather indulge in an epic failure than a cookie-cutter, safe film.  While no promotional material has been released as of this piece, Corbet’s epic is certainly still one to look out for. 

(Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2, 2024)

The Room Next Door (Dir. Pedro Almodovar)

This is certainly my most anticipated film to hit Venice this year. Pedro Almodovar is one of the greatest living filmmakers around, an iconic iconoclast in his own right. Directing films for over 40 years, Almodovar is back with his debut English-language feature film. He’s dabbled with English in two short films which can be best described as test-runs: A Human Voice and A Strange Way of Life. I consider Almodovar one of the few singular filmmakers like Mike Leigh, Aki Kaurismaki, and others. In the sense that every one of his films is singularly their own. With a legendary filmography that includes Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, The Skin I Live In, and Pain and Glory, Almodovar’s next stars Hollywood heavy-weights Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. The Room Next Door follows Julianne Moore an author who navigates the rift between her and her mother played by Tilda Swinton based on the 2020 novel from Sigrid Nunez What Are You Going Through. For those unfamiliar with the novel (me), the plot details are currently a little vague, but the main core of the story seems completely up Almodovar's alley, someone who’s specialized in female-oriented melodramas for decades. Although it sounds like the film will be less reliant on kitsch and be more melancholic in the same vein as Pain and Glory, at least according to Tilda Swinton. This is all music to my ears. And to top it off, The Room Next Door takes place in the greatest city in the world: New York. If you aren’t familiar with Almodovar’s work, go ahead and catch up with his many Spanish masterpieces before delving into his English-language debut. 

(The Brutalist, 2024)

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2 (Dir. Kevin Costner)

The second installment of Kevin Costner’s ambitious four-part western is playing out-of-competition at Venice this fall in a strange fashion. Horizon charts a wide-spanning story of multiple families drawn to the allures of the Old West, all trying to reach a settlement called Horizon as they face the dangers of combative Native American populations. The story of how America conquered the West. Costner’s ambitious undertaking is one of the most fascinating stories in Hollywood right now. Largely financed independently from Costner’s own money and outside sources, there are currently two films finished in his planned saga with two others awaiting financing. To say that this second installment is make-it or break-it is a true understatement. Chapter 1 premiered at Cannes this past Spring to tepid reviews and followed up with an empty box office. This led to Warner Brothers canning the second installment’s August release date, looking to see if the first film gains traction on Max. I happened to catch the first installment in early July toward the end of its theatrical run. I didn’t care about the bad reviews because I was excited to see an old-fashioned Western that wasn’t another socially conscious revisionist tale. The Western is one of the greatest genres in film history, one that’s born and bred in America. Unfortunately, Chapter 1, to my taste, was a boring, meandering experience. It pained me to come to this conclusion but barely anything happens in its exhausting three-hour runtime with characters you could care less about. So, my anticipation for Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2 is rooted mostly in morbid curiosity. I want to see how Costner fixes the issues from the first installment, whether a distributor will be brave enough to pick it up for a theatrical release or relegate it to streaming, and if Costner can secure a deal to guarantee the shooting of his next two films. I’m rooting for Costner because it takes guts to put everything on the line for the sake of cinema, especially for a genre that needs resuscitation. Part 1 surely did not accomplish the task by a wide margin. Since the first film served almost entirely as a setup for Part 2, there were flashes of the next film that looked downright exciting and gorgeous. Let’s see how one of the most interesting behind-the-scenes stories takes shape on the Lido. 

(Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, 2024)

Queer (Dir. Luca Guadagnino)

Queer is the second film released by Guadagnino this year following the starry Challengers from this past Spring. While I admired Challengers, I thought it overstayed its welcome in parts. Yet, it still showed that Guadagnino is one of the best adult filmmakers working right now. Finally making it to the Lido after delaying Challengers due to the actor’s strike last Fall, Guadagnino is set to premiere arguably his most ambitious project. Adapting William S. Burrough’s classic novel Queer to the screen is a tough task. A novel that at the time of being finished was deemed too taboo for the 1950s public due to its homosexual subject matter and could only be released decades later in 1985. Charting the character of William Lee who’s loosely based on the real-life Burroughs, Queer follows him as he recently got off of drugs in Mexico City, wandering the city’s clubs. He eventually becomes infatuated with a recently discharged American Navy Serviceman who’s a heavy drug user. I’m not overly familiar with Burrough’s work, only having seen Cronenberg’s adaptation of Naked Lunch where many of the same themes of homosexuality and substance abuse persist. Nonetheless, adapting a novel from such a notorious author is a heavy undertaking especially when you cast Daniel Craig in the lead role. Craig seems prime to shed his Bond image with this film and I’m looking forward to seeing how Guadagnino pulls all this off.

(Joker à Deux, 2024)

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Dir. Tim Burton)

The Juice is Loose! Returning to the world of Beetlejuice after thirty-five-plus years, Tim Burton is back for this much-awaited legacy sequel. Drowning in development hell for decades, Burton has escaped the clutches of Disney to return to his filmmaking roots. Bringing back much of the original cast with the likes of Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara while adding Jena Ortega, Monica Belucci, and Willem Dafoe, Burton’s film is indeed starry. Burton hasn’t made a film since his ill-fated Dumbo remake from 2019, stuck making franchise Disney films for over ten years, and we haven’t seen a proper Tim Burton film since perhaps Sweeney Todd. Burton broke through in the late 80s and early 90s when he could do no wrong, releasing hit after hit with films like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and Mars Attacks!. His idiosyncratic story and visual style stood out, combining gothic and 50s B-movie elements to tell stories about quirky characters who navigate surreal, magical landscapes while searching for some kind of belonging. But, much of his visual style, cinematic obsessions, and sense of macabre humor has been missing in the blockbuster stage of his career. So, it’s a sigh of relief to see Burton return to characters that are familiar in settings that, based on the trailers, look far more Burtonesque. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice takes place in the present-day, thirty-six years after the original when the Deetz family returns to Winter River where Beetlegeuse has laid dormant ever since. Lydia Deetz’ (Ryder) daughter played by Jenna Ortega accidentally awakens Beetlegeuse and opens the portal to the Afterlife wherein the host of characters have to work together to close it. That’s all we know for now and that’s enough. While I tend to be wary of legacy sequels in, I’m most excited to see Burton return to form.

(Queer, 2024)