Venice Film Festival 2026: Cinema Turns a Mirror on a Troubled World

The 83rd Venice Film Festival drew to a close with fewer Hollywood blockbusters on offer, but the lighter slate of star vehicles gave way to something more substantial: a programme preoccupied with the state of the world.

Elon Musk loomed over the festival even before Alex Gibney's nearly four-hour documentary Musk premiered. The billionaire appeared in montages in two other films. Danny Boyle's Ink, about Rupert Murdoch and Larry Lamb's transformation of The Sun into a salacious tabloid, closed with a Murdoch-created coda envisioning a world reminiscent of Oppenheimer, featuring Musk as part of a new media landscape built around his ownership of X. The Oasis reunion documentary Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger placed him near the beginning of a montage that also included the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Trump and international conflicts, illustrating the collective turmoil that bracketed the band's 2009 breakup and 2025 reunion. Musk's name also surfaced repeatedly among young independent Russian journalists in Julia Loktev's documentary My Undesirable Friends: Part II—Exile, in connection with Starlink and their efforts to cover the war in Ukraine from afar. Gibney said he was not surprised by Musk's ubiquity, describing him as a kind of "stock villain."

George Clooney was present, but the festival's centre of gravity lay elsewhere. NAZA presented Israeli military insiders describing what they call the systemic killing of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza war. My Undesirable Friends: Part II—Exile documented the lengths Russian journalists go to in continuing to report on their country's war on Ukraine. Musk offered a sobering portrait of the world's richest man, his failures, successes and manipulations. Lee Chang-dong's Possible Love examined wealth disparity in South Korea through a laid-off worker injured in police violence against strikers, while Woman Unknown asked whether class can be transcended in post-World War II Denmark.

Social consciousness ran through the more commercial projects as well. Wild Horse Nine reflected on the CIA's sins and the operatives who carried them out in the run-up to the 1973 Chilean coup. Bunker asked why tech billionaires whose fortunes rest on connecting people are preparing for the apocalypse. Ink, set in 1969, considered the sensationalist media landscape and the civility lost to profits, while Primetime dramatised a later case in which a man died by suicide as the "To Catch a Predator" team skirted protocol for ratings.

That a glossy Oasis reunion documentary, already in theatres, left the most jaded festivalgoers in tears was perhaps less surprising in hindsight. Nostalgia, festival delirium, or simply a few shared anthems may have been what audiences needed as a respite.

Oscars buzz this year settled on two actors from different generations who have yet to win the award: John Malkovich, for his portrayal of a dying CIA agent reconciling with his past in Wild Horse Nine, and Robert Pattinson, for his transformation into a calculating, theatrical, ratings-hungry Chris Hansen in Primetime. Ben Affleck appeared for quieter reasons, supporting his younger brother Casey and his nephews at the gothic drama Company, which also features their parents, both of whom died this year and to whom the film is dedicated.

Politics and artificial intelligence were difficult to avoid in news conferences. Clooney said he believes the world is living in a "kakistocracy." Susan Sarandon said she has lost work over her support for Palestinians in the Gaza war, adding that agencies have told people not to hire her. Venice jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal, asked whether films and stars should be political, said she believes cinema is "fundamentally, unavoidably political." Clooney and Boyle both voiced concern about AI's potential harm to journalism, while a documentary about Diesel founder Renzo Rosso embraced the technology.

Ellen Burstyn, the 93-year-old recipient of the Golden Lion, travelled to Venice to collect the prize and appeared in two films, including a short in which she plays Marilyn Monroe at 100. She wept at the ceremony, saying the honour meant more than the Oscar, Tony and Emmy awards she has already won.