Written by Pete Hammond, Deadline

The Telluride Film Festival, a key part of the fall festival circuit launching awards season and perhaps some major Academy Award contenders, announced the wide-ranging lineup of films for its landmark 50th edition. The fest kicks off Thursday and runs through Labor Day and will feature world premieres of Oscar winners Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers (Focus Features), Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn (Amazon) and Free Solo filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s narrative feature Nyad (Netflix).

Other world premieres in the lineup include Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers (Searchlight) with Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott; George C. Wolfe’s Rustin (Netflix), starring Colman Domingo in the title role; Ethan Hawke’s Wildcat starring daughter Maya Hawke; Bhutan filmmaker Pawo Choyning Dorji’s follow-up to his Oscar-nominated international breakthrough Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, the sure-to-be-talked-about The Monk and the Gun.

More premieres include Christos Nikou’s Fingernails starring Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed; Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel; Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders; Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Annie Baker’s directorial debut Janet Planet (A24); Danish period piece The Promised Land (Magnolia) starring Mads Mikkelsen; A24’s Tuesday featuring a rare dramatic turn from Julia Louis-Dreyfus; Christy Hall’s two-hander Daddio with Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson; and many more.

Telluride famously keeps its lineup under wraps until the day before the actual fest gets rolling, but most of the titles are fairly easy to figure out. The festival is taking place the exact same time as Venice, which gets underway tonight. Five films from that Italian festival will also be heading right after their premieres straight to the Colorado Rockies. They include Venice competition titles Yorgas Lanthimos’ Poor Things (Searchlight), Pablo Larrain’s Chilean El Conde (Netflix), and Saverio Costanzo’s Italian Finalmente L’Alba (Finally Dawn). The Taliban-focused Ibrahim Nashat-directed documentary Hollywoodgate, and Andy Kaufman docu Thank You Very Much will also be making the long trip.

Acclaimed prize winners from the Cannes Film Festival are also usually Telluride staples and this year is no different. You can look for Neon’s Justine Triet Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall; Jonathan Glazer’s Grand Prix-winning The Zone of Interest from A24; Aki Kaurismaki’s Jury Prize winner, Fallen Leaves; Cannes Director winner Anh Hung Tran’s The Taste of Things (aka The Pot Au Feu) from IFC Films; and a pair from Wim Wenders that also appeared in Cannes in Perfect Days and Anselm.

Wenders is among a trio getting Telluride’s Silver Medallion tributes this weekend. Lanthimos will be on hand for a tribute tied to Poor Things as it makes its North American debut right after Venice. The SAG-AFTRA strike caused some shuffling on the part of Telluride, which usually also honors actors, and reportedly had set (but didn’t announce) tributes to Nyad star Annette Bening who plays legendary champion swimmer Diana Nyad in the biopic, as well as Gael García Bernal who is the title star of Oscar winner Roger Ross Williams’ narrative filmmaking debut Cassandro (Amazon), which actually debuted at Sundance in January but will be one of the rare movies from that fest to also play Telluride. Neither actor will now be attending since their respective distributors, Netflix and Amazon, are among the struck companies. Some actors will be on hand we hear including Ethan and Maya Hawke, and Louis-Dreyfus after their respective pics got SAG-AFTEA approval for interim agreements.

Another Sundance debut, now picked up by Roadside Attractions, is the extraordinary documentary Beyond Utopia, which chronicles one family’s harrowing escape from North Korea and it is just one of the many documentary titles that will also be playing Telluride, a list that also includes world premieres of NatGeo’s The Mission from Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, and Errol Morris’ latest The Pigeon Tunnel about famed author John le Carré from Apple Original Films.

The complete lineup does not include some titles that will be added as “sneaks” over the weekend. Don’t expect those under-the-radar movies to be anything directed by Martin Scorsese or Ridley Scott.

The Deadline team, including yours truly, will be out in force all through the holiday weekend to report on everything happening in Telluride including the party scene with expected soirees hosted by Searchlight, Amazon, Netflix, Neon, Sony Pictures Classics, IFC, A24, and others.

The Show

THE BIKERIDERS (d. Jeff Nichols, U.S., 2023)

Associate Costume Designer: Lindsey Kear

THE ROYAL HOTEL (d. Kitty Green, Australia, 2023)

Director of Photography: Michael Latham

Backlot

AKA MR. CHOW (d. Nick Hooker, U.S., 2023)

Director of Photography: Richard Hama

Link to Original Article and Entire Lineup List

Michael Latham

50th Telluride Film Festival Lineup Featuring Work from Lindsey Kear, Michael Latham and Richard Hama

2023 BFI Film Festival Lineup Includes Work from Several Innovative Clients

Michael Latham Biography