Murdoch, Musk and a Golden Lion: How Venice 2026 Fires the Starting Gun on Awards Season

Every autumn, the film world's long march toward the Oscars begins not in Hollywood but on a narrow strip of the Venetian Lido, where the oldest film festival on earth unspools its red carpet. In 2026, the Venice Film Festival once again serves as the starting gun for awards season, and this year's edition arrives loaded with heavyweight directors, provocative subjects and the first genuine Oscar contenders of the cycle.

Running from 2 to 12 September, the festival has long since shed any reputation as a sleepy European showcase. It has become the launchpad where reputations are made and awards campaigns are quietly born, and the films that play well on the Lido often carry that momentum all the way to the following spring.

A British opening with bite

This year the honour of opening the festival falls to a British filmmaker with something to say. Danny Boyle's biographical drama Ink, which stars Guy Pearce as the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, premieres on the opening night, setting a combative, contemporary tone rather than the safe glamour festivals sometimes favour.

Choosing a film about one of the most consequential and controversial figures in modern media as the curtain-raiser is a statement in itself. It signals a programme unafraid of tackling power, politics and the machinery of influence, themes that run through much of this year's most talked-about titles.

For British cinema, Boyle's presence at the very front of the festival is a welcome reminder that the country's directors still command the biggest stages. It is the kind of high-profile slot that puts a UK production in front of the world's assembled critics and buyers on the most-watched night of the event.

Directors, documentaries and a Musk portrait

Beyond the opening, the competition for the coveted Golden Lion reads like a roll call of modern auteurs. New work from Martin McDonagh, Florian Zeller and the veteran Werner Herzog sits among the standouts, promising the kind of divisive, ambitious cinema that Venice audiences relish debating late into the night.

The non-fiction slate may generate just as much noise. Among the highlights is a documentary charting the Oasis reunion tour, a subject guaranteed to draw British interest, alongside Alex Gibney's long-gestating portrait of Elon Musk, a film whose mere existence has been the subject of speculation for years.

That blend of prestige drama and buzzy documentary is precisely why Venice matters. It is a festival that can, within a single week, launch a serious Best Picture campaign and premiere the kind of culturally loaded documentary that dominates conversation far beyond the arthouse crowd.

The people handing out the prizes

Deciding who takes home the Golden Lion is a jury led this year by the actor and filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal, who presides over a panel that includes directors Kaouther Ben Hania, Xavier Giannoli, Shahrbanoo Sadat and the legendary Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To, rounded out by the composer Daniel Blumberg and film theorist Francesco Casetti.

It is a deliberately international and eclectic group, the kind of jury whose tastes are genuinely hard to predict. That unpredictability is part of Venice's charm, because a bold, unexpected winner can instantly reshape the awards-season narrative and thrust a little-seen film into the global spotlight.

The festival will also honour cinema's elders, with Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement reportedly going to the 93-year-old screen icon Ellen Burstyn and to George Clooney, a pairing that neatly bridges Hollywood's storied past and its enduring, star-driven present.

Around the main event, parallel sections such as Orizzonti and Venezia Classici do the quieter but vital work of spotlighting emerging filmmakers and restoring cinema history, ensuring the festival is not merely a launchpad for the powerful but also a discovery ground for the new.

By the time the final prizes are handed out on 12 September, the shape of the coming awards race will be far clearer than it is today. Venice does not crown the Oscar winners, but it names the contenders, and for the next several months the films that shone on the Lido will set the terms of the conversation the whole industry is about to have.