Venice at the Halfway Mark: The Ovations, the Split Decisions, and the One Movie Still to Come

Five weeks ago we previewed the Venice lineup and flagged five titles worth writing down before anyone had seen them. Four days in, four of those five have screened. The reception ranges from a raucous standing ovation to a shrug, and the film we called the Golden Lion favorite has not even played yet. Here is the halftime report, film by film, with the release dates you need so the good ones do not slip past you in November.

Primetime: the nine-minute ovation, and the man who refuses to watch it

The loudest moment of the festival so far happened today. Lance Oppenheim's Primetime premiered in competition on September 5 and, per Deadline, drew a nine-minute standing ovation. Robert Pattinson plays Chris Hansen in 2006, at the peak of To Catch a Predator, chasing riskier stings to keep ratings up against ABC's Lost. Merritt Wever plays his producer, with Skyler Gisondo, Anna Faris and Phoebe Bridgers filling out the cast.

The early notices are strong on the performances and more divided on the film around them. TheWrap called Pattinson "incredible"; The Hollywood Reporter said he channels Hansen "queasily"; Screen Daily praised the grainy period textures but found the drama "contrived" and singled out Wever as "phenomenal." That is a real conversation, not a consensus, which is usually the more interesting thing for a movie to be.

Then there is the subplot outside the theater. The real Chris Hansen says he has not seen the film because he declined to sign A24's NDA, has called Pattinson's portrayal "overly dramatic," and, per Variety and Deadline, bought ad space ahead of the Venice screenings to promote his own true-crime streaming service. A movie about a man who turned surveillance into television is being counter-programmed by that man. Oppenheim could not have written it better.

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2008

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Wild Horse Nine: the first big ovation, then the argument

Martin McDonagh's first film since The Banshees of Inisherin landed what The Hollywood Reporter called Venice's "first rapturous reception" of 2026. Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich play CIA officers who helped set up Chile's 1973 coup and decamp to Easter Island, where Malkovich's dying agent has stopped filtering anything he says. Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey and Tom Waits round out the ensemble.

Then the reviews split cleanly down the middle. RogerEbert.com says McDonagh "has done it again" and Time calls Malkovich and Rockwell "pure delight." TheWrap called it McDonagh's "driest crime comedy, which is a nice way of saying it's dull," and IndieWire found the satire "prickly but unconvincing." Everyone agrees Malkovich is extraordinary. Nobody agrees on whether the film earns its sympathy for two men who helped install Pinochet.

Searchlight releases Wild Horse Nine in the US on November 6, and it is 118 minutes. It also screens at Telluride this weekend, where Malkovich is receiving one of the festival's three tributes.

Ink: the opening night film that stayed in the race

Danny Boyle's Ink opened the festival on September 2 and, unusually for an opener, it is competing for the Golden Lion. Guy Pearce plays Rupert Murdoch in 1969, Jack O'Connell plays Larry Lamb, the working-class editor hired to relaunch The Sun, and Claire Foy co-stars. Variety called it "gripping, sizzling"; IndieWire went with "apocalyptic," which from IndieWire is a compliment. The reservation, from The Playlist among others, is that it moves so fast the ideas do not always stick.

As of this writing, Rotten Tomatoes has Ink at 85 percent and Wild Horse Nine at 90, and Gold Derby's read is that Boyle went from dark horse to co-frontrunner on opening night. Netflix holds US rights, so this is the one competition title you will not need a theater ticket for.

Bucking Fastard: Herzog, two Maras, one voice

Werner Herzog directing Rooney Mara and Kate Mara as twin sisters who speak in unison, dress alike, fall for the same man (Orlando Bloom) and start digging a tunnel through a mountain range toward an imaginary land where true love is possible. That is the actual plot. It got a standing ovation, per Variety, and then the reviews came in at a 70 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which for a Herzog fantasia this odd is about what you would expect.

The consistent note: the Maras deliver one performance shared across two bodies, and the movie around them does not always know what to do with it. Screen Daily called it "consistently disarming in its tenderness." The Playlist called it "tiring." Both can be true. It runs 109 minutes, plays Telluride today and New York Film Festival on September 30, and has no US release date yet.

The one still to come: Possible Love

The film we called the Golden Lion favorite on pedigree alone premieres tomorrow, September 6. Possible Love is Lee Chang-dong's first feature since Burning in 2018, a 164-minute drama following two married couples living opposite lives, loosely based on a segment of Kieslowski's Dekalog. Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Zo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong star.

Two things already matter. South Korea has selected it as its Oscar submission for Best International Feature before a single critic has seen it. And the release plan is theatrical first: Korea on September 23, US theaters on October 23, then Netflix worldwide on November 6. If you want the big screen for a Lee Chang-dong film, and you do, that October window is the one.

Meanwhile at Telluride

Telluride runs September 4 to 7 and, as usual, shares half its program with Venice: Ink, Wild Horse Nine and Bucking Fastard all play there this weekend. The world premieres worth tracking:

• Elsinore (Simon Stone), with Andrew Scott.
• The Debut, directed by Jesse Eisenberg, with Julianne Moore.
• Tender Loving Care, Mike Leigh's latest, led by Kate O'Flynn.
• A Long Winter from Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers), who is also receiving a tribute.
• Fjord, Cristian Mungiu's Palme d'Or winner, with Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan, now Romania's Oscar submission.

Add Sofia Coppola's Making Marie Antoinette and Pawel Pawlikowski's Fatherland with Sandra Hüller, and Telluride quietly has the deeper bench this year.

Meanwhile, in the multiplex

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is at number one for a sixth straight weekend, past $900 million domestic and closing in on the $936.6 million all-time record held by Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The weekend's two new wide releases barely registered. The road here is in our box office scorecard; the rest of the month is in our September preview.

What to do with all this

Festival buzz has a half-life of about a week. The ovation for Primetime will be a footnote by September 25, and the Wild Horse Nine argument restarts from zero on November 6. The films that survive are the ones you actually see, ranked against the ones you actually saw.

So put the four Venice titles that have screened into Shortlist today, add Possible Love tomorrow, and rank them head to head as they open instead of rating them in isolation. Our movie tier list guide walks through the method. When Maggie Gyllenhaal's jury hands out the Golden Lion on September 12, you will already have a verdict of your own to compare it against. Very often the two will not match, and that is the fun part.

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