Venice Film Festival 2026: Winners, Stars and the Films That Defined Venezia 83

The 83rd Venice International Film Festival closed on 12 September after 11 days in which the programme moved noticeably away from Hollywood spectacle and towards films dealing with war, class, political power, technology and social division.

Held on the Lido from 2 to 12 September under artistic director Alberto Barbera, Venezia 83 recorded 117,656 public tickets sold — 14 per cent more than in 2025, itself a record year. Around 14,000 accreditations were collected, while the Venice Production Bridge registered 3,000 industry participants.

The festival still brought a substantial international cast to Venice — from George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn to Robert Pattinson, Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, John Malkovich, Rooney and Kate Mara, Claire Foy and Russell Crowe — but the films that ultimately shaped the competition were often concerned with subjects far removed from the red carpet.

Venice Film Festival 2026 winners: Woman Unknown takes the Golden Lion

The principal winner was Danish-Egyptian director May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown (Kvinde Ukendt), which received the Golden Lion for Best Film.

Set in post-war Denmark, the film follows a woman whose relationship with a German soldier during the occupation threatens the life she is attempting to build after liberation. It became the defining film of the closing ceremony for another reason: Mathilde Arcel also received the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for her performance in the film.

El-Toukhy was the only female director among the 21 filmmakers competing for the Golden Lion. Her victory made her the eighth female filmmaker to receive Venice’s principal prize.

The Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize went to South Korean director Lee Chang-dong for Possible Love, a drama examining class, relationships and the distance between two couples from markedly different social worlds.

Ilya Khrzhanovsky received the Silver Lion for Best Director for DAU.

John Malkovich wins Best Actor

John Malkovich received the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, in which he plays an ageing CIA agent.

Malkovich accepted the award remotely by video from Montreal. The performance had already emerged as one of the festival’s most discussed acting turns and added another significant distinction to a screen career extending over four decades.

The Best Screenplay award went to Stéphane Brizé, Coralie Amédéo and Olivier Gorce for A Good Little Soldier, while Malou Khebizi received the Marcello Mastroianni Award for an emerging actor or actress for Cédric Kahn’s 15/18 (A Place to Heal).

One of the ceremony’s most politically significant results was the Special Jury Prize for NAZA, directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.

The documentary investigates Israeli military operations in Gaza through testimony from Israeli military and intelligence personnel. Its Venice premiere produced an unusually long standing ovation, while the film became one of the festival’s most debated entries.

Maggie Gyllenhaal and the Venezia 83 jury

The main competition jury was chaired by American filmmaker, screenwriter and actress Maggie Gyllenhaal.

She was joined by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, British composer and artist Daniel Blumberg, Italian film scholar Francesco Casetti, French director Xavier Giannoli, Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat and Hong Kong director Johnnie To.

Together they assessed 21 films competing for the Golden Lion.

The resulting awards were geographically broad: Denmark, South Korea, France and several international co-productions appeared among the principal winners, reinforcing the festival’s emphasis this year on international auteur cinema rather than a predominantly American awards-season line-up.

The films that drove the conversation in Venice

The festival opened with Danny Boyle’s Ink, written by James Graham and starring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy. The film premiered in competition immediately after the opening ceremony on 2 September.

Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine became one of the most closely watched films of the competition, ultimately producing Malkovich’s acting prize.

Robert Pattinson returned to Venice with Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime, a fictional story inspired by the culture around NBC’s To Catch a Predator. Pattinson played a television presenter modelled partly on Chris Hansen and also served as a producer, while musician Phoebe Bridgers made her acting debut.

Florian Zeller’s Bunker, starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, was another of the higher-profile premieres, while Werner Herzog returned with Bucking Fastard, featuring sisters Rooney and Kate Mara.

Outside the competition, music became an unexpected part of the festival conversation. Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace presented Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, documenting the Gallagher brothers’ reunion. Russell Crowe, meanwhile, arrived with What Love Builds, a personal documentary built from years of footage recording his parallel career in music.

George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn receive Golden Lions

Venezia 83 also recognised two major acting careers.

George Clooney received a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during the opening ceremony on 2 September, with Laura Dern delivering the laudatio. Clooney’s relationship with Venice stretches across numerous festival appearances as actor, director and producer.

Five days later, 93-year-old Ellen Burstyn received the festival’s second Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

The two awards provided a counterpoint to a programme otherwise focused heavily on contemporary political and social questions.

Beyond the Golden Lion: the Orizzonti winners

The Orizzonti section produced another set of films worth watching beyond the main competition.

Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni’s Diane in the Loop received the Orizzonti Award for Best Film. Greek filmmaker Jacqueline Lentzou won Best Director for A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra.

Riccardo Scamarcio received the Orizzonti Best Actor prize for The Children of the Monkey, while Laleh Marzban won Best Actress for Iranian drama Falling House.

Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu’s House of the Wind had a particularly strong closing night: it received the Special Orizzonti Jury Prize as well as the Lion of the Future – Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film.

The stars and the Venice red carpet

Venice retained its role as an important meeting point between cinema and fashion even during a year with fewer major Hollywood studio productions.

George and Amal Clooney were among the most photographed arrivals early in the festival. The premieres and ceremonies subsequently brought Robert Pattinson, Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Pamela Anderson, Dakota Johnson, Susan Sarandon, Claire Foy, Orlando Bloom, Rooney and Kate Mara, Parker Posey and other international actors to the Lido.

Yet fashion did not dominate the narrative in the way it sometimes can at Venice. The stronger story of Venezia 83 remained the films themselves — and particularly the extent to which filmmakers addressed contemporary politics, conflict and social inequality.

A Venice Film Festival shaped by the present

The 2026 programme contained fewer large Hollywood studio productions than some recent editions. Before the festival, Barbera linked that shift partly to a more cautious American studio system.

In their place came films dealing directly with Gaza, Russia and Ukraine, immigration, political power, technology, wealth and democratic instability.

That direction remained visible in the final awards.

Woman Unknown turned post-war Denmark into a study of gender, class and social judgement. Possible Love examined economic inequality and personal relationships. NAZA confronted an ongoing war. DAU returned to Soviet history through one of the festival’s most unconventional projects.

The closing ceremony took place at 7pm on 12 September in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema, hosted by Greta Scarano and Nicolas Maupas. After the Lions had been presented, Venice concluded its official programme with the world premiere of Giovanni Veronesi’s Dio ride, starring Pierfrancesco Favino, Silvio Orlando, Alma Noce and Carlo Cecchi.

The numbers suggest that the more serious programme did not come at the expense of public interest. With ticket sales rising 14 per cent year on year, Venezia 83 closed with its largest public attendance on record — and with a Golden Lion winner that few outside the festival circuit had been discussing two weeks earlier.