The Telluride Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for its 53rd edition, headlined by world-premiere titles starring Andrew Scott (“Elsinore”), Julianne Moore (“The Debut”) and Kate O’Flynn (“Tender Loving Care”), alongside new films from auteurs including Jordan Firstman (“Club Kid”), Joshua Oppenheimer (“The Revolution Against Death”) and Werner Herzog (“Bucking Fastard”). The festival will also pay tribute to three exemplary artists of cinema, along with their programmed feature films — actor John Malkovich (star of Martin McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine”), actress Sandra Hüller (star of Paweł Pawlikowski’s “Fatherland” and Markus Schleinzer’s “Rose”) and writer-director Andrew Haigh, who helms the drama “A Long Winter,” making its world premiere. The Silver Medallion has become one of the awards season’s more dependable leading indicators, its honorees surfacing in the Oscar race with striking regularity.
In each of the last four editions, at least one recipient has landed a major nomination, and several have won outright. Jane Campion took the medallion in 2021 and went on to win best director for “The Power of the Dog”; Sarah Polley followed in 2022 and won best adapted screenplay for “Women Talking,” the same year fellow honoree Cate Blanchett scored a best actress nomination for “Tár.” Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things” in 2023) and Jacques Audiard (“Emilia Pérez” in 2024) each converted their tributes into director nominations. Also making its world premiere is Jennifer Peedom’s “Tenzing,” a retelling of the first successful ascent of Mount Everest starring Tom Hiddleston and newcomer Genden Phuntsok.
Several titles arrive having already traveled the festival circuit this year, among them the Sundance hit “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,” featuring veteran John Turturro — still awaiting his first Oscar nomination. French actress Léa Seydoux leads another circuit traveler from Cannes, Marie Kreutzer’s “Gentle Monster.” The film arrives alongside the Palme d’Or-winning drama “Fjord” from Cristian Mungiu, which stars Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, and one of the best director winners, Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, with “La Bola Negra.” Some Venice titles are making the trek over from Italy in time for the Colorado mountains, such as the aforementioned Herzog and McDonagh with their films, as well as Danny Boyle’s newspaper drama “Ink” with Jack O’Connell and Guy Pearce, which opened the fest. For Julie Huntsinger, marking her 20th Telluride, the year carried echoes of a not-so-distant era — one in which modestly scaled films punched far above their weight.
Read from a distance, the 2026 lineup gives off a distinct mood: AI dread, exile, authoritarianism, the ache of being alone together. Huntsinger sees all of it. She just doesn’t want anyone to forget the jokes.
Or maybe we want to laugh more. I wish that comedies would be proliferating the way the genre films are. Why isn’t that happening?” Part of the answer, this year, is that a few of them are on the mountain.
Alongside the dread sit the Zellner brothers’ “Alpha Gang” and Szumowska and Englert’s “The Idiot(s),” both among the program’s stranger surprises. Which raises the question every Telluride visitor eventually asks: Is the best picture winner up here? Huntsinger, playing along with Variety’s should-win/will-win Emmy prediction game, drew a careful line.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
