Venice Film Festival 2024: Movie Scorecard

Critics Consensus: Michael Keaton's devious poltergeist still has plenty of juice left in this madcap return to form for Tim Burton, marrying charming practical effects and ghoulish gags to provide a fun fun time.

Synopsis: Beetlejuice is back! After an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia's life... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Jenna Ortega

Directed By: Tim Burton

Critics Consensus: With Nahuel Pérez Biscayart's captivating performance holding the reins, Kill the Jockey is an absorbing and wryly subversive riff on identity.

Synopsis: Once-renowned jockey Remo Manfredi (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) has run out of track. Perpetually inebriated, hopped up on horse drugs, and in hock to a minor... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Úrsula Corberó, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Mariana Di Girólamo

Directed By: Luis Ortega

Critics Consensus: Structurally beautiful and suffused with Adrien Brody's soulful performance, writer-director Brady Corbet's The Brutalist is a towering tribute to the immigrant experience.

Synopsis: Escaping post-war Europe, visionary architect László Toth arrives in America to rebuild his life, his work, and his marriage to his wife Erzsébet after being... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn

Directed By: Brady Corbet

Critics Consensus: Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson memorably smolder together in Babygirl, with writer-director Halina Reijn's clinical gaze keeping this sexually frank thriller more provocative than prurient.

Synopsis: A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern.

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas, Sophie Wilde

Directed By: Halina Reijn

Critics Consensus: Anchored by a pair of terrific performances swathed in vivid colors, Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar's English-language feature debut attests to his universal fluency in provocative filmmaking.

Synopsis: Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton) were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, John Turturro, Alex Høgh Andersen

Directed By: Pedro Almodóvar

Critics Consensus: Carried along by Fernanda Torres' superb performance, I'm Still Here poignantly explores a nation's upheaval through one family's search for answers.

Synopsis: As Brazil faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship, Eunice Paiva, a mother of five, must reinvent herself and her family when authorities abduct... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, Valentina Herszage, Luiza Kosovski

Directed By: Walter Salles

Critics Consensus: Directed with unflinching verve by Dea Kulumbegashvili, April is a searing depiction of professional integrity and the visceral realities of childbirth.

Synopsis: Nina works in the only small hospital of a provincial town as an OB-GYN. Single and in abstinence from personal relationships, she is unconditionally devoted... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Merab Ninidze, Roza Kancheishvili, Ana Nikolava, David Beradze

Directed By: Dea Kulumbegashvili

Critics Consensus: A stoic Jude Law and diabolically good Nicholas Hoult turn the tides of history in this grippingly intense thrill ride.

Synopsis: For over a year, a series of bold daylight bank robberies and armored car heists leaves law enforcement baffled and the public panicked throughout the... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett

Directed By: Justin Kurzel

Critics Consensus: Writer-director Kiyoshi Kurosawa returns to the theme of technology being a haunting force with disturbing success in Cloud, a slow-burn examination of social media that ends with a bang.

Synopsis: A stylish, subversive thriller from suspense-maverick Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Pulse), concerning Yoshii, an ambitious, yet directionless, young factory worker from Tokyo who side hustles in... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Masaki Suda, Kotone Furukawa, Daiken Okudaira, Amane Okayama

Directed By: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: Joan is no longer in love with Victor, but it pains her to feel she is being dishonest with him. Alice, her best friend, reassures... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Camille Cottin, Sara Forestier, India Hair, Damien Bonnard

Directed By: Emmanuel Mouret

Critics Consensus: 2073 is visually striking and occasionally haunting, but its preachy tone, derivative dystopian tropes, and air of exhausted fatalism leave it more dispiriting than entertaining.

Synopsis: It's the year 2073, and the worst fears of modern life have been realized. Surveillance drones fill the burnt orange skies and militarized police roam... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Naomi Ackie, Samantha Morton, Hector Hewer

Directed By: Asif Kapadia

Critics Consensus: A phantasmagorical distillation of William S. Burroughs' preoccupations that's by turns meandering and vital, Queer marks one of Daniel Craig's most sterling performances yet.

Synopsis: 1950. William Lee, an American expat in Mexico City, spends his days almost entirely alone, except for a few contacts with other members of the... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville

Directed By: Luca Guadagnino

Critics Consensus: Angelina Jolie unveils new highs within her emotional register in Pablo Larraín's Maria, keeping this tragic biopic compelling even when its theatrics go off-key.

Synopsis: The tumultuous, beautiful and tragic story of the life of the world’s greatest female opera singer, relived and reimagined during her final days in 1970s... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Angelina Jolie, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alba Rohrwacher, Pierfrancesco Favino

Directed By: Pablo Larraín

Critics Consensus: George Clooney and Brad Pitt's professional star power gives Wolfs zip even when it cycles through clichés of the fixer genre, making for a pleasing and slick throwback.

Synopsis: Global superstars George Clooney and Brad Pitt team up for the action comedy Wolfs. Clooney plays a professional fixer hired to cover up a high... View Full Synopsis

Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Amy Ryan, Austin Abrams

Directed By: Jon Watts

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: Over seven hallucinatory days, a village with no name, in an undefined time and place, disappears. In Athina Rachel Tsangari's tragicomic take on a Western,... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Harry Melling, Frank Dillane, Caleb Landry Jones, Rosy McEwen

Directed By: Athina Rachel Tsangari

Critics Consensus: Joaquin Phoenix's eponymous Joker takes the stand in a sequel that dances around while the story remains still, although Lady Gaga's wildcard energy gives Folie á Deux some verve.

Synopsis: "Joker: Folie à Deux" finds Arthur Fleck institutionalized at Arkham awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker. While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur not... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Zazie Beetz, Brendan Gleeson

Directed By: Todd Phillips