The 2024 Venice Film Festival kicked off August 28 with the long-awaited Tim Burton-Michael Keaton sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opening the 81th edition, which runs through September 7 on the Lido. Deadline is on the ground to watch all the key films.
The lineup for the world’s oldest fest also includes world premieres of Todd Phillips’ Joaquin Phoenix-Lady Gaga pic Joker: Folie à Deux, Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, Pablo Larrain’s Maria Callas biopic Maria starring Angelina Jolie and new works from the likes of Alfonso Cuarón, Walter Salles, Harmony Korine, Thomas Vinterberg, Brady Corbet, Takeshi Kitano, Claude Lelouch, Errol Morris and others.
Below is a compilation of our reviews from the fest, which last year awarded its Golden Lion for best film to Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, starring Emma Stone, who went on the win the Best Actress Oscar. Isabelle Huppert heads the competition jury this year.
Watch on Deadline
RELATED: Starry Venice Kicks Off Awards Season Scramble: What’s The Buzz On The Lido Movies?
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Section: Out of Competition
Director: Tim Burton
Cast: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega, Willem Dafoe, Arthur Conti
Deadline’s takeaway: Michael Keaton is back as the compellingly horrible undead star, but it’s not so much a sequel — serving up more of the same — as a kooky, spooky school reunion where you find out what happened to the class weirdo. It’s also funny, all the time, and a blast to watch.
RELATED: ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’: What The Critics Are Saying
Kill the Jockey
Section: Competition
Director: Luis Ortega
Cast: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Úrsula Corberó, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Mariana Di Girolamo, Daniel Fanego, Osmar Núñez, Luis Ziembrowski
Deadline’s takeaway: A subdued yet strange piece of work, it starts out like a deadpan Wes Anderson spoof of a Stanley Kubrick gangster movie and slowly mutates. Although it has panache and style, Kill the Jockey needs a rather more substantial narrative to get it, and us, to the finish line.
Maria
Section: Competition
Director: Pablo Larraín
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Haluk Bilginer, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Stephen Ashfield, Valeria Golino
Deadline’s takeaway: Somehow the portrait the film draws is curiously bloodless. Maria Callas the woman remains distant and unknowable; cunning to the end, she eludes us. Maria tells a fascinating story, but it lacks that rasping edge.
Separated
Section: Out of Competition (Non-Fiction)
Director: Errol Morris
Deadline’s takeaway: For those who have forgotten what that the Trump administration’s child-separation policy looked like, Morris arrives to remind us with an incisive account of how it was devised and implemented, and for what purpose.
September 5
Section: Horizon Extra
Director: Tim Fehlbaum
Cast: Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, Leonie Benesch, Corey Johnson, Georgina Rich
Deadline’s takeaway: Taking a story that is now 52 years old and making it not just relevant but newly inspiring is no small feat. The acting across the board is superb, and September 5 succeeds on every level.
RELATED: Alberto Barbera Renewed As Venice Film Festival Artistic Director For 2025 and 2026