Frankenstein (by Guillermo del Toro)
If you thought Jacob Elordi peaked with Saltburn bathtub memes, think again. Guillermo del Toro gave him bolts, scars, and tragic monster vibes in his lush reimagining of Frankenstein. This isn’t Universal’s green-skinned cartoon; it’s a gothic opera. Del Toro turns Mary Shelley’s tale into a three-course meal of heartbreak, body horror, and cathedral-sized spectacle.
Elordi’s creature is the heartbreaker here: part terrifying, part sympathetic, and all tragic. You can already sense the Tumblr GIF sets being born. Del Toro doesn’t just make monsters; he makes you cry over them.
Bugonia ( by Yorgos Lanthimos)
Bugonia stars Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons as ordinary people kidnapped by extremists who believe aliens secretly control the world. It’s part thriller, part comedy, and fully Lanthimos: awkward silences, bizarre logic, and characters saying the wildest lines with dead-serious faces. Imagine a YouTube rabbit hole turned into Oscar bait. This is the one your weirdest friend will not shut up about.
A House of Dynamite (by Kathryn Bigelow)
Kathryn Bigelow doesn’t make cozy movies. She makes you sweat, she makes you doubt the world, and she makes you clutch your armrest like it owes you money. A House of Dynamite is her big return: a nuclear thriller about an impending attack on Chicago, led by Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson.
It’s procedural and tense, the kind of movie where every ticking clock feels like a heart attack. If Zero Dark Thirty was about chasing the past, A House of Dynamite is about fearing the future. Venice doesn’t always do mainstream thrillers, but when it does, they feel like this: prestige panic.
Jay Kelly (by Noah Baumbach)
What do you get when you throw George Clooney, Adam Sandler, and Laura Dern into a family saga written and directed by Noah Baumbach? A movie that’s equal parts dysfunction, regret, and therapy disguised as cinema.
Jay Kelly is Baumbach going big: sprawling ensemble, messy relationships, people yelling and then hugging, people hugging and then yelling. If Marriage Story was about the breakdown of one couple, Jay Kelly is about the collapse of an entire family unit. It’s the kind of movie that will get glowing think-pieces and memes about Adam Sandler crying.
Father Mother Sister Brother (by Jim Jarmusch)
Jim Jarmusch doesn’t do blockbusters. He does vibes. And in Father Mother Sister Brother, those vibes are strong: Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver, and Tom Waits tangled in an odd, melancholy family drama.
It’s slow, it’s offbeat, it’s full of silences that last longer than most TikToks, but that’s the charm. Jarmusch makes films that feel like jazz: not everyone will get it, but those who do will never stop recommending it. Blanchett could probably read the phone book and make it emotional, and here she plays off Driver’s nervous energy beautifully.
The Wizard of the Kremlin (by Giovanni Aloi)
Sometimes festivals sneak in movies that feel ripped from the news cycle. The Wizard of the Kremlin, starring Jude Law as a Putin-adjacent political strategist, is one of those. It’s sharp, sinister, and eerily timely.
Law has a gift for making charm feel dangerous, and here he leans into that fully. This isn’t superheroes or explosions, but it’s more political theater, the kind where power games feel scarier than any monster movie. Venice loves a timely thriller, and this one feels like it’ll age like a cautionary tale.
The Smashing Machine (by Benny Safdie)
And then there was Dwayne Johnson. Yes, that Dwayne Johnson. Forget quippy blockbusters, in Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, Johnson plays UFC legend Mark Kerr, and he doesn’t play it safe. This is raw, bruised, and emotionally vulnerable.
Gone are the one-liners and raised eyebrows. Here, Johnson shows the wear and tear of a fighter’s life: addiction, identity, and the cost of being a machine in a human body. Critics are already calling it his career-defining role. If Del Toro gave us a monster to cry over, Safdie gave us a wrestler to weep for.
The Venice Vibe
What made this year exciting is how different the films felt from each other.
Venice 2025 wasn’t about one big winner. It was about cinema showing its full spectrum: weird, wild, tragic, political, intimate, explosive. The kind of movies that make you argue in group chats and spam memes in the group chat five minutes later.
Hollywood sometimes feels stuck in IP and sequels. Venice reminded us what happens when you give visionary directors free rein and big stars roles that actually challenge them. You get Jacob Elordi crying as Frankenstein’s monster. Emma Stone trapped by conspiracy theorists. Cate Blanchett and Adam Driver mumbling through family trauma. Jude Law scheming in the Kremlin. And Dwayne Johnson proving he can act his heart out.
That’s the story of Venice this year. Less glamour, more guts. And a reminder that cinema is still alive, still weird, and still capable of surprising us.
