50th Telluride Film Festival Preview and Predictions

Erik Anderson August 22, 2023

The stars may not be on the mountain but the films will still shine in the valley

As we set on the eve of the avalanche of fall film festivals, Telluride is always the shining nugget of gold. Tucked high away in the mountains of Colorado, taking planes, trains and automobiles to get to there as you whisk by rushing rivers, dense forests and stones carved over millions of years. Venice might have gondolas to take you through the city, but Telluride’s gondola gives you a bird’s eye view of the 2 square mile hamlet nestled in a deep canyon.

One of the more unique elements of the Telluride Film Festival, alongside its exquisite location, is that the lineup isn’t announced in advance like Venice or Toronto or New York, but the day before the festival starts. It’s not a cockiness but a confidence that in just a few short days, Festival Executive Director Julie Huntsinger, who Vanity Fair once called “the most important Hollywood tastemaker,” and her crew of programmers and directors have fashioned an eclectic, diverse and robust selection of films and discussions that rival any other. As the only woman leading a major international film festival, Huntsinger is no stranger to battling the big boys of Cannes, Venice and Toronto in Thierry Fremaux, Alberto Barbera and Cameron Bailey, respectively. The four joust and duel for world premieres filled with A-list talent from cinema’s biggest directors and all’s fair in the game of festival dominance where even swooping in and snagging a previously announced title is in play. But where most of those fests luxuriate in the massive red carpets and couture finery, Telluride, in all of its main street glory, is more like the biggest casual friend group of filmgoers and movie lovers all there for the same communal experience.

As a festival goer and a lover of predictions, the process of deduction of what’s going to play at Telluride is a yearly game, some of educated guess, some of chance (part following Telluride guru Michael Patterson). TIFF and NYFF make it easier by detailing festival premiere status and designations like: International Premiere, North American Premiere, Canadian Premiere, and so on. From there, it becomes a bit easier to figure out. Like, we know that Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, which stars Sandra Hüller and had its world premiere at Cannes where it won the Palme d’Or, is a ‘Canadian Premiere’ at TIFF and has no designation for NYFF. That points to a North American premiere at Telluride. Same goes for Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest and Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel with Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick. International Premiere designations for NYAD, Rustin and Fingernails at TIFF tell us those three are world premiering on the mountain.

Then there’s the trickier stuff, things that haven’t premiered anywhere, aren’t lined up at Venice, TIFF or NYFF but somehow word of mouth or possibly just predictions leak out or wishes become believed fact and then we have possible titles like Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders with Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy. Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers is expected here, despite being a sales title at TIFF last year. Saltburn, the highly anticipated follow-up to Emerald Fennell’s Oscar-winning Promising Young Woman will hit the BFI London Film Festival later this season but we’ll have it here first. It stars Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi in a Talented Mr. Ripley-esque dramatic thriller alongside Carey Mulligan and Rosamund Pike. Paul Mescal will return to Telluride (in spirit, it’s an actor-free fest because of the SAG-AFTRA strike) after last year’s Aftersun in Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers with Andrew Scott, Claire Foy and Jamie Bell. One curious designation discovery came when Fantastic Fest, which is in October, revealed they’re having the Gareth Edwards’ sci-fi film The Creator (starring John David Washington) and listed it as a ‘Texas Premiere.’ There’s nowhere else it could be unless there’s a surprise NYFF announcement coming so it seems headed to Colorado first.

A handful of films expected to world premiere but have yet to secure U.S. distribution include Ethan Hawke’s Wildcat where he directs his daughter Maya Hawke for the first time, telling the story of the life of writer Flannery O’Connor while she struggles to publish her first novel. It co-stars Laura Linney, Rafael Casal, Cooper Hoffman, Steve Zahn and Alessandro Nivola. Daddio, the directorial debut of Christy Hall (I Am Not OK with This) comes from Dakota Johnson’s Tea Time production company where she stars in this two-hander of a woman taking a cab from JFK to NYC with Sean Penn. Also, the highly anticipated Janet Planet from playwright Annie Baker and starring Julianne Nicholson.

One of the big conversations happening around Telluride this year are the Silver Medallion tributes. Generally populated by actors, this year will look different. Several directors seem primed to receive one of the tributes but none more so than someone who’s never been a recipient in the 50 years of the festival – Martin Scorsese. Wild, right? But if he does get feted, does that mean we’ll have the next, and maybe only, other festival screening of Killers of the Flower Moon? Is it more hopedicting than predicting? If not Scorsese, keep an eye for Payne or Triet, Wes Anderson, Errol Morris or Ethan Hawke. There’s also Steve McQueen, who has brought three films to Telluride: Hunger, Shame and eventual Best Picture Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave. Not only does his new 246-minute doc series Occupied City likely have a place here (it kicked off at Cannes and will play NYFF), he’d be an ideal candidate for a medallion.

The 50th Telluride Film Festival runs August 30-September 4. The official lineup will be revealed on August 30.

Here are my predictions of what world premieres we could see at Telluride, what’s likely coming from other festivals, what might be, what definitely won’t be and films with no festival presence so far that just might not have any this season.

WORLD PREMIERES

All of Us Strangers (Searchlight Pictures)
The American Buffalo (TBD)
The Bikeriders (20th Century Studios)
The Creator (20th Century Studios)
Daddio (TBD)
A Difficult Year (TBD)
Fingernails (Apple Original Films)
Food, Inc. 2 (TBD)
Freud’s Last Session (Sony Pictures Classics)
The Holdovers (Focus Features)
Janet Planet (A24)
NYAD (Netflix)
The Pigeon Tunnel (Apple Original Films)
The Royal Hotel (NEON)
Rustin (Netflix)
Saltburn (Amazon Studios)
They Shot the Piano Player (Sony Pictures Classics)
Wildcat (TBD)
Without Blood (Fremantle)

FROM OTHER FESTIVALS

About Dry Grasses (Janus Films) – Cannes, TIFF
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (A24) – Sundance, NYFF
Anatomy of a Fall (NEON) – Cannes, NYFF, TIFF
lo Capitano/The Captain (TBD) – Venice
El Conde (Netflix) – Venice
Day of the Fight (TBD) – Venice
Flora and Son (Apple Original Films) – Sundance, TIFF
A Little Prayer (Sony Pictures Classics) – Sundance
National Anthem (TBD) – SXSW, TIFF
Occupied City (Amazon Studios) – Cannes, NYFF
Orlando, My Political Biography (Janus Films)- Berlin, NYFF, TIFF
Perfect Days (NEON) – Cannes, NYFF
Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures) – Venice, NYFF
The Pot-au-Feu/The Taste of Things (IFC Films) – Cannes
The Promised Land (Magnolia Pictures) – Venice, TIFF
The Settlers (MUBI) – Cannes, TIFF, NYFF
Woman Of (TBD) – Venice
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Netflix) – Venice
The Zone of Interest (A24) – Cannes, NYFF, TIFF

POSSIBLE FROM OTHER FESTIVALS

Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures) – Cannes

NO FESTIVAL PRESENCE YET (UNLIKELY HERE)

The Actor (NEON)
Bob Marley: One Love (Paramount Pictures)
Civil War (A24)
The Iron Claw (A24)
The Nickel Boys (MGM)
Napoleon (Apple Original Films/Sony Pictures)
Nightbitch (Searchlight Pictures/Hulu)
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (MGM)
Love Lies Bleeding (A24)
Mothers’ Instinct (NEON)
On Swift Horses (TBA)
Spaceman (Netflix)

DEFINITELY WON’T BE HERE

The Beast – Venice, NYFF
The Boy and the Heron (GKIDS) – TIFF, NYFF
The Burial (Amazon) – TIFF
La Chimera – Cannes, TIFF, NYFF
Close Your Eyes – Venice, NYFF
The Delinquents – Venice, NYFF
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – TIFF
Evil Does Not Exist – Venice, TIFF, NYFF
Ferrari (NEON) – Venice, NYFF
Foe (Amazon) – NYFF
Green Border – Venice, NYFF
Hit Man – Venice, TIFF
Kidnapped (TBD) – Cannes, TIFF
The Killer (Netflix) – Venice
Last Summer – Cannes, TIFF, NYFF
Lee (TBD) – TIFF
Lubo – Venice
Maestro (Netflix) – Venice, NYFF
May December (Netflix) – Cannes, NYFF
Memory – Venice, TIFF
Monster (Well GO USA) – Cannes, TIFF
The New Boy (TBD) – Cannes, TIFF
Next Goal Wins (Searchlight Pictures) – TIFF
Origin (TBA) – Venice
Pain Hustlers (Netflix) – TIFF
Priscilla (A24) – Venice, NYFF
Wicked Little Letters (TBD) – TIFF
Youth (Spring) – Cannes, NYFF

Photo: Daniela Chang/Shutterstock

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.