Telluride Film Festival: What We Can Expect to See

The Telluride Film Festival notoriously doesn’t announce its lineup until the day before the three-day mountain excursion but once we know what’s playing at Venice, Toronto and New York – and most importantly, the type of premieres those fests get – we have a pretty good idea of what’s showing up at Telluride, either as a world premiere, US premiere or North American premiere.

That said, there are always a few surprises dropped in every year. Focus Features just announced yesterday that Todd Haynes’ new film, Dark Waters, will be getting a Thanksgiving limited release with a wider rollout the week following. Depending on how you look at the timing of the announcement, it could mean one of two things; that the film is heading to Telluride first (it has no other festival dates so far, odd for Haynes) and then likely New York as an upcoming announcement or, as IndieWire’s Anne Thompson suggests, a possible AFI debut as the film isn’t finished yet. Both seem plausible, and Anne always has great intel but I’m going to lean that it shows up this weekend.

While there are usually about 30 films in total (who could possibly see that many in three days?) here’s a good idea of what we’re likely to get.

Ad Astra – James Gray 20TH CENTURY FOX
The Aeronauts – Tom Harper (world premiere) AMAZON
Beanpole – Kantemir Balagov
The Climb – Michael Angelo Covino SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
Dark Waters – Todd Haynes (world premiere) FOCUS FEATURES
First Cow – Kelly Reichardt (world premiere) A24
Ford v Ferrari – James Mangold 20TH CENTURY FOX
A Hidden Life – Terrence Malick FOX SEARCHLIGHT
Judy – Rupert Goold (world premiere) ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS
Marriage Story – Noah Baumbach NETFLIX
Motherless Brooklyn – Edward Norton (world premiere) WARNER BROS
Pain and Glory – Pedro Almódovar SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
Parasite – Bong Joon-ho NEON
Portrait of a Lady on Fire – Celine Sciamma NEON
The Report – Scott Burns AMAZON
The Two Popes – Fernando Meirelles (world premiere) NETFLIX
Uncut Gems – The Safdie Brothers (world premiere) A24
Varda by Agnès – Agnes Varda
Verdict – Raymund Ribay Gutierrez
Waves – Trey Edward Shults (world premiere) A24

The full schedule will be announced tomorrow, August 29th at 7:00am MT (that’s 6am Pacific/9am Eastern).