What to expect at Telluride: ‘King Richard,’ Spencer,’ ‘The Power of the Dog;’ but could we see ‘Dune’ show up?

The Telluride Film Festival famously doesn’t announce the lineup of its 5-day festival (September 2-6) until the day before it begins but it doesn’t take a Jessica Fletcher-level sleuth to know pretty much what’s going to be there and what definitely won’t. With full announcements by Venice, Toronto and New York already out all you really need to do is look at what type of premiere films at each of those fests hold. Even more so, with Venice and Telluride having such a close crossover, if something is playing in the first three days of Venice (September 1-3) that’s a good bet you’ll see it at Telluride, too.

It’s hard to think that three or more WB/HBO Max movies would show up here but King Richard is definitely going to be one of them. I think the wording by TIFF of Dune‘s screening plus when it world premieres at Venice (September 3, the same day as Spencer) is a recipe for a Telluride spot. It’s a longshot and many feel assured that it won’t show up but I’m not eliminating the chance entirely. Its premiere statuses at Toronto and the newly announced NYFF give me enough reason to think that it’s very possible. If not, we could see Clint Eastwood’s Cry Macho (he brought Sully here a few years back) or Alan Taylor-directed Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark.

Someone not thwarted by the number of entries is Netflix, who will have four films hit the quiet Colorado mountain town. After having their world premieres at Venice just days before (or day before), The Power of the Dog, The Hand of God and The Lost Daughter will head here. Rebecca Hall’s Passing, which debuted at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and initially going to show up with an edited version of what was shown to the Sundance crowd, is skipping Colorado and will show up at NYFF instead.

While Focus Features will bring The Card Counter from Venice to Telluride, could we see Justin Chon’s Blue Bayou or even Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast? While Belfast is listed as a world premiere for TIFF, there have been some strange happenings this season with premiere designation and I wouldn’t be shocked to see it pop up here anyway. There’s definitely going to be something else from Focus but it’s not likely going to be Last Night in Soho.

A24 shot their Red Rocket wad at Cannes but we’ll see that Simon Rex starrer here too, alongside the world premiere of Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women follow up C’mon C’mon with Academy Award winner Joaquin Phoenix.

NEON is taking Flee and Spencer nearly everywhere this season and will always have A Chiara and Petite Maman on their Telluride slate.

The Telluride tributes this year will be Peter Dinklage (Cyrano), Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog) and Riz Ahmed (Encounter and Flee).

Here’s what to expect at Telluride when they announce on September 1. It’s not a complete list but the most likely to show up.

• Becoming Cousteau (NatGeo)
• Bergman Island (IFC Films)
• Blue Bayou (Focus Features)
• The Card Counter (Focus Features)
• A Chiara (NEON)
• C’mon C’mon (A24) (World Premiere)
• Cyrano (MGM/UA) (World Premiere)
• The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (Amazon Studios) (World Premiere)
• Encounter (Amazon Studios) (World Premiere)
• Fauci (NatGeo/Magnolia Pictures)
• The First 54 Years: An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation
• Flee (NEON)
• The French Dispatch (Searchlight Pictures)
• The Hand of God (Netflix)
• A Hero (Amazon Studios)
• Julia (Sony Pictures Classics) (World Premiere)
• King Richard (Warner Bros/HBO Max) (World Premiere)
• The Lost Daughter (Netflix)
• Muhammad Ali (PBS)
• Petite Maman (NEON)
• The Power of Dog (Netflix)
• Prayers for the Stolen (MUBI)
• Red Rocket (A24)
• The Rescue (NatGeo)
• Spencer (NEON)
• Three Minutes – A Lengthening
• Unclenching the Fists (MUBI)
• The Velvet Underground (Apple TV+)
• Vortex (Utopia)

Maybe?

• Antlers (Searchlight Pictures)
• Belfast (Focus Features)
• Dune (Warner Bros/HBO Max)

Wildcards and Longshots

• Cry Macho (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
• Don’t Look Up! (Netflix)
• The Many Saints of Newark (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
• Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson aka Soggy Bottom (MGM/UA)

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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.

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