TELLURIDE Festival 2025 announces its program

[Chris Knipp]

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TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES
ITS PROGRAM FOR THE 52ND EDITION

Telluride, CO – Telluride Film Festival, presented by the National Film Preserve, today announces its official program selections for the 52nd Telluride Film Festival (TFF). TFF’s annual celebration of artistic excellence unites filmmakers, cinephiles, and artists to discover the best in world cinema in the stunning mountain town of Telluride, Colorado.

The 52nd Telluride Film Festival will screen over sixty feature films, short films, and revival programs representing more than thirty countries, alongside Tributes, Conversations, Panels, Student Programs, and Festivities. This year’s Festival runs Friday, August 29 through Monday, September 1, 2025.

The 52nd Telluride Film Festival is proud to present the following new feature films and episodic works to play in its main program, 'the SHOW':

• A PRIVATE LIFE (d. Rebecca Zlotowski, France, 2025)
• ASK E. JEAN (d. Ivy Meeropol, U.S., 2025)
• BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER (d. Edward Berger, Hong Kong/Macau, 2025)
• BLUE MOON (d. Richard Linklater, U.S./Ireland, 2025)
• BUGONIA (d. Yorgos Lanthimos, U.K., 2025)
• COVER-UP (d. Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus, U.S., 2025)
• EVERYWHERE MAN: THE LIVES AND TIMES OF PETER ASHER (d. Dayna Goldfine, Dan Geller, U.S./U.K., 2025)
• GHOST ELEPHANTS (d. Werner Herzog, Angola/Namibia/U.S., 2025)
• H IS FOR HAWK (d. Philippa Lowthorpe, U.K./U.S., 2025)
• HAMLET (d. Aneil Karia, U.K., 2025)
• HAMNET (d. Chloé Zhao, U.K., 2025)
• HIGHWAY 99 A DOUBLE ALBUM (d. Ethan Hawke, U.S., 2025)
fv IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU (d. Mary Bronstein, U.S., 2025)
IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (d. Jafar Panahi, Iran/France/Luxembourg, 2025)
• JAY KELLY (d. Noah Baumbach, Italy/U.K./U.S., 2025)
• KARL (d. Nick Hooker, U.K., 2025)
• LA GRAZIA (d. Paolo Sorrentino, Italy, 2025)
• LOST IN THE JUNGLE (d. Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Juan Camilo Cruz,U.S./Colombia, 2025)
• LUMIÈRE, LE CINÉMA (d. Thierry Frémaux, France, 2024)
• MAN ON THE RUN (d. Morgan Neville, U.S., 2025)
• NOUVELLE VAGUE (d. Richard Linklater, France, 2025)
• PILLION (d. Harry Lighton, U.K., 2025)
• SENTIMENTAL VALUE (d. Joachim Trier, Norway/France/Denmark/Germany, 2025)
• SHIFTY (d. Adam Curtis, U.K., 2025)
• SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE (d. Scott Cooper, U.S., 2025)
• SUMMER TOUR (d. Mischa Richter, U.S., 2025)
• THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (d. Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, David Schmidt, U.S., 2025)
• THE BEND IN THE RIVER (d. Robb Moss, U.S., 2025)
• THE CYCLE OF LOVE (d. Orlando von Einsiedel, U.K./India/Sweden, 2025)
• THE HISTORY OF SOUND (d. Oliver Hermanus, U.S., 2025)
• THE MASTERMIND (d. Kelly Reichardt, U.S., 2025)
• THE NEW YORKER AT 100 (d. Marshall Curry, U.S., 2025)
• THE RESERVE (d. Pablo Pérez Lombardini, Mexico/Qatar, 2025)
• THE SECRET AGENT (d. Kleber Mendonça Filho, Brazil/France/Netherlands/Germany, 2025)
• THIS IS NOT A DRILL (d. Oren Jacoby, U.S., 2025)
• TUNER (d. Daniel Roher, U.S./Canada, 2025)
• URCHIN (d. Harris Dickinson, U.K., 2025)

[Chris Knipp]

TELLURIDE TRIBUTES, DIRECTOR, SPECIAL RECOGNITIONS

Each year Telluride Film Festival pays tribute to individuals whose artistry has significantly contributed to the art of cinema. The 2025 Silver Medallion will be presented to Oscar-nominated writer/director Noah Baumbach (with JAY KELLY); Oscar-nominated actor/writer/director Ethan Hawke (with BLUE MOON, HIGHWAY 99 A DOUBLE ALBUM); and award-winning Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi (with IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT). Programs will include a compilation of clips, an on-stage interview and a screening of the recipient’s new work.

Telluride Film Festival is proud to announce Emmy- and Academy Award–winning producer and filmmaker Ezra Edelman as this year’s Guest Director. A cherished Festival tradition, the Guest Director program invites a distinguished artist to curate a special selection of films, offering audiences a fresh lens through which to explore cinema history.

Edelman, acclaimed for his Academy Award–winning documentary O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA, brings his distinctive voice and passion for storytelling to the Festival with a handpicked selection of films. His curated program is presented in partnership with Turner Classic Movies (TCM), the Festival’s proud sponsor of the Guest Director section this year.

• ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (d. Alan J. Pakula, U.S., 1976)
• MALCOLM X (d. Spike Lee, U.S., 1992)
• NETWORK (d. Sidney Lumet, U.S., 1976)
• RASHOMON (d. Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1950)
• THE INSIDER (d. Michael Mann, U.S., 1999)

"It is almost impossible to detect themes across culture at the moment given the absolutely fractured nature of our world," remarks Festival director Julie Huntsinger. “Certainly, filmmakers are talking about myriad subjects. At Telluride though, there always seems to be a thread of beautiful humanism in the stories told and this year is no different. At the heart of every one of them is the essence of humanity that is profoundly illuminating and beautiful, even if they're also heartbreaking. We’re thrilled with what these filmmakers are sharing and proud to welcome back some old friends as well as new voices. Long live cinema, long live the theatrical experience.”

TFF annually celebrates a hero of cinema who preserves, honors, and presents important, meaningful films. British Producer Tessa Ross will be recognized with the Festival’s Special Medallion, at the presentation of BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER.

[Chris Knipp]

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EXTRAORDINARY FEMALE LEADS: JESSIE BUCKLEY IN HAMNET, RENATE REINSVE IN SENTIMENTAL VALUE

Notes on the 2025 Telluride experience

Scott Feinberg of Hollywood Reporter's (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/hamnet-sentimental-value-oscar-frontrunners-telluride-fest-1236358461/) awards analysis from the fest: HAMNET and SENTIMENTAL VALUE join SINNERS at the top of the Oscars frontrunners.

FOOTNOTE: Telluride had a HAMLET as well as Chloé Zhao's HAMNET. This one from the UK directed by Aneil Karia and stars Riz Ahmed in what is said to be a "magnetic" performance taking the story to modern times but the relentless intensity may be "divisive" and a VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/hamlet-review-riz-ahmed-1236502616/) review praises Ahmed but found otherwise the film "might better have chosen not to be."

Performances admiried: from the Los Angeles Times
SOURCE (https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2025-09-02/the-6-best-performances-we-saw-at-telluride-2025-hamnet-jay-kelly-bugonia-frankenstein)
The six best performances we saw at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival
Sept. 2, 2025 7 AM PT[/b]

[This was a very nice piece from the LA Times, I thought.]


TELLURIDE, Colo. — Having spent another Labor Day weekend in the high-elevation mountain town where it’s possible to see early brewings of another Oscar season, we depart not with movies in mind but, as it happens, some especially strong turns by actors animating the whole of their projects. Leaving aside titles that already debuted at Cannes and Sundance (including “Pillion,” “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value” and “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”), here are six performances you’ll be hearing about in the months ahead. - intro from the TIMES

Glenn Whipp has great admiration for Jessie Buckley’s Agnes. He notes she "first appears ... curled up inside a log" her red dress contrasting with woodland green because the llocaals call her a "child of a forest witch" and she is "indeed extraordinary: an able herbalist, beekeeper and falconer." She "grabs your attention" and that shows why young William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) feels "hit by a thunderbolt" when he meets her. Adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, Chloé Zhao’s HAMNET is "a tender, fictionalized account of how Shakespeare and Agnes fall in love, raise a beautiful family and then grapple with a gut-wrenching loss" of a young son the novel posits the writing of the play HAMLET was a way of working out. Buckley’s presence, says Whipp, "just jumps off the screen. Agnes starts as a primal feminine force and then becomes a wife and mother possessing a fierce love for family, a love that will be sorely tested." Whipp says Buckley "has been building an impeccable resume the past few years." including WILD ROSE, WOMEN TALKING and THE LOST DAUGHTER, with the latter winning her an Oscar nom, but they all seem to lead up to HAMNEET. Buckley’s "searching, searing turn" seems destined "to be lauded countless times these next few months, a performance impossible to ignore.

Josh Rottenberg praises the way Billy Crudup in JAY KELLY deals with the "tough assignment" of just dropping into a film for just a couple of scenes," "creating a complex character" and "single-handedly" sparking "the protagonist’s emotional unraveling." In "Noah Baumbach’s sharply etched portrait of the pitfalls of fame," Billy Crudup more than rises to the challenge, " says Rottenberg. "Even alongside George Clooney, playing the aging screen icon of the title, and Adam Sandler as Kelly’s weary confidant and manager," says Rottenberg, "it’s Crudup’s brief but blistering appearance that cuts the deepest." As Timothy, an old acting school buddy of the Clooney-esque Kelly, Crudup "brings a mercurial intensity to a pivotal early scene that begins with warmth and ends in rage," says Rottenberg. In the scene, a warm reunion "quickly curdles, as Timothy’s long-simmering resentment boils over, erupting in bitterness and violence." Among the scene’s "daunting challenges," says Rottenberg, is delivering "a weeping, Merthod-style reading of a restaurant menu." He has to deliver a weeping, Method-style reading of a restaurant menu." "I read this and was like, 'Dude, that’s a very hard thing to do!'" Crudup recalled at a post-screening Q&A of his character’s "compressed but volatile emotional arc." Rettenberg says Crudup is a "consistently compelling actor" who is overdue for Oscar recognition.

Joshua Rothkopf singles out Jacob Elordi's performances as the 'monster' in Guillermo del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN. Del Toro may love his monsters too much — so much that they barely function as monsters. That doesn’t make them invisible. His passion project arrives, chockablock with design and speechifying, but Jacob Elordi’s quiet presence pulls focus. He’s an actor who seems to specialize in exposing the underbelly of idols, be they the wealthy brats of “Saltburn” or the King himself in Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla.” His Creature takes a long time to show up — not in a shower of lightning sparks but almost out of Victor Frankenstein’s dreams, standing at the foot of his bed — and you immediately appreciate Elordi’s strategy of going small. Elordi takes over the telling of his tale, often running counter to the presentational grandiosity that a new “Frankenstein” would seem to require. The movie might come close to ringing hollow without such committed intimacy and, as it was with some of the exquisite work of frequent Del Toro collaborator Doug Jones (“Hellboy,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” the amphibian in “The Shape of Water”), Elordi extends the filmmaker’s tradition of finding something deep and recognizable in the alien.

Glenn Whipp praises the "performance of Linca McCarthy in Morgan Neville’s MAN ONN THE RUN, WHICH documents Paul McCartney’s attempt to launch a solo career following the breakup of the Beatles in 1970. "Watching the film," says Whipp, "you have to wonder if he could have done so without his wife, Linda, by his side." MccCartney was "savaged" for including Linda in Wings, but Paul knew he needed her and "her mere presence (along with their kids) made life on the road more fun." "When thinking about the great performances I saw at Telluride this year," says Whipp, "Linda immediately came to mind because as we see her prominently featured in a wealth of never-before-seen archival footage, And here's the thing: "she is never for a moment 'performing." She is "wholly, unabashedly herself, unbothered by what anyone thinks." Stella McCartney thinks that Linda's unique minimal style "influenced women musicians who followed. Linda would have probably shrugged at the suggestion. She was just Linda McCartney."

Josh Rottenberg singles out Jesse Plemons in Yourgos Lanthimos' BUGONIA. Hhe has said it was the "hardest thing" he's ever done. Plemens "is never one to chew scenery," writes Rothenberg. "Even when handed a role that edges on madness, he doesn’t go big. Instead, he goes deep, building tension quietly from the inside out." And in Yorgos Lanthimos’ "uncategorizable, darkly comic sci-fi thriller," Plemons, says Rottenberg, who played three roles in Lanthimos' KINDS OF KINDNESS last year, "delivers one of his most riveting performances yet" as Teddy, "a rumpled, reclusive beekeeper convinced that a pharma CEO (Emma Stone) is an alien from the planet Andromeda." That's a tough one to put over! Plemons "channels paranoia, grief and righteousness into something both absurd and unnervingly sincere," writes Rottenberg. THe role risks veereing into "SNL sketch territory" but Plemons "plays it heartbreakingly straight, creating a chillingly familiar portrait of a man lost in an algorithmic maze of internet rabbit holes and desperate for clarity in a world that no longer makes sense." Plemons (a 2022 supporting actor Oscar nominee for Jane Campion’s THE POWER OF THE DOG, Rottenberg notes.

Joshua Rothkopf praises minimalism in Jeremy Allen White playing Bruce Springsteen in a way that he "excels at doing nothing." "His nothing, Rothkopf says, is a lot of something. (“If you’re just staring at a wall and you don’t have anything going on, the camera will know," White told Rothkopf at Telluride, and "The audience will too.") White "made a signature out of his interior moments on THE BEAR. Rothkopf explainswhat White accomplishes as Springsteen thus:
White’s take on the film’s tremulous, uncertain Springsteen — pre-”Born in the U.S.A.” and searching for authenticity — is a triumph of transition, the actor shifting his style to a big-screen format that doesn’t always do well by thoughtfulness. White pulls off the concert scenes fine, but it’s the process-centered stretch in the middle of the movie that will leave you rapt: a trip to a New Jersey library in late 1981 to research the killer Charles Starkweather; a late-night home viewing of the movie “Badlands”; moments of lyrical introspection and suburban acoustic strumming, accompanied only by the plunk of a four-track portable studio. The resultant album, “Nebraska,” is one of the ’80s’ most hushed accomplishments and it took an actor of White’s confidence to make that inward journey compelling.
THE TIMES' CREDITS:
Joshua Rothkopf is film editor of the Los Angeles Times. He most recently served as senior movies editor at Entertainment Weekly. Before then, Rothkopf spent 16 years at Time Out New York, where he was film editor and senior film critic. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Sight and Sound, Empire, Rolling Stone and In These Times, where he was chief film critic from 1999 to 2003.
Josh Rottenberg covers the film business for the Los Angeles Times. He was part of the team that was named a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist in breaking news for covering the tragic shooting on the set of the film “Rust.” A graduate of Harvard University, he has also written about the entertainment industry for the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Fast Company and other publications.
Glenn Whipp covers film and television for the Los Angeles Times and serves as columnist for The Envelope, The Times’ awards season publication.

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JESSE PLEMONS - FROM A VANITY FAIR PIECE ON PLEMONS AT TELLURIDE

PLemons says to Vanity Fair that going direct from Venice to Telluride, gondola to gondola, was "surreal."