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Looking for what to see in theaters? Our feature, updated weekly, highlights our top recommendations for films currently in theaters, from new releases to restorations receiving a proper theatrical run.

While we already provide extensive monthly new-release recommendations and weekly streaming recommendations, as distributors’ roll-outs can vary, this is a one-stop list to share the essential films that may be on a screen near you.

The Balconettes (Noémie Merlant)

The chic balconies of Marseille certainly offer an image that is photogenic enough to open Noémie Merlant’s sophomore feature, The Balconettes, especially as seen from the meandering perspective of a crane shot. As the camera traces facades and their baby-blue window blinds,...

Germany | 2024 | 115 minutes | German with English subtitles

Cinema & Arts Award, Venice Film Festival 2024

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CineDocs Prize, CineFest Miskolc International Film Festival 2024

In this Venice International Film Festival 2024 Cinema & Arts Award winning documentary Riefenstahl, written and directed by Andres Veiel, Leni Riefenstahl discusses the Nationalist Socialist environment in which she thrived with an odd mixture of denial and support: Germany 1933 to 1948.

As the Nazi propagandist, her best-known films Triumph of the Will and Olympia were commissioned by the Nazi party are defined by their fascist aesthetics, perfectly-staged body worship, and the celebration of all that is "superior" and victorious. Hitler himself even named the film Triumph of the Will.

Her techniques, style and imagery are being duplicated to this day in the propaganda films of current dictators. Says the director-writer Andres Veiel, “with the outbreak of the Ukraine war in late February 2022, I soon discovered Riefenstahl's aesthetic in the current images of a Moscow parade: a low angle on Putin, his view from above of the marching columns. And in the footage from the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, I found a similar aesthetic to that of Olympia, it was the well- known imagery of the heroic and victorious…the frightening permanence of Riefenstahl's aesthetic ultimately … provided the justification to make the film in the first place.

The timeless realization is that totalitarian power and even arbitrary terror not only have an effect of deterrence, but also of attraction. In the gesture of submission to an imperial potentate, there is a hidden reward – to be part, as an individual, of an empire that is returned to historical greatness. It is the universal narrative of superiority and invincibility. At the heart of these images pulsates resentment: contempt for the other, the weak, the supposedly sick. And that brings us directly to the visual aesthetic of Leni Riefenstahl.”

Riefenstahl broke into the German film industry as an actress, then a filmmaker. Most unusual for a woman, she founded her own film production company in 1931 and made The Blue Light in 1932, in which she appeared as both an actress and director.

This film embodies her soul, and it is for this film that she wants to be remembered. It was awarded the silver medal at the 1932 inaugural Venice Biennale, founded by the National Fascist Party’s wealthy businessman Giuseppe Volpi.

Alongside her own controversial films, The Venice Biennale stirred up more controversy in 1937 when Benito Mussolini allegedly interfered to prevent the pacifist French film La Grande Illusion from winning.

In 1938 the controversy escalated when, despite the jury's preferred winner, Mussolini overruled their decision to award the Coppa Mussolini to the Italian propaganda film Luciano Serra, Pilot, produced under the supervision of Mussolini's son.

Additionally, Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda film Olympia was given the Coppa Mussolini for Best Foreign Film, despite regulations not allowing a documentary to win.

French, American, and British jury members withdrew in protest, and France subsequently established Cannes as a rival, non-political festival to celebrate cinematic art over political manipulation.

Although it was conceived in 1939, Cannes’ inaugural gathering was immediately halted by the Nazi invasion of Poland, delaying its true launch until after World War II.

Jean Cocteau, three times president of the jury in the post-war 1950s, is quoted to have said: "The Cannes Festival should be a no man's land in which politics has no place. It should be a simple meeting between friends."

His wish and despite Film Festivals’ striving toward such a lofty example of civilized humans carrying on civilized conversations about cinema, today, the Venice Biennale is again roiling in controversy over Israel and Palestine as is the upcoming Toronto Fiilm Festival. The celebration of cinematic art has yet to be maintained as a time of peaceful satisfaction. Filmmakers are taking stands and taking sides when faced political issues because, in fact, all art is political by nature.

To return to Leni, in 1932, she read Hitler's Mein Kampf and after the first pages, had already become an enthusiastic National Socialist. Mein Kampf is the model for Project 2025 written in 2022 by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and 140 former Trump staffers -- a roadmap for how to replace the rule of law with ring-wing ideals.

She subsequently wrote her praise of it to Hitler and he organized their first meeting in 1932.

After having been the Nazi propagandist, Riefentahl then spent decades after the war denying her association with Nazi ideology, and claiming ignorance of the Holocaust.

How did she become the Reich's preeminent filmmaker if she was just a hired hand? Riefenstahl examines this question using never-before-seen documents from Leni Riefenstahl's estate, 700 boxes of private films, photos, recordings and letters, uncovering fragments of her biography and placing them in an extended historical context. During her long life after the fall of Nazism, she remained unapologetic, managing to control and shape her legacy; in personal documents, she mourns her "murdered ideals".

Riefenstahl created a persona who was apolitical and seeking only to create art. The relevance of such a documentary for those of us who today remember her for Triumph of the Will and Olympia lies in her choice to work under the Nazi Regime. Our troubled times need resistance, and it lies within the purview of the creators to create either propaganda supporting the current administration of our country or to resist.

While Paramount gives institutional support, the creatives driving its commercial success, Jon Stewart and the Southpark creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, choose resistance.

After the death of Riefenstahl's partner in 2016, the producer Sandra Maischberger gained access to the estate and initiated and pre-financed the move for it to be provisionally made available. In 2018, she had contacted Andres Veiel about the project along with the brilliant editors Stephan Krumbiegel and Olaf Voigtländer, with whom Andres had already edited Beuys. Alfredo Castro joined the team as well.

Granted the editing does highlight certain traits which are definitely not becoming to Leni; the film is not pretending to be unbaised. We see her vanity and her quick temper when things do not go her way, and the ending of this film does not go her way.

Why do I choose this film to write about? I have little time to write about films and so I must choose those I find most relevant to me and to our times. Having spent the last five years in Berlin, I am drawn to the parallels of its Fascist past and our fascist present.

The first time I set foot in Germany was in Hof in 1987 and I was scared. I saw its land and felt the ground ran with Jewish blood and every German had a seed of a Nazi inside. But that year, in this little town on the Czech border where I went to a film festival to get German clients, there was an anti-Nazi demonstration and as I stood in a candlelight vigil, I felt safe among people who obviously were not Nazis

The first time I went to Berlin was 1989—the year after the Wall fell— to attend the Berlinale in order to promote my new company FilmFinders, the film industry’s first database designed to track new films for film acquisitions executives and film festival programmers. I went every year thereafter and was persuaded by the Berliners to return in summer time. That two month interlude hooked me. In 2008, when I sold Filmfinders to IMDb, the Amazon owned company, I took $75,000 of the payment and bought and renovated an apartment in Berlin, a place to escape to if needed and a place from which during the time of Covid I was able to absorb both past and present Berlin .

I admire Germany’s admitting to its unforgivable and unforgettable crime against humanity and for making reparations for the Shoah. Taking responsibility is something most nations do not do for the genocides they or their predecessors commit. Unless one admits culpability, one cannot remedy the crime.

Having lived in Berlin the past five years, I have concluded that their admission to the crime does not preclude the country’s continued populist racism. We see it in the status of its Arab and Turkish immigrants and in its turn toward the right in elections and its continual blind support of Israel even as Netanyahu in true tRumpian style disregards the law and the country’s moral underpinings which serve as the basis of the country’s founding as a nation. Book of Isaiah 49:6 says, "I will also make you a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth" And "unto your light, nations shall walk, and kings unto the brightness of your rising" Isaiah 60:3. I don’t mean to be a Bible Thumper, but I was taught to understand the universal obligation of the Jewish people to be mentors for repairing the world and showing spiritual and moral guidance, something definitely not being mentioned today in regards to the political entity called Israel.

The relevance of Riefenstahl today as we approach the Jewish High Holidays is particularly relevant as both the German and the Jewish people are divided among themselves and also joined by the need not only for repentence but for deep introspection and admission of their guilt for genocide.

Its further relevance today is best said by the producer Sandra Maischberger:

My personal view of Leni Riefenstahl has changed once again during these years of extensive involvement with her estate. The image of an extremely ambitious, above all opportunistically motivated artist who would have put her talent at the service of anypower that would only provide her with sufficient resources and opportunities, could not be maintained. Instead, I found an "activist" who was thoroughly convinced of the National Socialist idea and who could not let go of her old ideals up to her last breath.

As I read it today, Riefenstahl experienced the end of the war as a personal defeat. It wasn't just the abrupt termination of her dazzling success that she mourned. Rather, she no longer saw any point in practicing an art that did not at the same time glorify the ideology she believed in until the end of her life.

This also explains why she refused to be reformed, inwardly and outwardly, until the end, and also surrounded herself in her later years with ‘like-minded’ people in the truest sense of the word. Numerous traces in the estate serve as proof: the words ‘Npd’ (Neo-Nazi and ultranationalist political party in Germany) and ‘Vote Npd’ scribbled, seemingly thoughtlessly, on a page of her calendar; in a correspondence with a long-time companion, the openly expressed and undiminished regret about the end of the good National Socialist era; words of thanks from a well-known Holocaust denier.

Above all, however, her exchanges with friends and admirers in numerous telephone calls, many of which Riefenstahl had recorded. Especially distressing to listen to are the tapes where Riefenstahl is celebrated after her appearance on the Wdr program Je später der Abend.

Why is it so important to examine Riefenstahl's work and life again today? Because it comes at a time when not only fascist patterns have become topical again, even socially acceptable. We are also encountering propaganda, distortion, ‘fake news’ on a daily basis. War and totalitarianism in immediate proximity also threaten us. Weare painfully reminded of the vulnerability of our democracies, the important role played by deception, and the destructive power of autocratic thinking. Many modern ‘Riefenstahls’ are involved.

It is precisely at this critical moment that the last witnesses are leaving us who could tell younger people the story of how an entire nation succumbed to a criminal regime and its seemingly harmless ideals of strength and beauty. And what role the regime's propagandists played in this. This is what Riefenstahl is all about. The hundred-year history of Leni Riefenstahl's life and impact is a key to understanding the mechanisms of manipulation as we are currently encountering them again. This makes the journey into the depths of her estate more than an important cultural and historical task.

Deciphering her work means unmasking an original sin of film propaganda so that we can recognize it in today's world.

In the end, Leni Riefenstahl shows herself to be unrepentant and even a source of inspiration to the next generation of Nazis. She is undoubtedly a great artist and her work has left an indelible image of human beauty on the collective consciousness. This is disturbing because today we also must reckon with the same issues as then and people are still waiting for the show to begin when it has actually begun, like Nazism, with a putsch.

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It is fascinating what the human mind will allow. Riefenstahl, a documentary directed by Andres Veiel about the life of Leni Riefenstahl, explores the rationalizations the filmmaker allowed herself in order to explain her collaborations with the Nazi Party in Germany during their time in power. Until the day she died (at 101 years old in 2003), Riefenstahl refuted accusations that she was aware of the crimes being committed around her. “I never saw any atrocities happening,” she says in an interview from 1976, after the interviewer presents her with an account of her witnessing the murder of 22 Jews. She denies it adamantly. Throughout the film, we watch her deny much, while separate...

A new movie week lands with a mix of big franchise chills, heartfelt indies, and two special re-releases fans have been waiting to see on the big screen. Friday, September 5, 2025 brings wide releases alongside limited runs that will roll out across select cities, so check local listings to see what is playing near you.

Below you will find a quick, friendly rundown of each title opening this week. For every film or series, we include plot basics, key cast, and who is behind the camera, plus the date it lands so you can plan what to see first.

‘Riefenstahl’ (2024) Vincent Productions

Andres Veiel writes and directs this documentary about filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl,...

There is a little bit of everything arriving as the calendar turns to the first weekend of September. Big studio horror closes a long-running saga, a landmark stage musical returns to the big screen, and festival favorites make their way from the circuit to neighborhood theaters. You will also find international animation, a handful of thoughtful documentaries, and multiple indies that put character first.

Below you will find the key details for each new or returning title. For every film we include who made it, who stars in it, what it is about, and when it hits theaters. Dates in this roundup reflect openings tied to the week of Friday,...

In a thematically load-bearing scene from Andres Veiel’s Riefenstahl, German filmmaker and Nazi propagandist Leni Riefensthal reflects on her relationship with Joseph Goebbels. This archival interview was recorded at Riefensthal’s cozy Bavarian mountain cottage, where she lived to the ripe old age of 101. Over photographs of the two laughing and dining together, and immediately following excerpts from Goebbels’s most virulently antisemitic speeches, Riefenstahl boasts of the Nazi propaganda chief’s mad desire for her, both artistic and erotic, and of the “adventures” and “affairs” they had together. She then, almost as an afterthought, suggests ruefully that he sexually assaulted her on two occasions.

Veiel’s meditative, ominous...

September is packed with new releases, festival favorites, special events, and a handful of long awaited sequels. There are also re releases and restorations that bring beloved titles back to the big screen, alongside documentaries that shine a light on sports legends, science pioneers, and cultural icons.

Below you will find every title scheduled to open in theaters in September along with what it is about, when it is coming, and how it is being released. Wide titles are easy to find across multiplexes while limited titles open in select cities and then expand if demand is strong.

‘The American Southwest’ (2025) Fin & Fur Films

This family friendly documentary follows...

With the summer movie season now quietly winding down, fall is upon us. As we do each year, after highlighting the best films offered thus far, we’ve set out to provide an overview of the titles that should be on your radar.

Featuring 50 films, the preview includes both the best we’ve already seen (with full reviews where available) and the anticipated with (mostly) confirmed release dates over the next four months. A good amount will premiere these next few weeks at Telluride, Venice, TIFF, and NYFF, so check back for our reviews. Dates below are theatrical releases unless otherwise noted.

Explore below and check back soon for our...

Fatih Akin’s Amrum and Mascha Schilinski’s Sound Of Falling are among five titles shortlisted as Germany’s entry for the Oscars’ best international feature award.

Sound Of Falling premiered in Cannes Competition and follows a century of trauma in rural Germany, whilst post-war coming-of-age drama Amrum debuted in the Cannes Premiere section.

The other three titles are Joachim A. Lang’s Cranko, a biopic of dancer and choreographer John Cranko played by Sam Riley; Andres Veiel’s documentary Riefenstahl about the controversial German filmmaker; and Dennis Gansel’s anti-war drama The Tiger, which is set to become Amazon...

As fascism rears its ugly head once more across the United States and beyond, it is ever more important to remember our heinous history. Written and directed by Andres Veiel, Riefenstahl uses never-before-seen documents from the personal archive of filmmaker and Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl––including private films, photos, recordings and letters that complicate the post-war narrative she meticulously crafted––to reexamine her legacy and its significance in our modern times. Ahead of a September 5 release from Kino Lorber, the first trailer has now arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “Filmmaker and Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl is considered one of the most controversial women of the 20th century. Her films Triumph of the Will and Olympia are defined by their fascist aesthetics, perfectly-staged body worship, and the celebration of all that is “superior” and victorious, simultaneously projecting contempt for the imperfect and weak. But Riefenstahl – who first broke into the German...

Her films were taught for decades in U.S. film schools for their pictographic excellence, her images bold and dramatic. The context in which they were made, however, was so difficult to justify that she became the furthest limit of the “let’s separate the art from the artist” ethos.

Now, documentarian Andres Veiel has delivered a riveting cinematic portrait that looks deep into the meaning of Leni Riefenstahl, and how her work still uncomfortably echoes today. IndieWire exclusively debuts the trailer for “Riefenstahl” below. The film will be released by Kino Lorber in New York on September 5 and in Los Angeles on September 12, with a national rollout to follow.

Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will” was a film school staple for much of the mid 20th century — it’s how USC grad George Lucas came to pay homage to it with the mass gathering at the end of the original “Star Wars.

Riefenstahl Photo: © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek/Bildarchiv; Inset photo below: © CBC Riefenstahl, Apple TV, Sky Store and other platforms

Andres Veiel's portrait of Leni Riefenstahl, whose career will forever be linked to Adolf Hitler's Nazis, is a fascinating psychological dig into her mindset, featuring a wealth of interviews. A lesson in the nature of "selective memory", Riefenstahl's obsession with keeping up appearances, both physical and in terms of spinning her work, is absorbing and repulsive in equal measure. The film covers her start in the business through the Third Reich period and on into her late career work, which suggests her unpleasant beliefs didn't dim with age. While some questions remain unanswered, not least around her relationship with the much younger Horst Kettner, this is an engrossing watch. Veiel told us: "We had a lot of insight, and, of course, I knew from the beginning she was a manipulator."

The Piano,...

Canadian film “Yintah” won the main competition jury prize, which comes with 8,000 euros, at the 22nd edition of the Millennium Docs Against Gravity film festival. The documentary event, which played in Warsaw and six other Polish cities, ended on May 18.

“Yintah” tells the story of a Canadian-based Indigenous nation’s fight for sovereignty as it resists the construction of multiple oil and fracked-gas pipelines across its territory. Co-directed by Brenda Michell, Michael Toledano, and Jennifer Wickham, the docu captures the Wet’suwet’en nation’s right to stewardship and sovereignty over their territories.

The jury called it “a painfully beautiful viewing experience that challenges us to imagine and enact resistance — before it’s too late.”

“Bedrock,” by first-time filmmaker Kinga Michalska, about contemporary Poles living on Holocaust sites, won the best Polish film award.

The themes of these films — history, genocide, resistance and resilence — were on the minds of many...

Tim Fehlbaum’s thriller September 5 was the big winner at this year’s German Film Awards, clinching nine statuettes in total including the Golden Lola for best film.

The film also won prizes for direction, screenplay, supporting actress, cinematography, editing, sound, production design and make-up.

Swiss-born Fehlbaum’s third feature had been this year’s hot favourite after it received 10 nominations from the German Film Academy’s members ahead of the weekend’s gala ceremony in Berlin. It only missed out on winning the Lola for best film score which went to Dasha Dauenhauer for Jan-Ole Gerster’s English language debut Islands.

“For something to be remembered other things must be forgotten,” narrator Andrew Bird notes near the start of Andres Veiel’s thorough and psychologically fascinating and disturbing consideration of Leni Riefenstahl – a formidable directing talent, no doubt, but whose work is inextricably linked to Hitler and the Nazis. Selective memory was something Riefenstahl excelled at and, as a director, she was also adept at staying on message in the face of counter evidence, something which Veiel scrutinises throughout.

Riefenstahl was meticulous in terms of collecting her archive and Veiel draws on this extensively, along with interviews with the director, who unceasingly worked to rehabilitate her image throughout her 101-year life. Looking at her around the time she made her debut film, The Blue Light, she looks every inch the Hollywood starlet. Soon, however, she would be cosying up to Hitler, making the infamous propaganda piece Triumph Of The Will...

September 5 took top honors at the German Film Awards, or Lolas, held in Berlin Friday night.

Tim Fehlbaum’s real-life thriller, based on the terrorist attacks on the 1972 Munich Olympics, picked up nine Lolas, including for best director, best editing, best cinematography, best sound design, best screenplay, best makeup and best production design.

Leonie Benesch won best supporting actress for her performance as a translator for the U.S. television network broadcasting the attacks live to the world. September 5 premiered at the Venice film festival last year before becoming an awards contender and landing a best original screenplay Oscar nomination for Fehlbaum, Moritz Binder and Alex David.

Accepting his best director prize, Fehlbaum praised his German team, and, with a side swipe at Donald Trump and his promised tariffs on “foreign films,” noted that “they can raise the tariffs as high as the want, there is not reason to make films anywhere else [than here].”

Wolfram Weimer,...

Vertigo Releasing’s The Surfer leads the new releases in UK and Ireland cinemas this weekend as Universal’sThe Wedding Banquetand Altitude’sOcean With David Attenboroughare also out.

Nicholas Cage stars in Lorcan Finnegan’s psychological thriller The Surferwhich rides into 388 locations. The acclaimed actor plays a father who returns to his childhood beach in Australia and conflicts with the locals. The film premiered in Cannes Midnight Screenings last year.

Cage’s recent openings include Longlegs; Dream Scenario and Renfield.

Also out is The Wedding Banquetin 254 locations for Universal. A remake of the 1993 film of the same name, Bowen Yang...

Leni Riefenstahl checks her appearance for the recording of the three-part documentary "Speer Und Er" by director Heinrich Breloer Photo: Bavaria Media

Director Andres Veiel turns his attention to the notorious artist, filmmaker and Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl. With access to her estate, his documentary, Riefenstahl, uses previously unseen photographs, written documents, audio recordings as well as unpublished handwritten notes and excerpts for her biography. Veiel sifts through these to construct a thoroughly detailed portrait of the woman synonymous with one of history's darkest chapters.

Veiel's filmmaking has explored a range of subjects from an Israeli-Palestinian theatre group in Balagan (1994), the critical exploration into the identities of far-left militant terrorist Wolfgang Grams and Alfred Herrhausen, the banker whose murder Grams was suspected of, and If Not Us, Who?, a drama about a German couple who become part of the far-left militant Baader-Meinhof Group. He has also directed Bueys (2017), a biography...

Some of the biggest names in nonfiction film are heading to Poland for the 22nd edition of Millennium Docs Against Gravity, one of the largest documentary festivals in the world.

The event running from this Friday until May 18 (and online from May 20-June 2) will welcome Oscar winners Asif Kapadia and Alex Gibney, Oscar nominees David France, Rémi Grellety, and Guy Davidi, and fellow award-winning filmmakers Lauren Greenfield, Mark Cousins, Andres Veiel, Alexis Bloom, Chester Algernal Gordon, Mads Brügger, Zackary Drucker, Brandon Kramer, Rachel Elizabeth Seed, among many others.

The festival, which runs simultaneously in seven cities including Warsaw, Łódź, and Gdynia, will showcase almost 180 films from around the world, a number of which are very likely to wind up in the next Oscar race.

“I think it’s going to be amazing,” says artistic director Karol Piekarczyk. “These films are absolutely incredible, and I can’t wait for people to see them.

The only important woman in the Nazi movement entranced Hitler, directed Triumph of the Will – and spent the rest of her life alternately fearful and defiant

Andres Veiel’s sombre documentary tells the gripping, incrementally nauseating story of Helene “Leni” Riefenstahl, the brilliant and pioneering German film-maker of the 20th century who isn’t getting her name on a Girls on Tops T-shirt any time soon.

Riefenstahl was a dancer and actor in prewar movies by Arnold Fanck and Gw Pabst, whose performance in 1932 in The Blue Light, her own Aryan romantic fantasy as director-star, entranced the Führer and secured her two historic directing commissions: Triumph of the Will in 1935, a monumentally euphoric and grandiose account of the Nazi party congress in Nuremberg, and Olympia, about the 1936 Berlin Games, with whose undoubtedly stunning images and choreography Riefenstahl effectively invented the modern-day Olympics with its opening and closing ceremonies and media coverage.

Oscar contenders September 5 and The Seed of the Sacred Fig, and Andreas Dresen’s historic drama From Hilde, With Love are the frontrunners for this year’s German Film Awards, also called the Lolas, Germany’s equivalent of the Oscars.

September 5, Tim Fehlbaum’s real-life thriller based on the terrorist attacks on the 1972 Munich Olympics, picked up 10 nominations, including for best film and best director, as well as a supporting actress nom for Leonie Benesch, who plays a translator for the U.S. television network broadcasting the attacks live to the world.

Second and third in the running are Dresen’s From Hilde, With Love, which picked up seven Lola nominations, including for best film and best director, with Mohammad Rasoulof’s Iranian drama The Seed of the Sacred Fig right behind with six.

Rasoulof’s depiction of an Iranian family torn apart by conflicting loyalties to an increasingly oppressive Tehran regime,...

An adaptation of Edith Wharton novel The Custom Of The Country by Mary Queen Of Scots director Josie Rourke is among 16 new projects backed by the Düsseldorf-based regional film fund Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw (Fms).

€600,000 in production funding was allocated by Fms to Rourke’s planned adaptation of Wharton’s 1913 novel.

The tragicomedy of manners about a Midwestern girl attempting to ascend in New York society is currently structured as a German-uk co-production between Cologne-based Mo Co-Production, a single purpose company set up by augenschein Filmproduktion, with Charles Finch’s Rabbit Foot Films.

Finch was recently a co-producer of the...

The fall festival season has wrapped up! Each year, dozens of movies premiere at festivals with distributors looking to launch them before they’re released in theaters or on streaming services. But dozens more are independent films without distribution that came to the festivals looking to be discovered. This year, over 200 movies made their world premieres across the Venice Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival, and we’ve seen some big name movie sales across all four.

Right as Venice got underway, we saw U.S. deals for two of the biggest competition titles on the slate, Pablo Larraín’s “Maria” to Netflix and Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” to A24. A24 also picked up the rights to Venice Silver Lion winner “The Brutalist” in a competitive situation. And some of the hottest discoveries like “Nutcrackers,” “September 5,” and TIFF Audience...

Leni Riefenstahl’s films from her time working with the Nazi Party have left an indelible mark on cinema. With Triumph of the Will and Olympia, she crafted stunning pieces of propaganda that also pioneered new techniques. However, her relationship with the Third Reich has been the source of much debate. Riefenstahl always insisted she was just an artist, not a believer in Nazi ideology.

In Riefenstahl, director Andres Veiel seeks to provide a fuller picture of this enigmatic figure. With unprecedented access to Riefenstahl’s personal archives, he examines her career and the narrative she crafted after WWII. Through archival interviews stretching from the 1960s to her death in 2003, her own films, and material from over 700 boxes of records, a more complex truth emerges.

Veiel explores the enthusiastic support Riefenstahl showed the Nazis in her earliest works. He also reveals evidence that contradicts her claims, like recordings where she...

While there’s a few more fall film festivals popping up in the next month, the major ones are behind us, which means we have a strong sense of the films to have on your radar in the coming months and even through 2025. We’ve asked our writers from across the globe to weigh in on their favorite world premieres from Locarno Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, and BFI London Film Festival.

Our coverage will continue with a few more reviews this week, and far beyond as we provide updates on the journey of these selections, so continue to explore all of our festival coverage here. In the meantime, check out top picks from our writers below and return soon for our extensive year-end coverage.

Soham Gadre (@SohamGadre)

1. April (Dea Kulumbegashvili)

2 and 3. Youth (Homecoming and Hard Times) (Wang Bing...

5 Must-See Films with Powerful Female Leads at the 2024 Mami Festival: The Mami Film Festival 2024 will showcase a remarkable selection of thought-provoking films that transcend cultural and geographical boundaries. Among these, films such as Angammal, April, Riefenstahl, Armand, and Shambhala stand out for their distinct narratives and powerful cinematic vision. Each film delves into profound themes, from gender politics and societal expectations to the complexities of tradition and modernity, delivering compelling stories with nuanced performances and striking visuals. Audiences at Mami 2024 can expect an immersive journey through diverse landscapes of human experience, with these films with female leads are sets to leave a lasting impression on the global cinematic conversation.

Angammal

Written and Directed by Vipin Radhakrishnan

Language: Tamil

Country: India

“Angammal” is a thought-provoking film that delves deeply into themes of social propriety, bodily autonomy, and rural-urban tensions, all while remaining grounded in the evocative world of Perumal Murugan’s storytelling.

Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to Andres Veiel’s Venice prizewinning documentary “Riefenstahl,” a critical portrait of Leni Riefenstahl, a filmmaker and Nazi propagandist who was close to Adolf Hitler.

Kino Lorber is planning a theatrical release in 2025, followed by a digital, educational, and home video release.

Produced by Sandra Maischberger, “Riefenstahl” world premiered at the Venice Film Festival where it received the Cinema & Arts Award. The movie played Telluride Film Festival and will next screen at the Zurich Film Festival.

Riefenstah directed films such as “Triumph of the Will” and “Olympia” which are defined by their fascist aesthetics. Her friendship with Hitler and other Nazi dignitaries was well documented during WW2. Yet, Riefenstahl, who first broke into the German film industry as an actress, spent decades after the war denying her association with Nazi ideology and claiming ignorance of the Holocaust.

“Riefenstahl” features materials from Leni Riefenstahl’s estate,...

Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to Andres Veiel’s Venice prize-winning documentary Riefenstahl about the infamous German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.

Veiel uses previously unpublicised materials from Riefenstahl’s estate, including private films, photos, recordings and letters, to explore how she become the Reich’s preeminent filmmaker.

The film won the Cinema & Arts Award on the Lido, went on to screen at Telluride, and will play at Zurich Film Festival.

It shows how, after starting out as an actress, Riefenstahl broke into filmmaking and became a propagandist of huge influence. She directed Triumph Of The Will (1935), the documentary about...

The Venice Film Festival wrapped on Saturday (September 7) night with key prizes for Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April and Maura Delpero’sVermiglio, while Nicole Kidman won best actress for Babygirl and Vincent Lindon best actor for The Quiet Son.

Screen rounds up key talking points from the festival.

Stars arrive in force…

Last year, the strikes kept the stars away. This year, Venice was brimming with big names, among them George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Daniel Craig, Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore and Jude Law.

The 2024 Venice Film Festival awards ceremony has wrapped up after a sweltering week and a half on the Lido.

The prestigious Golden Lion award for best film went to Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door. The Spaniard’s first-ever English-language feature received a whopping 17-minute standing ovation when it premiered at the festival. Almodóvar said in his acceptance speech Saturday: “I would like to dedicate it to my family, who is here now… This movie The Room Next Door, it is my first movie in English.. but the spirit is Spanish.”

His film, an adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s novel What Are You Going Through, follows best-selling writer Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton) as they rekindle their friendship after losing touch. As they immerse themselves in past memories, anecdotes, art and movies, Martha, battling terminal cervical cancer, wants to die with dignity and asks Ingrid to be...

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Splashy Last Week On The Lido

Uncharacteristically buzzy: The Venice Film Festival ends tomorrow after an uncharacteristically buzzy second week. The festival is usually front-loaded, with the splashiest titles playing early. This year, however, Alberto Barbera, who dished to Andreas, said the lengthy runtimes of some competition titles meant the spoils had to spread across both weeks. Enter Brady Corbet’s 215-minute post-wwii epic The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Stacy Martin, Raffey Cassidy, Emma Laird, Isaach De Bankolé and Alessandro Nivola. The pic was well received, landing a 13-minute ovation from the Sala Grande audience. Pedro Almodóvar launched his English-language debut The Room Next Door with his leading ladies Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore.

Andres Veiel’s Riefenstahl, a new documentary on the infamous Nazi-era German director Leni Riefenstahl, has sold strongly internationally following its world premiere at the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals.

Beta Cinema, who are handling world sales on the film, locked down deals across Europe for the documentary, including with Arp for France, Filmin for Spain, Midas Filmes for Portugal, Edge Entertainment in Scandinavia, Against Gravity for Poland, Cirko Film for Hungary, Imagine in Benelux and McF for the territories of the former Yugoslavia. Longride Entertainment will release the film in Japan. Additional territories are currently in negotiation.

In Germany, Riefenstahl will go out via Majestic, with Italian distribution handled by the film’s co-producer Rai Cinema.

Veiel and Riefenstahl producer, the acclaimed German journalist and political talk show host Sandra Maischberger, spent six years pouring over more than 700 boxes of film, writing, audio and other documents from Leni Reifenstahl...

German director Andres Veiel’s documentary Riefenstahl has notched up sales to key territories following its premieres at Venice and Teulluride.

Riefenstahl investigates the influential director Leni Riefenstahl’s close involvement with the Nazis.

Munich-based World Sales company Beta Cinema announced deals for France (Arp), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Midas Filmes), Scandinavia (Edge Entertainment), Benelux (Imagine), Poland (Against Gravity), Hungary (Cirko Film), former Yugoslavia (McF) and Japan (Longride Entertainment). Additional territories are currently in negotiation. German distribution had previously been agreed with Majestic and Italian distribution through co-producer Rai Cinema.

Veiel’s film, produced by German political journalist Sandra Maischberger, is...

Andres Veiel’s documentary Riefenstahl – unpicking the deceits of German filmmaker and Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl – has scored a slew of deals following its world premiere at Venice and North American launch at Telluride.

Munich-based World Sales company Beta Cinema announced deals to France (Arp), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Midas Filmes), Scandinavia (Edge Entertainment), Benelux (Imagine), Poland (Against Gravity), Hungary (Cirko Film), former Yugoslavia (McF) and Japan (Longride Entertainment).

As previously announced Majestic is releasing the film in Germany while the Italian release is being handled by co-producer Rai Cinema. Additional territories are currently in negotiation.

Related: Venice Golden Lion Winners : Photos Of The Festival’s Top Films Through The Years

Riefenstahl is one of the most controversial filmmakers of the 20th century as an artist and a Nazi propagandist, thanks to her 1930s films Triumph of the Will and Olympia — capturing the 1934 Nazi Party convention in Nuremberg and the 1936 Berlin Olympics in Berlin.

Andres Veiel’s documentary “Riefenstahl,” which challenges the carefully crafted public persona of one of Germany’s most controversial directors, is one of 17 German films playing in the various sections of the Venice Film Festival.

A deep dive into Leni Riefenstahl’s previously inaccessible archive, the 160-minute film lifts the lid on secrets the director of the 1935 Nuremberg propaganda film “Triumph of the Will” struggled more than half her life to keep hidden.

Veiel was brought onboard to direct by producer Sandra Maischberger of Berlin’s Vincent Films, who had gained unfettered access to Riefenstahl’s archive after the death of her longtime companion and husband Horst Kette in 2016.

“For me, it is the right festival for the film,” Veiel tells Variety. “The political situation in German and Italy is similar — with the rise of the right-wing, and a longing for propaganda and fake news. For a debate about the film,...

Andres Veiel’s documentary “Riefenstahl,” which challenges the carefully crafted public persona of one of Germany’s most controversial directors, who was forever tainted by working with the Nazis, is one of 17 German films playing in the various sections of the Venice Film Festival.

A deep dive into Leni Reifenstahl’s previously inaccessible archive, the 160-minute film lifts the lid on secrets the director of the 1935 Nuremberg propaganda film “Triumph of the Will” struggled more than half her life to keep hidden.

Veiel, who was brought onboard to direct by producer Sandra Maischberger of Berlin’s Vincent Films – who had gained unfettered access to Riefenstahl’s archive after the death of her longtime companion and husband Horst Kette in 2016 – is untroubled by the film’s out-of-competition berth as he believes the festival is the right venue for its first showing.

“For me, it is the right festival for the film,...

Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence and Stanley Tucci as Cardinal Bellini in ‘Conclave’ (Photo Courtesy of Focus Features. © 2024)

The 51st Telluride Film Festival announced its lineup just days ahead of the festival’s opening on Friday, August 30, 2024. The festival, which runs through Monday, September 2nd, will include the world premieres of Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, Edward Berger’s Conclave, and Malcolm Washington’s The Piano Lesson.

This year’s festival includes 60 feature films, shorts, and revival programs.

“This brief weekend of cinematic bliss reminds us every year that movies really are magic,” stated Telluride Film Festival director Julie Huntsinger. “The process of assembling our line-up is both daunting and rewarding, and it never fails to bring the most fantastic sense of satisfaction once we’re finished. Our anticipation matches that of the audience. We’re delighted to now share what we found to be the most exciting, interesting and...

One of the most eye-opening, chilling, fascinating, and frightening documentaries this year just premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It's titled Riefenstahl, referencing the iconic & also infamous German female filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. The film is sort of a biopic taking us through her life as a filmmaker, though it actually ends up being an indictment regarding her past association with the Nazis in the 1930s & 40s. It's the latest film directed by acclaimed German filmmaker Andres Veiel, who previously made the excellent doc Beuys (which I saw at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival and wrote about back then). For much of the film, I was wondering if Veiel is trying to portray Riefenstahl as a misunderstood artist unfairly scrutinized, or if he was going to lean in on hinting she has always been a Nazi. It's the latter. There's no debate anymore. After watching scene after scene of irrefutable evidence (which...

The infamous and virtuosic Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl made the two documentaries she became legendary for, “Triumph of the Will” (1935) and “Olympiad” (1938), nearly 90 years ago. She herself lived to 101 (she died in 2003). The controversy that has surrounded her first reared its head more than six decades ago, catching fire in the mid-1970s, when Susan Sontag published her influential and accusatory essay about Riefenstahl entitled “Fascinating Fascism.”

Ever since then, there has been a hot-button ferocity to what we might call The Riefenstahl Question. That heightened quality — like the question itself — refuses to die. The question is: Is it fair to brand this Nazi filmmaker a Nazi collaborator? She made her films for Hitler, who she was personally chummy with, so there’s no doubt that on some level she made a deal with the devil. But what was the deal? What, exactly, did she know?

The debate about Leni...

No matter how much we might want to purge the ideology reflected by and reinforced in Leni Riefenstahl’s films from our cultural lives, her aesthetic influence is impossible to escape.

Every Olympics, NBC’s innovations evolve from common visual goals: allowing the camera to track races more fluidly, slowing down the action to showcase bodies in motion, discovering angles that redefine our way of seeing events.

Everything stems from the grammar established by Riefenstahl in 1938’s Olympia, just as so much of what we view as the aesthetics of political power finds a template in her 1935 Triumph of the Will. But in acknowledging these connections, we’re constantly forced to wrestle with the same questions concerning what Riefenstahl knew or didn’t know about the regime and the messages she was putting on film, and the degree to which her art can be separated from the service she put it to.

Andres Veiel shows how the film-maker loved by Hitler hit the heights with her Berlin Olympics movie – and how she tried and failed to save her Nazi-tinged reputation

Leni Riefenstahl returns to the Venice film festival, after a fashion, as the star of Andres Veiel’s extraordinary deep-dive documentary about the original cancelled artist. It was here, at Mussolini-era Venice in 1938, that Riefenstahl scooped the top prize for Olympia, her sublime, suspect paean to the Berlin Olympics. Her career hit the heights on the Lido, after which it plunged straight to hell. Veiel’s film shows how it happened, and how she tried and failed to salvage her reputation.

Riefenstahl does not come to praise or reclaim the late director, but nor does it mean to bury her. It acknowledges her as a trailblazer: a driven female artist in a male-dominated industry whose poetic eye and technical nous turned the medium on its head.

Leni Riefenstahl, who died in 2003, aged 101, remains forever Google-able as “Hitler’s favorite director” for her daringly innovative documentaries The Triumph of the Will, about the Nazi rally in Nuremberg in 1934, and Olympia, about the Berlin Olympics of 1936. Acclaimed and infamous in equal measures —was she a pioneering genius, a Nazi propagandist, or maybe both? — Riefenstahl remains a subject of fascination and debate over whether her talent can be separated from her political views.

What exactly those views were, what Riefenstahl knew about Hitler and the Holocaust and when she knew it, is key to this debate and the subject of countless books and documentaries. It’s the question at the center of Riefenstahl, the new documentary from German filmmaker Andres Veiel (Black Box Brd).

The documentary screens out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, the same festival where Leni Riefenstahl won a gold medal for The Triumph...

Curiously, for a woman who directed a movie called Triumph of the Will, Leni Riefenstahl seemed to lose control over her own person when she first met Adolf Hitler.

“I had hot sweats,” the German filmmaker said of seeing the future Führer speak at a rally in 1932. “I was somehow captured, as by a magnetic force.”

Embedded in that description is a self-defense: She may as well have said, “I wasn’t to blame, I couldn’t help it, I was overwhelmed by Hitler’s presence, like millions of other Germans.”

The new documentary Riefenstahl, premiering Thursday at the Venice Film Festival, argues the German filmmaker carefully crafted a narrative absolving herself of responsibility for becoming Hitler’s favored cinematic propagandist.

“In a way, it is a detective story, because she is lying,” director Andres Veiel tells Deadline. “She’s manipulating.”

Leni Riefenstahl crouches beneath a camera.

After Germany’s defeat in World War II,...

Alberto Barbera, it must be said, has done it again.

The long-running director of the Venice Film Festival, who successfully repositioned the august Italian cinema event as an awards-season launchpad, on Tuesday unveiled another top-shelf lineup for the 81st Biennale (Aug. 28-Sept. 7). And, as Kendall Roy would say, it’s “all bangers, all the time.”

Alongside tentpole studio sequels — Warner Bros. will kick off the festival with the out-of-competition screening of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Todd Phillips returns to the Lido competition with Joker: Folie à Deux, the follow-up to his 2019 Golden Lion-winner Joker — Barbera has selected a tasty mix of established auteurs and up-and-coming talent that looks to appeal both to critics and international buyers.

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in Joker: Folie À Deux.

Pedro Almodóvar is back in Venice with The Room Next Door, the hotly-anticipated English-language feature debut from the Oscar-winning Spanish director. Tilda Swinton...

The Beatles are getting some attention at this year’s Venice Film Festival, which unveiled its 2024 lineup on Tuesday.

The legendary band, who dominated the music industry for an entire decade from 1960, has earned spots in the prestigious fest’s documentary section in different capacities. Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ doc One to One: John & Yoko focuses on the intense and public relationship between the two artists, while Things We Said Today from Romania’s Andrei Ujica, on the other hand, is a look at the band’s famous and first North American tour – a film that was supposed to be ready 10 years ago.

On John Lennon’s official website, Macdonald’s feature documentary from Mercury Studios is described as “a moving look at the couple’s life upon their entry into a transformative 1970’s New York, exploring their musical, personal, artistic, social, and political world.” Macdonald himself said: “I...

Just a day after New York Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival made major announcements, Venice Film Festival is here with their full lineup ahead of the festival taking place August 28 through September 7.

Highlights include Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud, Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements, Harmony Korine’s Baby Invasion, Pablo Larraín’s Maria, Takeshi Kitano’s Broken Rage, Errol Morris’ Separated, Lav Diaz’s Phantosmia, Thomas Vinterberg’s Families Like Ours, Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April, and more.

Check out the lineup below with a hat tip to Cineuropa.

Competition

The Room Next Door – Pedro Almodóvar

Campo di battaglia – Gianni Amelio

Leurs enfants après eux – Ludovic & Zoran Boukherma

The Brutalist – Brady Corbet

Jouer avec le feu – Delphine & Muriel Coulin

Vermiglio – Maura Delpero

Iddu (Sicilian Letters) – Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza

Queer – Luca Guadagnino

Love – Dag Johan Haugerud...

The Venice Film Festival on Tuesday unveiled its official, star-packed lineup for its 81st edition, which runs from Aug. 28 to Sept. 7.

Joker: Folie à Deux, Todd Phillips’ sequel to his 2019 Golden Lion-winning Joker, will also bow in Venice. Joaquin Phoenix, who won a best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Arthur Fleck, aka Joker, in the original, returns in the musical sequel, with Lady Gaga playing Harley Quinn, his love interest and partner in crime. Zazie Beetz, Brendan Gleeson and Catherine Keener co-star.

Venice favorites Brad Pitt and George Clooney will return to the Lido with Wolfs, an action drama from Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No Way Home) about two lone-wolf fixers assigned to the same job. The film, an Apple Original Films production that Columbia/Sony will release theatrically worldwide, will screen out of competition, as will Broken Rage, the latest feature from legendary Japanese director Takeshi Kitano.

Angelina Jolie...

Venice Film Festival has revealed the programme for its 81st edition, featuring a 21-strong Competition that includes new films from Todd Phillips, Pedro Almodovar, Luca Guadagino, Pablo Larrain, Brady Corbet and Justin Kurzel.

Scroll down for full line-up

The selection was unveiled by festival president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and artistic director Alberto Barbera. It marked Buttafuoco’s first time at the annual press conference, after replacing Roberto Cicutto in October 2023.

Further filmmakers in Competition include Wang Bing, Luis Ortega, Dea Kulumbegashvili, Dag Johan Haugerud, Athina Rachel Tsangari and Walter Salles.

The line-up also includes Jon Watt’s Wolfs, starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney,...

Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme has been awarded the lion’s share of the more than €20m paid out by the German Federal Film Fund (Dfff) to 25 film projects in the first four months of 2024.

Studio Babelsberg’s service production arm Zweite Film Service Babelsberg received a grant of over €10.4m from the Dfff II fund for Anderson’s film which has been shooting on sound stages at the studios near Potsdam as well as in the surrounding region since the beginning of March.

The fund, which focuses on supporting production service providers if their film’s budget exceeds...

Beta Cinema has added Andres Veiel’s upcoming documentary film “Riefenstahl,” about controversial filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, to its Cannes lineup.

The film is an exploration of Riefenstahl’s legacy, delving deep into her complex relationship with the Nazi regime. With unprecedented access to Riefenstahl’s 700-box personal archive, the documentary navigates between her sanitized narrative and incriminating evidence regarding her knowledge of the regime’s atrocities.

Veiel is a multi-award-winning writer and director of both narrative feature films and documentaries. His documentary about the aftermath of the Raf campaign of terror, “Black Box Germany,” was honored with the German Film Award and the European Film Award in 2002. In 2011, he presented the feature film “If Not Us, Who?” in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, winning the Alfred Bauer Award. The film was also nominated for five German Film Awards and brought Sevilla’s best actor award to August Diehl for his leading performance.