"Discover Six Overlooked Treasures from the 2024 Fall Festival Lineups | Vanity Fair"

The first day of the 2024 Venice Film Festival marks the beginning of a three-week marathon, as hotly anticipated films debut at Venice, Telluride, and Toronto. We’re quite aware of the big titles likely to make a splash at each—ranging from Joker: Folie à Deux to The Piano Lesson and We Live in Time—but one of the best parts of any film festival is the unexpected discoveries.

So ahead of the festival glut, the Awards Insider team has picked six films that we predict might be hidden gems. They may not have deafening buzz going into the festivals, but with their talented filmmakers, interesting casts, and strong storylines, any of these could break out and become the talk of the town.

The Venice Film Festival’s artistic director Alberto Barbera strongly endorsed Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist in a recent interview with Vanity Fair, calling it “very brave, very ambitious, very personal.” With a run time of three and a half hours, it’s also not for the faint of heart or short of attention. But those who do commit will be rewarded with a captivating performance by Adrien Brody, who plays a Jewish architect who survived the Holocaust. Spanning 30 years of his life, this epic follows its protagonist as he emigrates to the US in hopes of a better life and features supporting performances by Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, and Joe Alwyn. —Rebecca Ford

Sigrid Nunez isn’t an unfilmable novelist, exactly, but her National Book Award–winning triumph The Friend is written in the kind of stream-of-conscious, deeply interior style that could prove intimidating to most filmmakers. In their adaptation heading to Toronto, New York, and seemingly Telluride, directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel pare down the story of an author grieving the sudden death of her mentor—and then taking in his Great Dane, who swiftly becomes her most crucial companion—to an intimate tale of grief, loneliness, and memory. It helps, too, that the film has Naomi Watts pulling off her best big-screen performance in some time. “I am an animal lover, and so I was not afraid to get the slobber all over me, the fur,” she recently told me. “I’m definitely interested in women at this stage in their lives and how much we reject the idea that we should become invisible or where we should sit on the sidelines. No, that’s not me.” —David Canfield

One of the buzziest sleeper acquisition titles to make the rounds this fall, Embeth Davidtz’s directorial debut works off of Alexandra Fuller's memoir of the same name for an utterly specific coming-of-age tale. The ’80s-set film follows an eight-year-old girl named Bobo (Lexi Venter), part of a white farming family in the African nation of Rhodesia, where long-simmering racial and class tensions are about to reach a boil. While not every actor can make the shift behind the camera feel especially seamless, early word is that Schindler’s List and Matilda alum Davidtz—who grew up in South Africa—emerges as a force to be reckoned with, willing to take big risks. The film will make its “Canadian premiere” at the Toronto International Film Festival—and based on that language, is expected to world-premiere at the more selective Telluride this coming weekend. —DC

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight

Director Walter Salles hasn’t made a narrative feature since 2012’s On the Road, but he’s finally returning with I’m Still Here, a moving drama set in the ’70s in Brazil. It follows Eunice Paiva, a mother of five whose husband, former Brazilian congressman Rubens Paiva, goes missing. Based on a 2015 book written by Paiva’s son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, the film features two actors playing Eunice: Fernanda Montenegro (an acting icon in Brazil, and the only Brazilian actress to ever be nominated for an Oscar) and her real-life daughter Fernanda Torres. We’re hearing it’s a deeply personal story for Salles—who gets to direct in his native Portuguese—and should be a surprise discovery when it premieres at Venice before heading to TIFF. —RF

I’m Still Here

If you’re looking to see the softer side of Brett Goldstein—best known for playing the irascible Roy Kent on Ted Lasso—make your way to TIFF to catch him in All of You, a romantic drama in which he stars opposite Imogen Poots. The pair play longtime friends living in the near-future, where a test guarantees to match anyone with their soulmate. The film, which Goldstein cowrote with director William Bridges, explores deep and timeless themes of unrequited love while showcasing two memorable performances from its lead actors. —RF

Previously adapted into a film starring Deborah Kerr, François Sagan’s revered 1954 novel offers the escapist pleasures of a sun-soaked European holiday right alongside the bitter truths of complex human relationships. Acclaimed author Durga Chew-Bose hadn’t even been on a set before stepping into the director’s chair for her adaptation, which brings the story into the present day. Yet if her Tribute Award, which will be given by the Toronto International Film Festival (where the movie is making its world premiere), didn’t make it clear enough, her exacting vision—balancing shimmering visuals with an intricate understanding of human behavior, and anchored by a beguiling Chloë Sevigny—certainly indicates she’s got a whole new career ahead of her. —DC