Venice Film Festival 2019 – all our coverage

Ad Astra review: Brad Pitt bestrides the stars, darkly

Pitt’s ice-cool astronaut crosses the cosmos in search of his lost father in James Gray’s spectrally majestic, obsessive space opera, finds Jessica Kiang.
Saturday 31 August 2019

Joker review: Joaquin Phoenix’s alienated antihero is no laughing matter

Todd Phillips’s dark origin story for Batman’s nemesis soars past its troubling ideological confusion on a cascade of Scorsese references and a killer performance from Joaquin Phoenix, writes Christina Newland.
Sunday 1 September 2019

Marriage Story review: Noah Baumbach’s divorce tale has the rueful ring of truth

Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver play divorcing spouses struggling to take care of their son in Noah Baumbach’s reflective and occasionally devastating drama, writes Christina Newland.
Sunday 1 September 2019

Seberg review: a breathless biopic of a star with a complex life

Kristen Stewart shines as Jean Seberg in this glamorised retelling of her short life, in particular her intrusive surveillance by the US government, writes Nick James.
Sunday 1 September 2019

Waiting for the Barbarians review: a vital portrait of an empire in decline

Morality, and society itself, crumbles in Ciro Guerra’s English-language debut, a stunningly shot, allegorical film featuring a powerful lead performance by Mark Rylance, writes John Bleasdale.
Friday 6 September 2019

White on White review: an early photographer at the end of the world

Théo Court’s icy Tierra del Fuego-set western surveys a world in the making, and the taking, through the doubtful gaze of Alfredo Castro’s pioneer photographer, writes Elisabet Cabeza.
Tuesday 10 September 2019

Moffie review: fear and desire on the front lines of Apartheid-era South Africa

Oliver Hermanus’s feverish portrait of a gay South African army trainee on the wrong side of his country’s wars of repression is an unsettling portrait of the psyche of a nation, writes Jamie Dunn.
Monday 9 September 2019

The Perfect Candidate review: a political fable fuelled by optimism

Haifaa Al-Mansour’s winning story of a small-town doctor who finds herself standing for election relishes progressiveness and pizzazz in contemporary Saudi Arabia, writes John Bleasdale.
Sunday 1 September 2019

The Painted Bird review: Václav Marhoul makes exquisite torture of an abject war story

Horrifically violent but beautifully composed, Václav Marhoul’s third feature is an unforgettable experience that boldly confronts the very worst horrors of war, writes David Opie.
Monday 9 September 2019

Adults in the Room review: Costa-Gavras revisits the Grexit crisis with panache

Costa-Gavras’s adaptation of Yanis Varoufakis’s memoir creates a very human drama out of a painful episode from recent European history. There’s even a time for a dance, writes Tom Bond.
Saturday 7 September 2019

Rialto review: Peter Mackie Burns finds a haven for two unlikely lovers

A Dublin docker’s midlife crisis drives him into the arms of a desperate teenage hustler in Peter Mackie Burns’ low-key drama about masculinity in crisis, writes Jamie Dunn.
Wednesday 4 September 2019