The undeniably robust 82nd edition of the Venice International Film Festival has come to a triumphant finish.
Heading into Saturday night’s ceremony, Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab was widely viewed as the movie to beat for this year’s Golden Lion. The powerful Gaza-set drama, which tells the story of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl’s desperate pleas for rescue after Israeli forces killed her relatives, received a thunderous 21-minute standing ovation at its world premiere, one of the longest in the Venice Film Festival‘s history.
The film ended up going home with the festival’s second-place Grand Jury prize (Silver Lion).
“I dedicate this world to the Palestinian Red Crescent and to all those who have risked everything to save lives in Gaza. They are real heroes,” Ben Hania said in her powerful acceptance speech. “The voice of Hind is the voice of Gaza itself, a cry for rescue the entire world could hear, yet no one answered.
Her voice will continue. Her voice will continue to echo until accountability is real, until justice is served.”
Hollywood heavyweights Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Alfonso Cuarón and others boosted the movie’s profile ahead of the festival by joining its team as executive producers, while critics hailed it as an “intensely involving and resounding” indictment of Israel’s genocidal campaigns against the Palestinian population.
Jim Jarmusch’s delicate triptych Father Mother Sister Brother, critically celebrated for its effortless poignancy, was the night’s dark horse champ, handing the American indie film icon his first Venice Golden Lion.
“Oh shit,” Jarmusch said as he accepted his trophy, before adding, “All of us here who make films, we’re not motivated by competition, but I truly appreciate this unexpected honor.”
“Art does not have to address politics directly to be political,” Jarmusch went on. “It can engender empathy and a connection between us, which is really the first step for solving things, and problems that we have. So I thank you for appreciating our quiet film.”
Father Mother Sister Brother is composed of three separate but thematically linked stories, each exploring adult siblings and their strained relationships with their parents. The film’s outstanding ensemble cast includes Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps and Indya Moore, among others. The Hollywood Reporter‘s lead critic summed the film up as a funny, tender, astutely observed jewel.”
Bennie Safdie brought home the festival’s best director prize on Saturday night for his offbeat MMA biopic The Smashing Machine, his first feature as a solo director without his brother Josh Safdie, and Dwayne Johnson’s first movie as a serious dramatic actor.
Safdie gave an emotional shoutout to his star as he accepted his trophy, saying, “Oh my god, Dwayne, my friend, my brother, my partner — shoulder and shoulder — I just want to thank you for diving in headfirst with a blindfold and X-ray vision. You truly performed with no net, and we jumped off the cliff together. We grew together, learned together.”
Chinese actress Xin Zhilei took home the festival’s first major awards category, winning the best actress prize for her heart-wrenching performance in Chinese director Cai Shangjun’s drama The Sun Rises on Us All. The trophy was handed to Xin by jury member and fellow Chinese arthouse star Zhao Tao (Ash Is the Purest White).
And as many on the Lido predicted over the past week, best actor honors went to the great Italian theater actor turned film icon Toni Servillo for his humane and hilarious performance as the president of Italy in Paolo Sorrentino’s meditative drama La Grazia. Critics have celebrated the film as a return to form for the Italian director and star, sparking talk of a potential repeat of their awards season magic in 2013, when their collaboration The Great Beauty won the Oscar in the best international film category.
French filmmaker Valérie Donzelli and her co-writer Gilles Marchand won the best screenplay prize with their script for At Work, an adaptation of a novel of the same name by author Franck Courtès. The film is a drama about a successful photographer who gives up everything to pursue a dream of becoming a writer.
Nothing was certain until the ceremony was underway on Saturday, thanks to the absurd number of must-see movies that festival boss Alberto Barbera had secured for the 2025 program. Netflix brought its strongest slate in years to Italy, including Noah Baumbach’s George Clooney star vehicle Jay Kelly, Kathryn Bigelow’s gripping geopolitical thriller A House of Dynamite and Guillermo del Toro’s dark reimagining of Frankenstein, starring Jacob Elordi as the creature. And scores of the world’s top auteurs came to compete with strong new titles — many of them instant Oscar contenders the moment the customary standing ovations wound down each night inside Venice’s Sala Grande cinema.
Venice’s takeaway after nearly two weeks of peerless moviegoing was resounding: The business model of theatrical film may be under relentless assault, but the art form remains as vital as ever.
Korean maestro Park Chan-wook’s wildly inventive black comedy No Other Choice was possibly the festival favorite with critics, while Yorgos Lanthimos’ bonkers Bugonia and Paolo Sorrentino’s aching La Grazia were also celebrated as exquisite returns to form. Show-stopping performances came in the form of Julia Roberts in Luca Guadagnino’s provocative #MeToo-themed thriller After the Hunt, Amanda Seyfried as the riveting lead of Mona Fastvold’s visionary period drama Ann Lee and Dwayne Johnson in his debut as a serious dramatic lead in Benny Safdie’s MMA biopic The Smashing Machine.
And there was much more: Jude Law as Vladimir Putin in Olivier Assayas’ The Wizard of the Kremlin, France’s François Ozon back in fine form with Albert Camus adaptation The Stranger, Willem Dafoe pulling double-duty with characteristic excellence in Late Fame and The Souffleur, Julian Schnabel’s must-see, Megalopolis-like misfire In the Hand of Dante (with a cast including Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, Al Pacino, John Malkovich, Martin Scorsese and Jason Momoa), and the one and only Werner Herzog receiving a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement from none less than fellow uber-auteur Francis Ford Coppola.
Two-time Oscar-winning director Alexander Payne (The Holdovers, Sideways) chaired the panel of global film figures tasked with the difficult duty of selecting this year’s winners. Payne’s jury included Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres, Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof, French director Stéphane Brizé, Italian filmmaker Maura Delpero (Vermiglio), Chinese actress Zhao Tao and Palme d’Or winning Romanian director Cristian Mungiu.
The ceremony included a tribute and prolonged standing ovation for the late, great Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who passed away Thursday at the age of 91.
“Thank you, Giorgio Armani, for teaching us that creativity thrives in spaces where disciplines meet —fashion, cinema, art, new materials, architecture — just like they do every day here at the Venice Biennale,” said Carlo Ratti, curator of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, which is currently underway alongside the film festival.
The 2025 Horizons section (Orizzonti) — which highlights the latest aesthetic trends in cinema with special attention to debut films — honored Mexican director David Pablos’ hauntingly original road movie En El Camino with its best film prize. The film follows a young drifter and a taciturn trucker who link up and forge a precarious bond on Mexico’s dangerous highways.
“This film comes from a very personal place — from the guts — and it’s beautiful to see that it connects with other people,” said Pablos in his brief acceptance speech.
This year’s Horizons jury was chaired by French director and Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau of Titane fame.
Italy’s Benedetta Porcaroli took Horizons’ best actress prize for the drama The Kidnapping of Arabella and Giacomo Covi nabbed best actor for his turn in the Italian-French coming-of-age film A Year of School. Indian filmmaker Anuparna Roy won best director for Songs of the Forgotten Trees, a moving drama set in Mumbai about an unlikely bond that forms between a part-time sex worker and a corporate employee. And the Orizzonti jury prize was handed to Japanese director Akio Fujimoto for his drama Lost Land, the story of two Rohingya child refugees on a perilous journey to reach Malaysia.
The 2025 Venice Film Festival ran Aug. 27-Sept. 6. Winners will be noted below as they’re announced live. Refresh for the latest.
Main Competition
Golden Lion — Best Film
Father Mother Sister Brother
Silver Lion — Grand Jury Prize
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Silver Lion — Best Director
Benie Safdie for The Smashing Machine
Special Jury Prize
Below the Clouds by Gianfranco Rossi
Best Actor
Toni Servillo for La Grazia (Italy)
Best Actress
Xin Zhilei for The Sun Rises on Us All (China)
Best Screenplay
Valérie Donzelli & Gilles Marchand for At Work (France)
Best Young Actress
Luna Wedler for Silent Friend (Germany, France, Hungary)
Armani Beauty Audience Award
Calle Málaga by Maryam Touzani
Lion of the Future (Venice Award for Debut Film)
Short Summer by Nastia Korkia
Orizzonti (aka Horizons Section)
Best Film
En El Camino by David Pablos (Mexico)
Special Jury Prize
Lost Land by Akio Fujimoto (Japan, France, Malaysia, Germany)
Best Director
Anuparna Roy for Songs of the Forgotten Trees (India)
Best Screenplay
Ana Cristina Barragan for The Ivy (Ecuador, Mexico, France, Spain)
Best Actress
Benedetta Porcaroli for The Kidnapping of Arabella (Italy)
Best Actor
Giacomo Covi for A Year of School (Italy, France)
Best Short Film
Without Kelly, Lovisa Sirén (Sweden)
Venice Classics Section
Best Documentary on Cinema
Mata Hari, Joe Beshenkovsky, James A. Smith (USA)
Best Restored Film
Bashu the Little Stranger, Bahram Beyzaie (Iran)
Vennice Immersive Section
Venice Immersive Achievement Prize
The Long Goodbye, by Victor Maes and Kate Voet (Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands)
Special Jury Prize
Less Than 5gr of Saffron, by Négar Motevalymeidanshah (France)
Grand Prize
The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up, by Singing Chen and Shuping Lee (Taiwan)
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