Fall Festival Season Is Here — So Where Does the Best Picture Race Actually Stand?

Labor Day is barely in the rearview and the 2026-2027 awards season is already stretching its legs. Venice opens September 2, Telluride follows over the same long weekend, Toronto runs September 10–20, and the New York Film Festival closes out the circuit in the fall's back half. That four-festival gauntlet has become the closest thing Hollywood has to a proving ground for Best Picture, and this year's edition is shaping up to be one of the more unpredictable in recent memory — partly because of what's showing up on the lineups, and partly because of who's deliberately staying away.

Venice sets the tone, again

Venice remains the festival that likes to crown a contender before anyone else gets a look. Last year it launched "Bugonia" to a Best Picture nomination while a couple of starrier world premieres, "Jay Kelly" and "A House of Dynamite," never found real traction. That track record is why the Lido's opening night carries outsized weight, and this year it belongs to Danny Boyle's "Ink," a drama about Rupert Murdoch's early days at The Sun starring Guy Pearce — fresh off a supporting nomination for "The Brutalist" — as Murdoch himself, opposite Jack O'Connell.

The rest of the Venezia 83 competition leans heavily on established auteurs rather than star-driven studio bait: Casey Affleck's "Company," Lee Chang-dong's "Possible Love," Martin McDonagh's "Wild Horse Nine," Hirokazu Koreeda's "Look Back," Lance Oppenheim's "Primetime," and the mountaineering documentary "Everest: The Other Side" from Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. Add in new work from Nanni Moretti, Paul Schrader, and Luca Guadagnino, and it's clear Venice is once again positioning itself as the launchpad for the international and specialty side of the race — the films that need festival heat to break through rather than a marketing budget.

Telluride's wall of silence

Telluride does what Telluride always does: says almost nothing until the moment badges start scanning at the base of the mountain. That secrecy is part of the strategy — programmer Julie Huntsinger has built a reputation for curating a tight, prestige-heavy slate that often overlaps with, or even predicts, what ends up nominated. Predicted (not confirmed) titles circulating ahead of the festival include Ryusuke Hamaguchi's "All of a Sudden," Lukas Dhont's "Coward," Andrew Haigh's "A Long Winter," Cristian Mungiu's "Fjord," and Beth de Araújo's "Josephine," which arrives with real momentum after winning at Sundance. If even half of the rumored list holds up, Telluride will again function as the season's quiet kingmaker before Toronto's noise takes over.

TIFF, the trend of skipping the circuit — and the "Digger" question

Toronto is still the biggest stage of the four, and this year's early announcements include Peter Farrelly's "I Play Rocky," Chris Rock's "Misty Green," and Anton Corbijn's "A Talent for Murder." But the more interesting story might be who isn't playing the festival circuit at all. Only one film, Werner Herzog's "Bucking Fastard" starring Kate and Rooney Mara, is expected to hit all four festivals — a sign of just how fragmented and calculated premiere strategy has become.

The bigger headline is "Digger," Alejandro G. Iñárritu's collaboration with Tom Cruise. Warner Bros. appears set to skip the full festival circuit entirely and instead debut the film during the TIFF window, off-site — the exact playbook Paul Thomas Anderson used last year with "One Battle After Another," which went on to win Best Picture at the 98th Academy Awards after sweeping the Critics Choice, Globes, BAFTA, DGA, PGA, and WGA. That result matters here: it's proof a film no longer needs a Venice or Telluride premiere to become the year's dominant Best Picture story, and studios are clearly taking note. Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Reckoning" and David Fincher's "Cliff Booth" (his "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" follow-up for Netflix) are reportedly taking similar late, festival-optional paths.

What this actually means for the race

A few things are already coming into focus:

  • The specialty/arthouse lane is loaded but undefined. Venice and Telluride are stacked with prestige directors, but with no dominant, buzzed-about frontrunner yet — closer to the wide-open feel of a normal season than the two-horse "One Battle After Another" vs. "Sinners" race that just wrapped in March.

  • The "skip the circuit" strategy is now a proven playbook, not a gamble. After PTA's win, expect more distributors to treat a fall festival premiere as optional rather than essential, especially for starrier, awards-serious titles like "Digger" that can generate their own press cycle without a Lido red carpet.

  • Sundance is already feeding the conversation. "Josephine's" Sundance win and Telluride buzz is an early reminder that the Best Picture picture isn't built solely from the fall festivals — January's crop still matters once distributors decide how hard to campaign.

  • Telluride's silence is, as always, the tell. Whatever quietly premieres there this weekend will likely be treated as a real contender by Monday morning, festival mystique intact.

None of this settles anything — that's the nature of Labor Day weekend. But between Venice's opening statement, Telluride's inevitable surprise, and the "Digger" wildcard hanging over Toronto, the shape of the 2026 Best Picture race should come into much sharper focus by the time NYFF wraps in October. Worth watching closely from here: which of these titles actually holds its festival heat once the specialty box office numbers and critics' groups start weighing in.