Our Most Anticipated Thriller/Horror Movies at the 2026 Venice Film Festival
From Primetime to The Spiral
by Alex Kaan 1 September 2026
A24
With the Venice Film Festival returning for its 83rd edition, we’re hopping on a gondola and paddling our way to the famed Floating City. After Frankenstein, Bugonia, The Holy Boy, and more frightened audiences last year, the festival’s 2026 line-up has far fewer horror films, but viewers craving suspense will be placated with an exciting list of thrillers.
From the hotly anticipated Robert Pattinson-led psychological thriller Primetime to the latest effort from Italian horror filmmaker Paolo Strippoli (The Holy Boy), from a new restoration of the classic Czechoslovak Gothic horror Valerie and Her Week of Wonders to the eat-the-rich morality thriller Bunker starring Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz as a married couple, we’re counting down the festival’s buzziest titles.
The Spiral
Courtesy of the Venice Film Festival
On a dark and stormy night, Alice’s (Romana Maggiora Vergano) idyllic family life is upended when her estranged mother (Jasmine Trinca) knocks on her door to deliver a terrible secret. Paolo Strippoli returns with this psychological horror a year after the Venice premiere of his acclaimed Wicker Man-esque folk horror The Holy Boy.
Bunker
Courtesy of the Venice Film Festival
When a mysterious billionaire (Paul Dano) asks him to design an apocalypse-proof luxury bunker for the uber-rich, “starchitect” Miguel’s (Javier Bardem) marriage to literary agent Sofia (Penélope Cruz) is put to the test. Real-life partners Bardem and Cruz star in this topical morality thriller from Oscar-winning writer-director Florian Zeller (The Father).
Company
Courtesy of the Venice Film Festival
From the producers of Weapons, It, and Hokum, this Gothic mystery unfolds on a winter night in 1975 as a strange woman arrives uninvited to a holiday gathering to share a story involving a Colorado blizzard, a troubled young drifter, and a series of grisly murders.
Primetime
A24
Perhaps the festival’s buzziest title, A24’s dark psychological thriller sees Robert Pattinson — in a performance that has already lit up the internet — play Chris Hansen, the host of Dateline’s controversial reality series To Catch a Predator. Phoebe Bridgers and Skyler Gisondo also star, while Ari Aster (Hereditary) produces.
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
Courtesy of the Venice Film Festival
Jaromil Jireš’ 1970 Gothic coming-of-age horror follows a 13-year-old girl (Jaroslava Schallerová) who is transported to a surreal, dark fantasy land filled with vampires, witches, and other sinister forces. The celebrated Czechoslovak film has received a new digital restoration.
Ink
Courtesy of the Venice Film Festival
Danny Boyle reteams with his 28 Years Later villain Jack O’Connell for this biographical period thriller about the 1969 acquisition of The Sun by media mogul Rupert Murdoch (the patriarch of the real family that inspired Succession) and the subsequent rise of British tabloid journalism. Guy Pearce and Claire Foy also star.
Bucking Fastard
Courtesy of the Venice Film Festival
Real-life siblings Rooney and Kate Mara play two sisters so close to each other that they speak in unison, dream the same dreams, and even love the same man — an issue that ends with them on trial in a courtroom. Werner Herzog (known to horror fans for 1979’s Nosferatu the Vampyre) directs, while Domhnall Gleeson and Orlando Bloom also star.
Wild Horse Nine
Courtesy of the Venice Film Festival
The Banshees of Inisherin writer-director Martin McDonagh returns to Venice with a black comedy political thriller about two CIA officers (Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich) sent by their bureau chief (Steve Buscemi) to Easter Island, where they wrestle with their dark pasts and present conspiracies.
Deadly Sweet
Courtesy of the Venice Film Festival
In this newly restored London-set giallo from Tinto Brass, released in 1967 before his pivot to erotic cinema with films like Caligula, a French actor (Jean-Louis Trintignant) finds a young woman (Ewa Aulin) near the corpse of a murdered nightclub owner. Convinced of her innocence, he sets out to protect her from the criminal underworld.