Five Must-See Movies at the 2026 Locarno Film Festival
Exciting premieres include a magical-realist drama from the directors of "Gagarine" and Singapore's first-ever wuxia epic.
Founded in 1946, Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival is one of the world’s longest-running film festivals, known for its adventurous programming, exciting retrospectives, and nightly open-air screenings in the Piazza Grande — which is capable of seating 8,000 spectators. Hosting world premieres and special screenings of highlights from Cannes, Sundance, and other early-year festivals, this year’s Piazza Grande selection includes the launch of Isabelle Huppert vehicle “All About Corinne,” Caleb Landry Jones-led drama “Down the Arm of God,” a restored, newly extended edition of Kevin Costner’s “Dances with Wolves,” Claes Bang playing the former massage therapist to Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler in “I is Another,” James Gray’s Cannes competition standout “Paper Tiger,” midnight screenings of David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” and Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” and the European premiere of Sundance highlight “Frank & Louis.”
Isabella Rossellini, Zoe Saldaña, Virginie Efira, seven-time Oscar-winning make-up legend Rick Baker (“An American Werewolf in London,” “Men in Black”), Darren Aronofsky, and the aforementioned James Gray are among the names receiving career awards at the Piazza during the festival.
The Piazza Grande often showcases more mainstream fare (a Swiss premiere for Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite,” with the director in attendance, takes place outdoors this year), but Locarno has always prided itself on providing a welcoming platform for emerging filmmakers and established auteurs whose work may not necessarily conform to the commercial demands or awards season hoopla of the international marketplace. Recent winners of Locarno’s prestigious Golden Leopard award include Sho Miyake’s “Two Seasons, Two Strangers,” while one notable breakout from last year’s Cineasti del Presente (Filmmakers of the Present) competition — for first or second features — was Sophy Romvari‘s critical darling “Blue Heron.”
Established voices with films in one of Locarno’s various competitions this year include Hong Sang-soo with “Nowhere to Lay My Eyes”, his second feature this year, “Piaffe” director Ann Oren with “Objet a,” animation veterans Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña (“The Wolf House”) with live-action fantasy “Donkey Princess,” Erin Vassilopoulos with street-skater saga “Destroy All Girls,” and Ben Rivers with the short “The Wind, One Brilliant Day,” starring Tang Wei. In out-of-competition slots, there’s Vincent Grashaw’s Theo Rossi-led drama “Bruton,” “The Bunker” director Nikias Chryssos returning with horror “Bloody Tennis,” which we can already confirm definitely lives up to its title.
and Albert Serra‘s documentary “Sixteen Moments of My Life,” in which German cinema icon Ingrid Caven sings about sixteen moments from her life during a unique concert in Paris.
On the retrospective front, Locarno will be exploring films directly connected to the blacklist era of Hollywood, when the Red Scare upended the lives and careers of so many artists in front of and behind the camera. Curated by Ehsan Khoshbakht and produced in partnership with the Cinémathèque suisse (and with the support of UCLA Film & Television Archive), the strand will screen many of the included features from 35mm prints, with some of the more famous titles (Fred Zinnemann’s “High Noon,” Abraham Polonsky’s “Force of Evil,” Jules Dassin’s “Thieves’ Highway”) playing from 4K restorations.
Here are 5 must-see movies from across the program of the 79th Locarno Film Festival, which runs from Wednesday, August 5 through Saturday, August 15.
