Venice film festival picks starry films despite actors’ strike

Hollywood films vying for Golden Lion include Bradley Cooper’s Maestro and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things, with non-competition films by Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater

The Venice film festival appears to have largely shrugged off issues caused by non-attendance of Hollywood actors due to the Sag-Aftra strike as it unveiled its lineup for its 2023 edition.

Venice has traditionally functioned partly as a platform for major American releases looking for strong positioning in the autumn awards season, and it has already seen its originally announced opening film Challengers, a tennis drama starring Zendaya, drop out after it was forced to delay its release date.

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Ridley Scott films – ranked!

With The Last Duel out now, and House of Gucci at the end of the month, we rate the top 20 movies by the go-to director for swords, sandals, cyborgs and Sigourney

A film to prove that straight-up feelgood comedy is not Ridley Scott’s forte and casting his favourite leading man is no guarantee of success, either. This is based on a novel by Peter “A Year in Provence” Mayle: incredibly, it is Russell Crowe playing the quirkily conceited yet adorable Brit who inherits a sumptuous house-plus-vineyard in the south of France, comes over intending to sell it, but instead falls in love with the place and all the picturesque Frenchness thereabouts, including Marion Cotillard.

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