2019 Telluride Film Festival Preview: 9 Most Anticipated Movies

Search
Home

It’s that time of year. The final dog days of summer are here and that means the Telluride Film Festival is about to kick off. The 46th Telluride Film Festival announced its program this morning. While the Venice Film Festival happens simultaneously in Italy, Telluride takes place in the mountains of Colorado and despite some of the film line-up overlap, it’s a totally different festival.

READ MORE: 2019 Fall Preview: The 45 Most Anticipated Films

For better or worse, the Telluride Film Festival marches to the beat of its own quirky drum, sometimes very much in step with movie culture and sometimes not (and sometimes, probably just having to deal with whatever films are promised elsewhere and just live with it). But Telluride, while known as a big Oscar hub to launch a lot of awards movies, sometimes just picks some slightly left-of-center fair, while also curating a lot of hits from things that have already premiered at Cannes and sometimes even Sundance.

READ MORE: The Best Films Of 2019… So Far

This year, the big premieres include James Mangold’s “Ford v. Ferrari,” Rupert Goold’s “Judy,” Edward Norton’s “Motherless Brooklyn,” Dan Friedkin’s “Lyrebird,” Trey Edward Shults’s “Waves,” Josh and Benny Safdie’s “Uncut Gems,” Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow” and Tom Harper’s “The Aeronauts.”

But there are lots of festival favorites too, Bong Joon Ho‘s Palme d’Or winning “Parasite,” Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story,” Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life,” Pedro Almodovar’s “Pain & Glory,” Michael Angelo Covino’s “The Climb,” Werner Herzog’s “Family Romance, LLC,” and Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”

READ MORE:  2019 Venice Film Festival Preview: 15 Must-See Movies

But here, in our Telluride preview, we’re going to stick to premieres since you’ve already seen the Cannes line-up and hopefully have read our Venice preview. Telluride isn’t as big or as long as any of the fall film festivals, but it does tend to pack a big punch into its brief four days. The 2019 Telluride Film Festival runs from Friday, August 30 – Monday, Sept. 2. Here are 10 titles we’re anticipating, along with the previously mentioned Cannes and festival titles some of us are still dying to catch up with.

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2019

“Ford v Ferrari”
Cast: Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Tracy Letts, Caitriona Balfe, Jon Bernthal, Josh Lucas, Noah Jupe
Synopsis: Inspired by the true story of how Carroll Shelby (Damon), an automotive designer, and Ken Miles (Bale), a professional race car driver, teamed up with a team of Ford engineers to build a race car that could beat Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966.
What You Need To Know: This is director James Mangold’s first film since the critically acclaimed “Logan” two years ago and his first non-Wolverine film since 2010’s “Knight and Day.”The buzz has been building on “Ford v Ferrari” ever since footage was shown at Disney’s first CinemaCon presentation after acquiring 20th Century Fox this past April. Disney CEO Bob Iger, studio chairman Alan Horn and studio president Sean Bailey were almost giddy about it. Oh yes, and it’s yet another film where Bale has gone above and beyond to sculpt his body (this time getting quite thin) for a role.
Release Date:  November 15– Gregory Ellwood

“Judy”
Cast: Renee Zellweger, Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon, Finn Wittrock, Bella Ramsey, John Dagleish, Jessie Buckley
Synopsis: Legendary performer Judy Garland arrives in London in the winter of 1968 to perform a series of sold-out concerts.
What You Need to Know: Every year, there are at least one or two buzzworthy biopics that get squeezed into the annual awards season conversation. This year, one of those films could be “Judy,” a glitzy-looking biographical drama that stars Renee Zellweger as the legendary actress, singer, and Vaudeville sensation Judy Garland. The film is directed by British theater vet Rupert Goold, the stalwart of several renowned Shakespearean stage productions (including “Hamlet” and “Romeo and Juliet”), as well as the James Franco and Jonah Hill-starring true-crime tale “True Story.” Zellweger plays the “Wizard of Oz” starlet as she arrives in London toward the tail end of the 1960s to perform a five-week run of sold-out shows, rubbing elbows with real-life figures like Sidney Luft (her onetime husband), Mickey Deans, and stage icon Liza Minnelli. While “Judy” looks to be forged in the now-familiar prestige biopic mold, Zellweger is overdue for another great role, and this looks to be a return to the “Chicago” wheelhouse for what could potentially be a shot at a Best Actress nomination.
Release Date: September 27 – Nicholas Laskin

“Waves”
Cast: Kelvin Harrison Jr, Lucas Hedges, Taylor Russell, Alexa Demie, Neal Huff, Clifton Collins Jr., Renée Elise Goldsberry, Sterling K. Brown
Synopsis: Two young couples navigate through the emotional minefield of growing up and falling in love.
What You Need To Know: Most filmmakers would kill to ascend as fast as 30-year-old filmmaker Trey Edward Shults who won the top narrative prize at SXSW with his debut feature (“Krisha”) and then made his second movie for A24 (“It Comes At Night”). His third feature “Waves” is also another A24 film, but it takes what sound like bold, socially conscious steps into the realm of race, African American exceptionalism, and being Black in America. And coincidentally, the movie, co-conceived with its star, Kelvin Harrison Jr. (one of Shults’ actors in “It Comes At Night”), sounds vaguely like Harrison Jr.’s 2019 Sundance breakout role in “Luce” because the actor once again plays a young Black exceptional high school star, this time primarily an athlete. Given that the synopsis is so vague, “Waves” also just sounds like a movie about family and a small hint, families that try and move beyond tragedies. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross wrote the score and the movie is said to be similar to early Terrence Malick, which isn’t exactly a surprise given the fact Shults started his career in Austin working as an intern on Malick’s films including “The Tree Of Life.”
Release Date: Fall 2019. – Rodrigo Perez