Telluride Film Festival Lineup Includes ‘Saturday Night’, ‘The Piano Lesson’, ‘Conclave’ & ‘Nickel Boys’ World Premieres

Pete Hammond

29 August 2024 at 11:02 am·7-min read

The 51st Telluride Film Festival gets underway Friday with a number of world and North American premieres highlighting an impressive lineup of movies, many of them Oscar hopefuls. The Colorado gathering, along with the concurrent Venice and upcoming Toronto film festivals, signals the start of the six-month-long Oscar season.

Telluride keeps its selections close to vest and only just announced the entire lineup Thursday morning as much of the industry is on a plane heading to the mountains, though pundits pretty much already had figured out the lineup. Don’t be surprised to see some films not on the list as the fest always likes to throw in some “sneaks.”

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Check out the full lineup below.

Among the films appearing in the mountains for the first time anywhere are director Jason Reitman’s ode to the 1975 first episode of SNL, Saturday Night; the film version of August Wilson’s acclaimed stage play The Piano Lesson, a Washington family affair with producer Denzel, director Malcolm and star John David; Oscar winner Edward Berger’s papal thriller Conclave; Scott Magehee and David Siegel’s heartwarming The Friend, starring Naomi Watts, Bill Murray and scene-stealing Great Dane Bing (it’s also a sales title, and look for the dog to hit town to help it along); and MGM, Orion and Plan B’s Nickel Boys, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel.

'Saturday Night' SNL movie — From left: Kim Matula as Jane Curtin, Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman, Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels, Rachel Sennott as Rosie Shuster and Matt Wood as John Belushi in ‘Saturday Night’

Also making their debuts will be a couple of original musicals including The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey’s Better Man and Neon’s The End, which adds song and dance to a story about a wealthy family surviving the end of the world in an underground bunker and stars Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon. Also with a strong musical bent is Pharrell Williams’ autobiographical Piece by Piece, which uses a combo of Lego animation and documentary elements from Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville. Meanwhile, mixing a biopic format with docu footage as well is The Easy Kind, which stars country music podcaster, songwriter and singer Elizabeth Cook in her own story.

Ralph Fiennes in Conclave movie — Ralph Fiennes in ‘Conclave’

There also will be numerous world premiere documentaries on view including Carville: Winning Is Everything Stupid! which chronicles legendary Democratic political consultant James Carville; and Nobu, the story of famed restauranteur and chef Nobu Matsuhisa. Carville and wife Mary Matalin, a past Republican consultant, along with Nobu will be on hand at the festival, as will Martha Stewart in support of a riveting new Netflix docu on her life, Martha.

John David Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Potts and Ray Fisher in 'The Piano Lesson' — From left: John David Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Potts and Ray Fisher in ‘The Piano Lesson’

National Geographic Films will be represented by Blink, the journey of a family taking their kids, three of whom are going blind, on a year-long memory trip around the world before they lose their sight. Another docu is Will & Harper, which won raves and an eight-figure Netflix deal after premiering at Sundance in January. It features Will Farrell and Harper, a comedy writer working with Farrell at SNL and elsewhere who came out as a trans woman at age 60. It is one of the rare films from Sundance also to be showcased at Telluride this year.

Also heading to the Rocky Mountains from Sundance are Searchlight’s A Real Pain, with both stars Jesse Eisenberg (who also directed) and Kieran Culkin on hand, and Sony Pictures Classics’ The Outrun, which stars Saoirse Ronan, who will be receiving one of Telluride’s Silver Medallion tributes.

Angelina Jolie in 'Maria' — Angelina Jolie in ‘Maria’

Another Silver Medallion tributee is French director Jacques Audiard, who is bringing his Cannes Film Festival-winning Emilia Pérez to Telluride for its North American premiere (yet another movie with a unique musical hook this year). Also imported from Cannes debuts in May are Palme d’Or winner Anora; Grand Prize winner All We Imagine As Light; the official German Oscar entry The Seed of the Sacred Fig, a harrowing tale from Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof; the very funny French pic Misercordia; and the wonderful Memoir of a Snail on the toon front at Telluride.

Making the long trek straight from the Venice Film Festival will be Angelina Jolie and her Maria Callas biopic Maria from director Pablo Larraín — just acquired for U.S. by Netflix — as well as the nail-biting Munich Olympics hostage drama September 5 as told from the POV of the ABC sports crew covering the games.

'Memoir of a Snail' — ‘Memoir of a Snail’

This year’s Telluride runs through Monday, Labor Day, and all eyes will be on it to get some clues to genuine Oscar contenders. Among past Best Picture winners that made their North American debuts first at Telluride were Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, The Artist, Argo, 12 Years a Slave, Moonlight, Parasite, The Shape of Water and more.

Here is the complete schedule:

FEATURE FILM & EPISODIC WORKS

· ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (d. Payal Kapadia, France-India-Netherlands-Luxembourg, 2024)

· ANORA (d. Sean Baker, U.S., 2024)

· APOCALYPSE IN THE TROPICS (d. Petra Costa, Brazil-U.S.-Denmark, 2024)

· BETTER MAN (d. Michael Gracey, Australia, 2024)

· BIRD (d. Andrea Arnold, U.K., 2024)

· BLINK (d. Daniel Roher, Edmund Stenson, U.S.-Canada, 2024)

· CARVILLE: WINNING IS EVERYTHING, STUPID! (d. Matt Tyrnauer, U.S., 2024)

· CONCLAVE (d. Edward Berger, U.K., 2024)

· DISCLAIMER (d. Alfonso Cuarón, U.K.-U.S., 2024)

· DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT (d. Embeth Davidtz, South Africa, 2024)

· EMILIA PÉREZ (d. Jacques Audiard, France, 2024)

· IN WAVES AND WAR (d. Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, U.S., 2024)

· JEAN COCTEAU (d. Lisa Immordino Vreeland, U.S., 2024)

· LEONARDO DA VINCI (d. Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon, U.S., 2024)

· MARIA (d. Pablo Larraín, Germany-Italy-U.S.-Hungary-France-Greece, 2024)

· MARTHA (d. R.J. Cutler, U.S., 2024)

· MEMOIR OF A SNAIL (d. Adam Elliot, Australia, 2024)

· MISERICORDIA (d. Alain Guiraudie, France-Spain-Portugal, 2024)

· NICKEL BOYS (d. RaMell Ross, U.S., 2024)

· NO OTHER LAND (d. Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, Palestine-Norway, 2024)

· ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO (d. Kevin Macdonald, U.K., 2024)

· PIECE BY PIECE (d. Morgan Neville, U.S., 2024)

· SANTOSH (d. Sandhya Suri, U.K.-Germany-France, 2024)

· SATURDAY NIGHT (d. Jason Reitman, U.S., 2024)

· SEPARATED (d. Errol Morris, U.S., 2024)

· SEPTEMBER 5 (d. Tim Fehlbaum, Germany, 2024)

· SOCIAL STUDIES (d. Lauren Greenfield, U.S., 2024)

· THE END (d. Joshua Oppenheimer, Ireland-Germany-Italy-Sweden-Denmark-U.K., 2024)

· THE FRIEND (d. David Siegel, Scott McGehee, U.S., 2024)

· THE OUTRUN (d. Nora Fingscheidt, U.K.-Germany, 2024)

· THE PIANO LESSON (d. Malcolm Washington, U.S., 2024)

· THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG (d. Mohammad Rasoulof, Germany-France-Iran, 2024)

· THE WHITE HOUSE EFFECT (d. Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, Pedro Kos, U.S., 2024)

· WILL & HARPER (d. Josh Greenbaum, U.S., 2024)

· ZURAWSKI V TEXAS (d. Maisie Crow, Abbie Perrault, U.S., 2024)

SHORT FILM IN MAIN PROGRAM

· A SWIM LESSON (d. Rashida Jones, Will McCormack, U.S., 2024)

· ALOK (d. Alex Hedison, U.S., 2024)

· THE TURNAROUND (d. Kyle Thrash, Ben Proudfoot, U.S., 2024)

Kenneth Lonergan, this year’s festival Guest Director, presents the following film selections:

· ARCH OF TRIUMPH (d. Lewis Milestone, U.S., 1948)

· BARRY LYNDON (d. Stanley Kubrick, U.K.-U.S., 1975)

· DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (d. David Lean, U.K.-Italy-U.S., 1965)

· GRAND HOTEL (d. Edmund Goulding, U.S., 1932)

· MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (d. John Ford, U.S., 1946)

BACKLOT

· A SUDDEN GLIMPSE TO DEEPER THINGS (d. Mark Cousins, U.K., 2024)

· ¡CASA BONITA MI AMOR! (d. Arthur Bradford, U.S., 2024)

· CHAIN REACTIONS (d. Alexandre O. Philippe, U.S., 2024)

· HER NAME WAS MOVIOLA (d. Howard Berry, U.K., 2024)

· MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBURGER (d. David Hinton, U.K., 2024)

· NOBU (d. Matt Tyrnauer, U.S., 2024)

· RIEFENSTAHL (d. Andres Veiel, Germany, 2024)

· THE EASY KIND (d. Katy Chevigny, U.S., 2024)

· THE HEXAGONAL HIVE AND A MOUSE IN A MAZE (d. Tilda Swinton, Bartek Dziadosz, U.K., 2024)

· THE SWALLOW (d. Tadhg O’Sullivan, Ireland, 2024)

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