Denver Film Festival Unveils Lineup and Honorees

Denver Film today unveiled the roster of movies and boldfaced name honorees that will make up the 49th edition of the Colorado capital city’s marquee film event, which is scheduled for Oct. 22-Nov. 1. In all, 129 features, documentaries and shorts will hit screens inside the Sie FilmCenter, Ellie Caulkins Opera House, MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater, and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

The fest will open with Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky starring Anthony Ippolito (as Sylvester Stallone) at Ellie Caulkins Opera House (with writer Peter Gamble in attendance and participating in a later conversation), and close with James Gray‘s Paper Tiger starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller at the MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater. Centerpiece picks in between include Danny Boyle’s Ink starring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy, and Tony Gilroy‘s Behemoth! starring Pedro Pascal as a gifted cellist.

The special presentations section features many standout films from the fall festival circuit and beyond. Those selections include (in alphabetical order) Stephanie Ahn’s Bedford Park, Siân Heder’s Being Heumann, Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas, Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid, Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut, Simon Stone’s Elsinore, Marie Kreutzer’s Gentle Monster, Beth de Araújo’s Josephine, Guy Nattiv’s The Liberation, Andrew Haigh’s A Long Winter, Noah Segan’s The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, Brad Bird’s animated Ray Gunn, Liz Sargent’s Take Me Home, Anton Corbijn’s A Talent for Murder, Leah Nelson’s animated Tangles, Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fisher’s Wicker, and Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine.

It’s worth noting that the showings of Josephine and Take Me Home are being co-presented with the Sundance Film Festival, which is heading to Denver Film Festival’s backyard in Boulder, Colorado in 2027. Also notable: Other picks include standout international films like TIFF’s People Choice Award winner La Bola Negra from Netflix, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur which won a Grand Prix in Cannes.

Speaking of awards, Denver Film will dole out a few during the fest’s run. Carrie Coon has been tapped to receive an excellence in acting award for her thus far critically acclaimed work in The Liberation as a woman who stuns her family by joining a cult led by Lily James. John Cho will be feted with an Outlaw Award for work opposite Mahershala Ali in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.

Sargent will take a spin in the spotlight as breakthrough director for Take Me Home, which was based on her short film of the same name about a woman caring for her aging parents. Fred Hechinger, who broke out in The White Lotus and Gladiator II, will receive a rising star prize after a screening of his latest, A Long Winter. Others set to receive awards include Benedetta Porcaroli with a Maglione Italian Film Award for The Kidnapping of Arabella, David Acord with an excellence in sound design for Behemoth!, and experimental filmmaker Michael Gitlin will accept an annual Stan Brakhage Award, presented along with a retrospective of his work.

Some other notable titles among this year’s selections are Ron Howard’s Avedon, Nanette Burstein’s Carl Sagan: We Are Made of Star Stuff, Lukas Dhont’s Coward, Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland, Petra Volpe’s Frank & Louis, Rachel J. Morrison’s Joybubbles, Ken Russell’s The Devils, Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love, Markus Schleinzer’s Rose starring Sandra Hüller, Mike Leigh’s Tender Loving Care, Barbara Kopple’s Union Town, Dawn Porter’s When a Witness Recants, and Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fisher’s Wicker.

“This year’s program highlights the remarkable ways cinema captures human connection and resilience, and it delivers a lineup that is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking,” explained Denver Film Festival artistic director Matthew Campbell. “From sharp, high-altitude Colorado comedies to award-winning festival circuit fare, captivating documentaries and stories born here in our own community, these films demonstrate the pure joy and impact of great storytelling. We’re looking forward to welcoming our audiences to experience this dynamic mix of bold international cinema, new voices and brilliant local talent.”

Added Denver Film CEO Kevin Smith: “Forty-nine years in, the Denver Film Festival is still driven by what has always mattered most: bringing our community together around great movies and the people who make them. We’re incredibly proud to be a long-standing part of Denver’s vibrant arts and cultural landscape and I can’t imagine a better way to open our 49th Festival than with I Play Rocky, an underdog story that captures the determination, creativity and spirit of independent film we celebrate every year.”

The film festival is funded by the Colorado Office of Film and Television, Bonfils Stanton Foundation, Denver Arts & Venues and SCFD (Scientific and Cultural Facilities District) with media sponsors CBS Colorado, Axios, City Cast Denver, Colorado Public Radio, Denverse, Metromode, Rocky Mountain Public Media, and marquee sponsors William LaBahn, Epicurean, Next50, Amazon, AOR, Halcyon, Sheila K. O’Brien, Crusonia Wealth Advisors, Dormer Harpring, LLC, Anna and John Sie Foundation, Betsy Mordecai Heyman and Gareth Heyman, Julie Mordecai, Mercedes-Benz of Denver, and HW Home.

The full lineup — including documentaries, shorts and more — can be found here, including intel on tickets. Fun fact: The Denver Arts & Venues and the 2026 Arts Complex Creates grant program makes it so that all three public screenings at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House will be offered with an allotment of sliding-scale “Pay-What-You-Can” admissions.