The 2025 edition of the Venice Film Festival was full of big swings: mind-melting sci-fi (Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia ), big-budget Gothic epics (Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein ), piercing, pitch-black comedies (Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice ), wild 18th-century musicals (Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee ), and a Gaza-set drama with the potential to change the world (Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab ). As a result, this year’s jury, led by Alexander Payne and featuring the likes of Fernanda Torres , Mohammad Rasoulof, and Maura Delpero, had quite a task on their hands when it came to awarding the showcase’s top prizes.

Going into the closing ceremony—which featured an emotional standing ovation for national treasure Giorgio Armani , who p

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