‘The Room Next Door’ Wins Golden Lion at the 2024 Venice Film Festival — See All the Winners Here

While last year’s strikes created a somewhat subdued energy on the Lido with very few talent able to be present, this year’s 2024 Venice Film Festival proved to hot and steamy. And we’re not just talking about the excessive heat movie stars and fan alike were subjected to. Films like Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” and Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burrough’s short novel “Queer” aroused audience interest with career-best performances from Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and highly revealing sexual interplay. However it was Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” that took home the coveted Golden Lion, marking the first time the filmmaker has won a top prize at any major festival throughout his career.

Brady Corbet returned to the Palazzo del Cinema with his four-hour post-WWII epic “The Brutalist,” which screened to rave reception and earned the director the Silver Lion, while Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix’s DC sequel, “Joker: Folie à Deux,” proved divisive among critics.

Presenting the top prize this year was jury president Isabelle Huppert. She was joined by Silver Lion winning filmmaker James Gray, who previously served on Huppert’s jury at Cannes Film Festival in 2009 and was reported to have called her a “fascist bitch” after denying his choice of Jacques Audiard’s “The Prophet” the Palme d’Or, instead awarding it to Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon.” Others on Huppert’s competition jury include British filmmaker Andrew Haigh, last year’s Special Jury Prize winner Agniezka Holland, Brazilian filmmaker and programmer Kleber Mendonça Filho, Oscar-nominee and César award-winner Abderrahmane Sissako, “Cinema Paradiso” writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore, German filmmaker Julia von Heinz, and Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Memoirs of a Geisha.”

For her part, Huppert was seen on nearly every red carpet, supporting each film that was screened in competition. Another standout presence throughout the festival was “Bones and All” actress Taylor Russell, who is serving on the jury that decides the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for Debut Film. They were both seen at the premieres of Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” and Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” two films that played extremely well in the Sala Grande, especially in regards to their performances from Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, and Angelina Jolie, but failed to earn strong critical response. Walter Salles’ biographical drama “I’m Still Here” also provides a riveting turn from Ferranda Torres and will probably end up being Brazil’s Oscar entry.

Today’s prize winners also include honorees from other sections of the festival, including the Orizzonti, Biennale College, and VR programs.

You can watch the awards via the Biennale’s YouTube livestream below as well.

2023 Venice Film Festival Winners

Golden Lion: “The Room Next Door” (Pedro Almodóvar)

Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize: ‘”Vermiglio” (Maura Delpero)

Silver Lion for Best Director: Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”

Special Jury Prize: “April” (Déa Kulumbegashvili)

Best Screenplay: Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, “I’m Still Here”

Best Actress: Nicole Kidman, “Babygirl”

Best Actor: Vincent Lindon, “The Quiet Son”

Marcello Mastroianni Best Young Actor Award: Paul Kirscher, “And Their Children After Them”

Orizzonti Best Film: “The New Year that Never Came” (Bodgan Muresanu)

Orizzonti Best Director: Sarah Friedland, “Familiar Touch”

Orizzonti Special Jury Prize: “One of Those Days When Hemme Dies” (Murat Firatoğlu)

Orizzonti Best Actress: Kathleen Chalfant, “Familiar Touch”

Orizzonti Best Actor: Francesco Gheghi, “Familia”

Orizzonti Best Screenplay: “Happy Holidays” (Scandar Copti)

Orizzonti Best Short Film: “Who Loves the Sun” (Arshia Shakiba)

Lion of the Future Award for a Debut Film: “Familiar Touch” (Sarah Friedland)

Orizzonti Extra Audience Award: “Shahed (The Witness)” (Nader Saeivar)

Venice Classics — Best Documentary: “Chain Reactions” (Alexandre O. Phillipe)

Venice Classics — Best Restored Film: “Ecce Bombo” (Nanni Moretti)

Venice Immersive Grand Prize: “Ito Meikū” (Boris Labbé)

Venice Immersive Achievement Prize: “Impulse, Playing with Reality” (Barry Gene Murphy, May Abdalla)

Venice Immersive Special Jury Prize: “Oto’s Planet” (Gwenael François)