The 14 Best Film Festivals Around the World—And When to Go
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If you love movies , you owe it to yourself to attend a film festival—a celebration of cinema where, over the course of a few days, you can see dozens of films, plus attend panels and other events. Film festivals often provide the opportunity to see movies that you’re not likely to see on the marquee of your local megaplex, such as international films, arthouse pictures, or up-and-coming indie productions. But, major movies—both blockbusters and awards contenders —frequently have their premieres at events like these. In any case, a film festival offers the opportunity to see the movies of tomorrow today.
There are thousands of film festivals around the world—far too many to list them all. Some are internationally known and extremely prestigious, such as the Cannes Film Festival with its lauded top prize, the Palme d’Or. Others are much, much smaller local operations, sometimes focused on a specific genre. And overlap isn’t uncommon; A movie might premiere at one festival and then go on to compete or screen in several others.
While it’s worth doing the research to see what film festivals are nearest to you and what’s playing this year, here’s an overview of 14 of the best film festivals from around the world. Read on to learn what they are, as well as when they typically take place and which notable movies they’ve hosted.
RELATED: 30 Travel Movies to Help Inspire Your Next Trip .
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The Venice Film Festival holds the distinction of being the world’s oldest film festival, having been founded way back in 1932. In addition to getting to explore the singular beauty of Venice’s canals, attendees can also enjoy a wide range of films, including artsy efforts from around the globe and highly anticipated Hollywood blockbusters.
When to go: The Venice Film Festival tends to be held in late August or early September every year.
What movies have screened there: Major Academy Awards contenders Roma , Gravity , Joker , and Dune all premiered at Venice in recent years. Last year’s festival saw the premieres of Poor Things , Maestro , and The Killer .
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Arguably the most prestigious film festival, Cannes has been a dream premiere destination for filmmakers since 1946. Held in the south of France (making it a great vacation destination even without the movies), Cannes is famous for the Palme d’Or, its top prize and one of the highest honors in all of film.
When to go: The Cannes Film Festival is held in May.
What movies have screened there: Some past winners of the Palme d’Or include Barton Fink , Taxi Driver , Pulp Fiction , and Anatomy of a Fall . In addition to several films from great European filmmakers, the 2024 festival will see the premieres of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis and George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga , though the latter will be screened out of competition.
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More commonly known as the Berlinale , Berlin’s major film festival was founded in 1951 and is considered to be one of the “Big Three” along with Venice and Cannes. It is among the highest-attended film festivals, as typically more than 300,000 members of the public buy tickets to see the hundreds of films the Berlinale has to offer.
When to go: The Berlinale happens every February.
What movies have screened there: Winners of the Golden Bear, the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival, include Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men , Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia , and Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away . The 2024 festival included Love Lies Bleeding , Cuckoo , and the Golden Bear winner, Dahomey , a documentary co-production from France, Senegal, and Benin.
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The Toronto International Film Festival , also known as TIFF, turned Canada’s most populous city into a haven for film fans when it was founded in 1976. A wide range of films from around the world play at TIFF, but it has increasingly been a major predictor of Oscars success . The festival’s top prize, the People’s Choice Award, often goes to a movie that will eventually win (or at least be nominated) for Best Picture.
When to go: TIFF is held every September (right when big Oscar hopefuls tend to start coming out; another reason why TIFF is big for prognosticators).
What movies have screened there: Some notable movies that have played at TIFF include Chariots of Fire ; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ; 12 Years a Slave ; La La Land ; Green Book , and last year’s People’s Choice Award winner, American Fiction .
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America’s most prestigious film festival began in 1978 as the Utah/US Film Festival. Originally held in Salt Lake City, it moved to Park City, Utah, shortly after it was founded and was renamed the Sundance Film Festival in 1991 , a nod to the Robert Redford film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid , as the actor had an instrumental role in making the festival what it is. Along with the first four on this list, Sundance is one of the “Big Five” film festivals—the five most important for many moviemakers and movie fans. (Though, that’s not to say there aren’t lots of other great and important festivals out there.)
When to go: Sundance is the earliest major festival, as it takes place each January.
What movies have screened there: Compared to the other festivals in the “Big Five,” Sundance tends to be a place where rising filmmakers are likely to find breakout success. Some career-makers that have played at Sundance include Clerks , The Blair Witch Project , Little Miss Sunshine , Whiplash , Get Out , and Past Lives .
RELATED: Why Are the Academy Awards Called “Oscars”? The Nickname Has a Complicated History .
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Scotland’s big event claims the honor of being the longest continually running film festival in the world. Though Venice and Cannes are older, both of those festivals took breaks for various reasons (World War II, political unrest, etc.), while the Edinburgh Film Festival never missed a step from 1947 until 2020, when COVID finally forced a cancelation. It started back up again last year.
When to go: The Edinburgh International Film Festival takes place in August.
What movies have screened there: Ira Sachs’ Passages and Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up were both part of the festival last year.
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Founded in 1946, Locarno, Switzerland’s film festival is notable for the open-air venue where it shows “The Piazza Grande” selection—a prestigious, high-profile slot for a film screening. The outdoor theater seats 8,000 people.
When to go: Locarno takes place annually in August.
What movies have screened there: Locarno puts a lot of emphasis on the history of cinema with a fantastic repertory lineup each year. But of course there are tons of new movies, too. Some of the film’s screened last year include the buzzy Romanian film Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World and the Iranian production Critical Zone , which won the festival’s top prize, the Golden Leopard. The 2022 festival opened with a screening of Bullet Train , so there’s really a lot to see at Locarno.
RELATED: 18 Movies Like Bullet Train That’ll Get Your Heart Pumping .
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The small, gorgeous mountain town of Telluride, Colorado, becomes a moviegoer’s dream once a year, giving attendees the opporunity to see great films, experience nature, and rub elbows with the many stars who also head to the intimate setting for the weekend. Many talented filmmakers have gotten their big breaks at Telluride , and the festival has a tradition of not revealing its film slate until the night before the festival begins.
When to go: Telluride takes place in late August.
What movies have screened there: Recent films that have premiered at Telluride include All of Us Strangers , Uncut Gems, Women Talking , and Belfast , though attendees should rest assured that the festival also frequently screens highly anticipated films that already premiered at Venice, which kicks off earlier.
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SXSW is more than just a film festival, as the annual Austin, Texas, event also features lots of music and tech events. The movies are typically worth checking out though, and the lineup tends to include innovative movies that are, for lack of a better word, more “hip” than the fare at the most prestigious European festivals.
When to go: SXSW happens in March.
What movies have screened there: Some movies that have premiered at SXSW are 21 Jump Street , The Cabin in the Woods , Bridesmaids , and this year’s Monkey Man .
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The Big Apple is not lacking in film festivals (there’s also the Tribeca Film Festival , Brooklyn Film Festival , and tons of small indie and genre events), but the New York Film Festival (or NYFF) is the biggest deal. It regularly attracts high-profile premieres, was founded in 1963, and is currently run by Lincoln Center, which is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
When to go: NYFF is held in early fall, typically.
What movies have screened there: NYFF selections have included The Tragedy of Macbeth , The Irishman , The Social Network , and Ava Duvernay’s documentary 13th .
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The Windy City hosts North America’s longest-running competitive film festival , offering a diverse slate of films, ranging from international indies to hotly anticipated mainstream studio releases.
When to go: The Chicago International Film Festival typically takes place in October.
What movies have screened there: Past winners of the Gold Hugo, the Chicago International Film Festival’s top prize, include Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Godland . It’s typical for future Oscar nominees that premiered at earlier festivals to play in Chicago, too. Last year’s festival screened 14 movies that would go on to get nominations.
RELATED: 12 Oscar-Winning Movies That Are Offensive by Today’s Standards .
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Head Down Under for this Australian film festival , the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. Founded in 1952, MIFF obviously showcases a lot of Australian films, but it also screens tons of international films, both indies and high-profile releases.
When to go: MIFF is another August film festival.
What movies have screened there: Some of the films that screened at MIFF last year are The Sweet East , Anatomy of a Fall , Theater Camp , and Perfect Days .
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There are lots of film festivals that focus on a specific genre or type of film, be it documentaries, shorts, horror, or others. The Animation Is Film Festival , which is held in Los Angeles, showcases animated movies from around the world.
When to go: The festival takes place in October each year.
What movies have screened there: Eventual Oscar nominees The Boy and the Heron and Robot Dreams played last year, as did A Chicken for Linda , which swept the festival’s awards.
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Another genre-specific festival, Fantastic Fest focuses on horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and action films that don’t typically get their laurels at more mainstream film festivals. Many movies that will go on to become cult classics—if not outright mainstream hits—premiere at the Austin event.
When to go: Head to Austin, Texas, each September for Fantastic Fest.
What movies have screened there: A few of the movies that have had their world premieres at Fantastic Fest over the last several years are Last Night in Soho , Split , and the Marvel Cinematic Universe short Werewolf by Night .
30 Travel Movies to Help Inspire Your Next Trip
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One of the great things about movies is that they can take you places without you having to squeeze into an uncomfortable airplane seat or with all the other hassles that real-life travel entails. There are lots of great movies about people setting out to see the world , so let the big screen scratch your wanderlust by checking out these 31 films.
Some of the movies on this list are romantic, following two people as they come together in that special way that happens when you’re away from home. Others are about journeys of self-discovery, showing what can happen when you hit the road solo. Some movies are uproarious comedies that will transport you away from your troubles as you laugh along to the antics on screen. There are also movies that are less of a vacation than they are an adventure, sure to get your blood pumping. And there are some scary movies about travel—the sort that might make you think, “You know, actually, maybe let’s make this one a staycation.”
Don’t bother packing your bags. All you need to do is hit “play” to embark on any one of these 30 great travel movies.
RELATED: 24 Feel-Good Movies to Lift Your Spirits .
Romantic Travel Movies
Diane Lane stars in this charming 1996 movie as a recently divorced woman who travels to Italy in an attempt to break out of her post-divorce funk. (In her defense, her husband was cheating on her and he got to keep the house, so she’s right to be miffed.) Once in Tuscany, though, she somehow becomes the owner of a villa, and as she begins to make a new life for herself, the potential for new love emerges amidst some of the most beautiful scenery and delicious-looking wine ever put to film. It’s the type of movie that will have you looking up flights to Florence.
A destination wedding counts as travel, and the breakout comedy of 2023 was shot on location in Australia. Glenn Powell and Sydney Sweeney play two people who left on bad terms after a one-night stand only to have to make nice when their mutual friends get married. Anyone But You is enough to make you want to take a trip Down Under, although perhaps without all the rom-com shenanigans.
Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz play lovelorn women who swap homes so that they can get away from their respective heartbreaks over Christmastime. When Winslet’s Iris and Diaz’s Amanda get to Los Angeles and London, respectively, they find new love in Jack Black and Jude Law’s characters. The 2006 movie, from the great Nancy Meyers , works extra well as a travel movie because, thanks to the house-swapping premise, it’s a reminder that everyone’s home is somebody else’s trip.
The first of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy introduces audiences to Ethan Hawke’s Jesse and Julie Delpy’s Céline as they meet on a train from Budapest and decide to spend the night together wandering Vienna. Widely regarded as one of the more romantic movies ever made, Before Sunrise will also make you want to explore Vienna with someone you’ve just met—someone who maybe you could see yourself spending the rest of your life with.
Technically, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris is a travel movie (because Owen Wilson’s character is visiting Paris with his fiancee, played by Rachel McAdams ) and a time travel movie (because he goes back in time to 1920s). It’s a romantic movie both because of the relationship Wilson’s Gil strikes up with Marion Cotillard’s Adriana and because of how it romanticizes Paris and nostalgia—and deftly interrogates that romanticism.
RELATED: 20 Date Night Movies You and Your Partner Will Both Love .
Movies About Traveling Solo
Dev Patel stars in this 2016 film, which is based on the true story of Saroo Brierley , who was separated from his parents in India at a very young age and adopted by an Australian couple. Once he grew up, he went back to his birth country in an attempt to find his biological parents. Saroo’s trek through India and into his own forgotten past is a tear-jerking, emotional travel story, and Lion was rewarded with six Oscar nominations.
This 2014 adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail stars Reese Witherspoon as Strayed sets out to hike from Southern California to Washington State in an attempt to find herself. The tour of the West Coast’s trails is a tour-de-force for the actor as her character remakes her life one hiking boot-clad step at a time.
In 1977, Robyn Davidson set out on a nine-month journey across the unforgiving Australian Outback with her dog and four camels. She later wrote about her adventure in National Geographic and in her memoir Tracks . In 2013, her story was adapted into a film with the same name. Mia Wasikowska plays Davidson in the movie, which features stunning cinematography of the Australian desert in all its harsh beauty.
A lot of solo travel stories are tales of self-discovery where the voyager has learned something by the time they reach their destination. Into the Wild offers no such catharsis, instead telling the true story of Christopher McCandless , a man who hiked across America and eventually ended up in the Alaskan wilderness—an environment he was not prepared for. It’s a poignant, tragic counterpart to the more common celebrations of wanderlust you tend to see in pop culture.
Julia Roberts stars as Elizabeth Gilbert in this 2010 adaptation of her memoir of post-divorce travel and self-discovery. Feeling her life is aimless and without purpose, Liz elects to travel around the world, stopping in Italy, India, and Bali where she eats, prays, and well, you can probably guess.
RELATED: The 15 Movies That Won the Most Oscars .
Travel Horror Movies
Ari Aster’s supremely disturbing folk horror movie stars Florence Pugh as a young woman who is begrudgingly invited by her not-great boyfriend and his friends to go to Sweden to observe a commune’s midsummer festival. Upon getting there, Pugh’s Dani soon learns that the Hårga are not all sunshine and flowers, and that there are dark rituals and sinister plots. It’s the type of movie that will make you think twice about a Nordic vacation, and you’ll never look at a taxidermied bear the same way.
This 2005 horror movie, from director Eli Roth , is one of the biggest examples of the so-called “torture porn” subgenre, but there’s more to Hostel than just blood and guts. (There are a lot of blood and guts, though.) The film follows some American backpackers who, while traveling in Eastern Europe, become the victims of a shadowy organization that lets the ultra-rich live out their most depraved fantasies by torturing and killing unsuspecting tourists. Let’s just say that Hostel is not exactly a great promotional tourism campaign for Slovakia—something that the country was actually pretty upset about .
This 2022 film, released by the horror-centric streaming service Shudder, follows a social media influencer who, when traveling in Thailand, meets and befriends a young woman. It’s the type of movie that lives or dies on its twists, but let’s just say that Influencer is what you would get if The Talented Mr. Ripley were set in the social media age and a full-on horror film instead of a thriller.
The Creator director Gareth Edward’s 2010 debut follows a photojournalist as he tries to escort a young woman through Mexico, which has been taken over by kaiju-sized alien monsters. There are moments of beauty and discovery along their journey, as well as high-stress moments of terror when they encounter these creatures, which Edwards brings to life on a shoestring budget—though you can’t tell that by watching.
It’s right there in the title: John Landis’ 1980 comedy horror is about an American in London, although he’s not a werewolf when he first arrives in the UK. No, that happens after he’s mauled by a strange beast in the moors of Yorkshire—and that same beast kills the friend he was backpacking with. When he recovers in London, things get gnarly in the light of a full moon.
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Comedy Movies About Traveling
If you like the misadventures of the Griswold family’s first vacation attempt, great news: There are five sequels to this 1983 Chevy Chase comedy. Before the European , Vegas , or Christmas Vacation , though, Clark Griswold tries to drive his family from Chicago to southern California. Their journey makes for some classic comedy, though it might hit a bit too close to home if you’ve had to endure a family vacation that went awry.
A lot of Wes Anderson’s movies are about travel, including his most recent film, Asteroid City , and The Grand Budapest Hotel . His ultimate travel movie, though, is 2007’s The Darjeeling Limited , which stars Owen Wilson , Adrien Brody , and Jason Schwartzman as three estranged brothers who agree to make a trip through India together in the hopes of reconnecting after their father’s death.
Lots of movies are about travel, but are they about a big adventure, the way Tim Burton’s directorial debut is? Paul Reubens stars as his Pee-wee Herman character, who hits the road in an attempt to recover his beloved bicycle, which has gone missing. Following a psychic’s totally legit vision of his bike in the basement of the Alamo, Pee-wee encounters a ghost trucker, biker gangs, and all the madness of a Hollywood backlot.
Netflix’s Oscar-nominated animated movie has a setup that’s not too dissimilar from that of National Lampoon’s Vacation . Aspiring filmmaker Katie Mitchell can’t wait to get away from her family and start film school. Her dad, voiced by Danny McBride , feels his daughter slipping away and opts to have the whole fam drive her across the country rather than take a plane to school. At the same time, an A.I. gone rogue has started a robot uprising. Oops!
In addition to featuring a hall-of-fame cameo from Matt Damon as the singer of “Scotty Doesn’t Know,” Eurotrip is a classic, if not especially intelligent, teen sex romp. It’s not the movie to watch if you want to get a feel for Europe, but it is what you put on when you want to enjoy some good, dumb laughs.
RELATED: 23 Movies Like Interstellar That Will Also Bend Your Brain .
Adventure Travel Movies
Ben Stiller directed and stars in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty , an imaginative adaptation of a 1939 short story about a mild-mannered man who gets lost in his daydreams. When circumstances force Walter to embark on a trip around the world, he starts living his daydreams for real, going to Greenland and the Himalayas. Featuring a fantastic soundtrack and gorgeous cinematography of some truly beautiful, off-the-beaten-path places, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is the type of movie that might make you stop just thinking about taking a trip and actually buy a ticket.
William Friedkin , best known for directing The Exorcist , also helmed this 1977 thriller about possibly the worst road trip of all time. When four people, all on the run from their various sordid pasts, find themselves trapped in a remote oil village in Colombia, they are desperate to get out by any means necessary. The opportunity presents itself when the bosses need people to drive boxes of dynamite that are extremely unstable and could blow at any minute across miles of rainforest. There is one sequence in Sorcerer that’s some of the most unbelievably tense filmmaking you’ll likely ever see. (Note that it’s a remake of another classic film, Wages of Fear , should you want another movie that’ll keep you on edge.)
Johnny Depp stars as an average man who finds himself smack in the middle of an international criminal incident when on vacation in Europe after a woman, played by Angelina Jolie , tries to trick the authorities into thinking Depp’s the fugitive they’re looking for. Thrills, laughs, and a little romance ensue.
Charlie Hunnam plays real explorer Percy Fawcett in this adaptation of the book by the same name from author David Grann , who also wrote Killers of the Flower Moon . The film follows the British explorer in the early 1900s as he tries, time and time again, to prove the existence of a mythical city deep in the jungles of Brazil. Think of it as a somber, reflective take on a real-life Indiana Jones, one whose obsession with traveling to hostile environments in search of knowledge may prove to be his undoing.
This gripping survival drama about the infamous 1996 Mount Everest Disaster, as documented by Jon Krakauer in the book Into Thin Air, is the type of film that will probably make you consider an all-inclusive beach resort for your next vacation rather than mountain-climbing.
RELATED: 25 Movies Like Knives Out That Will Bring Out Your Inner Detective .
Movies About Roadtrips
This biopic follows the man who would become the Che Guevara when he, as a young man in the early ‘50s, travels across South America with his friend Alberto Granado . The film, which is based on Guevara’s trip diary, is both a road movie and a coming-of-age film about an important historical figure, as we see him become radicalized by the poverty and inequality he sees on this journey.
Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan star in Ethan Coen’s romp from earlier this year, and it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call Drive-Away Dolls “ The Big Lebowski , but just the silly parts.” Set in the late ’90s, it follows two lesbian friends who learn that the car they’ve rented has a human head and a briefcase in the trunk—and that some shadowy types really, really want whatever’s in that case back.
Burt Reynolds stars in this 1977 classic, which was the second-highest-grossing movie of its release year after the original Star Wars . He plays a legendary bootlegger who accepts a job to smuggle 400 cases of Coors from Texarkana to Atlanta in under 28 hours. Along the way, he encounters a runaway bride played by Sally Field , and Sheriff Buford T. Justice, who wants to stop the Bandit. Smokey and the Bandit also features an incredible theme song, “ East Bound and Down ,” and while the lyrics describe the plot of the movie almost beat-for-beat, you’ll find that it’s a fitting song to blast on your own car stereo when you’re on the road.
Il Sorpasso , which is sometimes given the English title The Easy Life , is a masterpiece of 1960s Italian cinema. It follows a boisterous middle-aged man who decides to take a timid, bookish college student he meets under his wing for a good time out on the road—whether or not the younger man actually wants to tag along or not. Hilarious and poignant when you might not expect it, Il Sorpasso ’s well worth the watch.
This seminal adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel of the same name stars Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro as they drive to Sin City under the influence of an absurd amount of drugs. In that way, it’s the ultimate travel movie. It’s about a trip, but it’s also about a trip .
