Sydney Film Festival's Full 2025 Program Has 201 Movies for Your Must-See List — Including 15 Straight From Cannes
What features Tom Hiddleston's latest, a new heist thriller starring Josh O'Connor and movies screening at the Sydney Opera House? This film fest in its 72nd year.
When Sydney Film Festival unveils its complete lineup in May each year, it lets Australian movie lovers know which features are on the way to the Harbour City just before the cinema-adoring world turns its eyes to Cannes. Consider the Aussie fest a cure for film FOMO, then. Plenty of the movies that are set to wow audiences in France this month will head Down Under next month. SFF always adds more such titles just before it kicks off, as late additions to the program, but 2025's roster of flicks already boasts 15 entries in the direct-from-Cannes camp.
Here's a few, all playing between Wednesday, June 4–Sunday, June 15: Josh O'Connor (Challengers) and Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza) in heist-thriller mode in filmmaker Kelly Reichardt's (Showing Up) 70s-set The Mastermind; It Was Just an Accident, the latest feature from acclaimed Iranian director Jafar Panahi (No Bears), who is also the subject of one of SFF's 2025 retrospectives; and Dangerous Animals, hailing from Australian helmer Sean Byrne (The Loved Ones, The Devil's Candy) and telling a tale of a shark-obsessed serial killer on the Gold Coast.
Musing on its eponymous author as only filmmaker Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) can, Orwell: 2+2=5 is also taking the Cannes-to-Sydney route. So is coming-of-age story Enzo from BPM (Beats Per Minute)'s Robin Campillo; Mirrors No 3, which sees German director Christian Petzold reteam with his Transit, Undine and Afire star Paula Beer; Nigeria's My Father's Shadow, the first-ever movie from the country to be selected to play on the Croisette; The Secret Agent, led by Wagner Moura (Dope Thief) for filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho (a Sydney Film Festival Prize-winner for Aquarius); and Vie Privée with Jodie Foster (True Detective: Night Country).
Some of the aforementioned titles are vying for this year's SFF prize, in the competition's 17th year — where opening night's already-announced Together, a new body-horror by Australian filmmaker Michael Shanks (The Wizards of Aus) starring Alison Brie (Apples Never Fall) and Dave Franco (Love Lies Bleeding) is also in contention. A few movies that the festival announced back in April, when it started giving sneak peeks at its 2025 lineup, are equally on that category. Will DJ Ahmet, a Sundance-winner after collecting its World Cinema — Dramatic Audience Award, emerge victorious? Or will that honour go to 2025 Berlinale Grand Jury Prize-winner The Blue Trail? They're in the running, with The Narrow Road to the Deep North filmmaker Justin Kurzel, one of his recent stars in Thomas Weatherall, the latter's Heartbreak High co-star Rachel House, plus Hong Kong-based producer Winnie Tsang and Marrakech International Film Festival director Melita Toscan du Plantier all doing the judging.
What features Tom Hiddleston's (Loki) newest performance as well, with The Life of Chuck directed by The Fall of the House of Usher's Mike Flanagan and based on a Stephen King novella? What also boasts Jacob Elordi (Oh, Canada), Daisy Edgar-Jones (Twisters) and Will Poulter (Warfare) in queer romance On Swift Horses, plus Richard Linklater's (Hit Man) Blue Moon with Ethan Hawke (Leave the World Behind), Margaret Qualley (The Substance) and Andrew Scott (Ripley) — alongside Carey Mulligan (Spaceman) in music-fuelled comedy The Ballad of Wallis Island, the Dylan O'Brien (Saturday Night)-led Twinless and Pike River with Melanie Lynskey (Yellowjackets) getting its world premiere? This year's Sydney Film Festival.
Which event is adding to its screening venues in 2025 in a spectacular way by showing films at Sydney Opera House, too? And which fest has 201 movies from 70 countries on its lineup, with 17 world premieres, six international premieres and 137 Australian premieres among them? The answer is still the same.
How does long-term Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley characterise this year's program, the event's 72nd? "The 2025 Festival offers a bold and expansive view of cinema today, with films that confront the urgent realities of our world, while also revelling in the power of imagination and storytelling," he advises.
"From astonishing Australian debuts to daring new works by global auteurs, this year's program is a celebration of creative risk, personal vision and artistic resilience. We invite audiences to explore this thrilling lineup, connect with filmmakers from around the world, and share in the transformative joy of cinema."
Other 2025 highlights include Berlin's Golden Bear-winner Dreams (Sex Love); Aussie effort Death of an Undertaker, the directorial debut of actor Christian Byers (Bump), who uses an IRL Leichhardt funeral parlour as his setting; Dreams, with Jessica Chastain (Mothers' Instinct) reuniting with her Memory helmer Michel Franco; satire Kontinental '25, from Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World and Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn's Radu Jude; and What Does That Nature Say to You, the latest from South Korea's prolific Hong Sang-soo (In Our Day). Or, there's the near-future Tokyo-set Happyend, the Luca Guadagnino (Queer)-produced Nineteen, Tibetan-language anthology State of Statelessness (the first ever, in fact), Naomi Watts (Feud) and Bill Murray (Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire) in page-to-screen dramedy The Friend, Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar collaborator Kahlil Joseph's BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, and Vicky Krieps (The Dead Don't Hurt) and Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things) tackling grief and possession in Went Up the Hill.
Among the standouts on the festival's documentary slate, Jennifer Peedom (River) turns her focus to the quest to make the world's deepest cave dive by Thai cave rescue hero Dr Richard Harris in Deeper, 20 Days in Mariupol's Mstyslav Chernov works bodycam footage from the Ukrainian frontline into 2000 Metres to Andriivka and All I Had Was Nothingness features unused material from iconic Holocaust documentary Shoah 40 years on. Plus, Floodland is focused on Lismore, Journey Home, David Gulpilil charts the iconic actor's journey to be laid to rest, Prime Minister shines a spotlight on Jacinda Ardern and trying to open a Tokyo restaurant is at the heart of Tokito: The 540-Day Journey of a Culinary Maverick.
Fans of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, take note: it's up for discussion in Chain Reactions from Alexandre O Philippe (Lynch/Oz). If you miss the video-store era, Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell) understands, and has made Videoheaven about it — a film essay solely comprised from movie and TV clips. A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, Mikey and Nicky and Ishtar director Elaine May earns SFF's second 2025 retrospective, while the fest's lineup of restored classics includes the Aussie likes of Muriel's Wedding, Somersault and Mullet, plus Angel's Egg from Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii. For viewers of all ages, the live-action How to Train Your Dragon is also on the program.
SFF's 2025 announcements until now were already impressive, so there's not only more joining the above flicks courtesy of the full program — they already have great company. Barry Keoghan's (Bird) new Irish thriller Bring Them Down; the Australian premiere of homegrown animation Lesbian Space Princess; music documentaries One to One: John & Yoko and Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao e Rua — Two Worlds; Tilda Swinton (The Room Next Door)- and Michael Shannon (The Bikeriders)-starring post-apocalyptic musical The End; intimacy coordinators getting the doco treatment; Ellis Park, about Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds collaborator, Dirty Three founder and frequent film-score composer Warren Ellis: they're on the lineup, too.
So is the one-film movie marathon that is 14-hour picture Exergue — on documenta 14, which is set inside the 2017 edition of the documenta art exhibition in Germany and Greece. Audiences will watch it in four- to five-hour segments — because, if it wasn't already apparent, there's no such thing as too much time spent in a cinema at Sydney Film Festival.

Photo by Christian Schulz/ Schrammfilm

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Greg Cotten
Sydney Film Festival 2025 runs from Wednesday, June 4–Sunday, June 15 at cinemas across Sydney. Head to the festival website for further information and tickets.