The 72nd Sydney Film Festival (June 4th – 15th, 2025) program has officially launched, with Festival Director Nashen Moodley unveiling an exceptional line-up, including 15 films direct from the Cannes Film Festival, including Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident and Kelly Reichardt’s 1970s-set art heist drama The Mastermind. Other major highlights include The Life of Chuck starring Tom Hiddleston; debut Australian director Amy Wang’s SXSW-winning satire Slanted; Sundance comedy hit Twinless; the sweeping queer romance On Swift Horses with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi; and Dreams (Sex Love), winner of the Berlinale Golden Bear.
“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,” said Moodley. “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 line-up, connect with filmmakers from around the world, and share in the transformative joy of cinema.”
In 2025, the Festival will present 201 films from 70 countries including 17 World Premieres, 6 international premieres and 137 Australian Premieres, bringing together hundreds of new international and local stories, with more to be announced. This year also sees the addition of the iconic Sydney Opera House as a screening venue, joining the State Theatre and cinemas across the city – allowing Festival goers to experience some of the world’s best cinema in one of Sydney’s most celebrated cultural landmarks.
This year’s festival will open with the Australian Premiere of Together, written and directed by Australian filmmaker Michael Shanks and starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco. The breakout hit of Sundance, Together is a bold feature that blends domestic drama with a devilishly supernatural twist, offering an off-the-wall and twisted take on codependency. Writer/director Shanks will also attend to present the film.
Together will also screen as part of the Official Competition, which celebrates 17 years of the prestigious Sydney Film Prize, which sees $60,000 awarded each year to the most “audacious, cutting-edge and courageous” film. The titles in contention this year include SFF 2025 retrospective focus Jafar Panahi, who brings a new title out of Cannes, It Was Just an Accident, which reimagines the Iranian road movie; while Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind brings her unique sensibility to a 1970s-set art heist starring Josh O’Connor and Alana Haim. Berlinale Golden Bear-winner Carla Simón returns with Romería, a mesmerising drama blending family history and breathtaking fantasy, and Sydney Film Prize-winning filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho (Aquarius, SFF 2016) delivers the rousing and tense political thriller The Secret Agent, starring Wagner Moura.
Also straight from Cannes, Icelandic auteur Hlynur Pálmason follows Godland (SFF 2022) with The Love That Remains, a tender and surprising portrait of a family navigating separation; Christian Petzold reunites with Paula Beer in Mirrors No. 3, an intrigue-filled, intimate drama exploring loss, healing and the pull of the past; and Akinola Davies Jr.’s debut My Father’s Shadow, a poetic coming-of-age drama set during Nigeria’s political upheaval in 1993; and direct from Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, after a buzzy premiere at Sundance, is Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby, a witty and vulnerable dramedy about trauma, healing and friendship.
Internationally awarded films in competition this year include Gabriel Mascaro’s Berlinale Grand Jury Prize-winning The Blue Trail, a psychedelic, anti-authoritarian fable set in the Amazon; and Sundance Audience Award-winner DJ Ahmet, a charming coming-of-age story about tradition, dance music and first love in North Macedonia. Also competing is All That’s Left of You, a moving epic from Cherien Dabis (Amreeka, SFF 2009) that chronicles a Palestinian family’s hopes and traumas over seven decades, which premiered at Sundance.
The 2025 Official Competition Jury – the only film competition in Australia endorsed by FIAPF, the regulating body for international film festivals, and judged by a jury of international and Australian filmmakers and industry professionals – is led by acclaimed Australian director, writer and producer Justin Kurzel as Jury President, joined by Director of the Marrakech International Film Festival and producer Melita Toscan du Plantier, Aotearoa New Zealand director and actor Rachel House, Hong Kong-based producer and distributor Winnie Tsang, and Kamilaroi writer and actor Thomas Weatherall.
Ten outstanding new Australian documentaries will compete for the 2025 Documentary Australia Award, with a $20,000 cash prize presented to the winner; the prize also makes the winning film eligible for Academy Award consideration.
World Premieres this year include Floodland, Jordan Giusti’s deeply moving portrait of a flood-affected community in Lismore, Australia’s most disaster-prone postcode; Joh: Last King of Queensland, Kriv Stenders’ captivating portrait of controversial Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen; Journey Home, David Gulpilil, a powerful and intimate record of the renowned Indigenous actor’s final journey to his Homeland to be laid to rest; The Raftsmen, Chadden Hunter’s high-seas yarn revisiting a daring 1970s raft voyage across the Pacific; and Yurlu | Country, Yaara Bou Melhem’s deeply personal portrait of Elder Maitland Parker’s environmental and cultural fight for his Wittenoom homeland.
Australian Premieres in competition include Deeper, Jennifer Peedom and Alex Barry’s high-stakes chronicle of Thai cave rescue hero Dr Richard “Harry” Harris’s attempt to achieve the world’s deepest cave dive; and The Golden Spurtle, Sydney based Constantine Costi’s charming and hilarious portrait of the World Porridge Making Championship in the Scottish Highlands. Also in the running are The Wolves Always Come at Night, Gabrielle Brady’s story of a Mongolian family forced to abandon their nomadic life; Songs Inside, where female prisoners find healing through a unique music program; and Ellis Park, Justin Kurzel’s debut documentary, about musician Warren Ellis and his passionate work rescuing animals in Sumatra.
The State Theatre sets the stage for Sydney Film Festival’s biggest nights, with red carpet premieres, award-winning films, star-studded line-ups, and dazzling special events, and this year is no exception with such star-led features as Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, starring Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley and Andrew Scott in a hilarious chamber piece set against the backdrop of musical theatre; Michel Franco’s Dreams, featuring Jessica Chastain as a wealthy philanthropist whose passionate affair with a Mexican dancer challenges her carefully curated life; The Ballad of Wallis Island, a charming comedy with Carey Mulligan about the musical reunion of two estranged former lovers; and Jodie Foster heading a stellar cast in Vie Privée, a Cannes-selected, gently comic murder mystery set in Paris.
Familiar faces also feature in Kevin Macdonald’s documentary One to One: John & Yoko, which brings John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s historic 1972 Madison Square Garden concert vividly to life. Australian award-winners shine with two bold new features: Slanted, the debut from Australian director Amy Wang, a provocative, SXSW-winning satire on racial identity and belonging; and Lesbian Space Princess, a riotous, Berlin Teddy Award-winning animated adventure following an introverted lesbian princess on an inter-gay-lactic rescue mission. From New Zealand, two deeply personal stories will screen: Prime Minister, an intimate portrait of Jacinda Ardern’s transformative leadership, and the World Premiere of Pike River, the powerful true story of two women’s fight for justice after New Zealand’s deadliest modern mining disaster, starring Melanie Lynskey.
Direct from Cannes, Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5 offers a gripping meditation on the enduring relevance of George Orwell’s vision; and Robin Campillo’s Enzo, which captures a tender coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of war and migration. Rounding out the section is Twinless, a hilarious and unpredictable queer bromance starring Dylan O’Brien and James Sweeney, fresh from delighting audiences at Sundance.
Australian features include Death of an Undertaker, having its World Premiere at the Festival. This debut from actor-turned-director Christian Byers is set in a real Leichhardt funeral parlour and stars Byers as a fragile part-time worker unravelling on the brink of homelessness. Other local productions are having their Australian Premieres include Birthright, Zoe Pepper’s biting satire about a disillusioned generation and the housing crisis; Went Up the Hill, a gothic tale of grief and possession starring Vicky Krieps and Dacre Montgomery; and FWENDS, Sophie Somerville’s Berlinale award-winning ode to messy, modern friendship.
Dreams (Sex Love), which won the Golden Bear at Berlinale 2025, is a potent, nuanced study of forbidden desire and creative awakening by Dag Johan Haugerud. Also screening is Love, the second in Haugerud’s thematic trilogy (following Sex, SFF 2024, and preceding Dreams), a Venice competition selection that observes two Oslo singles – a straight urologist and a gay nurse – navigating vastly different but equally poignant paths to connection. This year’s award-winning highlights also include Alpha., a chilling father-son social drama set in the Swiss Alps, winner of the Europa Cinemas Label Award at Venice; The Things You Kill, a surreal Turkish psychological thriller about family secrets, awarded Best Director at Sundance; and One of Those Days When Hemme Dies, a wry, lyrical tale of revenge amid sun-dried tomatoes, which earned the Special Jury Prize at Venice.
Furhter highlights include Come Closer is a Tribeca Viewpoints Award-winner about a woman plunged into grief and obsession after her brother’s death; Kontinental ’25, Radu Jude’s (Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, SFF 2024) acerbic satire, took out a major prize at Berlinale for its darkly funny exploration of guilt and social complicity; The Mohican, a Corsican-set contemporary western about land rights and resistance, won the Audience Award at Thessaloniki; Moon, Kurdwin Ayub’s culture-clash thriller about an Austrian MMA fighter in Jordan, received Locarno’s Special Jury Prize; And from Berlinale 2025 comes The Heart is a Muscle, in which a South African father, conditioned by a violent past, commits a terrible act while searching for his missing son, and Islands, where a luxury island resort is the setting for a gripping psychosexual mystery, by Jan-Ole Gerster (Oh Boy, SFF 2013).
Also to be screened in the Feature Program, Late Shift, a high-stakes hospital drama set over a single night on a hospital ward on the brink of a meltdown, a hit when it premiered at Berlinale; Ameer Fakher Eldin’s (The Stranger, SFF 2022) Yunan is an evocative drama about a world-weary author who retreats to a far-flung island; Having screened in competition in Berlin, What Does That Nature Say to You by Korean indie auteur Hong Sang-soo (in water, SFF 2023), is a witty drama following an artist who finally meets his girlfriend’s family.
Olmo is a vibrant coming-of-age tale about a 14-year-old in 1979 New Mexico sneaking away from his struggling family to attend a party; BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, from Kahlil Joseph (frequent collaborator with Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar), is a genre-defying mixtape blending Black history, Afro-futurism, archival media and performance in dazzling, cerebral layers.
Among the diverse selection of bold international cinema in this year’s program is Happyend, a politically charged story of teenage rebellion under surveillance in near-future Tokyo, and Harvest, Athina Rachel Tsangari’s (Attenberg, SFF 2011) gritty Middle Ages parable starring Caleb Landry Jones. Female friendship takes centre stage in January 2, a minimalist road movie about fresh starts, while Nineteen offers a spirited coming-of-age odyssey produced by Luca Guadagnino.
Stories of mystery and suspense unfold in Pooja, Sir, where an atypically female cop investigates the abduction of two boys in a Nepali border town, and Stranger Eyes, the first Singaporean film to screen in competition at Venice – a twist-filled thriller about a grieving couple who receive anonymous surveillance footage after their baby goes missing. To Kill a Mongolian Horse delivers a powerful exploration of masculinity and cultural crisis, inspired by the lead actor’s real life as a Mongolian horseback performer.
Global perspectives on motherhood and caregiving emerge in The Mother and the Bear, a quirky comedy about an overzealous Korean mother matchmaking her comatose daughter; Daughter’s Daughter, a tender Taiwanese drama led by Sylvia Chang; and Saba, a Dhaka-set portrait of sacrifice and family. In The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos tells of a mother living in a Lagos shantytown uncovers a stash of corrupt money worth millions, sparking a wild and unexpected journey. Two standouts are the Korean chilling psychological drama Somebody, centred on maternal trauma and starring K-pop icon Kwon Yuri, and State of Statelessness, the first-ever Tibetan-language anthology, weaving four poignant stories of Tibetans living in exile.
The President’s Cake, a Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection, is a rare film from Iraq, a humorous and touching debut about a young Iraqi girl’s mandated mission to bake a cake for her class on Saddam Hussein’s birthday. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, a Cannes-selected drama from I Am Not a Witch (SFF 2017) director Rungano Nyoni, sees a Zambian family confront hard truths following the death of a relative. Star-studded features include Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck, a poignant sci-fi drama starring Tom Hiddleston, based on a Stephen King novella; The Friend, a warm dramedy with Naomi Watts and Bill Murray based on the popular book by Sigrid Nunez; On Swift Horses, a sweeping queer 1950s romance featuring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi; Bring Them Down, a powerful Irish thriller with Barry Keoghan; and The End, Joshua Oppenheimer’s (The Act of Killing, SFF 2013) daring
narrative debut – a dystopian musical starring Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon.
Other standout selections include Ciao Bambino, a Naples-set debut in which a teenage boy is tasked with protecting a sex worker; and Eighty Plus, a wry and warm-hearted return by Yugoslav New Wave icon Želimir Žilnik, about a travelling musician returning to Serbia reclaim a family property. Lurker, the feature debut of TV writer-producer Alex Russell (The Bear, Beef), is a tense, slow-burn Hollywood psychodrama about obsession and fandom. Spirit World stars Catherine Deneuve in a gently supernatural road movie about a French singer who dies while touring Japan and finds herself guided in the afterlife by a devoted fan.
Twelve Moons is a visually stunning drama tracing a middle-class architect’s descent into addiction and turmoil following a shattering personal loss, while Tiger’s Pond is a haunting Indian thriller that examines caste, superstition and political manipulation in a remote village. Finally, Mr. Burton tells the remarkable true story of legendary Welsh actor Richard Burton’s formative years, with Toby Jones portraying the teacher who helped him find his voice.
Other program features this year offering unique voices and distinct stories include the International Documentaries, Sounds On Screen , Family Films and Freak Me Out, which is dedicated to all things strange and scary. Such documentaries featuring this year include Sundance Documentary Grand Jury winner Cutting Through Rocks, about the first woman elected to her local Iranian council, and the only woman in the village to ride a motorbike, as she fights to empower women against entrenched local resistance; power; Predators pulls back the curtain on the controversial, paedophile-hunting reality TV hit To Catch a Predator from the 2000s, and examines its complex cultural legacy; and How to Build a Library follows two Kenyan women attempting to decolonise Nairobi’s oldest library, offering a moving portrait of resistance, reclamation, and the radical potential of knowledge.
Sounds On Screen, will feature such winners as the SXSW Audience Award-winner Selena y Los Dinos, which looks to reignite the phenomenon around Selena, the pioneering “Queen of Tejano music” with never-before-seen family archives, and Once Upon a Time Michel Legrand, a Cannes-selected tribute to the Oscar-winning composer of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Yentl, blending never-before-seen archives and interviews with admirers and friends including Barbra Streisand.
Families will be well catered for with two massive filmic events, How To Train Your Dragon and Night of the Zoopocalypse. The magic of dragons returns in How to Train Your Dragon, a live-action reimagining of the beloved animation. On the island of Berk, young Viking Hiccup (Mason Thames, The Black Phone) defies centuries of tradition when he befriends Toothless, a feared Night Fury dragon. Directed by three- time Oscar nominee and Golden Globe-winner Dean DeBlois (Lilo & Stitch), with cutting-edge visual effects and an all-star cast including Gerard Butler, this soaring tale of friendship, courage and destiny is a big screen family crowd-pleaser.
Adding a spooky twist to the family fun is Night of the Zoopocalypse, a wildly entertaining, kid- friendly zombie comedy. When a meteor crash turns the animals of Colepepper Zoo into zombies, a grumpy mountain lion (voiced by David Harbour, Stranger Things) and a feisty wolf (Gabbi Kosmidis) must team up to escape the chaos. Executive produced by horror legend Clive Barker (Hellraiser, Candyman), this colourful and hilarious animated adventure introduces younger viewers to the spooky delights of the horror genre.
And for the horror fans, Dangerous Animals, a pulse-pounding Aussie horror-thriller about a shark-fixated serial killer stalking the Gold Coast, The Home, a chilling social horror set in a small Swedish town, where residents of a nursing home begin acting disturbingly after one patient starts seeing visions from her past, and from Sundance, OBEX, a lo-fi, ’80s-set genre blend about a reclusive man who enters a mysterious video game to rescue his missing dog, are just a slew of the titles set to disturb willing audiences.
Also celebrating First Nations titles with the First Nations Award, proudly supported by Truant Pictures, which, at a $35,000 prize, is the world’s largest cash award for global Indigenous filmmaking; a focus on acclaimed Indian documentarian Nishtha Jain, showcasing three of her most compelling works alongside a special panel exploring the landscape of independent filmmaking in India today; and Screenability, which showcases a vibrant line-up of films created by filmmakers living with disability, including the Sundance title Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, a powerful documentary directed by Shoshannah Stern that reflects on the life, career and advocacy work of
the Academy Award-winning actor, and Racewalkers, winner of the Slamdance Grand Jury Prize, a heartfelt twist on the classic sports buddy comedy, following an unlikely coach-athlete duo united by ambition and resilience, the 72nd edition of the Sydney Film Festival will showcase the very best in contemporary cinema and offer audiences the chance to experience premieres, red carpet events, and exciting special programs across Sydney.
For more information on the full program, session times, ticket availability, and information on the Special Events – including Trivia Nights, Letterboxd Meet-ups, Friday the 13th horror hour, and free industry chats – head to the official Sydney Film Festival site here.
