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San Sebastian Film Festival · 2026

San Sebastian Film Festival 2026

Pearls

Programme

17 films · 10 reviews

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All Of A Sudden (Soudain)

Review preview for All Of A Sudden

Hamaguchi’s most pointed provocation is not that the nursing home becomes excessive in its care, but that ordinary neglect has trained us to see basic tenderness as excess.

Edin Custo · 3.5 out of 5
The director of a nursing home in Paris has an encounter with a terminally ill Japanese playwright that transforms her life.

(Country: Japan, France, Belgium, Germany; Year: 2026; Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi; Writer: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Léa Le Dimna; Stars: Virginie Efira, Tao Okamoto, Kyōzō Nagatsuka, Kodai Kurosaki, Jean-Louis Garçon, Marie Bunel, Jean-Charles Clichet, Margot Maricot, Lazare Gousseau, Jérôme Chappatte, Evelyne Istria, Elisabeth Tamaris, Aurélia Petit, Heidi Becker-Babel)

Full review

La Bola Negra

Review preview for La Bola Negra

La Bola Negra was an unfinished work in a life cut short but the film named (variously) for it is extension and tribute and triumph.

Andrew Robertson · 4.5 out of 5
Drama exploring the inter-connected lives of three gay men.

(Country: Spain, France; Year: 2026; Director: Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo; Writer: Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo; Stars: Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos González, Milo Quifes, Lola Dueñas, Penélope Cruz, Glenn Close, Lorenzo Zurzolo)

Full review

Club Kid

A washed-up party promoter is forced to take in the young son he didn't know he had.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Jordan Firstman; Writer: Jordan Firstman; Stars: Jordan Firstman, Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva, Reggie Absolom, Eldar Isgandarov)

Coward

Soldiers try to keep their hope alive on the frontline in the First World War.

(Country: Belgium, France, Netherlands; Year: 2026; Director: Lukas Dhont; Writer: Lukas Dhont, Angelo Tijssens; Stars: Valentin Campagne, Emmanuel Macchia, Jonas Wertz)

Fatherland

Review preview for Fatherland

The way Zischler and Hüller play their relationship is so wonderfully real and subtle and appropriately opaque for all us non-Mann family members, that it at times brought tears to my eyes.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 5 out of 5
Drama focusing on Thomas Mann's post-war life, as he and his daughter embark on a road-trip across Germany.

(Country: Poland, Germany, Italy, France; Year: 2026; Director: Pawel Pawlikowski; Writer: Pawel Pawlikowski; Stars: Sandra Hüller, Hanns Zischler, August Diehl, Anna Madeley, Devid Striesow, David Menkin, Joachim Meyerhoff, Enno Trebs, Theo Trebs, Waldemar Kobus, Daniel Wagner, Fritzi Haberlandt, Milan Peschel, Joanna Kulig, Christophe Falconnet)

Full review

Fjord

Review preview for Fjord

Mungiu’s eye moves between the juggernaut and the barely visible.

Edin Custo · 3.5 out of 5
Mihai and Lisbet Gheorghiu, a devout Romanian Norwegian couple, move from Romania to Norway with their children to be closer to Lisbet’s family. But tension mounts when one of the children arrives at school with bruises.

(Country: Romania, France, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden; Year: 2026; Director: Cristian Mungiu; Writer: Cristian Mungiu; Stars: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Giulia Nahmany, Ingvild Lien, Turid Vatne, Alin Panc, Emilie Hetland, Sofie Vartdal)

Full review

Hope

Review preview for Hope

Hope's scale and scope and delightful detail make it a banquet, if not an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Andrew Robertson · 3.5 out of 5
A thriller set near Korea's heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone. When a tiger is reported to have been sighted, the community is thrown into chaos

(Country: South Korea; Year: 2026; Director: Na Hong-jin; Writer: Na Hong-jin; Stars: Jung-min Hwang, In-sung Zo, Hoyeon)

Full review

The Invite

Review preview for The Invite

Wilde's direction is assured, there's some gorgeous framing and frequent Rogen collaborator Adam Newport-Berra's camera makes the most of what's in front of it.

Andrew Robertson · 3.5 out of 5
Joe and Angela are on thin ice, and tonight might be when it all falls apart. Unfortunately, their upstairs neighbours are about to arrive for dinner, and everything that can go wrong goes worse.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Olivia Wilde; Writer: Rashida Jones, Will McCormack; Stars: Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, Edward Norton)

Full review See: Olivia Wilde on reinvention, improvisation and why The Invite had to be shot on film

Iron Boy (Le Corset)

When a young boy is forced to wear an iron corset for health reasons, he has to reinvent his life on his family farm, discovering friendship and a new passion for music. Animation

(Country: France, Belgium; Year: 2026; Director: Louis Clichy; Writer: Louis Clichy, Franck Salomé; Stars: Alexandre Astier, Dimitri Colas, Gary Clichy, Brune Moulin, Rod Paradot, Aurélie Vassort, Jean-Pascal Zadi)

It Will Happen Tonight (Succederà Questa Notte)

Loosely based on the short story collection Hungry Heart by Lev Raev.

(Country: Italy, Spain, France; Year: 2026; Director: Nanni Moretti; Writer: Nanni Moretti, Valia Santella, Federica Pontremoli; Stars: Louis Garrel, Jasmine Trinca, Angela Finocchiaro, Elena Lietti, Antonio De Matteo, Andrea Lattanzi, Hippolyte Girardot, Pietro Ragusa, Paolo Sassanelli, Nanni Moretti, Melina Åkerman Kvie, Edoardo Purgatori, Tania de la Cruz, Laura Nardi, David L. Bengoetxea)

Josephine

Review preview for Josephine

De Araújo is particularly good at evoking the emotional turmoil Jo feels.

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
After 8-year-old Josephine accidentally witnesses a crime in Golden Gate Park, she acts out in search of a way to regain control of her safety while adults are helpless to console her.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Beth de Araújo; Writer: Beth de Araújo; Stars: Mason Reeves, Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan, Philip Ettinger, Syra McCarthy, Eleanore Pienta, Gretchen Klein, Nate Duncan, Tracy Todd, Grace Kelly Quigley, Malcolm Engel)

Full review See: Beth de Araújo Channing Tatum and others talk about a child's eye view of crime in Josephine

Just An Illusion (Juste Une Illusion)

In 1985 suburban Paris, 12-year-old Vincent lives with his distant older brother and quarrelling parents. Amid laughter and unease, he navigates friendship and first love.

(Country: France; Year: 2026; Director: Olivier Nakache, Éric Toledano; Writer: Éric Toledano, Olivier Nakache; Stars: Louis Garrel, Camille Cottin, Simon Boublil, Alexis Rosenstiehl, Pierre Lottin, Jeanne Lamartine, Rony Kramer, Giorgia Sinicorni, Augusto Fornari, Ragnar Le Breton, David Ayala, Adèle Jayle, Elise Luguern, Lilian Wallet, Samuel Maïmoun)

The Man I Love

Musical fantasy set against the backdrop of New York's AIDs epidemic in the 1980s.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Ira Sachs; Writer: Ira Sachs, Mauricio Zacharias; Stars: Rami Malek, Rebecca Hall)

Minotaur

Review preview for Minotaur

Zvyagintsev handles this material with his familiar control: psychological realism, cold visual restraint and an aversion to overt flourish.

Edin Custo · 3 out of 5
A high-powered executive's meticulously controlled existence begins to unravel.

(Country: France, Germany, Latvia; Year: 2026; Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev; Writer: Andrey Zvyagintsev, Simon Lyashenko; Stars: Dmitriy Mazurov, Iris Lebedeva, Varvara Shmykova)

Full review

NAZA

Review preview for NAZA

Abraham and Szor’s approach is systematic and sobering.

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
Reveals the systems behind Israel’s bombing of Gaza and its mass killing of Palestinian civilians.

(Country: US, UK; Year: 2026; Director: Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor; Stars: Yuval Abraham)

Full review

Tangles

When Alzheimer's disease begins to strip away her mother's vibrant personality, a headstrong young woman is forced to return to her oddball family in the conservative small town she recently fled in order to care for her

(Country: US, Canada; Year: 2026; Director: Leah Nelson; Writer: Leah Nelson, Trev Renney; Stars: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Abbi Jacobson, Bryan Cranston, Samira Wiley, Beanie Feldstein, Seth Rogen, Wanda Sykes, Bowen Yang, Pamela Adlon, Sarah Silverman, Adam Shapiro, Fern Grandin)

Wild Horse Nine

Review preview for Wild Horse Nine

Malkovich and Rockwell are magnetic.

Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
Shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup, CIA agents Chris and Lee are dispatched from Santiago to Rapa Nui.

(Country: UK, US, Chile; Year: 2026; Director: Martin McDonagh; Writer: Martin McDonagh; Stars: John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey, Tom Waits, Mariana di Girolamo, Paola Giannini, Ailín Salas, Samuel Wayt)

Full review