Award season starts here. While the Austin Film Festival can be a launch pad for rising young filmmakers, it can also be a step onto the academy’s red carpet. This year’s headliners represent a long list of creatives in front of and behind the camera whose names seem likely to make many nominee and end-of-year lists.
Austin Film Festival, Oct. 27-Nov. 3. Details and badges at austinfilmfestival.com.
The Whale
Few directors see untapped potential in established actors like Darren Aronofsky, and the critical response to his adaptation of Samuel D. Hunter’s 2014 play about an obese man trying to fix his life explains why the director is this year’s recipient of the AFF Extraordinary Filmmaker Award, and why a triumphantly returning Brendan Fraser received a six-minute standing ovation at Cannes.
Thu., Oct. 27, 7:30pm, Paramount Theatre
Armageddon Time
2022 Bill Wittliff Award for Screenwriting winner James Gray took us into space for Ad Astra and into the jungle in The Lost City of Z, but now he sits us on the 7 to Queens and a glimpse of his own childhood for this quasi-autobiographical story of a young Jewish boy growing up in 1980s NYC.
Fri., Oct. 28, 9:45pm, State Theatre
Women Talking
Sarah Polley adapts Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel of the same name, with Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, and Frances McDormand as members of a religious sect who must decide the future of abusive men in their community. Polley will be in attendance, as will producer Dede Gardner, recipient of this year’s AFF Polly Platt Award for Producing.
Sat., Oct. 29, 6:15pm, Paramount Theatre
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
What’s the difference between a drug lord and a pharmaceutical industry billionaire? Only one faces real accountability. However, activist, photographer, and founder of advocacy group PAIN (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) Nan Goldin has done her best to hold the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, accountable for their part in the devastation their drugs wreaked. Her work is captured in this new documentary by Oscar winner Laura Poitras (Citizenfour, Risk).
Mon., Oct. 31, 6:30pm, State Theatre
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Benoit Blanc is back! The eccentric detective from Knives Out, as memorably played by a now post-Bond Daniel Craig, returns with another tale of elaborate murder, with a star-studded supporting cast including Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Ethan Hawke, and Edward Norton as a tech billionaire who invites Blanc to solve a murder: his own.
Thu., Nov. 3, 7:30pm, Paramount Theatre
This article appears in October 21 • 2022.