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MIFF 2026 will bring some of the biggest films from Cannes, Sundance, Berlinale, and other international festivals to Melbourne this August.
Andrey Zvyagintsev’s latest film, Minotaur, will be making its Australian premiere after winning the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, and those looking for the next great performance from Sandra Hüller can see her Silver Bear-winning performance in Rose at the Berlinale. We also have the latest film from Gus Van Sant premiering at the festival, the true story Dead Man’s Wire, with a stellar cast including Bill Skarsgård, Al Pacino and Dacre Montgomery.
Here’s the standout list of International Films and details at MIFF 2026.
Minotaur
In the immediate wake of his nation’s invasion of Ukraine, wealthy company CEO Gleb is directed to provide cannon fodder for Russia’s war machine. As he is ‘volunteering’ men to be drafted from within his employee pool, he learns that his wife Galina is having an affair with a handsome young artist. This intersection of Gleb’s professional and private crises becomes a trigger point for a shocking showdown.
Rose
From the battlefields of the Thirty Years’ War, a soldier arrives in a small German village carrying a document proving his inheritance of a local farm. Facially scarred by a bullet wound, this mysterious figure proves himself to be hardworking and brave, and slowly but surely insinuates himself into the community. But the soldier has a secret: he is, in fact, a woman named Rose masquerading as a man. When she is married off to a neighbour’s daughter – with children expected from the union – Rose’s deception is put to the test.
Dead Man’s Wire
All Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) wants is debt forgiveness, an apology and $5 million. Bullish about his vision for a new shopping mall, the Indianapolis businessman has taken on a hefty loan only to fall behind on the repayments. Convinced that he’s been duped by his mortgage brokers – a father–son duo played by Al Pacino (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, MIFF 2019) and Stranger Things’ Dacre Montgomery (Went up the Hill, MIFF 2025) – Tony abducts the younger man and rigs a shotgun to his head. His cracked quest for righteous revenge soon becomes a media spectacle, eagerly watched over by national TV crews and narrated by a local soul DJ (Colman Domingo, Sing Sing, MIFF 2024).
Fatherland
In 1949, ageing German Nobel laureate Thomas Mann breaks his long exile from his homeland to honour Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 200th anniversary in the latter’s birthplace of Frankfurt, West Germany. Next, he plans to visit the city where the literary giant died: Weimar, now in the communist East. Chauffeured by his resentful actor/writer daughter Erika, Thomas crosses a country he barely recognises, even as he waxes poetic about its heritage. Meanwhile, Erika notices in person – as her beloved, tormented brother Klaus does in his fiction – how two divergent but equally compromised regimes are being installed atop the still-festering wounds of Nazism. The country they grew up in is a fading memory; but can this intellectual family even feel at home with one another?
Coward
It’s 1916, and Pierre and Francis have been conscripted to fight on the Western Front. Nicknamed “Quiet Mouse”, the former is a handsome, brawny farmer who struggles to express himself; the latter, a tailor’s son, is flamboyant and creative. Francis is enlisted to direct a theatre troupe that will entertain the soldiers, a role that includes cross-dressing as the female lead. When Pierre is tasked with assisting the troupe, the pair’s opposing qualities draw them together – and collaboration evolves into something more.
I Want Your Sex
Elliot starts working for debauched artist Erika Tracy, who foxed the fine-art world into intellectualising her giant papier-mâché phalluses and labial canvases. She immediately grooms her wide-eyed young assistant as her submissive muse, awakening his nascent appetites. Dazzled by the pleasures of pegging, handcuffs, ball gags and pig masks, Elliot shares all the steamy tea with his horny gay co-worker and his repressed housemate. But nine-and-a-half weeks of candy-coloured erotic mayhem later, Elliot’s in pink lingerie and in trouble with the law …
Bitter Christmas
It’s 2004, and the wells of inspiration are drying up for movie director Elsa. Worse still, despite her firefighter/stripper boyfriend’s coddling, she’s as burdened by migraines as she is with her friends’ troubles. But all of this is merely a story; a creation of filmmaker Raúl, Elsa is the protagonist of the film that he’s struggling to complete in 2026, much to the dismay of his supportive partner, Santi. That spark suddenly returns when Raúl’s assistant Mónica takes leave to help a friend who has just lost a child, a tragedy that becomes a plot point in his own script. Perhaps this new inspiration will give Raúl insights into his own life and relationships; but how far is too far when an artist continually cribs from the experiences of others?
The Man I Love
New York, late 1980s. Having just left hospital, ebullient theatre artist Jimmy wants to take on life itself: partying with other figures from the West Village demimonde; preparing a spectacular oeuvre for the stage; being seen and loved in every way possible. He is loved, of course, despite his mercurial ego: by Dennis, his devoted partner, and by Brenda, his sister. But Jimmy’s HIV meds don’t guarantee survival; so, when a handsome young Brit moves into the building, Jimmy proceeds with abandon.
Victorian Psycho
In 1858, Winifred Notty arrives on the Gothic doorstep of Ensor House, a mansion on the Yorkshire moors. Wealthy John and Emily Pounds hire the well-spoken but definitely odd woman as a governess for their young son and daughter. Courtesy of an inner demon she calls “Fred”, the impulsive carnage that’s always followed in Winifred’s wake doesn’t take long to pop up gruesomely again. Given the Poundses’ own depraved lineage, has Winifred finally found her people? But, then again, she is a very unreliable narrator …
Wishful Thinking
Charlie and Julia are deeply in love. They are also fundamentally incompatible – Charlie wants to get married and start a family; Julia doesn’t – and they spend as much time fighting as they do making up. Desperate to fix their relationship, they visit twin TikTok love gurus Tilly and Tilly, whose mysterious counsel reminds the couple how and why they fell for each other. It also unlocks something else, with earth-shattering repercussions … literally.
The Beloved
Esteban, a widely laurelled enfant terrible of global cinema, has returned to Spain to shoot a period film entitled Desert. He wants his daughter Emilia – who’s had roles on TV, and whom he hasn’t seen in 30 years – to play the lead. Despite having baggage around his alcoholism and aggression, she takes the part. Once together, the pair feel the heat not just of the production’s Canary Islands setting but also of the tensions that simmer between them.
All of a Sudden
Marie-Lou (Virginie Efira, Parallel Tales, MIFF 2026) runs an aged-care facility on the outskirts of Paris. She’s devoted to her job and her patients, and firmly believes that the elderly should be treated with dignity. It’s tough work, and, like so many of her employees, she’s dealing with burnout. But her spirit is rekindled when she meets Japanese playwright Mari (Tao Okamoto), who’s staging a theatre piece about the history of mental asylums in Italy. As they plunge headlong into all-night conversations about mortality, philosophy and the degradations of capitalism, Mari and Marie-Lou’s new friendship will change both of their lives.
The Leader
In 1972, Marshall Applewhite overdoses on a bottle of pills and ends up in hospital in the care of nurse Bonnie Lu Nettles, a spiritual seeker feeling empty in her personal life. Dubbing themselves “Do” and “Ti” as their sense of cosmic connection escalates into a Messianic bond, they manifest a doctrine that fuses biblical prophecy with new-age UFO utopianism and strict asexuality, drawing other broken souls into their orbit. Their goal: to leave their weak flesh behind and ascend to the stars. The reality of their Heaven’s Gate cult was grimmer: after Nettles died of cancer in 1985, Applewhite infamously staged a 1997 mass suicide together with 38 of his followers.
Tickets for MIFF 2026 are on sale now. Are you planning on attending? Which films are you looking forward to checking out? Let me know in the comment section below.
[Descriptions have been provided by MIFF]
