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When the Sydney Film Festival (SFF) takes over the State Theatre and satellite cinemas once more, from June 3-14, the brightest minds in movies will descend on the city with their finest films.
Kicking off with director Selina Miles’ Sundance hit Silenced as the opening night gala, it offers a searing documentary insight into how defamation laws the world over are aggressively weaponised against survivors, including movie star Amber Heard and former political staffer Brittany Higgins.
With so much to see in less than two weeks, here’s our guide to some of the sparkliest gems on offer.
Erupcja
Charli XCX had a moment during Brat summer, then the world-renowned pop star decided to conquer cinema in seven films. Erupcja might seem like the lowest key, but there’s explosive passion rumbling beneath the surface of Pete Ohs’ verité-style drama. Shot on the hop with the cast improvising, Charli XCX plays Bethany, a Londoner revisiting Warsaw with her boyfriend, Rob (Will Madden). But why are there flames fanned between her and local florist, Nell (Lena Góra), with volcanoes erupting every time they meet?
Leviticus
Wowing audiences at Sundance, Melbourne writer/director Adrian Chiarella’s debut feature ignited a bidding war before being snapped up by indie powerhouse Neon. The spooker pairs Talk to Me star Joe Bird with Crazy Fun Park’s Stacy Clausen, as queer teens Naim and Ryan. But when the spark between them leads to betrayal in their rural and deeply religious Victorian town, the enforced conversion therapy that follows is truly demonic. Turning lust into a twisted mirror image, are you dying for the hook-up?
Marc by Sofia
Fashion has always played an integral role in Sofia Coppola’s fantastic features, from The Virgin Suicides to Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinnette to Priscilla. And so it does, too, in her debut documentary. Marc by Sofia brings the intimacy of their 30-year-friendship to bear on this behind-the-scenes glimpse at designer Marc Jacobs’ sartorial success. She’s modelled for him; he’s loaned his lewks for her movies. Also featuring Vogue alum Grace Coddington, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Chloë Sevigny, this one’s sure to glimmer.
Rose
After the one-two punch of Palme d’Or-winner Anatomy of a Fall and fellow Oscars champ Zone of Interest, German actor Sandra Hüller’s career is star-borne, appearing alongside Ryan Gosling in Project Hail Mary. Back down to Earth in Markus Schleinzer’s stunning, black-and-white historical drama set in a rural 17th-century village, Hüller won the Silver Bear at Berlinale for her titular performance. A woman masquerading as a man, Rose returns from war to claim a farm and a quiet life, arousing the villagers’ suspicions.
Body Blow
With a hint of Al Pacino’s undercover cop Cruising New York’s leather scene in the classic William Friedkin film, Dean Francis’ neon-hued noir Body Blow throws sexually abstaining lawman Aiden (Tim Pocock) into the belly of Sydney’s drug scene and after-dark beats. It’s in the latter that he’s tempted by Tom Roger’s sex worker and twink fatale, Cody. AN unapologetic erotic thriller that chews up and spits out detective tropes, this looks like a hoot and features drag queen royalty in Kween Kong, plus the iconic Paul Capsis.
Parallel Tales
French icons Isabelle Huppert, Catherine Deneuve and Vincent Casell assembled is enough reason to buy a ticket. Throw in the fact that Parallel Tales is written and directed by revered Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi of A Separation fame, it’s a no-brainer. This one heads to SFF direct from Cannes, where it will compete for the Palme d’Or. Huppert plays an author who’s battling writer’s block by snooping on her Parisian neighbours. Loosely based on a chapter of Polish director Krzysztof Piesiewicz’ Dekalog, this should be juicy.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma PICS
Berthing at Cannes in the Un Certia Regard stream before sailing for Sydney, the latest feature from non-binary I Saw the TV Glow director Jane Schoenbrun set the internet alight with the news they’d cast The X-Files MOTHER Gillian Anderson alongside Hacks hero Hannah Einbinder. The latter is a queer filmmaker who is fixated on casting Anderson’s reclusive ‘final girl’ in the remake of the slasher that made her name. Billed as a psychosexual horror in the mould of a scary sleepover movie, we are fully seated.
Queen at Sea
Some films are hung on performances so remarkable, they simply must be seen, even if it destroys you. So it is Clouds of Sils Maria star Juliette Binoche’s towering turn in American filmmaker Lance Hammer’s London-set drama. Debuting at Berlinale, Binoche plays a daughter startled when she walks in on her mother, who has dementia, seemingly distressed by her partner’s sexual advances. Anna Calder-Marshall and Tom Courtenay shared the Silver Bear for supporting actors, also excelling in this quagmire of consent.
I Want Your Sex
If you were young, dumb and full of cult cinema in the nineties/noughties, you surely mainlined the marvellously horny mayhem of New Queer Cinema enfant terrible, Greg Araki. From the Teenage Apocalypse trilogy to inaugural Cannes Queer Palm-winner Kaboom, he’s gleefully messed with aliens, the occult, bodily functions and rigid heteronormative values for decades. His first feature in seven years casts Olivia Wilde as an unruly artist who turns her new assistant (Cooper Hoffman) into a sex toy. Paging HR.
The Arab
With François Ozon’s spin on The Stranger, Albert Camus’ existentialist nightmare, still fresh, Algerian documentarian Malek Bensmaïl’s debut dramatic feature offers an ideal companion piece. A post-colonial reworking of the already slippery text, it stars the late Ahmed Benaïssa as an old man who claims, to a drunken reporter (Nabil Asli), that he is the real-life brother of the unnamed ‘Arab’ murdered in the Camus. As reality and fiction blur, friction ensues in this mystery that also features Palestinian star Hiam Abbass, who also appears in Palestine 36 in this year’s SFF program.
Single festival tickets start at $27.50 for adults, but you can save when you buy a flexipass to view 10 films, which works out to be $19.90 each screening. The 73rd Sydney Film Festival will run from June 3–14, 2026. Get in on the action by booking your tickets here.