Venice Film Festival 2025 Highlights: Dwayne Johnson, Kim Novak, Amanda Seyfried & Jim Jarmusch Deliver Emotion-Driven Films

At the Venice Film Festival 2025, four highly anticipated films—The Smashing Machine, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, The Testament of Ann Lee, and Father Mother Sister Brother—captured attention not just for their star power but for their profound exploration of emotions. As filmmaker Sam Fuller once said, “Film is like a battleground… It’s love, hate, action, violence, death. In one word, emotions!” Each of these films embodies that ethos in radically different ways.

The Smashing Machine (Dir. Benny Safdie)

Starring Dwayne Johnson in a career-best performance as MMA fighter Mark Kerr, the film depicts the ecstasy of victory and the agony of self-destruction. Johnson disappears under Kazu Hiru’s prosthetics, portraying Kerr as both a dominant force in the octagon and a fragile man undone by ego and addiction. Supported by Emily Blunt as his fiery partner Dawn, and Ryan Bader as fellow fighter Mark Coleman, the film has critics buzzing about Johnson’s potential Oscar prospects.

Kim Novak’s Vertigo (Dir. Alexandre O. Philippe)

This documentary portrait explores the life and career of Kim Novak, one of Hollywood’s most enigmatic stars, now living in seclusion at age 92. While the title emphasizes her iconic role in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, the film covers her broader career, blending film clips with candid reflections. Novak, often labeled one of “Hitchcock’s blondes,” offers rare praise for the director and insight into her vulnerabilities, relationships, and retreat from Hollywood. It’s less about film history than about Novak’s own voice and resilience.

The Testament of Ann Lee (Dir. Mona Fastvold)

Amanda Seyfried gives a fierce, haunting performance as Ann Lee, the 18th-century founder of the Shaker movement. Co-written with Brady Corbet, the film is a musical period drama that blends religious fervor with persecution and resilience. Shot on film and marked by its raw intensity, it mirrors the style of Corbet’s The Brutalist. Seyfried embodies Lee’s charismatic zeal, with scenes of Shaker-inspired song and dance heightening the film’s emotional power.

Father Mother Sister Brother (Dir. Jim Jarmusch)

Jarmusch returns with a three-part family drama marked by repressed emotions and fractured relationships. Featuring Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Tom Waits, Vicky Krieps, Cate Blanchett, Charlotte Rampling, Indya Moore, and Luka Sabbat, the film examines familial tension across generations. Only in the “Sister Brother” segment do characters find warmth, while the other stories linger in awkward silences and unresolved tensions. It’s one of Jarmusch’s most challenging works, closer in spirit to his early experimental films than his recent crowd-pleasers.

Together, these films underscore the emotional range cinema can capture—from raw physical triumph and collapse (The Smashing Machine), to personal reflection (Kim Novak’s Vertigo), to religious devotion (The Testament of Ann Lee), to family alienation (Father Mother Sister Brother).