Here is a compilation of all of Deadline’s reviews from the 53rd Telluride Film Festival, which ran September 4-7 in the Colorado Rockies.
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The 2026 fest kicked off with first-day films including seven-time Oscar nominee Mike Leigh’s Tender Loving Care and the Andrew Scott-led Elsinore. It featured a number of world premieres — including Tender Loving Care — and other U.S. premieres of pics that bowed on the Lido at this month’s Venice Film Festival. It didn’t boast any major studios releases, but Universal and Disney’s respective specialty units — Telluride regulars Focus Features and Searchlight Pictures — were in town with one movie apiece. Focus had the world premiere of Simon Stone’s Elsinore, and Searchlight represented with its big Oscar hope, writer-director Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, which first screened in Venice.
Also introduced to the world in the mountain town were such films as Jesse Eisenberg’s A24 pic The Debut, starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti; 2026 Telluride honoree Andrew Haigh’s A Long Winter; Oscar winner Guy Nattiv’s The Liberation, with Carrie Coon; Tenzing, starring Genden Phuntsok as the climber who, along with Edmund Hillary (Tom Hiddleston), became the first to summit Mount Everest; and Alpha Gang, led by Chris Pine, Cate Blanchett, and Lea Seydoux.
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Other pics that made their North American debuts at Telluride after bowing at Venice included Danny Boyle’s Ink, starring Guy Pearce, Jack O’Connell and Claire Foy; Werner Herzog’s Bucking Fastard with Kate and Rooney Mara; and documentaries including Burgundy; Everest: The Other Side; My Undesirable Friends Part II; and Sumo.
Here is Deadline’s take on the films at Telluride 2026. Click on each headline to read our full review.
The Debut
Director: Jesse Eisenberg
Distributor: A24
Cast: Julianne Moore, Paul Giamatti, Haile Berry, Bernadette Peters, Havana Rose Liu, Lili Cooper, K. Todd Freeman, Colton Ryan, Bonnie Milligan, Craig Bierko, Patrick Fabian, Cara Buono, Danny Burstein, Eldar Isgandarov, Susan Blommaert, Jesse Eisenberg
Deadline’s takeaway: Jesse Eisenberg wrote all the Broadway-ish and created the less-than-stellar, but still likeable show this is all wrapped around. he is showing more facets of his prodigious abilities behind the lens here, not surprising for a multi-talent who is an actor, playwright, fiction writer, filmmaker and now songwriter too. Can I already proclaim this as the funniest comedy of the year? There. I just said it. — PH
Elsinore
Director: Simon Stone
Distributor: Focus Features
Cast: Andrew Scott, Olivia Colman, Billie Piper, Johnny Flynn, Peter Mullen, Juliet Stevenson, Matthew Beard, David Dawson, Joe Locke, Luke Thomson
Deadline’s takeaway: This heartbreaking film is anchored by a performance for the ages by Andrew Scott as ill-fated Chariots of Fire star Ian Charleson. It sees an actor fully embodying the heart and soul of another actor and finding the emotional center and determination to take this last chance no matter what the cost. The portrayal is thrilling. There is no other word for it. — PH
The Liberation
Director: Guy Nattiv
Distributor: Bleecker Street
Cast: Carrie Coon, Lily James, Bella Ramsey, Tracy Letts, Odessa Young
Deadline’s takeaway: The Liberation is inspired by the strange journey of director Guy Nattiv’s grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who later in life drifted slowly away from her husband and children to join a cult. Led by Carrie Coon, is a riveting entertainment but also an important work. — PH
Making Marie Antoinette
Director: Eleanor Coppola
Sales agent: Mubi
Deadline’s takeaway: Though Making Marie Antoinette might appear, at first glance, to be a very expensive DVD extra from 20 years ago, when Sofia Coppola’s period extravaganza was first released, this gentle but insightful film by her mother percolates with a very modern relevance. — DW
Tender Loving Care
Director: Mike Leigh
Distributor: Bleecker Street
Cast: Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, Kate O’Flynn, Alice Bailey Johnson
Deadline’s takeaway: After some of the harsher sides of family life displayed in 2024’s Hard Knocks, Leigh has gone for a smaller slice of life — a more leisurely, less plot-driven look at family. There are no twists and turns, no real melodrama, simply a time well spent with recognizable characters we grow to care about and root for. You might know these people. You might be these people. — PH
Tenzing
Director: Jennifer Peedom
Distributor: Apple Original Films
Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Gendon Phuntsok, Thinley Khamo, Willem Dafoe, Caittriona Balfe, Johnny Flynn
Deadline’s takeaway: Jennifer Peedom’s handsome film (Stefan Duscio provides the lush cinematography) doesn’t rewrite the rules of mountain-climbing movies, but where it gets its strength is in the decision to tell the story of the famed Sherpa, employing flashbacks throughout different parts of his life with three actors playing him at separate ages. We root for Hillary too, but this is Tenzing’s show. — PH
You Can See Everything
Directors: Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim
Distributor: A24
Cast: Nathan Fielder, Elizabeth Holmes, Billy Evans, Christopher Abbott
Deadline’s takeaway: The unusual (to say the least) documentary, which was shot in secret and sees Nathan Fielder take a starring role as a dogged, if deadpan, interviewer who uncovers one zinger after another from Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes before (and after) she went to prison, is unlike any I have ever seen in terms of pure access — these people appear to hide nothing. I kept thinking Sacha Baron Cohen would love this film. — PH