Mike Leigh, Pablo Larrain New Films in San Sebastian

The San Sebastian International Film Festival has officially announced its main competition lineup for the 74th edition, and this year’s slate includes highly anticipated new works from two of cinema’s most celebrated auteurs: Britain’s Mike Leigh and Chile’s Pablo Larraín. Both filmmakers will be vying for the Golden Shell when the festival takes place in the Basque Country this September.

Leigh, the 83-year-old master of intimate social realism, brings a project that marks his return to the competition circuit after a period of relative quiet. The film is his first since 2022’s Hard Truths, which premiered in Venice and earned strong reviews for its unflinching portrait of familial dysfunction. Leigh is known for his distinctive collaborative method, building scripts through months of improvisation with his actors before a single frame is shot. His inclusion in San Sebastian feels like a natural fit for a festival that prizes character-driven storytelling over flashy spectacle. While details of the plot remain under wraps, industry insiders expect the film to continue Leigh’s long fascination with the quiet tragedies and small triumphs of everyday British life.

Larraín, meanwhile, arrives with a project that extends his reputation for politically charged, formally audacious biopics. The Chilean director has made a specialty of psychological portraits of iconic women - Natalie Portman’s Jackie Kennedy, Kristen Stewart’s Princess Diana - and his most recent feature, El Conde, transformed Augusto Pinochet into a vampire. San Sebastian has been a fruitful ground for Larraín in the past; his 2021 film Spencer premiered at Venice but made its Spanish debut in the same autumn window. His new film is expected to be no less provocative. Given Larraín’s track record, the announcement alone has already stirred considerable buzz among critics and programmers who track the fall festival circuit.

San Sebastian’s Competitive Edge

The San Sebastian competition has increasingly served as a high-profile launchpad for prestige films that later figure in awards season conversations. While Cannes and Venice typically dominate September headlines, the Basque festival has carved a distinctive niche by balancing European art-house veterans with emerging voices from Latin America and Asia. This year’s inclusion of both Leigh and Larraín signals a deliberate effort to maintain that mix of established and adventurous.

The festival’s selection committee rarely makes early announcements without strong confidence in the finished films. Leigh and Larraín are known for demanding production schedules and post-production timelines that often push their work close to the wire. That both directors are locked in for September suggests their projects are in an advanced state - or at least complete enough for the festival to stake its reputation on them.

Two Directors, Two Approaches

Leigh and Larraín represent nearly opposite poles of contemporary filmmaking, which makes their pairing in the same competition all the more intriguing. Leigh’s approach is deeply humanist, observational, and often built around ensemble casts drawn from his long-standing repertory of actors. His camera tends toward the unadorned, letting performances carry the emotional weight. Larraín, in contrast, works with extreme stylization: black-and-white cinematography, operatic sound designs, and non-linear structures that fracture narrative into psychological fragments.

Both directors have faced criticism - Leigh for occasionally veering into miserabilism, Larraín for prioritizing visual metaphor over historical accuracy. Yet both have also racked up major awards and enduring critical respect. Their simultaneous presence in the competition lineup offers a rare chance to compare two distinct visions of what cinema can achieve, side by side.

The rest of the competition lineup has not been fully revealed, but early leaks suggest a mix of European co-productions and breakout titles from Asia. San Sebastian has also been strengthening its relationship with streamers in recent years, though neither the Leigh nor the Larraín film has been confirmed as a platform release. Given their track records, theatrical distribution seems more likely.

For now, the confirmed pair of Leigh and Larraín gives the 2026 San Sebastian competition a weighty foundation. The festival runs from September 18 through September 26, with the Golden Shell awarded on closing night. Both directors have won major festival prizes before - Leigh took the Palme d’Or for Secrets & Lies, and Larraín earned the Silver Lion for The Club - but neither has yet claimed the top prize in the Basque Country. That could change this year.

Journalists and industry delegates will begin making their travel plans now. For cinephiles, the prospect of new works from two living masters, competing on the same screen, makes this one of the most anticipated fall lineups in recent memory.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter