Gemma Chan, Harry Styles, Sydney Chandler, and Olivia Wilde at the Venice premiere of Don’t Worry, Darling.
The only thing film festival audiences seem to love more than the movies they watch is standing up to applaud them—for puzzling lengths of time. Film Twitter has become obsessed with the prolonged standing ovation, which has recently become a hallmark of the film festival experience and a source of mockery on social media.
From Cannes to Venice to Toronto, the toll audiences seem to pay for early viewings of potential awards contenders is standing for minutes at a time in their finest formal attire while clapping their hands raw. Apparently, the longer a movie is lauded by grown adults impersonating trained seals, the better the movie is? Honestly, this practice is as cringe as it is fascinating. Deep down, we all know that timing a film’s ovation is not a meaningful metric, but, to paraphrase Owen Wilson’s character in The Royal Tenenbaums, “Maybe it is?”
The A.V. Club decided to put this applause-meter approach under scrutiny, so we revisited 2022’s high-profile film festivals and compiled a list of movies that, if ovations are any indication, deserve a spot on your must-see list as we rocket into awards season.
11. White Noise
Adam Driver, director Noah Baumbach, Don Cheadle, Greta Gerwig and Jodie Turner-Smith attend the photocall for Photo Getty Images Getty Images
Festival: VeniceLength of ovation: 2.5 minutesDirector: Noah BaumbachCast: Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig“Tepid” seems to be the best adjective to describe the Venice Film Festival audience’s reaction to Baumbach’s , the filmmaker’s highly anticipated follow-up to his Oscar-winning Marriage Story. Adapted from Don DeLillo’s dystopian novel of the same name, the 1980s-set talky family drama is Baumbach’s second consecutive film to debut at Venice, following Marriage Story. While his previous film became an instant Oscar contender, for White Noise indicate its chances may not last much longer than the applause.
10. Bardo (False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths)
Maria Eladia Hagerman and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu at the Venice premiere of Photo Getty Images
Festival: VeniceLength of ovation: 4 minutesDirector: Alejandro G. IñárrituCast: Daniel Gimenez CachoClocking in at three hours, Iñárritu’s very personal (and some would say very self-indulgent) Bardo received very mixed reactions upon its premiere at Venice, where the filmmaker is often greeted by more receptive audiences. According to , “based on street conversations, the film has its fans—and [its] detractors. Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores are unusually low for [this] Best Picture hopeful. It definitely should be Mexico’s front runner for submission to the International Film race at the very least. Oscar season is a marathon, not a sprint so let’s see where it goes.”
Festival: VeniceLength of ovation: 4 minutesDirector: Olivia WildeCast: Florence Pugh, Chris Pine, Harry Styles’s infamous behind-the-scenes drama concerning casting choices that allegedly sparked friction between director Wilde and lead actor Pugh bubbled over into the movie’s post-premiere press events. There, social media pounced on Pugh’s absence from the press conference with gossip-y speculation and turned certain responses from the event into memes. The news cycle hinged more on filmmakers’ soundbites than on the film they made, which earned a modest four-minute ovation from Venice. The Twilight Zone-esque , centered on a housewife (Pugh) struggling to find the truth behind her idyllic, Suzie Homemaker existence, seems poised to enter the awards conversation less as a serious contender and more as fodder for the Hollywood rumor mill.
8. The Whale
Brendan Fraser, Darren Aronofsky, Hong Chau, Sadie Sink, Samuel D. Hunter, Matthew Libatique, Rob Simonsen and guest attend Photo Getty Images Getty Images
Festival: VeniceLength of ovation: 5 minutesDirector: Darren Aronofsky Cast: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Samantha Morton, Ty Simpkins has given us the Fraser-aissance. It was hard not to cry along with the actor when we in response to five minutes of applause largely aimed at his revelatory performance as an obese shut-in trying to piece together his life as he faces its potential end. “Fraser hugged Aronofsky several times during the ovation,” reported. “[The actor] tried to leave the theater at one point, but the outpouring of clapping was so loud, he stayed longer and took a bow.” Given that Fraser currently dominates the Best Actor conversation, don’t be surprised if he takes another bow on stage at the Dolby Theater come Oscar night.
Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba attend a photocall for the film Photo Getty Images Getty Images
Festival: CannesLength of ovation: 6 minutesDirector: George MillerCast:Tilda Swinton, Idris ElbaMore than two decades in the making, director George Miller’s , his visually trippy but emotionally compelling follow-up to the Oscar-winning Mad Max: Fury Road, was lavished with six minutes of praise at Cannes in May. The movie arrived in theaters with little fanfare and tepid box office, but Miller loyalists and awards pundits remain hopeful that the film could find some love in technical categories.
6. Tár
Cate Blanchett receives the Coppa Volpi for Best Actress for Photo Getty Images Getty Images
Festival: VeniceLength of ovation: 6-plus minutesDirector: Todd FieldCast: Cate BlanchettSixteen years after Todd Field’s last film, the awards contender Little Children, the indie director’s was greeted with a little over six minutes of enthusiastic applause and rapturous reviews. The Focus Features release stars Blanchett as the fictional Lydia Tár, a world-renowned and often tyrannical conductor of a famous German orchestra who gets caught in a #MeToo scandal. Field wrote the screenplay as well, which believes will net him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination, alongside a Best Actress one for his star.
5. Triangle Of Sadness
Harris Dickinson, director Ruben Ostlund and Charlbi Dean Kriek attend the photocall for Photo Getty Images Getty Images
Festival: CannesLength of ovation: 7-plus minutesDirector: Ruben ÖstlundCast: Harris Dickinson, Woody Harrelson, Charlbi Dean, Dolly De LeonTriangle Of Sadness, the newest social satire fromRuben Östlund (The Square), premiered at Cannes to a seven-minute clap fest. Most of the cheers went to actress Dolly De Leon, who steals the show aboard a luxury cruise that suffers a disaster which strands its billionaire passengers and a cleaning lady on a desert island. Variety‘s Peter Debruge gave Sadness , writing, “There’s a meticulous precision to the way he constructs, blocks and executes scenes—a kind of agonizing unease, amplified by awkward silences or an unwelcome fly buzzing between characters struggling to communicate.”
4. Bones And All
Mark Rylance, Taylor Russell, director Luca Guadagnino, Timothee Chalamet and Chloë Sevigny attend the Photo Getty Images Getty Images
Festival: VeniceLength of ovation: 10 minutesDirector: Luca GuadagninoCast: Timothée Chalamet, Taylor Russell, Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg, André Holland, Chloë Sevigny, Jessica Harper, David Gordon GreenVenice seemed to eat up the coming-of-age cannibalism movie Bones And All, which reunites 2017’s Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino with Timothée Chalamet.The 10-minute standing ovation was one of the longest of the festival, which further cements this romantic horror film as one of the year’s most anticipated releases. “The audience cheered with shouts of ‘Luca! Luca! Luca!’,” reports—a reaction that delayed the beginning of the evening’s next competition film.”
3. Elvis
Tom Hanks, Director Baz Luhrmann and Austin Butler attend the photocall for Photo Getty Images Getty Images
Festival: CannesLength of ovation: 12 minutesDirector: Baz LuhrmannCast: Tom Hanks, Austin ButlerA surprise summer box office hit, did its namesake proud by charming Cannes to the tune of 12 minutes worth of applause. Much of the praise went to Luhrmann’s dizzying but arresting visual style and to Butler, for his star-making turn as the late, great rock ‘n’ roll legend.
2. Blonde
Brad Pitt, Ana DeArmas, director Andrew Dominik, Adrien Brody,
Festival: VeniceLength of ovation: 14 minutesDirector: Andrew DominikCast: Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel, Julianne NicholsonThe premiere of Dominik and Netflix’s long-in-the-works Marilyn Monroe biopic, , resulted in a 14-minute ovation that brought star Ana de Armas to tears. The biographical drama, rated NC-17 and based on the novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, is one of the year’s most anticipated titles. Audiences can see if those 14 minutes were worth it when the movie arrives on the streamer September 28.
