From Filmleaf
Mill Valley Film Festival 49 (Oct. 1-11, 2026)
GENERAL FILM FORUM THREAD
As we suggested last year, Mill Valley is one of the more prestigious of the small film festivals. It's list is representative of the year's best new cinema, and it has an atmosphere both cozy and distinguished, and its ground zero is less than an hour's drive from San Francisco. Again we'll talk about some of the highlights, restricting comments to brief thumbnail reports. Telluride is done. Venice is on. TIFF is coming. After that there will be NIFF. We'll have some reports on these, but I won't be there in New York this time.
Screenings and events for Mill Valley will be held across the Bay Area, with 11 days of programming at the Sequoia Cinema in Mill Valley and the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. The festival also returns to the Lark Theater in Larkspur and the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) for a selection of exclusive screenings. This year’s diverse lineup includes 94 features and 80 short films from 45 countries, with 61% of projects being made by women and nonbinary filmmakers.
OPENING NIGHT – WILD HORSE NINE
CENTERPIECE – I PLAY ROCKY
CLOSING NIGHT – THE DEBUT
JOHN MALKOVICH, SAM ROCKWELL IN WILD HORSE NINE
Festival Highlights
Opening Night (October 1): MVFF kicks off with the dark comedy-meets-action-thriller WILD HORSE NINE —the latest collaboration between Academy Award winners Martin McDonagh and Sam Rockwell, which sees CIA officers Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Rockwell) dispatched to Easter Island just before the 1973 Chilean coup.
Centerpiece (October 7): This year’s Centerpiece film is Peter Farrelly’s biographical drama, I PLAY ROCKY, which sees Anthony Ippolito in a star-making turn as he portrays Sylvester Stallone’s struggle to make the now-iconic Rocky on his own terms.
Closing Night (October 11): The festival concludes with the highly anticipated THE DEBUT, the latest directorial effort from Academy Award nominee Jesse Eisenberg, which sees award-winning actors Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti going toe-to-toe as a shy woman who’s unexpectedly cast in a local production and the strong-willed director who casts a spell over her.