Meet the Breakout Talents of the Fall 2026 Film Festivals
From Venice to Telluride, TIFF to NYFF, this fall has introduced us to raw talents (and in some cases reintroduced them) whom we can't wait to see more of, and soon.
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While the fall film festivals are often seen as the origin of a huge wave of Oscar contenders and possible award winners, the long weeks of Venice, Telluride, TIFF and NYFF also often offer things that are arguably more valuable: blockbusters and talent that portend more good work to come. The next wave, the next big thing, if you will. And you can ride right now.
In advance, allow us to introduce (and in a few cases, re-introduce) the most influential actors selected for this fall's film festival season. Oscar contenders, scene stealers, long-established talent doing something new, a few budding hyphens, and the kind of instant movie stars Hollywood desperately needs, these are seven actors we can't wait to see more of. Related stories "The Other Mom" brought in $27.5 million with better marketing than the film. what now Why might seeing 'Digger' on VistaVision change your opinion of Tom Cruise's box office?
right now Their big gaps should be good enough.
Mathilde Arcel's truly unknown woman, beyond the handful of Danish drama TV credits that got her noticed at home, entered the Venice Film Festival this year as an actual film. Discovery won the Venice Film Festival's Volpi Cup for her multi-layered performance as a nanny who hides a stigmatizing secret in post-war Copenhagen.
In a rare double win, "Unknown Woman" by May Al Tokhi also won the Venice Golden Lion from the jury of Maggie Gyllenhaal. Arcel's performance is always mesmerizingly shifting as he climbs the social ladder, soon to be married to his now-widowed employer. She is a garment factory and defender of the Danish resistance after the Nazi occupation, where vigilante citizens target anyone, especially women, who may have allegiance to Germany. Marie's (Arcel) secret is much more intimate and personal and ultimately more explosive than the subtle Nazi collusion. Arcel is a master of a character study whose main character is often illegible and elusive - and whose previously unrevealed cold streak is disastrous for his society. - RL
Writer/director Chris Rock has "Slow Horses" star as the lead character in his new Hollywood comedy about an Emmy-winning actor looking for his second act. Although he's playing opposite several Oscar nominees — like Adam Driver and Anna Kendrick, and even Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya — Elazar still manages to hold an audience's attention and create magic, especially when he opens his mouth to sing. The film can be seen as a tragicomedy, especially when it engages the viewer enough to think about yelling at the screen for Misty to make better choices. It even gets meta, with the British star joking about which nationalities are cast in the best roles Hollywood has to offer black talent. Even though it's unclear if Misty will be any good, Elazar portraying her in such profound ways ensures that we'll be seeing a lot more of her on screen. - MG
As weird and creepy as Robert Pattinson is in Lance Oppenheim's Primetime — based on Chris Hensen's controversial series Catching a Hunter , which tries to lure child predators to its television set — co-star Skyler Gisondo, "Air Bud franchise," "Libookz," "The Righteous Gemstones," "Superman") as the young hunter who tricks Dan Plumm, we keeps his humanity flowing and gives the veteran actor his freshest adult role yet. Her freckled friendly face draws us in and keeps us hooked on every episode of 'Dateline' movies by the aspiring actor. Sometimes he is scared to death. Sometimes? He enjoys the "action". Up next: Jimmy Olsen in The Man of Tomorrow and The People vs. Gorilla Grodd, plus the comedy sequel Faker in Law. -AT
Popular Internet comedy star Caleb Heron is disarmingly funny and watchable in his comedy, and he uses those same skills and charisma to deliver a painful show. In Chris Ray's "Trash Mountain," he honestly becomes the leading man. Heron also co-wrote the film (alongside Ruby Caster), based on his own life, which adds a layer of pathos and passion.
Heron's natural attachment is a perfect fit for the film, which follows Gavin as he moves to a rural Missouri home after his father dies. This helps with the balance of broad comedy (Jackie Weaver plays Gavin's 1-and-a-half-year-old grandmother), hilariously relatable sequences about the hellish homecoming (a mugging with an old classmate while shopping is hilarious in its own right and great within the film), and the emotional essentials of his relationship with his sister Abby (Zooey Deschanel, which becomes the heart of the film). For Heron, someone with the ability to direct and write a winning feature is a double whammy. -KE
Actor Anthony Ippolito plays Sylvester Stallone in his early days with an almost uncanny level of impersonation in Peter Farrelly's I Play Rocky — most people probably fall for his version of Stallone's signature voice, but I've never seen anyone make his cheekbones look like sly movies. It exists because he is fully committed to it.
And it's much to Broken Star's credit that it doesn't feel a little. While the film's script doesn't go much beyond "this guy really loved acting," Ippolito gets a lot more soulful. Here, his trickster (or "Mike," as we first met him during a series of humiliating auditions) is a striver who would probably never call himself "ambitious." Sly knows he's not the ideal Hollywood star, self-taught, self-taught and self-conscious to a fault, but he wants to show the world what he's got. Ippolito? We guess he can do it more easily. -KE
It's hard to imagine a tougher role than a scene-stealer in films like Jordan Furstman's Club Kid and Jesse Eisenberg's The First, not only two of the best films of the year, but two features absolutely packed with insane star power. And yet, in both features, Azerbaijan's rising star Eldar Isgandarov does just that, with some of the funniest bits, the most outrageous lines, and the most unforgettable line readings.
In Firstman , Isgandarov takes on the role of a gauntlet and gallows that the star and filmmaker can't seem to shake, until Peter from Firstman comes up with the ingenious idea to turn the "eccentric aspiring philosopher" on his neighbor. You'll never guess what's going to happen next, and that's mostly due to the charm of the powder keg and dead line reading. In "Debut," she's much sweeter, playing an overzealous community theater assistant who gamely accommodates even the craziest requests, like buying a "milk-free" mocha. In just two roles, he proves his tremendous comedic range. Role playing soon?-KE
Netflix is planning Oscars for Lee Chang-dong's Possible Love, a Korean Oscar nominee, as well as Jeon Do-yeon for best actress. She plays Mi Ok, a mask factory worker married to a recently rehired factory worker (Sol Kyung-goo), a heavy drinker still seething with rage after a factory strike that was broken by management, who beat and fired her. The pair agree to be the subjects of a documentary about that worker's strike by wealthy filmmaker Ye Ji ("Parasite" actor Cho Yeo-jeong), who invites them to visit his beach vacation home for the weekend, where Mi-wook falls for Ye Ji's lustful husband, Sang Woo (Zoo Ince).
Lee premiered his first film since Burning in 2018 at Cannes in Venice and immediately received rave reviews. Many critics singled out Jeon as the film's heart, whose delicate face conveys a range of emotions as she observes her struggling husband and the strange behavior of the upper classes. At one key moment, Mi-ok, completely naked, uses "her whole body" in protest, she told IndieWire. -AT
Anyone even remotely familiar with the life and work of disability activist Judy Human knows what an indelible presence she was. "Being Human" star Ruth Madley beautifully captures the true energy of Judy Human. She's funny and sassy and prickly and smarter than anyone around her, and she's completely driven by her sense of justice and equality, but that's not always enough, a lesson that Sian Hader's film isn't shy about. Fighting for what is right is just that, fighting. Sometimes, this even means fighting your instincts.
However, Madeleine never hits a wrong note. He's the protagonist – after all, this is a biopic about Judy's early years – but he's also the one who has to learn what it really means to be a hero. British Madeleine is amazing at every turn, portraying passion and pain with great humor, a performance you can't take your eyes off of. -KE