LEFFEST 2026: 15 Films Worth Seeing

Lisbon | 6–15 November 2026

The problem with a really good film festival is that choosing what to see starts to feel like a minor betrayal.

LEFFEST 2026 is particularly unforgiving. Its 20th edition brings together winners from Cannes, Venice, Berlin, San Sebastián and Toronto, new films from some of contemporary cinema's most distinctive directors, and a programme of retrospectives substantial enough to constitute a festival of its own.

And it all happens in just ten days, across five Lisbon venues.

So where do you begin?

We've picked 15 films. Some arrive with major festival prizes. Others matter because of the filmmakers behind them, the stories they're telling, or the rare chance to see them on a cinema screen.

The festival winners

1. Fjord by Cristian Mungiu

Cannes 2026 | Palme d'Or, FIPRESCI Prize

There are plenty of reasons to see Fjord, but let's start with the obvious: it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year.

Cristian Mungiu, whose 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days also won Cannes' top prize in 2007, returns with another morally intricate drama. Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve play a devout Romanian-Norwegian couple in a remote Norwegian fjord community, where suspicions about their children's upbringing lead to increasingly uncomfortable questions about faith, family and cultural values.

Mungiu has always been exceptionally good at situations in which everyone is convinced they're doing the right thing. Expect no easy answers.

Why it matters: Mungiu's second Palme d'Or comes nineteen years after 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and Fjord is one of LEFFEST's opening-night films.

2. Possible Love by Lee Chang-dong

Venice 2026 | Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, FIPRESCI Prize

Eight years after Burning, Lee Chang-dong is finally back.

His new film follows two couples whose lives become entangled during the making of a documentary, gradually exposing class divisions, hidden desires and the limits of empathy.

Lee's cinema has an extraordinary ability to make ordinary encounters feel like the beginning of something quietly devastating. From Secret Sunshine to Poetry and Burning, intimate stories have repeatedly opened onto much larger questions about how people treat one another.

Possible Love arrives from Venice with the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize and the critics' FIPRESCI Prize.

There's another reason to prioritise it: LEFFEST describes its 6 November screening as the film's only theatrical showing in Portugal. The Netflix co-production reaches the platform worldwide the same day.

Why it matters: Lee Chang-dong's first film in eight years won Venice's Silver Lion, and LEFFEST says this is its only theatrical screening in Portugal.

3. Tender Loving Care by Mike Leigh

San Sebastián 2026 | Golden Shell for Best Film, Silver Shell for Best Leading Performance, Jury Prize for Best Screenplay

Mike Leigh doesn't need a spectacular premise to make a remarkable film.

In Tender Loving Care, Amy, who works in child protection, and her best friend Rosie, a social worker, move back in together, while Amy's elderly parents face a crisis of their own.

That may sound modest, but Leigh has built a career revealing the emotional complexity hidden inside apparently ordinary British lives.

His latest film won three prizes at San Sebastián, including the Golden Shell for Best Film.

Why it matters: Mike Leigh won San Sebastián's Golden Shell for it, and the 15 November screening is followed by a Zoom conversation with the director.

4. The Dreamed Adventure by Valeska Grisebach

Cannes 2026 | Jury Prize | LEFFEST Official Competition

If you've seen Western, you know that Valeska Grisebach has a particular gift for finding the mythology of the American frontier in contemporary European landscapes.

Her latest film takes us to a small town on the Bulgarian border, where an archaeologist's attempt to help an old acquaintance leads her into a world of criminal connections and uncertain loyalties.

Part investigation, part modern Western, The Dreamed Adventure won the Jury Prize at Cannes and now competes for LEFFEST's own awards.

Why it matters: It won the Cannes Jury Prize, and Valeska Grisebach is scheduled to attend both LEFFEST screenings, on 11 and 13 November.

5. All of a Sudden (Soudain) by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi

Cannes 2026 | Best Actress, shared by Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto

After Drive My Car and Evil Does Not Exist, Ryūsuke Hamaguchi returns with another film about the complicated business of truly listening to another person.

Set partly in a Parisian care facility, All of a Sudden follows the new director of a care home for the elderly, who tries to introduce a philosophy of care built on listening, and her deepening friendship with a Japanese theatre director facing terminal illness.

At 196 minutes, this is hardly a casual evening at the cinema. But Hamaguchi's films have a way of making conversation itself feel cinematic.

Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto shared the Best Actress award at Cannes.

Why it matters: Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto shared Cannes' Best Actress prize, and the film is Japan's entry for the 2027 Best International Feature Oscar.

6. Fatherland by Paweł Pawlikowski

Cannes 2026 | Best Director, shared with Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi

Paweł Pawlikowski, the filmmaker behind Ida and Cold War, returns to a Europe divided by history.

Set in 1949, Fatherland follows writer Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika as they travel through a devastated Germany, confronting the political and emotional consequences of exile and return.

Sandra Hüller and August Diehl lead the cast, with cinematography by Łukasz Żal, Pawlikowski's longtime collaborator.

The film earned Pawlikowski the Best Director prize at Cannes, an award he shared with Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi for The Black Ball (La Bola Negra).

Why it matters: Pawlikowski shared Cannes' Best Director prize for this road trip through postwar Germany, photographed by Łukasz Żal, his cinematographer on Ida and Cold War.

7. Coward by Lukas Dhont

Cannes 2026 | Best Actor, shared by Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne

Lukas Dhont's Close was one of the most emotionally affecting films of 2022. His new work moves from adolescence to the battlefields of the First World War.

Pierre, a newly arrived soldier eager to prove his worth, meets Francis, who tries to lift the troops' spirits by staging a play. Their connection amid the violence challenges conventional ideas of courage and masculinity.

Dhont has always been interested in the emotional damage caused by expectations of how men should behave. Here, those questions unfold in a setting where the consequences are particularly brutal.

Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne shared Cannes' Best Actor award.

Why it matters: Both leads, Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne, shared Cannes' Best Actor prize, and the film is Belgium's entry for the 2027 Best International Feature Oscar.

8. Salvation by Emin Alper

Berlinale 2026 | Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize

A land dispute in a remote Turkish mountain village becomes the starting point for a story about religion, power and collective fear.

When an exiled clan returns, old tensions resurface. Meanwhile, Mesut, the local leader's brother, begins to have disturbing visions that he takes as divine signs.

Turkish director Emin Alper has repeatedly explored how political pressures transform communities from within. Salvation continues that interest, combining social conflict with an increasingly ominous atmosphere.

It won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at this year's Berlinale.

Why it matters: Emin Alper won the Berlinale's Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, the festival's second-highest honour, for a story about faith, land and power.

The major premieres

Not every important film needs to arrive with a Palme d'Or.

Some are events simply because of who's behind the camera, or because they take a familiar filmmaker somewhere unexpected.

9. Wild Horse Nine by Martin McDonagh

Venice 2026 | Volpi Cup for Best Actor, John Malkovich

Martin McDonagh takes us to Easter Island shortly before Chile's 1973 military coup.

John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell play CIA agents sent on a mysterious assignment, in a film that also features Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits and Parker Posey.

Anyone familiar with In Bruges or The Banshees of Inisherin will know McDonagh's attraction to dark humour, damaged relationships and situations that spiral spectacularly out of control.

Malkovich won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at Venice.

Why it matters: John Malkovich won Venice's Volpi Cup for Best Actor, and Martin McDonagh reunites with Sam Rockwell after Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards.

10. Paper Tiger by James Gray

Cannes 2026 | Official Competition

Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson lead James Gray's latest crime drama.

Two brothers pursuing the American Dream become entangled in a dangerous scheme involving the Russian mafia, putting their loyalty to one another under pressure.

Gray has spent much of his career exploring family, ambition and the complicated pull of belonging. Paper Tiger returns to the criminal underworld of some of his earlier work, with a particularly high-profile cast.

Paper Tiger was in the main competition at Cannes and has been chosen to open LEFFEST.

Why it matters: It opens LEFFEST at the 6 November opening ceremony in Cinema São Jorge, after competing for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

11. Sheep in the Box by Hirokazu Kore-eda

Cannes 2026 | Official Competition

What happens when technology offers a way to recreate someone we've lost?

In Hirokazu Kore-eda's new film, grieving parents bring home a humanoid robot designed to resemble their deceased seven-year-old son.

It's a premise that could easily become conventional science fiction. But Kore-eda, the filmmaker behind Shoplifters, Nobody Knows and After Life, has spent decades exploring family, memory and the many ways people construct emotional bonds.

Here, artificial intelligence becomes the means of asking an old, painful question: what does it really mean to keep someone with us?

Why it matters: Kore-eda, who won the Palme d'Or for Shoplifters, was back in Cannes competition with this drama about grief and a humanoid robot.

12. Elsinore by Simon Stone

Toronto 2026 | International People's Choice Award

Andrew Scott stars in this drama about actor Ian Charleson, whose acclaimed performance as Hamlet at London's National Theatre coincided with his diagnosis of AIDS.

Olivia Colman, Billie Piper and Johnny Flynn also appear.

Simon Stone approaches a story in which theatre, mortality and artistic ambition become inseparable. The film arrives in Lisbon having won Toronto's International People's Choice Award.

Why it matters: Simon Stone's film won Toronto's International People's Choice Award and dramatises Ian Charleson's celebrated Hamlet at the National Theatre.

13. Ink by Danny Boyle

Venice 2026 | Soundtrack Stars Special Prize

In 1969, Rupert Murdoch bought The Sun. What followed helped transform the British media landscape.

Danny Boyle's Ink, starring Guy Pearce, Jack O'Connell and Claire Foy, dramatises the newspaper's transformation into a tabloid powerhouse, with all the ambition, provocation and ruthless competition that involved.

Boyle's energetic filmmaking style seems particularly well suited to a story about spectacle and the machinery of mass attention.

Ink opened the Venice Film Festival, where composer Daniel Pemberton received the Soundtrack Stars special prize, one of the festival's independent collateral awards.

Why it matters: Ink opened the Venice Film Festival, and Daniel Pemberton's score earned the Soundtrack Stars special prize, one of Venice's collateral awards.

Beyond the obvious: two discoveries worth making

The biggest names will naturally attract attention. But a festival is also an opportunity to encounter filmmakers whose work might otherwise never reach Lisbon's cinema screens.

Two films from LEFFEST's Discoveries section stand out.

14. Elephants in the Fog by Abinash Bikram Shah

Cannes 2026 | Un Certain Regard Jury Prize

In a Nepalese village surrounded by forest and wild elephants, Pirati leads a Kinnar community while dreaming of a different life.

When one of her daughters disappears, she is forced to confront the tension between personal freedom and responsibility towards others.

The film won the Jury Prize in Cannes' Un Certain Regard section, dedicated to distinctive voices and approaches to filmmaking.

Why it matters: The first Nepalese feature selected at Cannes, and a Jury Prize winner in Un Certain Regard.

15. House of the Wind (La Maison du vent) by Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu

Venice 2026 | Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film, Orizzonti Special Jury Prize

In Yaoundé, Cameroon, Josette, an elderly woman, lives alone after her children have moved abroad. An unexpected friendship with Sarah, a younger woman from the neighbourhood, offers a new form of connection.

House of the Wind explores separation, migration and the emotional geography of families living across continents.

It left Venice with two awards: the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a debut film and the Orizzonti Special Jury Prize.

Why it matters: Kouemo Yanghu's debut feature won two Venice prizes, the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a debut film and the Orizzonti Special Jury Prize.

And then there are the retrospectives…

As if the premieres weren't enough, LEFFEST 2026 also presents major programmes dedicated to Lars von Trier, Kelly Reichardt and Lee Chang-dong, alongside retrospectives of Sophie Letourneur and Tiago Guedes, and a tribute to Barbara Sukowa.

That means opportunities to revisit films such as Dogville, Breaking the Waves, First Cow, Certain Women, Poetry and Burning on the big screen.

For some viewers, these screenings will be just as exciting as the new releases.

And there's more: restorations, filmmaker conversations and special events throughout the festival.

We'll explore the repertory programme separately, because it deserves more than a footnote.

Too many films, not enough evenings?

LEFFEST runs from 6 to 15 November 2026, with screenings at Cinema São Jorge, Cinema Medeia Nimas, Culturgest, Teatro do Bairro and Cinemas NOS Vasco da Gama.

The challenge isn't necessarily finding something worth watching. It's deciding between several excellent films showing at the same time.

One practical note: some non-English-language films have Portuguese subtitles only, so check each screening's subtitle details before booking.

Explore LEFFEST films and screening times on Séance, compare your options and make your own shortlist.

Explore LEFFEST 2026 films and screenings →

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Programme details and prizes checked on 5 November 2026 against the official LEFFEST programme and festival award announcements. Stills: TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.