American Film Institute (AFI) announced I PLAY ROCKY and RAY GUNN will complete the Red Carpet Premieres section at this year’s AFI FEST presented by Canva. All Red Carpet Premieres will take place at the historic TCL Chinese Theatre. AFI also announced that 14th, ASHES, BEHEMOTH!, BITTER CHRISTMAS, BUNKER, CLARISSA, ELSINORE, JOSEPHINE, THE MAN I LOVE, MOUSE, TANGLES and WILD HORSE NINE will be featured in the Special Screenings section. Festival passes, which include the opportunity to access tickets to the Red Carpet Premieres, are available now at FEST.AFI.com.
“AFI FEST is where the world tells stories in the beating heart of Hollywood,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI President and CEO. “This year, we are proud to celebrate 40 years of bringing artists and audiences together to be inspired in a powerful sense of community.”
Red Carpet Premieres
I PLAY ROCKY
Academy Award®-winning director Peter Farrelly (GREEN BOOK, AFI FEST 2018) tells the electrifying true story of an unknown actor with an unshakable belief that he wasn’t just meant to write 1976’s ROCKY — he was meant to be Rocky Balboa. The film is produced by Toby Emmerich, Michele Weiss, Christian Baha and Paul Currie.
RAY GUNN
A decades-in-the-making passion project from Oscar® winner and visionary Brad Bird, RAY GUNN is a retro-futuristic neo-noir mystery, featuring the voice talents of Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson and Tom Waits.
Special Screenings
14th
From one of the most influential filmmakers of our time, Ava DuVernay, comes an urgent confrontation with a shattered America and its unfinished promise.
ASHES (CENIZA EN LA BOCA)
Multi-hyphenate director/producer/actor Diego Luna adapts Mexican writer Brenda Navarro’s acclaimed novel for his fourth feature, a powerful and unconventional immigration drama about a young Mexican woman who journeys to Spain with her brother to join the mother who left them behind as children.
BEHEMOTH!
A gifted cellist, Alex Serian (Pedro Pascal), returns home to Los Angeles after 20 years on the road. Music, which has been the constant, all-consuming river of his life, begins to carry Alex on an adventure that will change him forever. As he works a series of film projects, the cues trigger flashbacks that tell us why he’s stayed away so long and why he’s really come back. Utilizing an unprecedented nine composers, BEHEMOTH! is a love letter to movie scoring and the dizzying power music holds on our memories and imaginations.
BITTER CHRISTMAS (AMARGA NAVIDAD)
Eye-popping sweaters and interiors, the dramatic effect of a Chavela Vargas song, the sizzling screen presence of Rossy de Palma. Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar plays the hits before smashing his own playbook in this brilliant piece of autofiction, following the parallel stories of two self-obsessed filmmakers who contemplate the limits of inspiration.
BUNKER
Oscar® winners Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz square off in this marital thriller from Oscar®-winning filmmaker Florian Zeller. Renowned architect Miguel (Bardem) and editor Sofia (Cruz) find their 17-year marriage in jeopardy when a tech billionaire offers Miguel a Faustian bargain: design a bunker for the mogul and his oligarch friends to survive the inevitable social upheaval that will target them first.
CLARISSA
With a star-studded ensemble cast, Arie and Chuko Esiri (EYIMOFE, AFI FEST 2020) relocate Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway” to contemporary Lagos, turning its meditation on memory, desire, class and privilege into a distinctly Nigerian story.
ELSINORE
Andrew Scott gives a bravura performance as Ian Charleson, a gifted actor best known for his roles in CHARIOTS OF FIRE and GANDHI, who played Hamlet in a legendary 1989 National Theatre production before dying of AIDS in 1990. ELSINORE’s outstanding cast includes Olivia Colman, Billie Piper, Johnny Flynn, Monica Dolan and Peter Mullan.
JOSEPHINE
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the 2026 Sundance U.S. Dramatic Competition, Beth de Araújo’s remarkable sophomore feature is a profound examination of childhood innocence lost, the cascading effects of violence and the limits of parental protection.
THE MAN I LOVE
In Ira Sachs’ 1980s NYC musical drama, self-proclaimed “theater artist” Jimmy George (Rami Malek) draws lovers, friends and family into his orbit but leaves them spinning as his larger-than-life personality diminishes before their eyes.
MOUSE
When her world is turned upside down, high school senior Minnie (Katherine Mallen Kupferer) forms a complicated relationship with her best friend’s mother (Sophie Okonedo), who presents a stark and dreamy contrast to Minnie’s own working-class, single-parent household.
TANGLES
Leah Nelson, in her feature directorial debut, adapts Sarah Leavitt’s acclaimed graphic memoir “Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me” into one of this year’s most heartfelt animated films, by turns moving and surprisingly mirthful.
WILD HORSE NINE
Director Martin McDonagh continues his exploration of the complexities of male friendship, this time between two CIA agents who are stationed in Chile shortly before Pinochet’s coup. The stellar cast includes Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits and an excellent John Malkovich, who delivers a nuanced, humorous turn of existential dread.
As previously announced, the 40th edition of the Institute’s annual film festival will take place October 21–25 at the TCL Chinese Theatres in the heart of Hollywood. The festival will open with the U.S. premiere of WILDWOOD, feature the World Premiere of THE MOSQUITO BOWL as a Red Carpet Premiere and close with BEING HEUMANN from Oscar® winner Siân Heder. Academy Award®-winning filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller will serve as this year’s Guest Artistic Directors and participate in “An Evening with Phil Lord and Chris Miller,” followed by a screening of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.
Passes to AFI FEST 2026 are now available for purchase online at FEST.AFI.com.
