The second day of the 2026 Venice Film Festival was dominated by one film: Martin McDonagh’s new dark comedy, Wild Horse Nine. The acclaim for the film — which has a script that leading man John Malkovich called “one you only see every 25 years” — started during the morning preview screening, when the assemmbled press broke out in applause four times.
That dour bunch barely applaud at an average end credits crawl, so their reception was unprecedented in my 16-year Venice screening history. And the ecstatic reviews they later filed reflect that enthusiasm.
Look for the superb film to at least make Malkovich a contender for Best Actor; for the record, he’s already in the No. 2 position behind The Odyssey‘s Matt Damon on Gold Derby’s experts-only leaderboard.
Best Actor
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John Malkovich
Wild Horse Nine
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Ryan Gosling
Project Hail Mary
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John Turturro
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York
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Meanwhile, Sam Rockwell is a strong candidate for Best Supporting Actor, a statuette he previously won for his last collaboration with McDonagh, 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The writer-director himself could also receive his fourth nod for Best Original Screenplay, his second for Best director, and his third for Best Picture. (McDonagh already has a Best Live Action Short Film statuette for his 2005 short, Six Shooter.)
Wild Horse Nine features Malkovich and Rockwell as two CIA agents sent to Easter Island in 1973, right before the Chilean coup. The trailer is thankfully sparser on details than one would think. There are a lot of surprises in this straightforward script with a deeply satisfying payoff so, for maximum enjoyment, stay away from expansive plot summaries.
At first blush, it would seem that McDonagh is revisiting familiar ground. The two agents echo the hitmen played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in In Bruges, and their close relationship recalls the one shared by Farrell and Gleeson in The Banshees of Inisherin. But that’s where the similiarities stop, and Wild Horse Nine gallops off in new directions.
Venice has been good for McDonah. Banshees premiered here in 2023, and was nominated for nine Oscars, though it brought home none. Billboards also premiered on the Lido six years prior and scored seven Oscar nods.
After the morning press screening, the team did the interview grist mill, followed by a party at the Excelsior — which included an appearance by McDonagh’s longtime companion, Phoebe Waller-Bridge — and into the evening’s triumphant premiere, which, according to some accounts, produced the longest, most raucous standing ovation in the Sala Grande in many years.
