Suspiria remake, Coen brothers' Buster Scruggs join Venice Film Festival lineup

The Venice Film Festival is once again shaping up to host a prime slate of Oscar-bound films as part of its 2018 lineup.

The long-running cinema event announced its full slate of official selections Wednesday, setting the stage for Oscar bids from the likes of Paul Greengrass, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Leigh, Bradley Cooper, Damien Chazelle, Yorgos Lanthimos, Luca Guadagnino, and the competition's only female director, Jennifer Kent — each of whom have new entries that will vie for the Golden Lion at the Italian festival.

Greengrass will debut his new drama 22 July, about the 2011 Norway terrorist attacks that claimed 77 lives (including dozens of teenagers at a summer camp in Utøya), alongside Jacques Audiard's Jake Gyllenhaal-starring western The Sisters Brothers. The highly anticipated works join a slate heavy on awards contenders — particularly those from Netflix and Amazon, as the streamers throw more weight behind their Oscar prospective titles.

Netflix is also set to premiere the Coen brothers' western film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (initially thought to be an anthology series) that will span several different stories set on the American frontier and star Tim Blake Nelson, James Franco, Liam Neeson, Zoe Kazan, and Tom Waits.

Among other projects visiting Venice is Luca Guadagnino's horror remake Suspiria, a marked change of pace for the Call Me by Your Name filmmaker, whose passionately wrought gay romance earned a score of Oscar nods earlier this year. Distributor Amazon hasn't had a major Oscar contender in key above-the-line categories since 2016's Manchester by the Sea, though their 2018 slate — which also includes Mike Leigh's historical drama Peterloo, also showing at Venice — could change that.

Further shaping up for momentous Venice bows are Netflix's Roma, an Alfonso Cuarón-directed, autobiographically inspired New York Film Festival centerpiece chronicling a year in the life of a middle-class family in Mexico City, Yorgos Lanthimos' offbeat period drama The Favourite starring Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, and Olivia Colman, and Kent's The Nightingale, about a young convict seeking revenge against those who murdered her family in 1825 Tasmania.

Each of the aforementioned films joins Damien Chazelle's upcoming Neil Armstrong biopic First Man, which was previously announced as the 75th edition's opening night film — a slot previously occupied by Chazelle's 2016 Oscar juggernaut La La Land and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu's best picture champion Birdman in recent years.

A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper's feature directorial debut, will also host a special out-of-competition world premiere event at Venice.

Taking place annually several months after the dust settles on Sundance and Cannes, Venice consistently serves as one of the early fall festival launching pads for potential Academy Awards contenders. The Italian festival has ignited the Oscar runs of several contemporary films in the past, with 14 Venice debuters (including The Hurt Locker, Gravity, Birdman, Arrival, The Shape of Water, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) going on to win or receive a Best Picture nomination since 2007.

Prior to The Shape of Water — which earned Venice's highest competitive prize last year — taking best picture at the 90th Oscars, the last time the festival's Golden Lion winner went on to receive a best picture nod was in 2005, when Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain claimed the prize before losing the top Academy Award to Paul Haggis' Crash.

The Venice Film Festival runs Aug. 29 through Sept. 8. Check out the full 2018 lineup below.

Competition:

First Man, Damien Chazelle (U.S.)

The Mountain, Rick Alverson (U.S.)

Doubles Vies, Olivier Assayas (France)

The Sisters Brothers, Jacques Audiard (France, Belgium, Romania, Spain)

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Ethan and Joel Coen (U.S.)

Vox Lux, Brady Corbet (U.S.)

Roma, Alfonso Cuaron (Mexico)

22 July, Paul Greengrass (Norway, Island)

Suspiria, Luca Guadagnino (Italy)

Work Ohne Autor, Florian Henkel Von Donnersmark (Germany)

The Nightingale, Jennifer Kent (Australia)

The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos (U.S.)

Peterloo, Mike Leigh (U.K., U.S.)

Capri-Revolution, Mario Martone (Italy, France)

What You Gonna Do When The World's On Fire?, Roberto Minervini (Italy, U.S., France)

Sunset, Laszlo Nemes (Hungary, France)

Freres Ennemis, David Oelhoffen (France, Belgium)

Neustro Tiempo, Carlos Reygadas (Mexico, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweeden)

At Eternity's Gate, Julian Schnabel (U.S., France)

Killing, Shinya Tsukamoto (Japan)

Out of competition special events:

The Other Side Of The Wind, Orson Welles (U.S.)

They'll Love Me When I'm Dead, Morgan Neville (U.S.)

Out of competition special screenings:

My Brilliant Friend, Saverio Costanzo (Italy, Belgium)

Il Diario Di Angela – Noi Due Cineasti, Yervant Gianikian (Italy)

Out of competition fiction screenings:

Una Storia Senza Nome, Roberto Andò (Italy)

Les Estivants, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (France, Italy)

A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper (U.S.)

Mi Obra Maestra, Gaston Duprat (Argentina, Spain)

A Tramway in Jerusalem, Amos Gitai (Israel, France)

Un Peuple et Son Roi, Pierre Schoeller (France, Belgium)

La Quietud, Pablo Trapero (Argentina)

Dragged Across Concrete, S. Craig Zahler (U.S.)

Shadow, Zhang Yimou (China)

Out of competition non-fiction screenings:

A Letter to a Friend In Gaza, Amos Gitai (Israel)

Aquarela, Victor Kossakovsky (U.K., Germany)

El Pepe, Una Vida Suprema, Emir Kusturica (Argentina, Uruguay, Serbia)

Process, Sergei Loznitsa (The Netherlands)

Carmine Street Guitars, Ron Mann (Canada)

Isis, Tomorrow. The Lost Souls Of Mosul, Francesca Mannocchi, Alessio Romenzi (Italy, Germany)

American Dharma, Errol Morris (U.S., U.K.)

Introduzione All'Oscuro, Gaston Solnicki (Argentina, Austria)

1938 Diversi, Giorgio Treves (Italy)

Your Face, Tsai Ming-Liang (Chinese Taipei)

Monrovia, Indiana, Frederick Wieseman (U.S.)