The Denver Film Festival is roaring back for 2025 with a robust lineup of titles, celebrities and venues that reassert its place as the city’s most important film event. That includes Denver Broncos legend John Elway and “Good Will Hunting” director Gus Van Sant, plus local and global premieres of buzzy films sure to dominate awards season.
The curtain rises on Oct. 31 with a red carpet screening of “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” directed by Denver-reared Rian Johnson (“Glass Onion,” “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”) at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. The Ellie, a longtime Denver Film Fest venue, was unavailable to book last year, which gives this year’s return a fresh veneer of glamor. (Denver cinephiles may also recall that Johnson visited the Ellie with the first “Knives Out” in 2019).
More than 130 other screenings of narrative features, documentaries, shorts, student films and additional programming will take place across the Ellie, Denver Film’s home base of the Sie FilmCenter, the Highland neighborhood’s MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater, and Denver Botanic Gardens.
“Selecting from so many accomplished works was an incredibly difficult process,” said Denver Film Festival artistic director Matthew Campbell in a statement. “But we’ve curated a lineup that reflects both the diversity and strength of contemporary storytelling with a remarkable selection of films, storylines and performances.”
Tickets for all events, including individual screenings, parties, panels, Red Carpets and Special Presentations, group passes and full-fest packages, go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. Monday, Oct. 6, at denverfilm.org/programs/denverfilmfestival and denverfilmfestival.eventive.org (and one day earlier for Denver Film members).
Amid other big titles (the horror flick “Primate,” Bradley Cooper’s “Is This Thing On?”), the festival will close Nov. 8, with the world premiere of “Elway,” the Netflix and Omaha Productions-produced documentary on Hall of Famer and former Broncos quarterback John Elway.
“The film chronicles his early collegiate career at Stanford through his 16 seasons as the Denver Broncos starting quarterback,” according to a news release. “Elway will join co-directors Ken Rodgers and Chris Weaver to present the film at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House on Nov. 8.”
Other recognizable guests and award recipients this year include Delroy Lindo (“Sinners,” “Malcolm X”), who is receiving Denver Film’s Next50 Career Achievement Award (following a screening of “Sinners” at the Sie FilmCenter Nov. 1); acclaimed director Van Sant (“My Own Private Idaho,” “Milk,” “To Die For”), who is getting the Excellence in Directing Award for his work on “Dead Man’s Wire” (Nov. 4 at MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater); Lucy Liu (“Rosemead,” “Kill Bill”), receiving the John Cassavetes Award at a screening of “Rosemead”; and Niecy Nash-Betts (“All’s Fair,” “Reno: 911!”) who’s getting the fourth CinemaQ LaBahn Ikon Award presented to an entertainment contributor who uplifts the LGBTQIA+ community.
More notable titles and premieres include “Sentimental Value,” winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival; “Hamnet,” directed by Oscar-winner Chloe Zhao; “The Testament of Ann Lee,” from writer-director Mona Fastvold (of Oscar-winner “The Brutalist,” directed by her husband, Colorado native and Denver Film Fest vet Brady Corbet); “Jay Kelly,” Noah Baumbach’s dramedy with George Clooney and Adam Sandler; Korean director Park Chan-woo’s “No Other Choice”; Brendan Frasier’s “Rental Family”; and Sydney Sweeney’s boxing movie “Christy”; as well as “Nuremberg,” “Man on the Run,” “The Secret Agent” and more prize winners.
The robust return is notable this year as the massive Sundance Film Festival looms in Boulder for 2027. That event, which draws international filmmakers and leads to big-budget deals in the film industry, will eat up plenty of film-fest oxygen in the state — even if Sundance officials have vowed to work with existing Colorado film festivals, of which there are more than a dozen. Those range from the tone-setting Telluride Film Festival to smaller events in Boulder, Colorado Springs and Aspen.
