The Denver Film Festival is marking its 49th year with a bigger footprint and a starrier guest list, unveiling a schedule that runs October 22 through November 1 and packs in nearly 150 titles across dozens of awards, panels and premieres. Actors John Cho and Carrie Coon are among the honorees set to appear, with the festival running 11 days as it spreads screenings across four different Denver venues.
According to The Denver Post, Carrie Coon will receive the Excellence in Acting Award for her work in “The Liberation,” while John Cho is set to accept the Outlaw Award for “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.” Other honorees include Liz Sargent, who will receive the Breakthrough Director Award for “Take Me Home,” and Fred Hechinger, who takes home the Rising Star Award following a screening of “A Long Winter.” Benedetta Porcaroli will receive the 2026 Maglione Italian Film Award, David Acord is being honored with the Excellence in Sound Design Award for “Behemoth!,” and Michael Gitlin will receive the Stan Brakhage Award. The festival says more guests and award winners will be announced in the coming weeks.
Tickets and the full schedule are posted at denverfilm.org/denverfilmfestival, with Denver Film members getting first access starting Sunday at 10 a.m. and public sales opening Monday at 10 a.m. The festival is also offering sliding-scale or pay-what-you-can tickets for screenings at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House and select general admission showings, a program supported by Denver Arts & Venues.
A Festival Without a Theme, But Plenty of Range
Festival artistic director Matthew Campbell told the Post that his team considered more than 2,000 films through various channels this year, and that he deliberately avoided programming around a single theme. “Part of the objective is finding a balance where variety of stories and diversity of voices is presented, so that would almost inherently work against a theme,” Campbell said, per the same report. That range shows up in an eclectic slate of sports documentaries covering sumo wrestling, female bronc-busting, the World Cup and mountain climbing.
Opening night belongs to “I Play Rocky,” a Peter Farrelly-directed film imagining a fictionalized account of Sylvester Stallone preparing for his breakthrough role as Rocky Balboa. It screens October 22 at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, with screenwriter Peter Gamble set to introduce the film and appear at the festival. Centerpiece presentations include “Behemoth!,” starring Pedro Pascal as a cellist and directed by Tony Gilroy, and “Ink,” Danny Boyle's film following Rupert Murdoch's early days.
Closing night brings “Paper Tiger,” directed by James Gray and starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller, which screens October 31 at the MCA Holiday Theater. Special presentations rounding out the lineup include “The Debut,” “Wild Horse Nine,” “Elsinore,” “Wicker,” “Club Kid,” “Josephine” and “Take Me Home,” with “Josephine” and “Take Me Home” co-presented alongside the Sundance Film Festival, which is set to debut in Boulder.
Colorado Stories Take Center Stage
The festival's Colorado Spotlight section continues to highlight state-related premieres, and this year's lineup leans heavily into homegrown talent and local stories. “Lay Lefty Down,” directed by Traven Rice and featuring Tovah Feldshuh, and “Welcome to the Fishbowl,” a Denver-to-Telluride road-trip comedy starring Natalie Gold and Jeremy Swift, headline the section; “Welcome to the Fishbowl” was filmed entirely in Colorado under director Sheryl Glubok.
That local focus extends further this year through two additional Colorado Spotlight documentaries, according to Denver Film. “The Ascent,” a SXSW Audience Award winner, follows Colorado Springs bilateral-amputee mountaineer Mandy Horvath, while “Good Help” is a world-premiere documentary tracking Denver neighbors who organized support for newly arrived Venezuelan migrants. Denver Film also added a $125 Brit Withey Pass this year — $100 for members — offering access to six curated hidden-gem films in memory of the festival's longtime artistic director, who died in 2019.
New Venues After Leaving the Multiplex Behind
This year's festival takes place at the Sie FilmCenter, the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater, and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science — a venue mix that reflects a shift made last year. The festival ended a three-year arrangement with AMC 9+10 in 2025 after the chain reportedly sought up to three times its previous rental rate, according to the Denver Gazette. That pushed the festival toward non-profit and civic venues instead of commercial multiplexes.
The pivot comes as Denver Film's year-round operations keep growing at the Sie FilmCenter on East Colfax Avenue, a Denver cinematheque. The organization welcomed roughly 200,000 total attendees across all its programs during its 2025–2026 fiscal year, with more than 99,000 patrons visiting the Sie FilmCenter itself, per Denver Film's annual report. The Sie FilmCenter also served as one of seven nationwide partner theaters for the Museum of the Moving Image's 5th Annual Marvels of Media Festival earlier this year, hosting animated and short film showcases created by autistic filmmakers.
Colorado's Growing Film Moment
The festival's expansion arrives as Colorado positions itself as a bigger player in the national film landscape. The Sundance Institute selected Colorado to become the Sundance Film Festival's permanent home starting in January 2027, moving the festival to Boulder after a yearlong national selection process, according to the Sundance Institute. The relocation is projected to generate between $156 million and $195 million in economic impact for the state.
State lawmakers have moved to support the broader shift: Colorado's House Bill 25-1005 would establish a dedicated Film Festival Tax Credit administered jointly by state economic development and media offices, according to BillTrack50. Colorado's existing production incentive separately offers a refundable tax credit of 20% to 22% on qualified in-state spending for projects meeting a $100,000 minimum and a 50% Colorado resident crew requirement, capped at $5 million annually, per the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
The Sie FilmCenter remains one of Denver Film's venues even as the flagship festival stretches across more of the city each fall.
