It is once again film festival season at home and abroad. The Venice International Film Festival began last week, and Telluride got chugging along in Colorado shortly thereafter. Soon TIFF comes for the 6. But we’re actually here to focus on performance art : the standing ovations after a movie premieres at an international film festival. People be clappin’, and reporters be trackin’ said clappin’. And as with Cannes last year, we are averaging all the standing ovation reportage, and condensing it into one handy-dandy list. Unless otherwise noted, our timing of each film’s standing ovation is an average of three trades: Variety (the eastern European judge of applause if there ever was one), The Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline (who is most generous with their seconds counting).
Obviously these ovations are deliriously important. If art can be objectively measured, and we all agree it can, then the movies that get the most claps are the most good. And that inherent goodness will prove itself come awards season and in the box office. Just look at Horizon: an American Saga which was recorded as receiving as long as an 11-minute standing ovation, and went on to …bomb at the box office? Okay, maybe this is a silly list, which could only come in handy at some exceedingly hardcore movie trivia contest. Regardless, here are the films of Venice, listed from shortest to longest post-screening ovation.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: a spooky 3.8 minutes
Tim Burton’s return to Winter River, CT wasn’t in competition at Venice, but it did kick off the festival in grand fashion on August 28. However, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice had the shortest standing ovation reported. Too commercial for the Lido?
Wolfs: Brad Pitt and George Clooney danced through a 4.8-minute applause break
Pitt and Clooney coasted on their buddy vibes at the Venice premiere of Wolfs on September 1. According to Variety, the pair danced in their seats to Sade during the 4-ish minute ovation. Variety also suggests the film’s O was cut short due to Wolfs starting 30 minutes late. Gotta keep turning over these seats!
Babygirl: 6.8 minutes of O
Like Wolfs, the applause at Babygirl on August 30 may have been curtailed by the objects of said applause leaving the building. Per Deadline, “The woo-hooing only stopped” when star Nicole Kidman and director Halina Reijn were escorted out of the building. The celebration of Harris Dickerson kept going long into the night, however, what with the private party reportedly held in his honor.
Baby Invasion: a provocative 8.5 minutes
So far we’ve only been able to find Variety’s record of Baby Invasion’s August 31 standing ovation. Is that because the film is an overloaded provocation that would suit a shorter runtime? Maybe, baby. Or maybe not. “Whatever it is we witnessed, the crowd seemed to lap it up,” wrote Variety.
Harvest: a crop of 7.8 minutes
Per Deadline, Harvest reaped 7 minutes and 50 seconds of ovation on September 3. The film is an adaptation of the Jim Crace novel of the same name. Over seven days, an unnamed village disappears. Caleb Landry-Jones and Harry Melling play two men watching their world slip away, much as they must have felt their lives slip away accepting that much applause.
The Order: a thrilling 7.9 minutes
The Order stars Jude Law as a FBI agent infiltrating a white supremacist group known as The Order. It’s based on the real case that ended in a standoff, and with leader Bob Matthews (played by Nicholas Hoult) dead. Audiences loved the film on August 31, going for 7-9 minutes, depending on which trade you trust.
Maria: Bravas for 8.7 minutes
Vulture’s Alison Willmore found Angelina Jolie’s performance less-than-operatic, but the Venice crowd seemed to disagree. Jolie received nearly 9 minutes of adulation on August 29, before hopping on a plane to Telluride, where she got another standing ovation on September 2. Venice scheduled the film festival so that exes Jolie and Pitt wouldn’t even be in the same hemisphere on the same day.
Queer: 9.8 minutes of support for sex scenes in cinema
The people don’t want gay James Bond — they want heavily ADR’d sex scenes! At least they do if the Venice audience is any indication. Luca Guadagnino’s Queer pushed ten minutes of applause on September 3, indicating that we can “be adults in the room” for 590 seconds.
I’m Still Here: Obrigado for the 10.3-minute ovation
The only record we have of I’m Still Here’s September 1 standing ovation is from Deadline, who counted 10 minutes and 20 seconds of applause for Walter Salles’ political drama.
The Brutalist: Adrien Brody soaked up 12.7 minutes of applause
Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist had a standing ovation almost as long as its 15-minute intermission on September 1. The trades counted between 12 and 13 minutes of applause for the sprawling story. The film covers 33 years and is 215 minutes long — 5 of which are spent on “depressing handjobs.”
The Room Next Door: 17.5 minutes for Pedro
As of September 2, the new O to beat is for Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door. Starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, the film is about friends who reconnect while one has terminal cancer. Deadline clocked the applause at 18 minutes and 36 seconds, while THR and Variety say it was just 17 min flat. Some of that commotion had better have been for Almodóvar’s pink suit.
This post has been updated.