SFF Official Competition and Special Presentations films

The full Sydney Film Festival 2024 Program has been announced.

For the 16th year, the Official Competition will award the $60,000 cash Sydney Film Prize to a film that demonstrates audacious, cutting-edge and courageous cinema.

Direct from Cannes Film Festival will be: Kinds of Kindness, a darkly hilarious fable starring Emma Stone from Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things); Grand Tour, the latest from Miguel Gomes; and Christophe Honoré’s Marcello Mio where an all-star French cast play themselves in a meta comedy paying homage to Marcello Mastroianni. Payal Kapadia’s romantic drama All We Imagine as Light is the first Indian film to appear in the Cannes Competition in 30 years. Also screening straight from Cannes is acclaimed actor Ariane Labed’s directorial debut September Says, a Gothic psychological drama; and Cannes Un Certain Regard contender Việt And Nam.

Internationally awarded films in competition include Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear winning feature Dying; and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Sujo, a moving Mexican cartel drama. Rich Peppiatt’s raucous comedy Kneecap stars three real-life rappers as themselves and took out the Audience Award at Sundance.

Outperforming Barbie and Oppenheimer at the box office in Italy, There’s Still Tomorrow is a melodrama about an industrious woman in post-WWII Rome. It screens in competition at SFF alongside Puan, an incisive comedy about a philosophy professor.

SFF's Opening Night Film Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line will also screen in competition at the 2024 Festival. 

Home to Festival favourites, red carpet events and world premieres, the State Theatre will once again screen a spectacular selection of films this year.

A star-studded highlight is Jeff Nichols' The Bikeriders, startting Jodie Comer, Austin Butler and Tom Hardy. In Lee, Oscar winner Kate Winslet stars alongside in the true story of model turned WWII correspondent Lee Miller.

My Old Ass is a comedy love story starring Aubrey Plaza and Maisy Stella; and Viggo Mortensen directs and stars opposite Vicky Krieps in The Dead Don’t Hurt, a feminist western. The Outrun, is a moving book adapation starring Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn, Little Women); and a highlight of the 2024 Berlinale competition, A Different Man features Sebastian Stan in a disturbing meta dramedy.

Several Australian films will have their World Premiere at the State Theatre. Kid Snow is an Aussie drama about a travelling tent boxing show, starring Phoebe Tonkin; and Ian Darling’s documentary The Pool, charts a year in the life of the iconic Bondi Icebergs.

Award winning films include: Venice Special Jury Prize winner Green Border from legendary filmmaker Agnieszka Holland; and Porcelain War, which won the Sundance Documentary Grand Jury Prize. Trailblazing filmmaker Mati Diop won the Golden Bear at Berlinale 2024 for Dahomey.

Also screening: Touch, Baltasar Kormákur’s epic romantic story; Oscar-nominated Pawo Choyning Dorji’s The Monk and The Gun; and Despicable Me 4. 

Browse all 200+ films and events via the Sydney Film Festival website.