The 12 days of the Sydney Film Festival just might be more exciting to me than Christmas for me. Cold weather, cosy clothes, buttery popcorn and watching film after film from around the world inside Sydney’s temple of cinema, the State Theatre.

After seeing more than double the amount of films compared to last year, from Australian premieres to award-winning films direct from Cannes, these are eight films you can’t miss from the Sydney Film Festival 2026.

1. Rose

Directed by Markus Schleinzer, starring Sandra Huller and Caro Braun

If you like: Sandra Huller, powerhouse performances, women who outplay men.

A film that I saw early in the festival, yet I have continued to think about since. Set in the Thirty Years’ War, a soldier returns home to reclaim his land but runs into trouble as he tries to start his new life. He has been living under a false name and false gender and will stop at nothing to ensure that he can continue to live in peace. The black-and-white cinematography is beautiful, and the story is narrated through vignettes – as if someone is reading you a novel. At times, it feels like a queer origin story. Sandra Huller continues to reign supreme. Mother is fathering, she can do it all. Rose is one of the best from the festival.

2. Silent Friend

Directed by Ildiko Enyedi, starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai (In The Mood For Love!), Lea Seydoux and Luna Wedler

If you like: multi-layered stories, sentimental themes, The Overstory by Richard Powers, The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben.

A multi-perspective story that follows three protagonists with completely unique stories over different time periods. The common thread is the solace they each find in a Ginkgo tree, which can live up to 3,000 years. If you have a curious mind about the natural world and how we can communicate with it, you’ll feel changed by this one. In the end, every flower, every branch, every tree is our silent friend.

3. Ben'Imana

Directed by Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo, starring Clementine U. Nyirinkindi

If you like: beautiful cinematography, strong female characters, and true-history films.

This is the first film directed by a Rwandan filmmaker to be part of both the Sydney Film Festival and Cannes’ official competition. Set in 2012, as Rwanda emerged from a period of silence following the Tutsi genocide, we follow Veneranda as she is forced to face her dark past amidst the trial of her perpetrator in their local people’s court. There are show-stopping performances, hauntingly beautiful cinematography and lingering questions of how we can forgive and move forward without justice and reconciliation – and how can the secrets we hold affect future generations?

4. Coward

Directed by Lukas Dhont, starring Valentin Campagne and Emmanuel Macchia

If you like: queer stories, wartime stories, performance art, captivating cinematography.

A moving story that follows Pierre, a young soldier in the First World War, who finds himself being pulled between two worlds: proving himself on the battlefield and fighting for his people, and a new world of freedom that has only felt possible after he meets Francis. I didn’t expect this story to move me as much as it did. It happened somewhere between witnessing the ways we all rely on art to briefly escape our reality, the power of silent intimacy (hello, the shaving scene), and being reminded that love can emerge in unexpected places. This is a simple story, but the storytelling in this movie makes every moment and gesture count. The standout queer film of the festival.

5. Fatherland

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, starring Sandra Huller and Hanns Zischler

If you like: war stories, Sandra Huller, family tragedies, stories that include themes of grief and generational trauma.

After fleeing Germany during the rise of Hitler, Nobel Prize-winning author Thomas Mann returns home 16 years after his exile to travel across a fractured country with his daughter to accept the Goethe Award. A mesmerising and haunting end to the third and final film in Pawlikowski’s post-war trilogy. Huller again delivers an Oscar-worthy performance of a quiet, lingering pain that paints a psychological picture of Germany post-World War II. How can you move forward when you feel stuck by the weight of the past? It’s here in this sense of forced restraint that Huller’s performance shines.

6. Minotaur

Directed by Andrey Zvyaginstev, starring Dmitriy Mazurov and Iris Lebedeva

If you like: stories about power and corruption.

The winner of the Sydney Film Prize 2026. Minotaur follows Gleb, a company director who has carefully crafted an orderly life. As things unravel, his business, personal and political worlds become inseparable and pressurised in this story of domestic life in Russia following the full-scale invasion during the Russo-Ukrainian war. It’s a chilling domestic thriller that had me on the edge of my seat, in a tense, uneasy state, constantly anticipating the worst.

7. Fjord

Directed by Cristian Mungiu, starring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan

If you like: Anatomy of a Fall, Renate Reinsve, morality, family drama, court case stories.

In 2026 Palme d’Or winner Fjord, the Gheorghiu family move to a stunning, remote village in Norway to be closer to their parents, played by Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan (Oscar-worthy performances). However, the peaceful surroundings are revealed to be cold and unforgiving, a fragile façade, when one of their children arrives at their new school with bruises. I most appreciated the way this film intentionally does not show you everything. Instead, it allows the writing and acting to do the storytelling, putting us, as viewers, in the same position as those who live in the village. The question they face then becomes ours: how do we treat people who do not live the same way or hold the same values as we do?

8. No Good Men

Directed by and starring Shahrbanoo Sadat, with Anwar Hashimi

If you like: journalism, family drama, genre mixing and true-history films.

A story of family, desire and love under pressure in Afghanistan in 2021, just before the Taliban’s return. We follow a camerawoman, who’s trying to create a new life after separating from her husband, and a renowned journalist who are both witnessing the final days of freedom. It’s an earnest rom-com and a political thriller that is based on Anwar Hashimi’s (supporting actor who plays Qadrat) unpublished memoir – a book I’d like to read, stat!