The Ones Not to Miss at FILMFEST MÜNCHEN 2026

The complete program for FILMFEST MÜNCHEN 2026 is finally available and, as every year, my first recommendation is not to follow anyone else's list blindly, including this one. One of the pleasures of a film festival is reading a synopsis, taking a chance on an unknown title and discovering something unexpected.

With 130 films from 56 countries, there is truly something for every kind of spectator. Some titles arrive directly from Cannes, Venice and San Sebastián, others are smaller discoveries that may never receive a wide theatrical release in Germany. Building a festival schedule is always a balance between the films everyone is talking about and the ones that simply spark your curiosity.

These are the ten films I am most excited to watch at this year's festival.

After the excellent Zama, Lucrecia Martel returns with a documentary that has been fifteen years in the making. The film follows the public trial surrounding the death of a member of the Indigenous community of Chuschagasta during a territorial dispute in Argentina.

What attracts me most is not only the political dimension of the story, but Martel's ability to observe the structures of power that continue to shape Latin American societies. Zama was already a powerful reflection on colonialism and its consequences, and this documentary seems ready to continue that conversation from a contemporary perspective. It is one of the titles I am most curious to discover at the festival.

Ira Sachs has become one of those directors I follow regardless of the subject matter. His films have always felt deeply interested in people and relationships rather than dramatic twists or easy emotional manipulation.

His latest film follows an HIV-positive gay man in 1980s New York as he reflects on the love he has received and the love he still has to give. While I was initially unsure about Rami Malek in the leading role, the reactions from Cannes have made me increasingly curious.

After films such as Little Men and last year's Peter Hujar's Day, Sachs remains a filmmaker whose work I never want to miss.

I already dedicated an entire article to this film, so it should not surprise anyone that it appears on this list.

As the opening film of the festival, with Paweł Pawlikowski and members of the cast attending the German premiere, Vaterland is one of the major events of this year's edition. After the impact that Ida and Cold War had on me, seeing his first German-language feature on the big screen is one of the experiences I am most looking forward to.

If I could only attend one screening at the festival, this would probably be the one.

I first heard about Maspalomas after its strong reception at the San Sebastián Film Festival, where it quickly became one of the most discussed titles of the edition.

The film follows an older gay man whose life changes completely when he enters a nursing home and feels forced back into the closet. It is a perspective that is still rarely represented in cinema. We often see coming-out stories involving young people, but much less attention is given to older queer lives and the challenges that can appear later in life.

For that reason alone, it is one of the queer films I am most excited to see this year.

A new Kore-eda film automatically becomes a priority for me.

Since watching Like Father, Like Son, I have admired the way he explores families, friendships and human relationships with patience and empathy. His films rarely depend on major plot twists; instead, they find meaning in everyday interactions.

In Sheep in the Box, a married couple brings a humanoid robot into their home as their son. The premise immediately caught my attention because it combines Kore-eda's interest in family dynamics with questions about technology and artificial intelligence. I am very curious to see how he approaches the subject.

One of the joys of recent editions of the Munich Film Festival has been the increasing presence of Latin American cinema.

Valentina Maurel's latest film arrives after winning the acting prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. Set in Costa Rica, it explores the complicated relationship between mothers and daughters, a subject that critics repeatedly highlighted after the premiere.

What attracts me most is the promise of a family drama built around strong conversations, conflicting perspectives and female characters with very different ways of understanding life. Those are usually the ingredients for the kind of cinema that stays with me long after the screening ends.

Few films from Cannes generated as much enthusiasm as this one.

Winner of the Audience Award in Directors' Fortnight, the film follows a group of friends as they enter adulthood and begin questioning what they want from their future.

Perhaps it is because I am now at a stage of life where these questions feel increasingly familiar, but this is one of the titles I expect to connect with the most. The uncertainty about work, relationships, ambitions and personal identity is something that many people in their late twenties and thirties continue to experience.

The name Ryusuke Hamaguchi is already enough to make this a must-see title.

After Drive My Car and Evil Does Not Exist, he has become one of the filmmakers whose work I most eagerly anticipate. His films have a remarkable ability to transform ordinary conversations into profound reflections about life.

This Cannes favourite follows the relationship between the director of a nursing home and an ill playwright, exploring questions of life, work and capitalism. The film runs for more than three hours, but Hamaguchi's cinema has never felt concerned with rushing anywhere. It asks the audience to slow down, observe and listen.

That is exactly the kind of experience I hope to find at a film festival.

What I enjoy most about FILMFEST MÜNCHEN is that every year my favourite discovery ends up being a film I knew almost nothing about before entering the screening room. Maybe one of the titles above will become the highlight of this year's edition, or maybe it will be a small film hidden in an afternoon slot that nobody is talking about yet.