BUGONIA, DUST BUNNY & More Headline Beyond Fest’s 2025 Lineup
Film festival season is in full swing, and Beyond Fest is coming in swinging with one of the biggest genre festival lineups of the year. They’ve just announced their full list of titles for this year’s festival running from September 23 to October 8, including ninety feature films across three theatres, presented by NEON and programmed and produced in partnership with American Cinematheque.
Park Chan-wook will open the festival with his newest film, No Other Choice, and closing night honors go to Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia, starring Emma Stone. Major premieres also include Bryan Fuller’s Dust Bunny, Aziz Ansari’s Good Fortune, Black Phone 2, Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. International titles making their way to this year’s festival include It Was Just an Accident, The Secret Agent, Sirāt, and Radu Jude’s take on Dracula, and action cinema karate chops its way to the Egyptian Theatre with The Furious, Sisu: Road to Revenge, and Deathstalker.
“We’re incredibly proud to push Beyond Fest’s scope, encompassing some of the world’s best filmmakers; it’s a celebration of cinema without borders or compromise that embodies both the festival and the American Cinematheque,” said Chris LeMaire, American Cinematheque Senior Film Programmer. “Bringing together the work of auteurs such as Jafar Panahi, Bi Gan, Radu Jude, Yorgos Lanthimos, Oliver Laxe, and Kleber Mendonça Filho, we’ve captured some of the most exciting and visionary cinema the world has to offer.”
But of course, it wouldn’t be Beyond Fest without the genre films, and this year’s lineup is a killer one. West coast premieres for this year’s festival include Primate, Good Boy, V/H/S/Halloween, Night Patrols, Shelby Oaks, Dream Eater, Queens of the Dead, and Mag Mag, as well as the world premiere of Season 2 of The Boulet Brothers’ Dracula: Titans. Boorman and the Devil will also be making an appearance courtesy of director David Kittredge and star Linda Blair, paired with a rare 35mm screening of The Exorcist II: The Heretic, courtesy of the Martin Scorsese Collection.
And that’s not the only retrospective screening happening either. Alongside their previously announced Guillermo del Toro retrospective, Beyond Fest is bringing Japanese icon Meiko Kaji to the festival for her first ever US appearance, honoring her career with 2k restorations of Lady Snowblood, Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss, Blind Woman’s Curse, and more, as well as a conversation with Oscar winner Sean Baker.
Other repertory screenings include a double bill of To Live and Die in L.A. and Manhunter, the 4K world premiere of Jacob’s Ladder paired with The Player, Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me and Misery, a special screening of House with WIlliam Katt, a cast and crew reunion for Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation, and a screening of The Ring featuring director Gore Verbinski. And that’s not all, because the festival is also bringing several 4K world premieres to its screens, with remastered versions of Salem’s Lot, The Red Spectacles, Cannibal Holocaust, Day of the Dolphin, and The Devil’s Rejects making their debut for the first time.
All of this is complemented by a slate of completely free screenings at Los Feliz 3, courtesy of NEON. Titles showing at this theater include Bill Pullman in Killing Faith, Eric Owen’s In a Cold Vein, Julie Pacino’s I Live Here Now, Hold the Fort, Bury Your Dead, Bulk, The Ice Tower, Hellcat, The Serpent’s Skin, and more. (Seriously, there’s too many for this poor writer to list lest her fingers fall off!)
Beyond Fest runs from September 23 to October 8 in Los Angeles. Tickets go on sale on September 11 at 10AM PST. For more information and to see the full lineup, check out Beyond Fest’s website.
