The Italian festival is once again debuting a number of Oscar contenders during its 74th edition.

In its 74th year, the Venice Film Festival is once again debuting a slate of potential Oscar contenders from top directors, including George Clooney, Darren Aronofsky and Guillermo del Toro. 

Festival director Alberto Barbera on Thursday unveiled the lineup for this year at the Cinema Moderno in Rome. 

"I'm very satisfied," Barbera said about the lineup. "I have to say that I am 97 percent satisfied in the sense that there are only maybe two or three films that we wanted to have for the festival, and we couldn't, because they will go to other festivals. So all the films that we saw and that we wanted to have are in the lineup of this year's festival." 

As previously announced, Alexander Payne's satire Downsizing, starring Matt Damon, will open the fest in competition. The film is about a family that seeks a better life through shrinking. The film also stars Kristen Wiig, Christoph Waltz, Laura Dern and Jason Sudeikis. 

Vying for the Golden Lion this year, from a jury led by Annette Bening, are 21 world premieres.

Artist and activist Ai Weiwei will enter the competition with his documentary about the current refugee crisis, Human Flow. 

Darren Aronofsky, who presided over the Venice jury in 2011, will bring his eagerly anticipated horror film Mother! to the festival. Mother!, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem and Ed Harris, centers around a relationship being tested after the arrival of unwelcome visitors.

Damon will be pulling double-duty at the fest as he will also star in George Clooney's Suburbicon, written by Clooney and the Coen Brothers, about a family morally descending after a home invasion goes very wrong. It also stars Coen favorites Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac and Josh Brolin.

Guillermo del Toro will debut his other-worldly Cold War era fairytale The Shape of Water, starring Michael Shannon, Sally Hawkins and Octavia Spencer.

And Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, a dark comedy from Martin McDonagh (In Bruges), starring Woody Harrelson, Peter Dinklage and Frances McDormand, will also bow on the Lido.

Paul Schrader's religious-themed thriller First Reformed, starring Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried, will also premiere in Venice. 

Abdellatif Kechiche will bring his 1980s coming-of-age story Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno to the fest, and Paolo Virzi will premiere his first American The Leisure Seeker, starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland, to the Lido. 

Out of competition, the festival continues its relationship with Netflix with the world premiere of Our Souls at Night, with honorary Golden Lions going to the film's stars Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. 

Netflix also will premiere its first Italian production, the modern-day mafia saga Suburra. And it will screen the Errol Morris series Wormwood, starring Peter Sarsgaard and Molly Parker, the festival's only non-world premiere. 

Also out of competition, Stephen Frears will debut Victoria & Abdul, starring Judi Dench, Ali Fazal and Eddie Izzard about the unlikely friendship between Queen Victoria and a young Indian clerk. And Fernando Leon De Aranoa's Loving Pablo will debut, starring Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard. 

James Toback's The Private Life of a Modern Woman stars Sienna Miller, Alec Baldwin and Charles Grodin. And Abel Ferrara's documentary Piazza Vittoria will screen, telling the story of the neighborhood in Rome where he lives. 

Rodarte sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy will premiere their feature film Woodshock, starring Kirsten Dunst and Pilou Asbaek. 

And Kitano Takeshi's new yakuza film Outrage Coda will close the fest. 

New this year, Venice is launching a VR competition with 22 films, with a jury headed by John Landis. The lineup includes the film La Camera Insabbiata by Laurie Anderson and Huang Hsin-Chien.

Venice's Horizons section will open with Susanna Nicchiarelli's Nico, 1988 about the Velvet Underground singer and Andy Warhol muse. The only American film in Horizons is the documentary The Rape of Recy Taylor by Nancy Buirski, about a white gang rape of an African-American woman in Alabama in 1944. Also in the lineup of the section is Anne Fontaine's coming-of-age story Marvin, which stars Isabelle Huppert and Finnegan Oldfield. 

The 74th Venice International Film Festival takes place Aug. 30 to Sept. 9. Read the full lineup below.

COMPETITION

Human Flow, Ai Weiwei

Mother!, Darren Aronofsky

Suburbicon, George Clooney

The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro

L’insulte, ZIad Doueiri

La Villa, Robert Guediguian

Lean on Pete, Andrew Haigh

Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno, Abdellatif Kechiche

The Third Murder, Koreeda Hirokazu

Jusqu’a la Garde, Xavier Legrand

Ammore e Malavita, Manetti Brothers

Foxtrot, Samuel Maoz

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonagh

Hannah, Andrea Pallaoro

Downsizing, Alexander Payne

Angels Wear White, Vivian Qu

Una Famiglia, Sebastiano Riso

First Reformed, Paul Schrader

Sweet Country, Warwick Thornton

The Leisure Seeker, Paolo Virzi

Ex Libris - The New York Public Library, Frederick Wiseman

 

OUT OF COMPETITION FEATURES

Our Souls at Night, Ritesh Batra

Il Signor Rotpeter, Antonietta de Lillo

Victoria & Abdul, Stephen Frears

La Melodie, Rachid Hami

Outrage Coda, Kitano Takeshi

Loving Pablo, Fernando Leon de Aranoa

Zama, Lucrecia Martel

Wormwood, Errol Morris 

Diva!, Franceso Patierno

Le FIdele, Michael R. Roskam

Diva!, Franceso Patierno

Il Colore Nascosto Delle Cose, Silvio Soldini

The Private Life of a Modern Woman, James Toback

Brawl in Cell Block 99, S. Craig Zahler

 

OUT OF COMPETITION DOCUMENTARIES

Cuba and the Cameraman, Jon Alpert

My Generation, David Batty

Piazza Vittorio, Abel Ferrara

The Devil and Father Amorth, William Friedkin

This is Congo, Daniel McCabe

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, Stephen Nomura Schible

Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond. The Story of Jim Carrey, Andy Kaufman and Tony Clifton, Chris Smith

Happy Winter, Giovanni Totaro

 

SPECIAL EVENTS

Casa d’Altri, Gianni Amelio

Michael Jackson’s Thriller 3D, John Landis

Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller (1983), Jerry Kramer

 

HORIZONS COMPETITION

Disappearance, Ali Asgari

Especes Menacees, Gilles Bourdos

The Rape of Recy Taylor, Nancy Buirski

Caniba, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel

Les Bienheureux, Sofia Djama

Marvin, Anne Fontaine

Invisible, Pablo Giorgelli

Brutti e Cattivi, Cosimo Gomez

The Cousin, Tzahi Grad

The Testament, Amichai Greenberg

No Date, No Signature, Vahid Jalilvand

Los Versos del Olvido, Alireza Khatami

The Night I Swam, Damien Manivel, Igarashi Kohei

Nico, 1988, Susanna Nicchiarelli

Krieg, Rick Ostermann

West of Sunshine, Jason Raftopoulos

Gatta Cenerentola, Alessandro Rak, Ivan Cappiello, Marino Guarnieri, Dario Sansone

Under the Tree, Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson

La Vita in Comune, Edoardo Winspeare

 

CINEMA NEL GIARDINO

Manuel, Dario Albertini

Controfigura, Ra di Martino

Woodshock, Kate Mulleavy, Laura Mulleavy

Nato a Casal di Principe, Bruno Oliviero

Suburra – The Series, Michele Placido, Andrea Molaioli, Giuseppe Capotondi

Tueurs, Francois, Troukens, Jean-Francois Hensgens

 

VENICE CLASSICS DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

Light Years, Manuel Abramovich

Evviva Giuseppe, Stefano Consiglio

La Lucida Follia di Marco Ferreri, Selma Jean Dell’Olio

The Russian Revolution Through its Films, Emmanuel Hamon

The Prince and the Dybbuk, Elwira Niewiera

La Voce di Fantozzi, Mario Sesti

This is the War Room!,  Boris Hars-Tschachotin

 

SPECIAL DOCUMENTARY SCREENINGS

La Lunga Strada del Ritorno, Alessandro Blasetti

Barbiana ’65 La Lezione di Don Milani, Alessandro G. A. D’Alessandro

Lievito Madre, Le Ragazze del Secolo Scorso, Concita de Gregorio, Esmeralda Calabria

 

BIENNALE COLLEGE

Beautiful Things, Giorgio Ferrero

Martyr, Mazen Khaled

Strange Colours, Alena Lodkina