Alexander Payne to Head Venice Jury (2025)

Two-time Oscar-winning director Alexander Payne (The Holdovers, Sideways, Nebraska) will head up this year’s Venice Film Festival international jury, Venice unveiled Monday.

Payne will oversee the jury of film professionals that picks the Golden Lion for best film at the 82nd Venice festival, which runs Aug. 27 to Sept. 6.

“It’s an enormous honor and joy to serve on the jury at Venice,” Payne said in a statement. “Although I share a filmmaker’s ambivalence about comparing films against one another, I revere the Venice Film Festival’s nearly 100-year history of loudly celebrating film as an art form. I couldn’t be more excited.”

Venice Festival director Alberto Barbera said Payne “belongs to the small circle of filmmakers-cinephiles whose passion for cinema is fueled by knowledge of films of the past and curiosity about contemporary cinema, without boundaries or barriers of any kind. These qualities — along with his experience as a screenwriter — make him an ideal candidate to preside over the work of the Venice Jury, which is called upon to evaluate films from around the world. I am grateful to Alexander for accepting my invitation, which seals an acquaintance that goes back to the days of his graduation short film at UCLA.”

Payne’s films have racked up a total of 24 Oscar nominations, including four best picture and three best director nominations. His two Oscar wins have come for best adapted screenplay, for Sideways (2004) and The Descendants (2011). His last feature, The Holdovers (2023), won best supporting actress for Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

Payne has only once screened a film in the Venice competition, with Downsizing debuting on the Lido in 2017.