The 30th edition of Fantasia International Film Festival kicks off in Montreal on July 16. There will be coverage of films posted here throughout the festival.
The festival will open with Nicolas Winding Refn’s Cannes-premiered HER PRIVATE HELL starring Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth, and Diego Calva. The World Premiere of Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein’s sequel FREAKS PART II will close the festival on August 2.
The lineup features many world premieres and films that debuted at major festivals like Cannes, Sundance, Berlinale, SXSW, Tribeca, and Annecy.
Jane Schoenbrun’s Cannes film TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA continues to explore the themes from their previous films by framing them within a slasher this time and adding plenty of humor and romance to the mix.
Yeon Sang-ho follows Seoul Station, Train to Busan, and Peninsula with another zombie film. In COLONY, which also premiered at Cannes, Yeon continues to bring fresh ideas to the genre and the technical aspects are executed brilliantly.
Michael Gallagher’s THE LEADER, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival last month, is worth watching for the strong performances of Tim Blake Nelson, Vera Farmiga, Jim Parsons, and Simon Rex. They portray members of the UFO cult Heaven’s Gate, 39 of whom committed the largest ever American mass suicide in 1997.
Fans of the awkward moments in Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office will likely get a kick out of Jean-Paul Guigue and Dimitri Planchon’s adult animated film BLAISE, which throws its characters into the center of political unrest and takes some dark, unexpected turns.
There is a lot more to look forward to. Here are some of the other highlights of the extensive Fantasia 2026 lineup:
The Samurai and the Prisoner
Jim Queen
Levitating
Buddy
A New Dawn
Matapanki
Dance Freak
The Fox
Nightborn
Sleep No More
Cocoon – One Summer of Girlhood
Straf
Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant
Never After Dark
Drag
Suzuki=Bakudan
Were Nothing at All
Sicko
The Glorious Dead
AnyMart
The Last Temptation of Becky
Hot Spot
Castration Movie Chapter iii.ii
Tunnels: Sun in the Dark
Black Zombie
The Peril at Pincer Point
Wind Breaker
Bagworm
Cherry and Virgin
Penny Lane is Dead
Kung Fu
You Are the Film
Tristes Tropiques
The Mouths
The Village of Eight Gravestones
The Seoul Guardians
Bowels of Hell
Recluse
Los Vampires
Our Effed Up World
Papaya
Motherwitch
A Safe Distance
You can dive deeper into this year’s selections at fantasiafestival.com and via this Letterboxd list at the link below.
https://letterboxd.com/filmfestival/list/fantasia-festival-2026/
