Save the date, cinephiles: The renowned Chicago International Film Festival is back with a fresh lineup of screenings on Oct. 15 – 26, 2025.
The Chicago International Film Festival, North America’s longest-running competitive international film festival, marks its 61st year with a dazzling roster of global cinema, special guests, and more can’t-miss events for film buffs.
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This year’s lineup features almost 120 feature films and 70 shorts, including world premieres, North American premieres, newly restored Chicago films, and cinema from more than 60 countries around the world.
A few of the star-studded options at the 2025 festival include:
- Is This Thing On? (directed by Bradley Cooper, starring Will Arnett)
- Hamnet (directed by Chloe Zhao, starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley)
- Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (directed by Rian Johnson, starring Daniel Craig and Josh O’Connor)
- Frankenstein (directed by Guillermo del Toro, starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi)
- Jay Kelly (directed by Noah Baumbach, starring George Clooney)
The event is centered around AMC NEWCITY 14, but will also feature events throughout Chicago at venues like the Music Box Theatre, the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Chicago History Museum, and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago.
Check out a few highlights of the 61st annual Chicago International Film Festival and get your tickets today.
Opening night: One Golden Summer
This year’s festival opens with the world premiere of One Golden Summer, a soul-stirring documentary from award-winning filmmaker Kevin Shaw. Recounting the rise and fall of Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West Little League team, the film explores race, resilience, and youth sports through the voices of the now-grown athletes.
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo
Set in a remote Chilean mining town in 1982, this drama follows young Lidia as she searches for truth amid a deadly plague rumored to spread through a glance between men. Surrounded by her fierce queer family, she navigates a world gripped by fear, violence, and myth. With lyrical warmth and touches of magical realism, Diego Céspedes’ debut offers a moving meditation on love and survival.
No Other Choice
Director Park Chan-wook’s newest thriller slices through the anxieties of modern labor with razor-sharp dark comedy. Starring Lee Byung-hun (Squid Game) as a desperate paper company veteran, the film spirals into absurdity as he kills his rivals in a bid to reclaim his place in a vanishing industry.
Pasa Faho
Azubuike, a soft-spoken Nigerian shoe salesman in Melbourne, wrestles with a crisis of faith and fatherhood as his estranged son moves in. As the two navigate cultural expectations and personal reckonings, their bond deepens in unexpected ways. What unfolds is a tender dramedy about belonging, belief, and the gentle grace of beginning anew.
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Six-year-old Hind Rajab’s desperate call to Gaza’s Red Crescent dispatchers anchors this searing portrait of life’s fragility and the strength of those who bear witness. Combining real audio recordings and dramatic reenactments, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania delivers an unflinching account of first responders caught in an impossible situation.
The Eyes of Ghana
In this inspiring documentary, Ghanaian film pioneer Chris Hesse sets out to recover long-lost footage of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president and a symbol of pan-African ambition. Approaching a century of life, Hesse turns his mission into a compelling act of cultural preservation, illuminating the buried legacies of post-colonial resistance.
Bugonia
Genre-defying director Yorgos Lanthimos unleashes a pitch-dark satire of conspiracy culture gone feral, starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. When two delusion-fueled men abduct a CEO they suspect is a hostile alien, the lines between captor and captive blur in a surreal showdown of paranoia and control.
Only Heaven Knows
A Kyrgyz family in Chicago faces unraveling bonds as a prodigal son’s dream of home ownership collides with mounting debt and fractured trust. Director Nurzhamal Karamoloeva’s taut drama captures an immigrant family’s relentless pursuit of the American dream as they’re pushed to the brink.
It Was Just an Accident
After a chance encounter with the man he believes once tortured him, former political prisoner Vahid takes justice into his own hands — only to be haunted by uncertainty. Winner of the Palme d’Or, this captivating revenge thriller explores vengeance, memory, and the shadows of political oppression.
Child of Dust
This intimate documentary traces the emotional journey of Sang, a 55-year-old Vietnamese man seeking the father he’s never met — an American soldier from the Vietnam War. Grappling with identity and the scars of history, he attempts to reconnect with a family across oceans and decades.
