Some of the biggest stars at this year’s Venice Film Festival won’t be the famous faces walking the red carpet, but the wildly high-profile subjects of documentaries that range from intoxicating to grippingly urgent.From Oscar winner Alex Gibney‘s 4-hour dissection of Elon Musk and Disney’s intimate Oasis reunion movie to NAZA, the politically charged documentary about “Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” and the ICE documentary They’re Here from Laura Poitras (another Oscar winner) and Rachel Lauren Mueller — many of this year’s must-see movies on the Lido are clearly nonfiction. And, arguably, the biggest star who may or may not walk Venice’s red carpet — aside from Noel and Liam Gallagher — will likely do so on behalf of a documentary. Noted architecture superfan Brad Pitt recently became an executive producer of Wim Wenders’ 14-year-in-the-making documentary portrait of Peter Zumthor, the Swiss visionary behind the sprawling new Los Angeles County Museum of Art — another gem among Venice’s stacked 2026 documentary lineup.“It’s a phenomenal year for docs at Venice, and I think this will be one of the big stories of this edition,” says Emilie Spiegel, who co-heads Cinetic Marketing, a prestige publicity agency that represents an outsized swath of every fall’s awards favorites. “To have the oldest festival in the world so clearly state that documentary is cinema, and that some of the most exciting work is happening there, is really significant. Amid budget contractions and studio consolidation, I also think it’s optimistic and savvy of Venice to be championing nonfiction right now.”For breadth, depth, diversity and pedigree, Venice has clearly emerged as the preeminent platform for high-end nonfiction filmmaking among the world’s top festivals. While Cannes has been far more sporadic in its support of the form, and Berlin tends to offer quantity at the expense of quality, Venice has consistently brought the bangers — and the 2026 selection looks to be among its best yet.Two-time Oscar winner Barbara Kopple is back with Union Town, a cinéma vérité portrait of New York delivery workers taking on some of the world’s most powerful corporations; Free Solo Oscar winners Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi return to extreme sporting terrain with Everest: The Other Side, about a pair of mountaineers’ audacious attempt to climb and ski the north face of the world’s tallest mountain; The Truffle Hunters duo Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw decamp to French wine country for an infectiously romantic and richly informative romp in Burgundy; and Takashi Miike, after more than 100 films and three decades spent gleefully jumping around genres, makes his first documentary with Shumei: The Living Legacy of Kabuki, filmed over more than three years with rare access to the inner sanctum of Japan’s traditional Kabuki theater world.