Mill Valley 2026 Lineup Sets McDonagh, Farrelly and Eisenberg for Its Biggest Nights
The 49th Mill Valley Film Festival runs Oct. 1–11 with 94 features and 80 shorts from 45 countries. Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine opens, Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky anchors the middle, and Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut closes the festival.
Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine will open the 49th Mill Valley Film Festival on Oct. 1, with Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich leading a dark comedy about CIA agents sent to Easter Island before Chile’s 1973 coup. The California Film Institute’s festival runs Oct. 1–11 across Mill Valley, San Rafael, Larkspur and Berkeley, and its full lineup now points to a strong run of filmmaker-driven premieres, awards-season titles and Bay Area connections. AwardsWatch reports 94 features and 80 short films from 45 countries, with women and nonbinary filmmakers behind 61% of the projects.
Wild Horse Nine Gives Opening Night a Local Charge
Rockwell’s return home is the emotional hook. The Daly City native will receive the festival’s Actor Tribute on Oct. 2, one night after Wild Horse Nine screens at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael and Sequoia Cinemas in Mill Valley. Yahoo’s G. Allen Johnson reports that Rockwell, McDonagh and co-star Mariana di Girolamo are expected to attend.
The film reunites McDonagh and Rockwell after Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which earned Rockwell the supporting-actor Oscar in 2018. In Wild Horse Nine, Rockwell and Malkovich play longtime CIA operatives dispatched from Santiago to Easter Island. AwardsWatch reports that Steve Buscemi plays their bureau chief, while di Girolamo and Ailín Salas play young activists whose presence throws the mission off course.
The setup has the kind of collision McDonagh tends to enjoy: institutional violence, brittle jokes and people whose private history keeps intruding on the assignment. Mill Valley is betting that its audience wants the festival to begin with actors who can make danger funny without making it feel safe.
Photo: Colleen Sturtevant · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
I Play Rocky Puts Stallone’s Gamble at the Center
Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky is the Centerpiece on Oct. 7. The biographical drama follows Sylvester Stallone’s effort to create
