Ah, the famed Venice Film Festival standing ovation. The famed standing ovation is often used as a metric for the quality of the highly-anticipated movies that premiere there. But, the amount of applause a movie gets doesn't always equal the overall quality of the films themselves. That being said, this week there were already two huge moments when it comes to standing ovations for two projects on the 2024 movie schedule: Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton’s drama The Room Next Door and Brad Pitt and George Clooney’s action comedy Wolfs.
Julianne Moore And Tilda Swinton Basically Won Venice With A 17-Minute Standing Ovation
First of all, Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton seriously stunned the first audiences of The Room Next Door on Monday, September 2, when the movie had people standing and clapping for a staggering 17 minutes. It’s reportedly the longest applause for the festival this year (so far). Other movies like Angelina Jolie’s Maria (which the actress strutted to in a gorgeous gown) received eight minutes of applause while the Daniel Craig-led movie Queer got nine minutes.
The Room Next Door comes from beloved Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar in what is his first full-length English debut. The movie is about two old friends who reconnect after Moore’s character of Martha learns that Swinston’s character Ingrid is being treated for cancer.
It sounds like a deeply emotional film and one that I can't wait to see, especially after that standing ovation.
But, George Clooney And Brad Pitt Won My Heart By Dancing During Wolfs’ Venice Applause
That’s all well and good, but my favorite instance of Venice standing ovations I’ve seen this year has to be from Brad Pitt and George Clooney for Wolfs. The pair famously worked together in the 2000s on the Ocean’s movies and the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading back in 2008. Now, for the first time in years, they have come back together to work on Jon Watts’ Wolfs. Check out what happened when they received an extended applause:
@varietymagazine ♬ original sound - Variety
What a great moment! The pair of big movie stars, who appear to be wearing matching suits, embraced each other after the movie’s runtime before they decided to go into a little dance with each other to celebrate all the audience's affection.
And, there are plenty of reasons for the actors to dance about the movie. Wolfs has been getting high praise from critics since its premiere, including through CinemaBlend’s own Wolfs review. Our site gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars, with Mike Reyes writing that “Clooney and Pitt do not miss a beat, as their combined and individual resumes have given them the shorthand needed to make the most out” of the new flick.
So, yeah, I think the dance was warranted.
Wolfs is set to hit select theaters on September 20 before arriving to those with an AppleTV+ subscription a week later on September 27. The Room Next Door, on the other hand, is hitting select theaters on Christmas Day, before going wide in January 2025 – just in time to receive all the Oscars buzz after that long-standing ovation moment.
