Newport Beach Film Festival Returns Oct. 15 With Variety's 10 Actors to Watch

The Newport Beach Film Festival will return for its 27th year on Oct. 15-22, showcasing more than 100 feature films and 250 shorts from 21 countries — and spotlighting Variety's 10 Actors to Watch, this year's breakout performers across film and television.

The festival opens with the documentary "Frampton," about Peter Frampton's life and career, and closes with Searchlight Pictures' "Behemoth!," directed by Tony Gilroy. The drama stars Pedro Pascal as a gifted cellist from a family of musicians who returns home to Los Angeles after 20 years of traveling. Olivia Wilde, Eva Victor and Alexa Swinton also star. Gilroy and production designer Jade Healy will attend.

"As we celebrate our 27th year, the Newport Beach Film Festival is thrilled to once again bring together audiences with the year's most talked-about films and an extraordinary global community of filmmakers right as awards season heats up," said Gregg Schwenk, CEO and executive director of NBFF.

What films anchor the lineup?

Centerpiece screenings include:

• Martin McDonagh's "Wild Horse Nine," with John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell
• Anton Corbijn's "A Talent for Murder," with Helen Mirren, Olivia Cooke and Alden Ehrenreich
• James Gray's "Paper Tiger," toplining Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller
• Beth de Araújo's "Josephine," starring Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan
• Danny Boyle's "Ink," with Jack O'Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy

Aaron Burns' "Jimmy," a biopic about Jimmy Stewart's life after his Oscar for "The Philadelphia Story," will have its West Coast premiere, followed by a Q&A with the cast and crew, including star KJ Apa.

The Spotlight section draws films from Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Italy, New Zealand, the Philippines, Poland, Spain and Sweden. Among them is Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi's "La Bola Negra," starring Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Lola Dueñas, Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close. The generational queer drama premiered at Cannes in May to a 16-minute standing ovation and won the 2026 TIFF People's Choice Award.

Documentaries include Ron Howard's "Avedon," about photographer Richard Avedon, and A. Altman's "The Sixty-Year Mission: How 'Star Trek' Changed Television and the World." "As Far Back as I Can Remember … The Story of 'Goodfellas,'" from directors Lisa Downs and Ashley Pugh, will have its world premiere.

Who are this year's 10 Actors to Watch?

Since 1998, Variety has spotlighted breakout performers; the franchise counts more than 35 past Oscar winners and nominees. Last year's list included Chase Infiniti, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Miles Caton. The 2025 honorees will be celebrated on Oct. 18 at the festival's Honor Brunch.

The class includes Jaafar Jackson, who plays his uncle Michael Jackson in Antoine Fuqua's "Michael." The film's closing "Bad" number was shot on his first day of production. "They threw me right in the deep end," Jackson said. He insisted the crew crank the concert speakers until he could feel the bass in his chest, the same way his uncle did. He is currently shooting a role opposite Will Smith.

Inde Navarrette stars in Curry Barker's "Obsession," now one of the highest-grossing horror films of all time. "It has been bigger than any of us could have ever imagined," she said. She next appears in Marvel's "X-Men" reboot.

Guitarricadelafuente makes his acting debut as Sebastián, a man who escapes an attack on his village in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, in Netflix's "La Bola Negra," inspired by an unfinished Federico García Lorca play. "I thought I was going there to play a character, and I didn't expect Sebastián to stay with me in such a personal way," he said. "It made me want to live more, somehow."

Rosalind Eleazar stars in Chris Rock's "Misty Green," which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and positions her as a potential best actress Oscar contender. "I've always been fascinated with finding humanity in really extreme characters," she said.

Joseph Zada plays Cal Trast in Netflix's "East of Eden" adaptation and Haymitch in "The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping." "Joining 'The Hunger Games' franchise means the world to me," he said.

The list also includes Esmé Creed-Miles ("Sense and Sensibility"), Mariana Di Girólamo ("Wild Horse Nine"), Summer H. Howell (Mike Flanagan's "Carrie" series), Ruth Madeley ("Being Heumann"), and Ray Nicholson, who plays real Purdue football star Tony Butkovich in Peter Berg's war drama "The Mosquito Bowl."

Madeley plays disability rights icon Judy Heumann for "CODA" director Siân Heder, her first Hollywood lead. "Disabled actors have to be seen for all manner of roles, because we're all manner of things," she said.

With awards season underway, Newport Beach's Oct. 18 brunch will offer an early look at performers likely to dominate the coming year's conversation.