The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) has unveiled its first look at the 2026 program, with 25 films and special events headlining the 74th edition running August 6th-23rd across Melbourne and regional Victoria.
Among the music-forward highlights, John Cameron Mitchell will attend MIFF to present a live commentary screening of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” in restored 4K at The Astor, marking 25 years of the cult rock musical.
Also on the music doc front, “The Best Summer” captures a remarkable piece of Australian rock history. In December 1995, filmmaker Tamra Davis brought a Sony Hi8 camcorder on tour with her then-new husband Mike D of the Beastie Boys, accidentally documenting one of the great rock documents of the era.
The footage – discovered in a shoebox while Davis was evacuating her home during the 2025 Los Angeles Palisades wildfire – captures Beastie Boys, Pavement, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, The Amps and Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna at Summersault, an Australian festival that was gunning to rival the Big Day Out.
Perth alt-rock quartet Jebediah are the subject of “Jebediah: Are We OK?,” a MIFF Premiere Fund documentary from director Arlo Dean Cook tracing the band’s thirty-year arc from high school beginnings to Triple J darlings. The film draws on three decades of archival and home-movie footage alongside contributions from Tim Rogers, Phil Jamieson and Janet English.
The special events program also includes “Hear My Eyes: Memento,” presented with Arts Centre Melbourne, which will pair Christopher Nolan’s restored 4K debut thriller with a live score from a yet-to-be-announced local artist.
The broader program features 17 international and local titles alongside six MIFF Premiere Fund productions. Notable inclusions from the international slate include Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Minotaur,” winner of the Cannes Grand Prix, and “Dead Man’s Wire” from Gus Van Sant, starring Bill Skarsgård, Al Pacino and Colman Domingo.
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MIFF Artistic Director Al Cossar said the first glance titles represented “a world on screen, alongside the very best in new Australian storytelling,” with more than 300 titles to be announced when the full program drops on July 9th.
MIFF Online will stream nationally via Cinema 3, ACMI’s on-demand platform, through to August 30th. The festival’s regional showcase returns to Bendigo, Ballarat, Castlemaine, Geelong, Healesville, Rosebud, Sale and Warrnambool across the weekends of August 14th-16th and 21st-23rd.
The $140,000 Bright Horizons Award headline the MIFF Awards, supported by the Victorian Government through VicScreen, with the ceremony August 22nd.
MIFF Memberships, which include four-day pre-sale access, are on sale now here. See all ticket details here.