VENICE — Venice announced this week that George Clooney will receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 83rd Venice Film Festival, running September 2 through September 12, 2026, honoring three decades of his work on the Lido as an actor, director and producer.
Clooney first appeared at the festival in 1998 with Out of Sight, returned in 2005 to premiere his directorial debut Good Night, and Good Luck, and married Amal Clooney in Venice in 2014. His most recent Venice premiere came last year with Jay Kelly, and earlier visits included Michael Clayton, Burn After Reading, The Ides of March and Suburbicon.
“Clooney deserves this Golden Lion, it arrives at the right moment, not too soon, and represents a further incentive to keep making films and series of real value. For me, he is the most credible heir to great classic Hollywood and its finest qualities”, film director and critic Marco Spagnoli told Italy Now.
Three decades of red carpet
Clooney is one of only three people nominated in six different Oscar categories, spanning best picture, director, lead actor, supporting actor and screenplay. He has won twice, for playing a CIA officer in Syriana and as a producer on Argo. In 2025 he earned a Tony nomination for his Broadway debut, playing the broadcaster Edward R. Murrow in a stage adaptation of Good Night, and Good Luck. Past recipients of the same lifetime honor include Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Tilda Swinton, Werner Herzog and Sigourney Weaver.
“Clooney is considered the renaissance man of modern cinema because what makes him so unique is his transition from a charismatic leading man to a highly respected, politically minded director and producer,” Walter Nicoletti, founder of production company Voce Spettacolo told Italy Now. “In Hollywood he always has used his star power to back risky, sophisticated and independent projects.”
“I was there in 2005, when he presented his directorial debut, Good Night, and Good Luck,” Spagnoli said. “I remember perfectly the final press conference, the general surprise when it became clear he would not win the Golden Lion.”
The Venice Film Festival chose him this year because in an era of fleeting digital frame, Clooney represents the enduring, classic and elegance of cinema, Nicoletti added.
Behind the camera, Clooney has directed nine feature films, including Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night, and Good Luck, The Ides of March and Suburbicon, work the Biennale called demanding and appropriately generous in ambition. His advocacy work includes co-founding Not on Our Watch, which funds satellite monitoring used to detect threats to civilians and document mass violence, and a 2012 protest outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington that led to his arrest.
Twenty years after that lost prize, Venice is now closing the loop with its highest honor, on a stage Clooney never really left.
