Venice film festival 2011: the 10 key films - in pictures

The Ides of March (opening night). The festival kicks off with George Clooney's tale of political skulduggery and scuppered idealism, loosely based on the giddying, mayfly crusade of 2004 presidential hopeful Howard Dean. Clooney directs and stars alongside Marisa Tomei, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ryan Gosling. We're hoping this is one is less Leatherheads, more Good Night and Good Luck Photograph: PR

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I loved Tomas Alfredson's last film (2009's Let the Right One In), so I'm fascinated to see how he handles the broad, murky canvas of John Le Carre's 70s spy novel. Gary Oldman reprises Alec Guinness's indelible turn as gimlet-eyed George Smiley, navigating a supporting cast that includes the likes of Colin Firth, John Hurt and Benedict Cumberbatch Photograph: PR

Wuthering Heights has been a long time coming. The project was first mooted in 2008 (with Natalie Portman briefly booked to play Cathy) and was tipped to unveil at the Cannes film festival in May. But the Croisette's loss could be the Lido's gain. Andrea Arnold (Red Road, Fish Tank) directs newcomers Kaya Scodelario and James Howson in the latest stab at Emily Brontë's wind-blown Gothic melodrama Photograph: PR

A Dangerous Method. David Cronenberg shifts back into dank, cerebral mode to adapt the Christopher Hampton play about the birth of psychoanalysis and the rivalry between Freud and Jung. This casts Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund and Michael Fassbender as Carl. Keira Knightley co-stars as the anguished patient who comes between them Photograph: PR

Dark Horse. Wild, skittish, potentially dangerous, Todd Solondz canters back to the fray with a black comedy of inertia, spotlighting two depressed thirty-somethings still living with their folks. The writer-director built his reputation on the back of the blisteringly misanthropic Happiness and seems a safe bet to ruffle a few more feathers here Photograph: PR

Faust. Anyone who caught Russian Ark and The Sun will be itching to see what the fearsomely gifted Alexander Sokurov (pictured above) does with the legend of Faust. This, according to the film-maker, is “a very colourful, elegant picture with a lot of Strauss music and a smell of chocolate”. It is also the fourth and final part of his unofficial quartet examining the corrosive effect of power Photograph: The Ronald Grant Archive

Carnage. Kate Winslet and John C Reilly (pictured above with Jodie Foster) play warring middle-class parents in Carnage, adapted from an award-winning stageplay (God of Carnage) by Yasmina Reza. It's the sort of claustrophobic chamber piece that seems perfectly suited to the skills of director Roman Polanski. But will he include the scene in which Winslet's character pukes across the coffee table? Photograph: PR

We Can't Go Home Again. We know Nicholas Ray (pictured above) for Rebel Without a Cause, They Live By Night and Bigger than Life. But he emerged from a lengthy exile in the early 70s to shoot We Can't Go Home Again, reputedly an abstract, experimental masterpiece, lost for years and now lovingly restored. It's screening out of competition in tandem with a new Ray documentary Don't Expect Too Much. I'll try, but my hopes are high. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Nel Nome Del Padre. Marco Bellochio made one of the all-time great debuts with Fists in the Pocket back in 1965 and his recent films (Vincere, My Mother's Smile) are sterling stuff too. He's in town to receive a lifetime achievement award, accompanied by a re-tooled “director's cut” of Nel Nome Del Padre, a film that he says has nagged and haunted him since he shot it back in 1971 Photograph: PR

Damsels in Distress (closing night film). Whither Whit Stillman? The wry, literate American made Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco and then sailed off the map, reputedly chasing his quixotic dream of shooting a movie about limbo dancers in Jamaica. But now, praise be, he's back. Damsels in Distress, an Ivy League drama starring Greta Gerwig, will bring down the curtain on this year's festival Photograph: PR