Venice film festival 2012: key contenders – in pictures

Venice kicks off with The Reluctant Fundamentalist, adapted by Mira Nair from Mohsin Hamid's novel and screening out-of-competition. Riz Ahmed plays the Pakistan-born Princeton graduate, chasing his dream on Wall Street but pulled back by past ties Photograph: PR

Chris Evans (pictured here) stars alongside Michael Shannon – set to deliver another payload of menace – in The Iceman, a biopic of notorious Mafia killer Richard Kuklinski, who was linked to about 200 murders. James Franco, Ray Liotta and Winona Ryder are among the supporting cast Photograph: PR

Wadjda makes history before it even screens, as the first feature made by a female film-maker in Saudi Arabia. Three years in the making, Haifaa Al Mansoor's drama charts the adventures of a young girl cyclist through a repressive patriarchal system Photograph: PR

Those wishing to escape the sunshine and ice-creams at this year's event are advised to book a seat for Paradise Faith, the second part of Ulrich Seidl's immaculately cold-eyed trilogy about the state of modern humanity. This one, reportedly, is about a middle-aged housewife who hawks statues of the Virgin Mary door-to-door. A crisis of faith is surely right around the corner Photograph: PR

A rarefied cult favourite for the past few years, director Ramin Bahrani looks set to crack the mainstream with At Any Price, in which Zac Efron headlines as a rebellious rich-kid racing driver. Fingers crossed that Bahrani doesn't shed his unique, low-key vision as he moves up through the gears Photograph: PR

Possibly the hottest ticket on the Lido: Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a rumpled intellectual who invents a religion for masses. Is the whole thing just a veiled, unauthorised biography of L Ron Hubbard? Early evidence suggests some striking (and presumably intentional) parallels Photograph: PR

Terrence Malick scooped the 2011 Cannes Palme d'Or for his rapturous The Tree of Life. With uncharacteristic haste, the visionary director bounces back to the fray in Venice, unveiling To the Wonder. True to form, the film itself is swathed in mystery, though sources hint at a tale of second acts in American lives, as Ben Affleck's divorcee reconnects with the one that got away Photograph: PR

Any film from the skittishly talented Olivier Assayas is well worth checking out. Here he chases up his epic, made-for-TV biopic of Carlos the Jackal with Something in the Air, another historical drama of sorts, charting a student's coming-of-age against the backdrop of the May 1968 uprisings Photograph: PR

Spring Breakers draws the battlelines between the sweet and the sick, the mainstream and the back-alley. Squeaky-clean Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens are college kids who rob a restaurant in order to fund their vacation. Yet lurking behind the camera is the snickering form of Harmony Korine, the one-time enfant-terrible of American cinema, grown still more disreputable with age Photograph: PR

Brian De Palma appears to be right back in Dressed to Kill mode with Passion, a tale of corporate skulduggery and simmering sexual tension. Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams as apprentice and mistress, bouncing off walls inside a sterile office block Photograph: PR

A quarter of a century after the release of Michael Jackson's Bad, Spike Lee and an all-star cast reassess the album's influence. Lee's documentary, filmed with the full co-operation of the Jackson estate, will incorporate a host of unreleased songs Photograph: PR

Ibrahim El-Batout's Winter of Discontent focuses on the Egyptian uprisings that unseated Hosni Mubarak. The film, which traces the journeys of three people, each differently involved with the revolution, was shot partly during events in Tahrir Square Photograph: PR

Robert Redford directs and stars in The Company You Keep, about a former Weather Underground activist who goes on the run from a journalist who has discovered his identity. Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie and Brendan Gleeson round out the cast Photograph: Doane Gregory/PR

Disconnect, Henry Alex Rubin's digital-age ensemble thriller, focuses on a group of people searching for human connections in a wired world. Hooking up are Jason Bateman, Alexander Skarsgård, Paula Patton, Hope Davis and Andrea Riseborough Photograph: PR

When he died last August, Chilean master Raul Ruiz was hard at work on Lines of Wellington, a Napoleonic-era epic. His widow, Valeria Sarmiento, assumed directorial duties and the outcome, she says, is 'a film by me. I made the decisions' Photograph: PR

In Love Is All You Need, Susanne Bier's romantic drama, Pierce Brosnan is a lonely, middle-aged widower who connects with a recuperating hairdresser Photograph: PR

Boxing Day, Alberto Barbera's tale of a debt-laden businessman who leaves his family immediately after Christmas to pursue a lucrative property deal, reunites Bernard Rose and Danny Huston for a third time following Ivansxtc and The Kreutzer Sonata Photograph: PR