George Clooney will receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 83rd Venice film festival, which runs Sept. 2 – 12.
“I’ve had so many extraordinary moments in Venice,” Clooney said via statement. “This festival is without question my favorite and to be given the Golden Lion is a tremendous honor. It also probably means I’m old, but I’ll take it.”
Artistic Director of the Festival, Alberto Barbera, noted: “In his triple capacity as actor, director, and producer, George Clooney is a complete and charismatic artist, impassioned and original, who has transformed a deep vocation into one of the most luminous parabolas of contemporary film. An early career launched without shortcuts, with small roles in TV series and B movies until his major success as the star of the series ‘ER,’ formed an actor who is able to inhabit the screen with disarming spontaneity.”
Barbera went on to call Clooney a “perfect combination of the star glamour of days gone by, remarkable professionalism, and modern sensitivity” and noted that the films he has directed, including including 2005’s “Good Night and Good Luck,” “reflect his other vocation, a commitment to social and humanitarian causes, making him a figure of absolute prominence in the universe of show business today. ”
Since breaking out as Dr. Doug Ross on NBC’s “ER” in the 1990s, Clooney has won two Oscars, one as best supporting actor for “Syriana” in 2006, the other for producing the 2012 best picture winner “Argo.” He also has four Golden Globes, four Actor Awards, one BAFTA, two Critics’ Choice Awards, an Emmy and an American Film Institute Life Achievement Award. In 2025, he was nominated for a Tony for playing Edward R. Murrow in “Good Night, and Good Luck,” the stage adaptation of the film by the same name, which earned him his first Academy Award nod for best director.
He continues to produce with his longtime business and creative partner Grant Heslov through Smokehouse Pictures.
Clooney, who has a home in Italy on Lake Como, has taken several films to the Venice film festival over the years, most recently with last year’s “Jay Kelly,” in which he starred as an aging superstar grappling with an existential crisis, and before that, “Wolves,” “Suburbicon,” “The Ides of March,” “Good Night, and Good Luck,” “Intolerable Cruelty” and “Out of Sight.”
As previously announced, Maggie Gyllenhaalwill chair the jury of the 83rd Venice film festival. Other members of the jury include Kaouther Ben Hania and Daniel Blumberg.
The post George Clooney to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at Venice Film Festival appeared first on TheWrap.
