Golden Horse Unveils 18 Major Films, Including Lee Chang-dong’s Only Taiwanese Big-Screen Release

Lee Chang-dong’s new film, “What If Love Had a Chance,” will have its only big-screen showing anywhere in Taiwan at the 2026 Golden Horse Film Festival. The Netflix production will receive its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and stars Jeon Do-yeon, Sol Kyung-gu, Jo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong. South Korea has already selected it as its international feature entry for the Oscars.

The festival unveiled 18 new films by acclaimed directors and major stars. “Love Me Till the Dance,” which won the Sundance award for best dramatic director, follows a widowed Japanese woman who moves through grief via ballroom dancing. Rinko Kikuchi, who was nominated for an Oscar for “Babel,” shows her comic range in the film and will attend a post-screening event in Taiwan.

Olivier Assayas’s “The Wizard of the Kremlin” examines post-truth politics through a media operator played by Paul Dano, who helps clear a path to power for the young Putin, played by Jude Law. Isabelle Huppert becomes an aristocratic vampire in “The Scarlet Countess,” while Emmanuelle Machelon’s “Our Redemption” examines moral ambiguity and the banality of evil through a bureaucrat under the Vichy regime.

The lineup also includes films about an underground society controlled by men in the borderlands of Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey; a father and daughter whose attempt to repair their relationship turns painful; and a boy’s disillusionment with his father amid wrestling, migration and masculinity. Other selections turn family drama, black comedy and monsters into absurd fantasy, explore euthanasia, art and family through science fiction, and follow a doctor confronting the moral crisis created by his son’s involvement in a racist attack.

The festival will take place from Nov. 6 to 23, 2026. A program guide will be held at Taipei New Horizon on Oct. 21, and ticket sales will begin on Oct. 25.