Intro for September 9, 2026

Dear Gossips,

From Anne Hathaway to Zendaya and Florence Pugh to Robert Pattinson, there are several actors this year with multiple high-profile prestige and/or blockbuster films that have already been released or have yet to be released. Add Penelope Cruz to that list. La Bola Negra, directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, is one of the most acclaimed movies of the year, with both directors, known as Los Javis, winning the Best Director award in Cannes. Just last weekend, La Bola Negra screened in Telluride and played extremely well there too, cementing the film as an Oscar contender. 

For Penelope there’s also Olivia Wilde’s The Invite (I f-cking love this movie), a critical and box office success by independent film standards - which is that much more remarkable considering how dominant The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day have been this summer. It’s a huge win for Olivia Wilde after what happened with Don’t Worry Darling because not only did her film make money, it is also in the Oscar conversation and Penelope could be a factor for that film in the supporting actress race.

Last night, though, she was in Venice, alongside Javier Bardem, at the premiere of Florian Zeller’s Bunker which is the festival’s current standing ovation leader after the applause went on for over 15 minutes.

Penélope Cruz broke out into uncontrollable sobs as she kissed her husband and co-star Javier Bardem during the incredibly long 15.5-minute standing ovation at the premiere of “Bunker” at the #VeniceFilmFestival.https://t.co/D0OzKlxFjC pic.twitter.com/2TB0rM6WpQ

— Variety (@Variety) September 8, 2026

The length of a standing ovation does not necessarily mean that it’s a great film. So far I’ve read mixed reviews about Bunker – but the consensus is that, once again, Penelope delivers an outstanding performance. The Oscar Academy loves her, and this year they might have three films that she’s in to choose from.

Back to Bunker though, and not necessarily about its Oscar chances but that it’s part of a film trend this year that Sarah noted yesterday in her Elizabeth Holmes post – several films this year have a common theme: billionaires suck. In addition to You Can See Anything, there’s also the Elon Musk documentary, and Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, about Sam Altman, which we’ll get to later today, and also Alejandro G Iñárritu’s fictional Digger, starring Tom Cruise, plus Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming The Social Reckoning about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook/Meta and Paul Greengrass’s The Uprising, inspired by Robin Hood, starring Andrew Garfield, which opens this week.

Bunker is about a couple, played by Penelope and Javier, whose marriage is jeopardised after the husband, an architect, agrees to build a luxury bunker for an oligarch played by Paul Dano. Like I said, “billionaires suck” is all over the film festival circuit, a revival of the evil billionaire trope that is as old as storytelling itself. Like Sarah asked yesterday, how will the billionaires respond to this new wave of cinematic vilification?

Yours in gossip,

Lainey