Ink Opens Venice as O'Connell Faces Stacked Best Actor Oscar Race — SkimNews
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- Ink, Danny Boyle's adaptation of James Graham's 2017 play, opened the 2026 Venice Film Festival as a Studiocanal production distributed by Netflix in the U.S., depicting Rupert Murdoch's purchase of the failing Sun tabloid and Larry Lamb's editorship in the late 1960s-early 1970s.
- Jack O'Connell stars as Lamb with Guy Pearce as Murdoch, Claire Foy and Brian Gleeson in supporting roles — Boyle compared O'Connell's performance to Al Pacino in 'The Godfather II' and designed Lamb's office to evoke that film's aesthetic.
- Guy Pearce received implicit endorsement from Murdoch's daughter Elizabeth, who told him 'Dad's very happy that you're playing him'; the piece frames his Murdoch as 'more buttoned up and stuffy' than Brian Cox's 'Succession' take.
- O'Connell characterized Lamb as a study of 'the cost of what happens when you do forfeit those morals and those standards, somebody's privacy in order to sell a product.'
- The Best Actor Oscar race is already shaping up as a 'clash of the titans' between Ryan Gosling ('Project Hail Mary'), Matt Damon ('The Odyssey'), and Tom Cruise ('Digger') — all three still chasing a first acting Oscar — leaving O'Connell with a steep climb.
- Boyle highlighted technical choices including a 360 camera used 'very violently,' a 'poor man's bullet time,' sound work from Oscar winners Simon Hayes and Johnnie Burn, and Daniel Pemberton's score, framing the low-budget shoot as choosing 'the risky option.'
- A Claire Foy Best Supporting Actress nomination is unlikely given she was passed over for 'First Man,' 'Women Talking,' and 'All of Us Strangers,' per the piece's analysis, while a Pearce Supporting Actor bid would ride the afterglow of 'The Brutalist' rather than this turn.
Why it matters: For Netflix's awards-season push, opening Venice is prime positioning — but the Best Actor field is shaping up as a 'clash of the titans' among Gosling, Damon, and Cruise, three A-listers each seeking a first acting Oscar. That splits the overdue-winner narrative and leaves O'Connell's showcase as a nomination long shot despite the festival launch.
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