Venice 2026: George Clooney to receive ‘Lifetime Achievement’ Golden Lion
George Clooney is set to receive an honorary Golden Lion as a ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
The veteran actor and two-time Oscar winner has strong links to Venice, owning a home there and having become a stalwart of the festival itself over the years.
As such, when the news was announced on July 6th, per Deadline, Clooney expressed his sincere thanks to the festival and its organisers, with this year’s edition taking place from September 1st to 12th.
“I’ve had so many extraordinary moments in Venice. 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,” the actor said in a statement.
Clooney’s last appearance at the festival came in 2025 when his Netflix film Jay Kelly received its premiere, which coincidentally revolves around his character receiving a ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award at a film festival in Tuscany.
Subsequently, in a lengthy statement issued in response to the news of Clooney’s Golden Lion, festival director Alberto Barbera said: “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.”
Running through Clooney’s illustrious credits as an actor, which include his Oscar-winning turn in 2005’s Syriana and a massive stint in the Oceans franchise, he added that the actor’s films were, “refined, ambitious, and outside the rules and conventions of Hollywood cinema”.
Barbera continued: “They also 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.”
Clooney has been on a streak of picking up career awards this year, after he took home the ‘Chaplin Award for Film at Lincoln Center’ in April, while condemning the current landscape in America by saying there is “no room” for political violence.
In terms of acting roles, Clooney currently has no major upcoming projects, aside from a cameo role in Netflix’s Call My Agent! The Movie.
Never Miss A Scene
The Far Out Film Newsletter
All the latest film news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.