Torino Film Festival Builds Its Retrospective Around Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe is the centre of the Torino Film Festival's retrospective this year, a 24-film programme marking 100 years since her birth in 2026. Variety reported the lineup, which the festival announced just before its 2025 edition closed.

The festival's artistic director, Giulio Base, said he wanted to be the first to announce a Monroe retrospective for the anniversary year. He also cited Lee Strasberg, the acting teacher who led the Actors Studio in New York, as saying that Monroe was the female Marlon Brando.

The programme includes some of her best-known comedies. The Seven Year Itch, How to Marry a Millionaire and Some Like It Hot are all on the list. It also takes in Blonde, Andrew Dominik's 2022 film about Monroe, and La Rabbia, a documentary by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Giovanni Guareschi.

John Travolta is among the festival's honorees this year. He also stars in November 1963, the Roland Joffé film chosen to open the festival. Travolta's appearance and the opening film sit alongside the Monroe retrospective in the festival's main lineup.

A retrospective is a set of films gathered around one star or director, screened together so audiences can see a career laid out over time. Torino has used this format for anniversaries before. The 42nd festival, in 2024, dedicated its retrospective to Marlon Brando for the centenary of his birth. Earlier retrospectives have covered Brando and Paul Newman as well.

For festival-goers, the appeal of a centenary is simple. A birthday gives a reason to put a long filmography on screen at once, including films that rarely play in cinemas today. For Torino, this year's Monroe programme follows a pattern it has already used with Brando, and it puts a Hollywood star beside Italian titles such as the Pasolini and Guareschi documentary.

What is clear from the announcement is the mix: classic Hollywood comedy, a modern biographical drama, and an Italian documentary, all grouped under one name.