The Venice Film Festival is usually an early bellwether for the Oscars, though the event has thus far been mired in controversy. Despite the fact that this year’s jury president is Ms Lucrecia Martel, the Argentinian director behind hypnotic colonial fable Zama (which premiered on the Lido) and impressionistic thriller The Headless Woman, the festival has attracted the wrong sort of attention for its male-heavy line-up. Ms Martel and her jury will assess a roster that includes new films from Messrs Steven Soderbergh, David Michôd, Olivier Assayas and Pablo Larraín.

The gender imbalance is palpable (and as the critic Mr David Ehrlich observed, there are as many films from men accused of rape as there are films in competition directed by women). It doesn’t really help that festival director Mr Alberto Barbera said last year that he’d rather quit than give in to quotas.

A nice counterpoint to all of this is The Perfect Candidate from Ms Haifaa Al-Mansour, the first woman to shoot a film in Saudi Arabia. There’s also the world premiere of Mr Todd Phillips’ Joker starring Mr Joaquin Phoenix, which has tantalising notes of Mr Martin Scorsese’s The King Of Comedy and Mr Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke – so there’s a lot to take in.

And so, without further ado, here are the five Venice films that particularly excite us this year.

Directed by Ms Shannon Murphy

This buzzy Australian debut focuses on a seriously ill teenager who falls in love with a small-time drug dealer, much to the horror of her parents. Starring Ms Essie Davis (The Babadook), Ms Eliza Scanlen (Sharp Objects) and the thunderous Mr Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom), Babyteeth> recalls the mordant humour and scuzzy beauty of Ms Andrea Arnold.

Directed by Mr Hirokazu Kore-eda

The Japanese director follows his gorgeous 2018 Palme d’Or winner Shoplifters with La Vérité (The Truth), which opens the festival and is the director’s first film set outside of his home country. Ms Juliette Binoche returns to Paris to find her actor mother (played by the formidable Ms Catherine Deneuve) has published a controversial memoir. Co-starring Mr Ethan Hawke and Ms Ludivine Sagnier, this is a grown-up family portrait from one of world cinema’s great humanists.

Directed by Mr Noah Baumbach

The US’s pre-eminent observer of middle-class melancholy turns his lens to divorce, as stage director (Mr Adam Driver) and his actor wife (Ms Scarlett Johansson) go through a gruelling break-up. Big Little Lies standout Ms Laura Dern and Mr Alan Alda round out an excellent cast. From the film’s ingenious “his-and-hers” trailers, this looks like Mr Baumbach’s most merciless film yet and a new high for Ms Johansson, one of Hollywood’s most underrated performers.

Directed by Mr James Gray

Mr Brad Pitt plays an astronaut who journeys to the outer edges of space to search for his missing father (Mr Tommy Lee Jones) and solve a mystery that threatens to put the planet in danger. Mr Gray’s magnificent The Lost City Of Z gave Amazon rainforest exploration an almost transcendental pathos and, judging by the Imax trailer, Ad Astra will combine a similar cerebral symbolism with disaster-epic suspense. One for fans of Gravity and Arrival.

Directed by Ms Billie Piper

Starring Ms Lily James and Mr David Thewlis, Ms Billie Piper’s directorial debut (in which she also stars) is a cautionary tale about a modern woman in a crisis who falls upon a man hoping to restore his identity. After Ms Piper’s searing Olivier-winning performance in the Old Vic’s Yerma, the tone here sounds more blackly comic. An anti-romantic delight.