The 74th Berlin Film Festival runs from 15-25 February, and the freshly announced Competition line-up looks like cinephiles will be treated to a very strong edition, according to Euronews.

The Berlin International Film Festival has revealed the 20 titles selected for its official Competition.

It’s a promising selection of films with several star-driven projects and some arthouse favourites. We don’t envy this year’s jury, led by Lupita Nyong’o, but we can’t wait to feast our eyes on what has got to be the most eclectic Berlinale line-up in recent years.

New films from Olivier Assayas, Bruno Dumont, Mati Diop are among those selected for the Competition line-up, with stars including Rooney Mara (La Cocina), Gael García Bernal and Renate Reinsve (Another End), Sebastian Stan (A Different Man – also starring Reinsve), Isabelle Hupert (A Traveler’s Needs) and Cillian Murphy, whose new film, Small Things Like These, will open this year’s Berlinale.

Small Things Like These is directed by Peaky Blinders’ Tim Mielants, and is based on the 2021 book by Irish author, Claire Keegan.

Set in 1980s Ireland, it sees the Oppenheimer star play a devoted father who discovers unsettling truths about the Magdalene Laundries, the horrific asylums run by Roman Catholic institutions said to house “fallen women”. The cast includes Ciaran Hinds and Emily Watson.

The Berlinale's Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian said: “We are confident that this story that allies the kindness to be directed to the more fragile, and the willpower to stand up against injustice, will resonate with everyone.”

He continued: “We are looking forward to launching this quiet yet quite exceptional film at the start of Zeitgeist Irland 24, a year-long celebration of Irish culture in Germany."

Several films in the line-up already stand out as particularly alluring, such as Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacious’ (A Cop Movie) new film La Cocina. Billed as a love story set in the kitchen of a Manhattan restaurant, it sees Rooni Mara playing an American waitress named Julia who becomes romantically entangled with the prime suspect of an in-house theft, an undocumented Mexican cook named Pedro (Raúl Briones).

Elsewhere, Another End by Italian director Piero Messina (The Wait) stars García Bernal as a man whose wife dies, and Renate Reinsve as the woman who rents out her body - in which the memory and consciousness of his former wife are temporarily implanted – and becomes his partner. As you do.

Reinsve, who wowed audiences in The Worst Person in the World, also stars alongside Sebastian Stan (Logan Lucky, I, Tonya, the MCU’s Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier) in A Different Man, which follows an actor who has facial reconstruction surgery and who must come to terms with the fact that a theatre role based on his life is given to another actor. The film had its world premiere in Sundance earlier this month, and audiences were reportedly impressed by the film's performances, use of body horror, and one kinky sex scene that had viewers squirming in their seats.