Julian Schnabel is set to receive one of the highest honors of his career. The acclaimed artist and filmmaker has been named the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 Lucca Film Festival, celebrating his decades-long contribution to both cinema and contemporary art. The festival, which runs from September 26 to October 4 in Tuscany, Italy, will welcome Schnabel for a public masterclass and a retrospective showcasing some of his most celebrated films. His latest directorial effort, In the Hand of Dante, will also screen during the event, with the award being presented ahead of the film’s screening.
Based on Nick Tosches’ 2002 novel, In the Hand of Dante features an impressive ensemble cast including Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, Jason Momoa, Al Pacino, and Martin Scorsese. The Netflix-backed film premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival last year.
Before becoming an acclaimed filmmaker, Schnabel established himself as one of the defining artists of New York’s 1980s art scene through his signature “plate paintings,” large-scale works created using broken ceramic shards.
He made his feature directorial debut with Basquiat (1996), a biographical drama about legendary artist Jean-Michel Basquiat starring Jeffrey Wright and David Bowie. The film was followed by Before Night Falls (2000), which earned Javier Bardem the Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination.
Schnabel reached even greater critical acclaim with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), the moving adaptation of Jean-Dominique Bauby’s memoir. The film won him Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, earned him a Golden Globe for Best Director, and received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film.
His later works include Miral (2010), starring Freida Pinto, and At Eternity’s Gate (2018), which saw Willem Dafoe receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Vincent van Gogh.
The Lucca Film Festival has previously honored some of cinema’s most influential voices, including David Lynch, Paul Schrader, and Alfonso Cuarón, placing Schnabel in distinguished company.
With a career spanning painting, filmmaking, and storytelling across multiple mediums, the Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes Julian Schnabel’s lasting impact on world cinema. As audiences prepare to revisit his celebrated filmography alongside his latest work, the honor serves as another milestone in the career of one of modern cinema’s most distinctive visual storytellers.