The Spiral (Italian: L'estranea) is a 2026 thriller film co-written and directed by Paolo Strippoli. A co-production of Italy, France, and Belgium, it stars Jasmine Trinca, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Adriano Giannini, and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.
The film had its world premiere in the main competition of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on 7 September 2026, where it competed for the Golden Lion. It will be theatrically released in Italy on 8 October.
Contents
Cast
Jasmine Trinca as Anna
Romana Maggiora Vergano as Alice
Adriano Giannini as Walter
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
Andrea Genovese as Tobia
Production
The film was announced in July 2025. It was shot over seven weeks in Rome and Bari, with production wrapping on 25 July 2025.
Release
The film had its world premiere in the main competition of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on 7 September 2026, where it competed for the Golden Lion.
Le Pacte owns the international sales rights to the film. It will be theatrically released in Italy by 01 Distribution on 8 October 2026.
Reception
Variety's critic Guy Lodge described the film as "a faintly absurd Faustian fable blown up to grand guignol proportions", and although he considered it less original than Strippoli's previous work,The Holy Boy, he saw it as further establishing the director as "Italy's new horror virtuoso". Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian gave the film a 4/5 rating, calling it an "uproarious edge-of-the-seat gripper", and hailing Bruni Tedeschi's performance as the best of her career. Deadline's critic Damon Wise also praised the film, characterizing it as a "more grounded mix of Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty and Saki's short horror story The Monkey's Paw", and lauding its "quite fantastically inventive" ideas and Bruni Tedeschi's and Trinca's performances.
Max Borg from The Film Verdict wrote that "what The Spiral may lack in meticulous build-up it makes up for in successive pay-offs", and the film is "propulsive and exhilarating, a ray of sunshine despite the gloomy clouds that bookend the framing device." Victor Fraga from DMovies referred to it as "wilfully absurd, with moments of real depravity and sharp humour" and "a beast of its own kind". Alex Kaan from PhantasMag called it "harrowing, stylish, and morbidly funny". In a less positive review, Screen International's critic Lee Marshall referred to it as "a self-consciously stylish number stuffed full of flashy crane shots, extreme shallow focus and woozy wide-angle shots" which "promises more than it delivers".