Earlier this month, I was a panelist at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, where I was invited to assess and discuss the most recent films to come out of the Biennale College, a division of the festival that has been financing low-budget productions for the past dozen years. It’s a great program that has resulted in some very good films, but the three movies to come out of it this year weren’t up to the usual standard.

I could tell you why, but since the odds are strong that they’ll never become available in the United States, there’s really no point. Instead, I’d rather tell you about some of the conclusions I reached while seeing some of the other movies in Venice.

The nice thing about going to the festival — aside from Venice itself — is that everybody comes away with a broader sense of what’s on the horizon and what people are thinking.

Bradley Cooper is a major filmmaker

After seeing “A Star Is Born” at the 2018 Venice festival, I just assumed thatBradley Cooperwas an actor who just stumbled up and made a wonderful movie. But after seeing “Maestro,” the story ofLeonard Bernsteinand his marriage to Felicia Montealegre, I realized that “A Star Is Born” was no happy accident.

Cooper is a seriously talented filmmaker, and “Maestro” is one of the best movies about a marriage that I’ve ever seen. The filmmaking is free, unconventional and inspired, and the performances — including Cooper’s own as Bernstein — are excellent.

Also, unless something else amazing comes along, I expectCarey Mulliganto win the best actress Oscar for her performance as Montealegre.

‘The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial’ is a low-key but winning swan song for William Friedkin

著名的1954年的电影“凯恩兵变”,主演Humphrey Bogart, was based on the novel of the same name by American writer Herman Wouk. This film, the last from William Friedkin (“The French Connection,” “The Exorcist,” “Bug”), who died in August at age 87, is a fairly straight screen adaptation of Wouk’s subsequent 1954 play, a courtroom drama. Friedkin keeps everything pretty much the same, except that he updates it to 2023. It’s a good, old-fashioned movie, with Kiefer Sutherland doing surprisingly well in Bogart’s role as the paranoid Captain Queeg.

This was the first (almost) normal Venice festival since 2019

Alone among the world’s film festivals, Venice never stopped for the COVID pandemic. Though it’s hard to imagine now, in 2020 (months before the vaccines), they had a full-scale, live and in-person festival — albeit with mandatory masking, socially distanced seating and temperature checks.

The festival continued with health precautions through last year’s edition, but this year, all the pandemic protocols were dropped, and people were once again standing in crammed lines to get into packed indoor screenings. It was an entirely normal festival … but for the absence of the usual contingent of American movie stars, due to theSAG-AFTRA strike.

Adam Driver represented American actors and did it well

As one of the few American stars to show up for a premiere, Adam Driver spoke eloquently as a member of SAG-AFTRA and enhanced both himself and his cause. Driver was able to appear because his film, “Ferrari,” in which he stars as the Italian carmaker, Enzo Ferrari, was made by Neon, a small company that has agreed to SAG-AFTRA’s terms. (These include a raise and protection against the use of artificial intelligence.)

“Every time people from SAG go and support movies that have agreed to the interim agreement, it just makes it more obvious that these people are willing to support the people they collaborate with, and the others are not,” Driver said.

Unfortunately, “Ferrari” is a bit of a disappointment. It has its moments, and Driver is good, but the film, directed by Michael Mann (“The Last of the Mohicans,” “The Insider”), falls flat. Like a car race, the most exciting parts are the crashes, which are spectacular here.

Woody Allen is back — at least in Europe

Unable to get financing for his latest — and 50th — movie, Woody Allen decided to film “Coup de Chance” in Paris and in French, with an A-list French cast (Lou de Laage, Melvil Poupaud, Valerie Lemercier). It’s a story that starts innocently enough, with a young married woman running into a man she knew in high school. From there, it takes a series of dark turns.

What’s impressive about the movie is the 87-year-old filmmaker’s command of tone. Even at its darkest, it’s vaguely funny.

At the screening I attended, the audience applauded when his name appeared on the credits, and they applauded even louder at the movie’s conclusion. It’s Allen’s best movie since “Blue Jasmine” (2013).

Movie exhibition is back

In the depths of the pandemic, I had the fantasy that COVID’s end would come like the end of World War II — suddenly and joyfully, with nurses and sailors kissing in the street. But the process has been gradual, with different sectors coming back online slowly. However, what’s apparent from the recent successes of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” and the ravenous audiences at the Venice Film Festival is not only that exhibition is back, but also that in 2023 and for the foreseeable future, people still do want to go to the movies.

Reach Mick LaSalle: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com