One of the things that makes the Telluride Film Festival one of the edgiest of its kind is that it doesn’t actually announce what films festivalgoers will actually see until the day before the event begins. Which is today.

Now we know that this year’s 50th anniversary festival lineup will include world premieres from filmmakers Emerald Fennell, Alexander Payne, Jeff Nichols, Andrew Haigh and George C. Wolfe.

This year’s festival, which is always largely seen as the world’s first hint at the Oscars front-runners, will run one day longer than usual, from Aug. 31 through Sept. 4. Telluride is a 360-mile, six-hour drive from Denver, which sounds like it surely must be in an adjacent state, but believe it or not – it’s still colorful Colorado.

This year’s hottest titles, as assessed by Vanity Fair: “Saltburn,” Fennell’s anticipated follow-up to “Promising Young Woman.” It follows an outsider (Barry Keoghan, The Banshees of Inisherin”) who is invited to spend the summer at an opulent English estate. Payne’s “The Holdovers” reunites him with “Sideways” star Paul Giamatti, who recently attended Seriesfest in Denver with his podcast. Haigh will debut “All of Us Strangers,” a metaphysical love story starring Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott. “Fingernails” is Greek filmmaker Christos Nikou’s relationship drama starring Jessie Buckley, Jeremy Allen White and Riz Ahmed in a love triangle.

Other world premieres include Nichols’ 1960s-era “The Bikeriders,” a star-studded drama starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy and Michael Shannon; and “Nyad,” a narrative feature from Oscar-winning documentarians Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster.

Stage fans will be following the legendary Wolfe’s “Rustin,” starring Colman Domingo as queer activist Bayard Rustin. Domingo spoke about that experience at a Denver appearance last year. Wolfe won a Tony Award in 1993 for directing “Angels in America.” And playwright Annie Baker, who has been credited with turning silence into characters in dozens of stage plays, makes her feature-film directorial debut with “Janet Planet,” starring Zoe Ziegler and Julianne Nicholson. All eyes also will be on Ethan Hawke’s latest directorial effort, “Wildcat.”

“As we’re watching the movies this year, I’m like, ‘Oh, bro, sex is back, and it is back in a big way,’” Telluride Film Festival Executive Director Julie Huntsinger told Vanity Fair’s Rebecca Ford with a laugh. “There’s some stronger, darker emotion – and a lot of sex.”

The festival’s annual Silver Medallion Awards will go to filmmakers Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”), Alice Rohrwacher (“La Chimera”) and Wim Wenders (“Perfect Days”).

Because of the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes, actors who would traditionally attend the festival will be present at Telluride but unable to promote their films.