Penelope Cruz sobs as Bunker garners longest Venice ovation so far

Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem's Bunker has received the longest standing ovation at the 2026 Venice Film Festival so far.

The new film from writer-director-producer Florian Zeller garnered 16 minutes of applause after its screening on Tuesday, 8 September.

Video captured at the event shows Cruz unable to hold back tears as the audience clapped for her and the rest of the Bunker crew.

In Bunker, Bardem and Cruz play a couple whose 17-year marriage is tested when Bardem's character, an architect, accepts an offer to build a survivalist bunker for a tech billionaire.

The Spanish actors, who have been married in real life since 2010, have worked together onscreen throughout the years. They met on the 1992 film Jamón, Jamón and began dating soon after filming 2008's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, going on to costar in 2017's Loving Pablo and 2018's Everybody Knows.

Their latest thriller has received a mismatch of reviews. While Variety gushed that "Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz are brilliant" and Deadline dubbed the film "rich and fascinating", Vulture described it as a "crushing disappointment" while the Guardian opined, "Cruz and Bardem just can't dig Florian Zeller's shallow thriller out of a hole."

Bunker costars Adolescent's Stephen Graham, The Wizard of the Kremlin's Paul Dano and The White Lotus's Patrick Schwarzenegger.