Santa Barbara Film Festival Awards: ‘Wild Horse Nine’ Star John Malkovich To Get Performer Of The Year Honor

John Malkovich, a two-time Oscar nominee who won the Best Actor prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival for his work in Martin McDonagh’s upcoming Wild Horse Nine, has been selected to receive the Santa Barbara Film Festival‘s Outstanding Performer of the Year Award.

The honor will be bestowed during the 42nd annual SBIFF, which runs February 3-13, 2027.

Malkovich leads off the awards announcements from the fest, which has become a valued stop on the movie-awards circuit. Last year, Michael B. Jordan won the same award ahead of his eventual Best Actor Oscar win for Sinners.

Other SBIFF honorees in the category include Ralph Fiennes, Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Will Smith, Aunjanue Ellis, Sacha Baron Cohen, Adam Driver, Rami Malek, Margot Robbie and Allison Janney, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, Brie Larson and Saoirse Ronan, Steve Carell, Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lawrence, Viola Davis, James Franco, Colin Firth, Penélope Cruz, Angelina Jolie, Helen Mirren, Heath Ledger, Kate Winslet and Charlize Theron.

In the black comedy Wild Horse Nine, Malkovich stars with Sam Rockwell as a pair of CIA agents who travel from Santiago to Easter Island on the eve of the 1973 Chilean coup, confronting their dark pasts and becoming entangled in present-day conspiracies. The Searchlight Pictures pic hits theaters November 6.

“A legendary actor gives this year in Wild Horse Nine his best performance to date in which he combines pathos, volatility, vulnerability and tenderness,” SBIFF executive director Roger Durling said Thursday in a release announcing the award. “It’s a high-wire act that shows us what a commanding artist he is, and we are thrilled to be honoring him with our Outstanding Performer of the Year Award.”