Naomi Watts is adding another major honor to her impressive résumé.
The two-time Oscar nominee will receive the Golden Eye Award at this year’s Zurich Film Festival for her performance in The Housewife, Ben Shirinian’s upcoming ’60s-set drama.
Watts will collect the honour in person on September 26 and join the festival for a masterclass. The Housewife will first make its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival before heading to Zurich.
The film stars Tye Sheridan as a young New York Times journalist investigating a suspected Nazi officer, played by Luke Evans, secretly living in Queens.
Things take a darker turn when the reporter becomes close to the suspect’s mysterious wife, played by Watts.
Zurich Film Festival CEO Christian Jungen praised Watts for the layered performances that have defined her career.
“Since her breakthrough in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, Naomi Watts has been one of the most fascinating actresses of our time,” Jungen said.
“Her greatest performances thrive on the tension between glamour and darkness, between what a character reveals and what she conceals — making her the kind of character actress Hitchcock would have loved.”
Jungen added that Watts “masters this ambiguity as an elegant and mysterious woman [and] delivers one of the most compelling performances of her career.”
Watts previously earned Oscar nominations for 21 Grams and The Impossible. She also received an Emmy nomination for playing Baby Paley in the second season of Feud.
She now joins a Golden Eye lineup that has included Kristen Stewart, Jude Law, Benedict Cumberbatch and Dakota Johnson.
The 2026 Zurich Film Festival runs September 24 through October 4.
