This year’s Telluride Film Festival lineup was not short on conversation starters. Films like Sean Baker’s “Anora,” RaMell Ross’s “Nickel Boys,” and Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice” were frequently discussed in screening queues, in the theater seats before the shows began, and on the town’s free gondola transportation. But Netflix’s “Emilia Perez” stood out among the titles as the one film, at least anecdotally, on everyone’s list. The film’s Sunday screening at the Werner Herzog Theater, the largest venue at the festival with a capacity of 650, hundreds of festival attendees had to be turned away at the door.

They missed a film that almost defies description, expectations, or comparisons – a big swing combining several elements to create an emotional and audacious movie that left the many fortunate enough to get a seat singing its praises following the screening. Written and directed by Jacques Audiard,...