IMDb's 2025 Cannes Cheat Sheet
The 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival brings back the auteurs and the stars, and in a few cases, both. In Competition titles include works by perennial Cannes favorites Lynne Ramsey (You Were Never Really Here and every parent's favorite film, We Need to Talk About Kevin), Wes Anderson (his Moonrise Kingdom was the opening night film in 2012), and those crazy Dardenne boys. Juliette Binoche is the head of the In Competition jury, which comprises Halle Berry, Jeremy Strong, and Alba Rohrwacher, auteur directors Hong Sangsoo, Payal Kapadia, and Carlos Reygadas, French Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani, and Congolese documentarist Dieudo Hamadi. The Out of Competition films (see the full Cannes list here) includes Tom Cruise's last "Mission," Final Reckoning. Once again Cannes arrives with all the drama and outrage that the fest seems to demand. Buckle up for 78. - Keith Simanton
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- DirectorSpike LeeStarsDenzel WashingtonJeffrey WrightIlfenesh HaderaWhen a titan music mogul is targeted with a ransom plot, he is jammed up in a life-or-death moral dilemma. A reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa's crime thriller High and Low, now played out on the mean streets of modern day New York City.One of the wiliest, protean directors we have, Mr. Lee, takes on one of the wiliest, protean directors of all time, in this adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's High and Low. That film, a morality tale at one point, a pointed social commentary about class and wealth at another, then an involving police procedural, then back to a morality tale, is vast in scope. Toshirô Mifune played the striving industrialist with a conscience, now played by the force of nature that is Denzel Washington. Why tackle such an impossible task, Mr. Lee? That will be worth finding out.
- DirectorDave GreenStarsJohn CenaLana CondorWill ForteA story set in the ACME warehouse, the manufacturer of anything and everything used by the Looney Tunes characters.This film was, along with Batgirl, at the center of the Warner Bros/Discovery austerity measures in 2022. The company shelved the film, claiming a tax write-off, even though it was complete and, reportedly, had tested well. Then Ketchup Entertainment picked it up and is bringing it to the market at Cannes, where it will likely be one of the most sought-after tickets, without even being officially sanctioned to be on the Croisette! This is the kind of super-nuts drama that Cannes just seems to engender.
- DirectorMichael Angelo CovinoStarsAdria ArjonaDakota JohnsonO-T FagbenleWhen Ashley asks for a divorce, the good-natured Carey runs to his friends, Julie and Paul, for support. Their secret to happiness is an open marriage; that is, until Carey crosses the line and throws all of their relationships into chaos.The French, and I can't say I blame them, love Michael Covino and Kyle Marvin. Their last major feature, 2019's The Climb was a pure-play comedy and it...wait for it, wait for it....was programmed into Un Certain Regard!! That never happens, unless it's a farce about the comedy of hope and the inevitable crawl towards the tomb... ennui, and, you get the idea. But Covino and Marvin won the French over; They also won Un Certain Regard's Golden Camera and Jury Coup de Coeur. Won me over too.
- DirectorRebecca ZlotowskiStarsJodie FosterVirginie EfiraMathieu AmalricThe renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner mounts a private investigation into the death of one of her patients, whom she is convinced has been murdered.I first fell for Rebecca Zlotowski's film in 2013 watching her perfect exploration of human frailty and imperfection with Grand Central, continuing my infatuation with this director through to her most recent, Other People's Children. Now she returns with a raft of my favorite actors: Jodie Foster,
Virginie Efira, Mathieu Amalric, & Daniel Auteuil. Why is this playing in Out of Competition then? - DirectorWes AndersonStarsBenicio Del ToroMia ThreapletonMichael CeraThe story of a family and a family business.Many carped that Anderson's French Dispatch was too long and unfocused. Folks really seemed to have it out for Asteroid City. And everyone seemed to love The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which, ironically, is responsible for Anderson's sole Oscar win ("Best Live Action Short Film") out of his 8 noms. He's back with collaborator Roman Coppola (they've worked together some 22 times) and many of the stars from his other films. I was bemused by the trailer. And I mean that as a compliment.
- DirectorAri AsterStarsJoaquin PhoenixPedro PascalEmma StoneIn May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.Aster's last film was the deeply unsettling, infectious, imperfect, brilliant Beau Is Afraid. The trailer for Eddington makes it seem pointedly political and a scathing critique of America, which always makes for warm bedfellows in the Palais. It usually has a harder time getting any further after that. It's doubtful that will bother Aster as he has the bona fides to keep making these particular films for as long as there are execs who want "cool" attached to their list of greenlit projects.
- DirectorChristopher McQuarrieStarsTom CruiseHayley AtwellVing RhamesOur lives are the sum of our choices. Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning.The Last Movie Star in the Last Film of a MegaHit Franchise. Who wouldn't want to be there to watch it unfold, real time? Of course, Cannes has been uber-kind to legends whom they just want to seem to thank, eg: Kevin Costner last year with Horizon and Coppola with Megalopolis and those films, rightly or wrongly, imploded. But Final is more of a sure financial bet than those two.
- DirectorRichard LinklaterStarsGuillaume MarbeckZoey DeutchAubry DullinFollows the production of Jean-Luc Godards's "Breathless".What to make of Linklater's take on French cinema legend Jean-Luc Godard? It's at the beginning of his career, as he makes the still vibrant Breathless, starring the equally as exciting Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo. (Seberg is being played by Zoey Deutch (a little long in the tooth for the pixie-esque Breathless-Seberg, for me) and Belmondo by Aubry Dullin. So the film is not focusing on Godard's bitter, acerbic period, well-captured by Michel Hazanavicius is his underseen, excellent films of 2017, Godard Mon Amour (called "Redoubtable" when it premiered in Cannes). Godard was impenetrable in the flesh, when he was alive, so maybe he becomes more approachable as a fiction on the other side of the camera.
- DirectorJoachim TrierStarsRenate ReinsveStellan SkarsgårdInga Ibsdotter LilleaasAn intimate and moving exploration of family, memories, and the reconciliatory power of art.This reunites Trier with Renate Reinsve, his magnetic lead in The Worst Person in the World, my #8 film of 2021. Since that film was anything but Sentimental it will be interesting to see why his new film is so named. This film also reunites Trier with his co-writer of Worst, Eskil Vogt so there's double the reason for me to catch it.
- DirectorJulia DucournauStarsTahar RahimGolshifteh FarahaniMélissa BorosAlpha, 13, is a troubled teenager who lives alone with her mother. Their world comes crashing down the day she comes home from school with a tattoo on her arm.It has only been five years since Ducournau's last Cannes film, Palme d'Or winner, Titane, and I really don't feel like she's given me time to fully recover. Well, she clearly doesn't care about my sensitivities so I'd better cinch up my belt and get ready for the next one from this singular director. This is also stacked with actors that I love: Emma Mackey, Golshifteh Farahani & Tahar Rahim.
- DirectorLynne RamsayStarsRobert PattinsonJennifer LawrenceNick NolteIn a remote forgotten rural area, a mother struggles to maintain her sanity as she battles with psychosis.Writer/director Lynne Ramsey has given some unique actors roles that are amongst their greatest: Joaquin Phoenix in You Were Never Really Here and Ezra Miller and Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin. Let's see what she's done with Lawrence.
- DirectorsAlessio Rigo de RighiMatteo ZoppisStarsNadia TereszkiewiczAlessandro BorghiJohn C. ReillyAfter a deadly rodeo and a stolen kiss, Rosa and her cowboy lover flee across the Italian wilderness, pursued by Buffalo Bill-and the story he refuses to rewrite.
- DirectorKristen StewartStarsImogen PootsThora BirchJim BelushiAn Olympic swimming hopeful flees her abusive home via a Texas scholarship. After losing it to addiction, she studies under Kesey in Oregon. Through writing, family, and self-discovery, she overcomes her troubled past.
- DirectorSylvain ChometStarsLaurent LafitteGéraldine PailhasThierry GarciaIt follows the life of Pagnol, a playwright, novelist, and filmmaker who grew up in a middle-class household in Marseille and became one of the world's most inventive and prolific artists from the 1930's to the 1950's.
- DirectorAndrew DominikStarsBonoGemma DohertyKate EllisBono shares life stories and U2 songs in an intimate show, exploring relationships with family, friends, and faith. Features unseen footage from his Beacon Theatre performances of "Stories of Surrender."
- DirectorFatih AkinStarsDiane KrugerMatthias SchweighöferLaura TonkeAmrum Island, Spring 1945. In the final days of the war, 12-year-old Nanning braves the treacherous sea to hunt seals, goes fishing at night, and works the nearby farm to help his mother feed the family. Despite the hardship, life on the beautiful, windswept island almost feels like paradise. But when peace finally comes, it reveals a deeper threat: the enemy is far closer than he imagined.
