CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2025: Your Ultimate Guide
Real ones know awards season starts at the Cannes Film Festival, so let's dive into this year's contenders!
Thank you for reading my bitchy, delightful Cannes preview! It took a very long time to write so if you enjoyed feel free to throw a few bucks in the TIP JAR!
Ah, it’s that time of year again. We’ve survived the Oscars, the cinematic doldrums of late-winter and early spring, which means the Cannes Film Festival is right around the corner!
Why care about the Cannes Film Festival? Oh I don’t know, Janet, it’s only the most prestigious film festival in the entire world??? And the most French and glamorous? And it’s the first peek at potential Oscar contenders?
And the lewks!
But most importantly, the Cannes Film Festival is a truly global festival, with films from prestigious directors all around the world competing for awards, attention, and the longest, girthiest standing O. Also crowds boo sometimes! It’s very cunty, very French, everyone leaves gagged, gooped, probably smelling like cigarettes.
A Quick Cannes Primer
Also, if you’re not familiar, the Cannes has several layers of participation. The main competition is competing for the top prize, the Palm D’Or, and generally consists of projects from seasoned or notable filmmakers. The films competing in Un Certain Regard are generally younger filmmakers, or newer filmmakers, looking to make a name for themselves. Un Certain Regard also tends to lean more experimental.
And then there are the plethora of out-of-competition screenings. Gala screenings, midnight screenings, etc. that are usually big or notable premieres from big or notable directors.
Also! VERY IMPORTANT! Films can only win ONE award each, which makes predicting the winners extra challenging as you have to consider in which categories the jury is going to want to spotlight the best films.
I find it very important to pay attention to what’s happening on the Riveria during this festival, because we could be gifted the next Parasite or cursed with the next Emilia Perez. That’s because the Cannes Film Festival is both a gift and a threat. Which is why I love it!
This year, the jury president is Oscar-winning French actress Juliette Binoche, which we will KEEP IN MIND as we go through this year’s contenders. Speaking of!
Films in 2025’s Main Competition
Okay! So this year, the main competition consists of:
“The Phoenician Scheme,” Wes Anderson
“Eddington,” Ari Aster
“Young Mothers” (“Jeunes Mères”), Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne
“Alpha,” Julia Ducournau
“Renoir,” Hayakawa Chie
“The History of Sound,” Oliver Hermanus
“La Petite Dernière,” Hafsia Herzi
“Sirat,” Oliver Laxe
“New Wave” (“Nouvelle Vague”), Richard Linklater
“Two Prosecutors,” Sergei Loznitsa
“Fuori,” Mario Martone
“The Secret Agent” (“O Secreto Agente”), Kleber Mendonça Filho
“Dossier 137,” Dominik Moll
“It Was Just an Accident” (“Un Simple Accident”), Jafar Panahi
“The Mastermind,” Kelly Reichardt
“Eagles of the Republic,” Tarik Saleh
“Sound of Falling,” Mascha Schilinski
“Romería,” Carla Simón
“Sentimental Value,” Joachim Trier
This is a smorgasbord of auteurs and rabble-rousers and possibility! If you’re interested in my PHAT JUICY PREDICTIONS, scroll all the way down! But otherwise, let’s take a look at each of these films and their prospective receptions!
The Phoenician Scheme (dir. Wes Anderson)
First, we have Wes Anderson returning with undoubtedly whimsical and pondering The Phoenician Scheme, starring Benicio del Toro, Mea Threapleton, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Riz Ahmed, Jeffrey Wright, Charlotte Gainsborough, Michael Cera, Bill Murray, Hope Davis, Willem Dafoe and Bryan Cranston. The plot follows a wealthy businessman (Del Toro) and his nun daughter (Threapleton) and all the crooks and assassins who are after their money.
This is Anderson’s is his fourth film in competition after Moonrise Kingdom, The French Dispatch, and Asteroid City. He’s yet to win an award at Cannes (save for the cat in Moonrise Kingdom winning the Palm De Whiskers for best cat, which is a real thing). Also, his films since 2015’s The Grand Budapest Hotel haven’t really broken through in their respective awards season, but if nothing else The Phoenician Scheme is the most Wes Anderson title I can possibly think of, so maybe it will be his Cannes breakthrough?
I love me some Wes Anderson, though I am already annoyed how many times I’ve misspelled the word Phoenician while writing this. Still, def looking forward to this!
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Mixed, trending positive. Many will praise performances, others will find it similarly cold as his previous films.
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? Eh, iz boreeng.
LENGTH OF STANDING O: A misleading 12 minutes
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 74%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Maybe the Grand Prix, or another animal award?
Eddington (dir. Ari Aster)
Next up is Eddington, a black comedy western from Ari Aster, the brilliantly fucked up director of modern horror classics Hereditary, Midsommar, and if you have any issues with your mom, Beau is Afraid. His Beau star Joaquin Phoenix returns in Eddington, along with Emma Stone, Pedro “Daddy” Pascal and Austin Butler. As Beau is Afraid was surrealist step away from the hardcore horror of his first two films, Eddington seems to be another lateral move as well. There’s certainly a Coen Brothers feel to the concept, but I’m sure Aster will have his own disturbing/funny twists in store.
This is Aster’s first time competing at Cannes. Whether it strikes a cord with the finicky audience (and stacks up against at least one other guaranteed shock film in competition, more on that later) remains to be seen. But at least we get to have Pascal serving Hot Chilean Daddy on the red carpet, which makes him a shoo-in for my top award, the Palm D’Whore.
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Positive, but something about it was off…
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? Non, merci. Eet iz not pour moi, but it had great hats, beautiful hats…
LENGTH OF STANDING O: Eh, 6 minutes?
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 80%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Screenplay, outside shot for Best Actor for Phoenix
Young Mothers/Jeunes Meres (dir. Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
Those darned, darling, dashing, delicate, debonair Dardenne brothers are back! For those who don’t know and watch sports and somehow got this far in my blog, they are like the Belgian Peyton and Eli Manning of the Cannes Film Festival. They’ve won a bajillion awards here, include TWO Palm D’Ors (for 1999’s Rosetta and 2005’s L’Enfant), making them only one of seven filmmakers to win the top prize twice. They also won the Grand Prix (which is like 2nd place) for 2011’s The Kid with a Bike, and Best Director(s) for 2019’s Young Ahmed.
In total, the Dardennes have had a whopping 10 films play at Cannes, nine in competition. Of those nine, only TWO did not walk away with an award.
Young Mothers seems to follow their signature style of realistic portrayals of working class struggles (Cannes catnip, tbh), starring French actress India Hair and revolving around a group of mothers living together at a home for young mothers. I’m sure it will be terrifically written, acted, and realized, with the kind of quiet heartbreak that those French crowds gobble up nomnomnom.
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Screaming, bras thrown on stage, Oprah’s Favorite Things-style audience meltdown
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? Zoot alors! J’adore! Tayke me tue ze nearest tattoo shoppe so I kin git a, how you say, tramp stamp of zis filme!
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 10+
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 96%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Palm D’Or, Best Director, Best Actress for a combo of the ladies like last year’s pandora box choice to awards the four main actresses in Emilia Perez.
Alpha (dir. Julia Ducournau)
So last time Julia Ducournau was at Cannes in 2021 she blew the tits off the place with her car-fucking body horror classic Titane and won the Palm D’Or (the second female director to ever so do, after Jane Campion in 1993!) As we were reminded this year with Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, no one does body horror like an angry French woman.
Alpha follows the story of an ostracized 11 year old who classmates claim has been infected by a disease. It’s described as a “1980s-set shocker” so you just know things are gonna get weird, body-horror-y, and ragefully French.
Can Ducournau go two for two? It’s possible, but either way this is sure to be one of the most talked-about films of the festival.
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Probably similar to Titane’s, which was a mix of rapture and disgust.
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? *sound of Juliette Binoche ascending to the astral plane she loves it so much*
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 8+, but some loud boos too
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 88%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Palm D’Or, Best Director, Best Actress for Melissa Boros, who plays Alpha.
Renoir (dir. Chie Hayakawa)
Chie Hayawaka is relatively new on the Cannes scene, first competing in 2022 with her near-future, dystopic drama Plan 75 (which picked up a Camera d’Or award!) She’s back with Renoir, which like Alpha follows an 11 year old in the 1980s! Weird!
But this film is said to be a classic coming of age tale, so it will likely be far less divisive (but perhaps not as exciting?)
Renoir follows an 11-year-old Fuki (Yui Suzuki) as she deals with family drama-rama in late-80s Tokyo. The trailer looks absolutely lovely, I just wonder if it will have the special je ne sais quoi to rise above the crowd and stand out.
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Positive, but maybe a bit muted?
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? Oui, c’est bonne I suppose.
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 6 min of polite clapping
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 91% (everyone likes it, no one loves it?)
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Screenplay? Can’t count Yui Suzuki for Best Actress either.
The History of Sound (dir. Oliver Hermanus)
So we already know which film is going to win the Palm M’dick for the vast swath of gay film crowd on BlueSky and Twitter. A period drama starring Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal? The thirst levels will be unprecedented, the calls for “take me to Paris” will reach unfathomable heights.
But will the film actually good? Oliver Hermanus is a gay South African director who first appeared on the Cannes radar in 2011 with the film Beauty, which competed Un Certain Regard and won the Queer Palm (an unaffiliated award that is handed out independently around the festival). His films since then have competed at a variety of big film festivals, like Venice, London and Sundance, but The History of Sound marks his second time at Cannes and his first time competing for the Palm D’Or.
The film follows two men as they travel New England in 1919 recording locals’ folk songs. It sounds…dreary? Sluggish?
Regardless, it will undoubtedly sell for a high price because of the star power attached and be one of the most talked-about films of the festival, less for its quality and more for how much gay men will want O’Connor and Mescal to split them in half.
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Tepidly warm, with some high marks for the music
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? Mai oui watch Alpha again pleez?
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 8 min, mostly because the audience will be sniffing their poppers and in total a star-fucky mood
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 77%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: An outside chance for Best Actor for either O’Connor or Mescal (or both?)
La Petite Dernière (dir. Hafsia Herzi)
Actress-turned-director Hafsia Herzi returns to Cannes for a second time with Le Petite Derniere, a drama that follows a French-Algerian woman studying in Paris and juggling familial responsibilities. Herzi’s previous film, Good Mothers, competed Un Certain Regard in 2021 and won the Ensemble prize.
On paper, this film has a lot going for it. It has the cross-cultural storytelling that is very en vogue right now in international cinema, it’s set in France, and Juliette Binoche is very likely going to love it.
On the other hand, however, like Renoir it’s billed as a “coming of age” tale, so I wonder if it has enough of a wow factor to win big. Usually the films that win the Palm have some kind of convention-busting or risk-taking or sense of electricity that elevates above the fray. Quiet dramas can definitely win (2018’s extraordinary Shoplifters is a recent example), but lately it’s been much more jolting films like Titane, Triangle of Sadness, Anatomy of a Fall, and Anora.
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Appreciation more than adulation
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? I will loque ze juree in the voting room until they give zis film a prize!
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 5 min. But no boos!
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 71%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Feels like a long shot most places, but I could see Herzi win director or star Natalie Melliti win Best Actress.
Sirat (dir. Oliver Laxe)
French-Spanish director Oliver Laxe is back at Cannes with Sirat, a harrowing-looking film about a father looking for his lost daughter in Morocco, who disappears after a rave.
Laxe, who is also a zaddy, has been at Cannes multiple times. His first film, You Are All Captains, won the FIPRESCI Prize in 2010, which is a prize given out by a critics group that needs to knock it the fuck off with that acronym.
His second film Mimosas won the Nespresso Prize at Critics’ Week in 2016. (Critics Week is yet another slate of films that screen outside of both the main and Un Certain Regard groups. And the Nespresso Prize is like 2nd place at Critic’s Week and not, as I assumed, an award for Best Depiction of Coffee In A Film.)
Luxe’s third film, Fire Will Come, won the Un Certain Regard competition. But will the fire come with Sirat? It certainly seems like Luxe is primed and pumped to win the Palm D’Or. And Sirat seems like it could grab headlines and hook crowds. It uses mostly non-actors and Luxe describes it as very political, and given the conceit of a daughter disappearing after a rave, it’s hard not to wonder if it will draw parallels to the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. We shall see!
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Will def be some journalists favorite film of the festival
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? Quelle horreur! Iz a very emotional feelm! I wheel haff to theenk about zis one for a nuit ou duex!
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 9 min, but mostly for Oliver Laxe’s hair
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 90%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Feels like the first film on this list that is a sight-unseen contender for the Palm, or Director. Feels like Sergei Lopez is a big contendner for Best Actor (and maybe shared with Bruno Nunez, who plays his son? Look, after the Emilia Perez fuckery last year I am absolutely considering more shared actor awards!)
Nouvelle Vague (dir. Richard Linklater)
Chameleonic director Richard Linklater tends to waft from sunny mainstream fare (Hit Man, Where’d You Go Bernadette?) and beautiful arthouse stuff (the outstanding Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight trilogy). His films are rarely bad, always interesting, but often just very…fine. In recent years, he hasn’t really hit anywhere near the heights of his defacto magnum opus Boyhood, but that could change with Nouvelle Vague.
This is Linklater’s third time competing at Cannes, after showing up with two films in 2006: A Scanner Darkly competed Un Certain Regard and Fast Food Nation competed for the Palm. Both films had less than enthusiastic receptions, with Scanner hitting 68% on Rotten Tomatoes and Fast Food Nation tanking with a 49%.
Perhaps that’s why Linklater hasn’t been at Cannes in nearly 20 years?
Nouvelle Vague looks promising, though! It depicts the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, which is certainly Cannes-nip (new wave cinema! Legendary French director! The 1960s!)
So, to me, this will go one of two ways. It’ll either be Linklater’s big international festival breakout, a la Sean Baker’s Anora last year, or it will be highly divisive and French people ruffle at the thought of an American director telling the story of one of their cinematic greats. I’m leaning…the latter?
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Very mixed! At least one balding French journalist will write a scathing takedown of it.
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? Zerr was something interestment about eet, mai je don’t think I j’adored it?
LENGTH OF STANDING O: A confusing 7 minutes
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 69%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: I could see star Guillaume Marbeck win for playing Godard, but I dunno…not sure it has the juice outside of that.
Two Prosecutors (dir. Sergei Loznitsa)
In 2010, the film My Joy became the first Ukrainian film ever screen in competition at Cannes. It was directed by Sergei Loznitsa, who has had quite the Cannes run.
His next film, 2012’s In the Fog, won the FIPRESCI Prize (seriously, can we workshop this acronym? It gives me a stroke every time I see it!) His third film, 2017’s A Gentle Creature competed for the Palm, and his fourth film, Donbass, competed Un Certain Regard in 2018 and won the directing prize.
Since 2018, Loznitsa has had three documentary features compete at Cannes: Babi Yar. Context, The Natural History of Destruction, and The Invasion, with Babi Yar. Context receiving a special mention.
Now, seven years after his last narrative film and a huge horrible ongoing war later, Loznitsa returns with Two Prosecutors, a film set in a Soviet prison in 1937 where an idealistic lawyer uncovers evidence of corruption in Stalin’s USSR.
It will assuredly be tense, harrowing, dark, and bleak. Or, in other words, crack cocaine for a Cannes jury. Add to that the war in Ukraine, the parallels of history happening at the moment, a strong political statement from a beleaguered nation, a director with an impressive Cannes record primed for a big breakthrough and we might have a winner on our hands.
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Very positive, lots of effusive press, someone from the awards community will call it the next Anatomy of a Fall and we’ll all be like…I see what you’re getting at but they are two very different topics???
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? How yoo say…slava Ukraini!!!
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 12 minutes
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 96%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Palm D’or, Best Director, or perhaps Best Actor for Alexander Kuznetsov (though my instinct is the jury will want to recognize Loznitsa/Ukraine somehow, making it ineligible for a Best Actor award)
Fuori (dir. Mario Martone)
Here’s to the ladies who languish! Fuori is a biographical film depicting the time Italian writer Goliarda Sapienza spent five days in prison for theft, and the two women she formed friendships with inside the jail and outside after their release. My Italian queen Valeria Golino stars as Goliarda. You may know Golino as Angelina Jolie’s on-screen sister in last year’s Maria Callas biopic Maria, or as the exasperated mother from the extraordinary Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
The film’s director, Mario Martone, is surprisingly not the 90s comic who played Charlotte’s gay bestie in Sex and the City. Instead, he’s a legendary Italian director who has been to Cannes thrice before, first with 1995’s Nasty Love in the main competition, 1998’s Rehearsals for War competing Un Certain Regard, and then 2022’s Nostalgia competing for the Palm.
Fuori marks his fourth time at Cannes, and with him be brings a powerhouse actress with Golino and an interesting setting. Martone often depicts the intertwining of violence, criminal elements, and art, particularly in his depictions of Naples.
My sense it this film with be ripe with great performances, but may feel a bit slight to be vaunted for bigger awards. But Golino…this may be your moment, gurl!
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Positive, but lost in the shuffle of the festival
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? I need to j’telephone moi agentee and make her get me in a filme avec Valeria Golino!
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 5 minutes
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 79%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Best Actress for Valeria Golino, otherwise…not seeing much.
The Secret Agent (dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Hot off the surprising success of Brazil’s I’m Still Here, a harrowing depiction of one family surviving abduction and threats during the 1970s military dictatorship, comes The Secret Agent, a French-Brazilian co-production starring sexy Brazilian king Wagner Moura (Pablo Escobar in the Netflix series Narcos) and directed by Brazilian auteur Kleber Mendonça Filho.
Like Martone, this is Filho’s fourth time at Cannes! His 2016 film Aquarius screened in competition, his 2019 effort Bacaru won the Jury Prize, he returned in 2023 with the documentary Pictures of Ghosts, and now is back with The Secret Agent, which yields his highest-wattage star power in Moura and an extremely timely topic. The film follows a teacher with a mysterious past trying to escape Brazil’s military dictatorship in its waning days in 1977.
Seasoned director? Check! Hot actor ripe for a big international breakout? Check! A story that’s harrowingly immediate and meaningful for today’s hell world? Chu-chu-CHECK!
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Very positive, some inevitable comparisons to I’m Still Here that take the shine off it a little, but overall one to watch for!
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? Oui! C’est une tres important filme that we will considerment for une tres grande awardment!
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 10 minutes
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 89%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Literally any! If I had to pick one (because a film can only win one), I’d say either Director or Best Actor for Wagner Moura.
Dossier 137 (dir. Dominik Moll)
Dominick Moll is a German-French director who is hoping the third time will the charm in his Cannes journey. He first appeared at Cannes in 2000 with the acclaimed With A Friend Like Larry… and again in 2005 with the more mixed-received Lemmings.
Dossier 37 is a French crime drama following a woman (Lea Drucker) investigating an injury at a protest that soon descends into something bigger and more sinister.
Conceptually, it seems engaging. Moll’s work often explores unexpectedly dark places. But I wonder if it will have the wow factor to make the jury remember it when it comes time to handing out their big, beautiful awards.
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Warm side of lukewarm
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? It waz tres Fronch, which I j’adore, mai I was un peu bored? Just un peu?
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 4 minutes
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 76%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Maybe Best Actress for Lea Drucker?
Un Simple Accident (dir. Jafar Panahi)
Cannes king and legendary Iranian director Jafar Panahi returns to the Riviera with a mysterious film that’s only been described with the logline “What begins as a minor accident sets in motion a series of escalating consequences.”
And clearly it involves a wedding? And a desert? It feels ominous, just from this image I am very, very intrigued.
Panahi has a long history with Cannes, as well as a long history of making his films illegally in Iran, skirting filming regulations and creating unforgettable cinematic visions.
His first film at Cannes, 1995’s The White Balloon, won the Camera D’or (the award for the best first film). His next Cannes-screened film, 2003’s Crimson Gold, won the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard. in 2011, Panahi himself won the Golden Coach award, which is an award given to a filmmaker at the Director’s Fortnight for courage, innovation, and vision. His 2018 film 3 Faces won the screenplay award in the main competition, and in 2021 he screened his documentary The Year of the Everlasting Storm.
It seems to me this could be another year a Panahi film brings home some hardware. Cannes audiences love Iranian films, and they love films that deal with the moral ambiguities that arise when ordinary people’s lives collide, which sounds in the ballpark of what Un Simple Accident will be serving us.
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Effusive!
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? Veezhonary, tres harrowinque, c’est tres bien! Also I speak perfect English I am not sure why John Loos is writing my English as if I am a fucking Muzzy character.
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 9 minutes
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 93%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Palm D’Or, director, or screenplay
The Mastermind (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
That Josh O’Connor sure gets around! He has a second starring role in a main competition film, this time in The Mastermind from American director Kelly Reichardt. He costars with Alaina Haim, Gaby Hoffman, Bill Camp, Amanda Plummer and Josh Magaro.
The Mastermind’s description on Letterboxed is as follows:
James Mooney orchestrates an audacious art heist against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the country’s burgeoning women’s liberation movement. As he engages in a daring criminal endeavor, he must navigate a world marked by shifting social and political dynamics.
This seems slightly bigger in scope than most of Reichardt’s films, which tend to be minimalist observations of lesser-seen aspects of American life, like 2008’s sparse, devastating Wendy and Lucy (which competed Un Certain Regard at Cannes and won the Palm Dog for Lucy, Michelle Williams’ adorable costar!)
Reichardt also showed up at Cannes with 2022’s Showing Up, and the same year won the Golden Coach award.
Will The Mastermind be Reichardt’s big break? Or will it at least grab enough attention to pull her unique cinematic voice into the limelight? We shall see!
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Quietly positive. Some journalists favorite of the fest, others give it a polite golf clap.
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? It waz like une oignon, avec many fascinating layers. Quiet, but powerfulment! J’adore!
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 7 minutes
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 90%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: It feels like the exact kind of film Cannes juries love to give Screenplay. But also the ubiquity of Josh O’Connor at the festival might encourage them to award him here for Best Actor!
Eagles of the Republic (dir. Tarik Saleh)
Egyptian-Swedish director Tarik Saleh is never, ever boring. He was a renowned graffiti artist in the 90s and now directs films with a similar colorful abandon.
His 2022 spy thriller The Cairo Conspiracy nabbed him a Best Screenplay award at Cannes and now he’s back with what sounds like an equally twisty, tense film about an Egyptian actor who accepts a role in a government film only to start an affair with a high-ranking general’s wife. Oooh! Sex! Lying! Political intrigue!
Fares Fares (Westworld, Chernobyl, The Wheel of Time) and Lyna Khoudri (The French Dispatch, The Three Musketeers) star, and I expect this film to be a thoroughly entertaining watch. But will it be memorable enough by the end of the festival to collect some hardware? With other films hitting heavier and more politically timely notes, will a film about a movie star having an affair rise to the moment?
PREDICTED RECEPTION: A shrug and a thumbs up!
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? Thees filme waz tres tonnse, mai it doz not stand out to me against ze other filmez at this festivalment. Yoo see I need a filme that has either Fronch rage, political turmoil, beautiful gowns, or all trois! Thees has maybe une et deux?
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 3 smattering minutes
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 60%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Another screenplay award seems unlikely as those awards don’t repeat much. Maybe an acting award for Fares or Khoudri? Honestly, it’s the first film I want to predict no awards for. Even though people will like it!
Sound of Falling (dir. Mascha Schilinski)
Oooh, now we’re getting severe and German up in here!
Cannes newcomer Mascha Schilinksi makes her Cannes debut with Sound of Falling, a drama about four women from different time periods whose lives are interconnected by having experience their childhood at the same farm.
I’ll be honest…despite it being German and therefore likely very starkly observed and brutally honest, this concept feels….very film school? Or like community theater If These Walls Could Talk? I could be completely wrong and this could be the next Women Talking but something about this screams “film that gets mixed reception and is promptly forgotten about despite not being outright bad in any way.”
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Mixed, frustrated, some viewers love it, but overall it’s too discordant to gain buzz.
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? C’est d’accord. Just…okay. Very interestment performances but shh don’t tell anyone I feel asleepment halfway throu.
LENGTH OF STANDING O: N/A
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 58%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Expect a Camera D’or, but watch the four child actresses share the top prize in a Perez moment.
Romería (dir. Carla Simón)
You’re so vain, I bet you think this pelicula is about you..
Okay I did some research and it turns out Carla Simon is not Spanish Carly Simon. She’a an accomplished director who won a Cannes young talent award in 2018 but otherwise makes her true Cannes debut this year with Romeria, a drama about a woman seeking answers to questions she has about her late father, who died of AIDs.
Now this feels like a Cannes film. Quiet human drama, both mundane and operatic at the same time. Simon’s previous film, Alcarras, was a critical smash and was all over the European festival and awards scene in 2022/23. It concerned a Catalonian family facing the dwindling of their agricultural way of life. Again, that quiet/mundane/deeply tragic sweet spot that Cannes juries love.
While this doesn’t feel like a Palm winner, I do feel like Simon could snag a screenwriting award? Or maybe the Grand Prix (2nd place)?
PREDICTED RECEPTION: If it’s screened early, lots of love and talk of awards that goes away by the end of the festival. If it’s screened late, stolid appreciation but its overshadowed by the 2-3 big buzz films.
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? Le AIDs is a tragic disease, mai Spanish Carly Simon handles zis story avec care and beauty.
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 5 min
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 82%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Screenplay, outside shot at Grand Prix.
Sentimental Value (dir. Joachim Trier)
Finally, we’ve reached the last film!
First, Joachim Trier is not Lars Von Trier, the sociopathic Danish director who tortures his female stars. Joachim seems pretty chill, actually!
This Trier has been at Cannes three previous times, first in Un Certain Regard with his 2011 film Oslo, August 31st, and then competing for the Palm D’or with 2015’s Louder Than Bombs and 2021’s international breakout hit, the anti-romcom The Worst Person in the World (he didn’t win the Palm for this, but he did get Oscar nominated for Best Original Screenplay!)
The Worst Person in the World starred the exquisite Renate Reinsve, who picked up the Best Actress award at Cannes. Reinsve, a celebrated Norwegian actress, returns with the comic drama Sentimental Value, costarring with Stellan Skarsgaard, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, and Elle Fanning. The plot revolves around an absent filmmaker father returning to his family to cast his daughter, Nora, in a film. Gonna guess Nora has some issues with this idea!
Also, fun fact! If Reinsve wins Best Actress here, she will join Barbara Hershey, Helen Mirren, Isabelle Huppert, and Vanessa Redgrave as the only actresses to ever win Cannes Best Actress twice!
This feels like it could have the juice to go all the way, especially after the immense goodwill generated from The Worst Person in the World. All eyes will be on this film, and it may just have the mix of star power and unique tone that makes the jury go nuts.
PREDICTED RECEPTION: Love all around, some liking it more than Worst Person and some liking it less (it will absolutely go through the comparison grinder, for better or worse).
WILL JULIETTE BINOCHE LIKE IT? Je voudrais to kiss Joachim on the face mouth for creating such a spectacularment picture du motione.
LENGTH OF STANDING O: 10 min
FINAL ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 89%
POSSIBLE AWARDS: Palm D’Or, Grand Prix, Best Director, and of course a possible record-tying Best Actress win for Reinsve. And don’t count out Skarsgaard as a darkhorse for Best Actor! Bottom line, this film will win something.
FINAL PREDICTIONS
What the hell? As an extra treat I’m going to do the fool’s errand and try to predict who will win awards this year. Considering the Cannes history of each director, the personal tastes of Juliette Binoche, trying to guess who the rest of the jury will be and what they will like, the recent and historical trends of each category, and considering the subject of each film, I’ve landed on some strong hunches:
Palme d'Or – Un Simple Accident (alt. Sirat)
Grand Prix – Sentimental Value (alt. Eddington)
Jury Prize - Two Prosecutors (alt. Romeria)
Best Director - The Dardennes, Young Mothers (alt. Julia Ducournau, Alpha)
Best Actor - Benicio Del Toro, The Phoenician Scheme (alt. Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent)
Best Actress - Melissa Boros, Alpha (alt. someone from Young Mothers, or all of them)
Best Screenplay - Ari Aster, Eddington (alt. Kelly Reichardt, The Mastermind)
Stay tuned, I’ll be back with more Cannes coverage, this time covering the Un Certain Regard films and more specifically my QUEEN JUNE SQUIBB!!!!
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