Cannes 2025: My 10 Most Anticipated Films
What I’m most looking forward to seeing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
This time tomorrow, I will be in Cannes to cover the 78th edition of the world’s most prestigious film festival (in addition to regular dispatches in this neck of the woods, you can also read my stuff over at The Film Verdict and Next Best Picture). As usual, there will be plenty to discover, including the ten movies listed below that are the ones I’m personally most eager to see (provided, of course, the festival’s infamous online booking system doesn’t act up). Vive le cinéma!
10. Sentimental Value (Competition)
Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World was one of the highlights of the 2021 edition, so I’m greatly looking forward to his new comedy-drama, once again starring the great Renate Reinsve who, courtesy of her previous collaboration with the director, has become one of the most mesmerizing recurring faces in contemporary European cinema. And then there’s the Swedish icon Stellan Skarsgård, who’s generally much more interesting when he does Nordic work and always a welcome presence in a Norwegian context.
9. Alpha (Competition)
2016’s Raw, a coming-of-age cannibal movie, was a masterful calling card by Julia Ducournau, who then made history in 2021 with Titane, the second female-directed film to win the Palme d’Or (and the first to do it without sharing the prize). While I did find the latter a tiny bit messy in places, it was also an undeniably strong cinematic experience, very much the brainchild of its visionary creator. Her third movie is billed as her most personal work to date, about a troubled mother-daughter relationship. I’m very curious to see how it will play out.
8. Nouvelle Vague (Competition)
After American musical theater in Blue Moon (which I talked about in my Berlin writings), Richard Linklater is going to France with his second 2025 release, a film going behind the scenes of the seminal New Wave work À bout de souffle(Breathless). Will the filmmaker’s sensibilities translate well in a Gallic context? I’m eager to find out, especially since Jean-Luc Godard (already portrayed in fictionalized form in the divisive Redoubtable in 2017) remains a sensitive topic in cinephile circles.
7. Eddington (Competition)
Ari Aster is not everyone’s cup of tea (to put it mildly), but I quite like the eerie worlds he conjures, and chuckled quite a bit with the trailer of this contemporary Western set during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 (a detail Aster added after the project – which he originally envisioned as his debut – got pushed back). Plus, Joaquin Phoenix versus Pedro Pascal? Yes, please.
6. Magellan (Cannes Premiere)
There’s no one quite like Lav Diaz, who to some extent embodies the stereotype of the kind of film one sees at festivals: artsy, in black and white, and very long (Phantosmia, which played in Venice last year, was on the shorter end of the spectrum at a “mere” four hours). In that sense, this new film is an anomaly in that it presents itself as his most mainstream endeavor to date: a biopic of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, played by a recognizable international star (Gael García Bernal). But just how mainstream is it? I hope to find out soon.
5. Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol (Special Screenings)
Having previously paid homage to Jacques Tati with The Illusionist, master animator Sylvain Chomet is back with a tribute to the great Marcel Pagnol, a man whose work is consistently ripe for rediscovery (not too long ago, some of his films were theatrically re-released in France). As someone who recently began familiarizing himself with Pagnol’s universe, I’m very curious to see Chomet’s take on it.
4. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (Out of Competition)
It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of the Tom Cruise-led action franchise, particularly the films directed by Christopher McQuarrie. After 2023’s Dead Reckoning, I’m dying to see the continuation of Ethan Hunt’s fight against the Entity, i.e. an extended metaphor for Tom Cruise’s standing as an old school movie star in an industry that’s increasingly dominated by digital technology, sometimes to the detriment of the films themselves. Needless to say, I was thrilled to manage to get a ticket on the first try (not always a given with Cannes).
3. Adam’s Sake (Critics’ Week)
One of my favorite films of 2021 was Playground, Laura Wandel’s deceptively straightforward, quietly devastating drama about elementary school bullying, which was also chosen as Belgium’s submission for the Oscars that year. That the Critics’ Week (the independent section showcasing first and second feature) chose to entrust its opening slot to her sophomore effort is quite the endorsement, and I can’t wait to see what she cooked up this time.
2. Die, My Love (Competition)
Last year, when I visited Stockfish in Iceland, I had the immense pleasure of interviewing Lynne Ramsay, who mentioned some of her upcoming projects, including this one. Specifically, she said, “It’s a comedy and a love story, but it’s my kind of comedy and love story, so it’s going to be dark and f**ked up.” Add the fact the leads are Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, and I’m basically already queueing outside the Debussy theater.
1. Dangerous Animals (Directors’ Fortnight)
It’s been ten years since we last heard from Sean Byrne, the Australian horror director who took the festival circuit by storm with The Loved Ones (2009) and The Devil’s Candy (2015). His third feature promises to deliver plenty of thrills, with its watery setting and dual menace consisting of sharks and – based on the trailer – a deliciously deranged Jai Courtney, who once again gets to flex his more sinister acting muscles with a role that appears to be much juicier than what he gets to do in Hollywood movies.