Screen critics recommend the top films from this year’s festival.

Cannes best films

Read more:
Cannes 2017: full list of winners

The Square

The Square

Dir: Ruben Östlund

Our critic said: “The Swedish director’s follow-up to his breakout feature, Force Majeure, is easily his most ambitious film yet. Taking well-aimed potshots at the contemporary art world and the attention-grabbing PR industry, it also raises questions of trust, responsibility and the increasing moral insulation of people in advanced societies.”

International sales: Coproduction Office, market@coproductionoffice.eu

Read the full review HERE

BPM (Beats Per Minute)

BPM

Dir: Robin Campillo

Our critic said: “Revisiting elements of his own experience, Campillo has created a bustling fresco of the personalities and politics of the ACT UP Paris community during the 1990s.”

International sales:  Films Distribution, bef@filmsdistribution.com

Read the full review HERE 

Loveless

Loveless

Dir: Andrey Zvyagintsev

Our critic said: “Refraining from the much larger canvass he used for Leviathan, Zvyagintsev drills into each of his two main characters pitilessly, suggesting that on top of all their other emotional shortcomings, they have learned nothing from the past and will remain the same in future.”

International sales: Wild Bunch, sales@wildbunch.eu

Read the full review HERE

You Were Never Really Here

You Were Never Really Here

Dir: Lynne Ramsay

Our critic said: “Lynne Ramsay’s first feature in six years is a brutal, unforgiving 21st century Taxi Driver with an awards-worthy performance from Joaquin Phoenix as a hammer-wielding, blood-soaked avenger in search of salvation.”

International sales: IMR, ndevide@insiders-film.com

Read the full review HERE

Jeune Femme (Montparnasse Bienvenue)

Montparnasse Bienvenue (Jeune Femme)

Dir: Léona Serraille

Our critic said: “This first film by writer-director Léona Serraille is full of snap and surprises as energetic scatterbrain Paula ricochets from situation to situation after getting dumped by a lover — her former teacher and prominent photographer Joachim (Gregoire Monsaingeon) — with whom she lived for a decade. Following its debut in Cannes (Un Certain Regard) this should travel.”

International sales: Be for Films

Read the full review HERE  

The Rider

The Rider

Dir: Chloe Zhao

Our critic said: “The Rider is a stunningly-shot film, its crisp imagery and livid sound design in natural harmony with piece and its South Dakota settings.”

International sales: Protagonist Pictures, info@protagonistpictures.com

Read the full review HERE

The Florida Project

The Florida Project

Dir: Sean Baker

Our critic said: In his follow-up to Tangerine, director Sean Baker again incorporates nonprofessional actors to present a corner of the world that viewers might be quick to ignore otherwise, pinpointing something heartbreaking and true about the ways that people fall into vicious cycles of crime and desperation.

International sales: Protagonist Pictures, info@protagonistpictures.com

Read the full review HERE 

Faces Places (Visages Villages)

Faces Places

Dir: Agnès Varda

Our critic said: “A joyful celebration of the urge to create art and the duty to celebrate life. Festival programmers and arthouse distributors will find it irresistible.”

International sales: Cohen Media Group, lmackiewicz@cohenmedia.net

Read the full review HERE  

Let The Sunshine In

Let the Sunshine In

Dir: Claire Denis

Our critic said: “It’s a highly engaging departure for one of France’s most adventurous cineastes, and with Binoche on radiant and witty form, it could prove to be one of Denis’s more commercial propositions to date.”

International sales: Films Distribution, info@filmsdistribution.com

Read the full review HERE

12 Days

12 Days

Dir: Raymond Depardon

Our critic said: “A soberly filmed but emotionally gratifying introduction to an array of involuntary patients in a French psychiatric hospital. This non-competing Cannes Special presentation should be shown on screens large and small wherever quality docs find a home.

International sales: Wild Bunch, ediederix@wildbunch.eu

Read the full review HERE

Read more:
Cannes 2017: the seven major talking points