Screen profiles all the films in the Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection and parallel sections.

Cannes lowdown

Source: mk2 Films / Goodfellas / A24 / Elle Driver / Luxbox / Rediance

[Clockwise from top left]: ‘The Little Sister’, ‘Renoir’, ‘Eddington’, ‘A Magnificent Life’, ‘Brand New Landscape’, ‘Imago’, ‘Magellen’, ‘Sound Of Falling’

What to expect when you’re expecting Cannes for the 78th time? This year’s suddenly sprightly looking festival seems to have cumulatively shaken off its legacy obligations and it’s a frisky bunch of hopefuls vying for the Palme d’Or and the Un Certain Regard grand prix (as well as the Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week participants down the Croisette who always feel slightly wild and untamed anyway).

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Granted, nobody’s calling the Dardenne brothers or Wes Anderson unproven prospects, but Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme is one of the few patently commercial films looking to walk the Competition red carpet for a jury led by Juliette Binoche.

A female jury chair is not new, but there are seven films directed by women in Competition, alongside Amélie Bonnin’s Leave One Day, the first ever debut to open Cannes — and it’s a crowdpleasing musical, to boot.

Cannes has always reinvented itself, but perhaps last year’s The Substance stirred something in the bowels of the Palais des Festivals. Much of the class of 2025 are first-­timers in Competition, including more well-known names such as Ari Aster (Eddington). Others are hardly the red-carpet silverbacks of recent years; not fresh-faced babes, perhaps, but hitting their creative peaks.

Competition sets the tone. Outside of it, Tom Cruise and Spike Lee will entertain (Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning and Highest 2 Lowest respectively). In Midnight, Juno Mak and Margaret Qualley are out for blood (Sons Of The Neon Night and Honey Don’t! for director Ethan Coen). But a perusal of Screen International’s detailed guide to the films will only emphasise how Cannes 78 is set to be a festival of discovery across all sections. Great expectations indeed.

The Cannes Film Festival runs May 13-24.

Click on the links to each section for the profiles.

Competition

Out of Competition

Un Certain Regard

Cannes Premiere

Midnight Screenings

Special Screenings

Directors’ Fortnight

Critics’ Week

Profiles by: Nikki Baughan, Ellie Calnan, Ben Dalton, Tim Dams, Jeremy Kay, Rebecca Leffler, Yasmine Medjdoub, Michael Rosser, Matt Schley, Mona Tabbara, Silvia Wong

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