Cannes 2025 | Usual Suspects?

Illustration by Franz Lang.The last time a Tom Cruise blockbuster premiered in Cannes, the year was 2022, and among the 21 Palme d’Or hopefuls was Albert Serra’s Pacifiction, the kind of work that, in my book at least, exemplifies the electrifying cinema the festival’s Official Competition was designed to showcase. I’ve been chasing an equivalent high at all the editions I attended since, with very mixed results. This year, the festival’s top program promises another cinematic cornucopia, but the menu feels almost conspicuously familiar. A good number of the titles announced so far were directed by Cannes regulars and/or Official Competition habitués; even the few exceptions, like Ari Aster’s Eddington, aren’t exactly debut features. And yet, naïve as this will sound, I like to think that the tidal forces that keep pulling us back to this overpriced stretch of the French Riviera have less to do with consensus than discovery. So while I can’t wait to catch Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, and Jafar Panahi’s A Simple Accident, I’m most excited about the titles that promise to push filmmakers outside their comfort zones. Sergei Loznitsa, having devoted most of his prolific career to making archive-based documentaries, will unveil a work of fiction set in Stalin’s USSR, Two Prosecutors. Kleber Mendonça Filho, following his 2023 eulogy for the defunct movie theaters of his upbringing in Recife, Brazil, Pictures of Ghosts, will return to the Croisette with a 1970s period piece, The Secret Agent, also set in his hometown. Julia Ducournau, back at Cannes after winning the 2021 Palme d’Or for Titane, will premiere her English-language debut, Alpha. As far as young and bold voices go, my most anticipated title in the slate might well be Óliver Laxe’s Sirat, a follow-up to the director’s Fire Will Come (an Un Certain Regard standout from 2019). As for surprises and unexpected standouts, I’ve heard great things about Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling, a film that was rumored to premiere in Berlin but was allegedly poached by Cannes Artistic Director Thierry Frémaux. Regardless of whether this or any other title this year will supply the same ecstatic bliss I felt watching Benoît Magimel ride some terrifyingly large waves off the coast of Tahiti, I can’t wait to make my yearly pilgrimage to the south of France and trick myself into thinking I’ve reached the oasis again.

May 15, 2025 - 19:58

Illustration by Franz Lang.

The last time a Tom Cruise blockbuster premiered in Cannes, the year was 2022, and among the 21 Palme d’Or hopefuls was Albert Serra’s Pacifiction, the kind of work that, in my book at least, exemplifies the electrifying cinema the festival’s Official Competition was designed to showcase. I’ve been chasing an equivalent high at all the editions I attended since, with very mixed results. This year, the festival’s top program promises another cinematic cornucopia, but the menu feels almost conspicuously familiar. A good number of the titles announced so far were directed by Cannes regulars and/or Official Competition habitués; even the few exceptions, like Ari Aster’s Eddington, aren’t exactly debut features. And yet, naïve as this will sound, I like to think that the tidal forces that keep pulling us back to this overpriced stretch of the French Riviera have less to do with consensus than discovery.

So while I can’t wait to catch Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, and Jafar Panahi’s A Simple Accident, I’m most excited about the titles that promise to push filmmakers outside their comfort zones. Sergei Loznitsa, having devoted most of his prolific career to making archive-based documentaries, will unveil a work of fiction set in Stalin’s USSR, Two Prosecutors. Kleber Mendonça Filho, following his 2023 eulogy for the defunct movie theaters of his upbringing in Recife, Brazil, Pictures of Ghosts, will return to the Croisette with a 1970s period piece, The Secret Agent, also set in his hometown. Julia Ducournau, back at Cannes after winning the 2021 Palme d’Or for Titane, will premiere her English-language debut, Alpha. As far as young and bold voices go, my most anticipated title in the slate might well be Óliver Laxe’s Sirat, a follow-up to the director’s Fire Will Come (an Un Certain Regard standout from 2019). As for surprises and unexpected standouts, I’ve heard great things about Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling, a film that was rumored to premiere in Berlin but was allegedly poached by Cannes Artistic Director Thierry Frémaux. Regardless of whether this or any other title this year will supply the same ecstatic bliss I felt watching Benoît Magimel ride some terrifyingly large waves off the coast of Tahiti, I can’t wait to make my yearly pilgrimage to the south of France and trick myself into thinking I’ve reached the oasis again.