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Daily Maverick
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
From Cannes 2025: Five standout films you should watch next
With the Cannes Film Festival acting as a very early awards season indicator, these are the most acclaimed and notable films to put on your Must Watch List in 2025. The Cannes Film Festival is about more than Riviera-side schmoozing, 15-minute standing ovations and their booing flipside (plus the new addition of lengthy blackouts). The iconic film festival is an early indicator of potential award season contenders. Last year alone, Anora, which took home the festival's highest honour, the Palme d'Or, went on to win five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Fellow Oscar winners The Substance, controversial Emilia Pérez, and Animated Feature upset Flow all premiered at Cannes. Notably, before that, Bong Joon-ho's Parasite made the journey from Palme d'Or to Academy Award in 2019-2020, while legal drama-mystery Anatomy of a Fall picked up Best Original Screenplay at several awards ceremonies following its 2023 Palme d'Or win. The point is that it pays to keep an eye on what stands out at Cannes, whether competing (see the full 2025 winner's list here) or simply screening. These are the premieres from the 78th Festival de Cannes that you should keep a lookout for at local cinemas and film festivals in the coming months. Anti-authoritarianism earns accolades Film has always been a powerful medium to critique social and political injustice, and this year the Cannes main competition jury seemed eager to reward those movies vocal about power abuse and despotism. Case in point: the 2025 Palme d'Or went to It Was Just an Accident, from Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has repeatedly been hit with filmmaking bans, travel restrictions and prison sentences from his country's authorities. Acclaim for It Was Just an Accident doesn't appear to be performative, though. Narratively straightforward, accessible, but also thought-provoking, the film sees an apparent everyman kidnapped by people who suspect that he may have been their prison torturer. Can they overrule their doubts and take revenge? Honourable mention: The only film to earn two awards at Cannes this year, The Secret Agent also features anti-totalitarian themes. Scoring Best Director for Kleber Mendonça Filho, and Best Actor for Narcos' Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent is a genre-hopping Brazilian thriller that explores how Carnival was used as a front in the 1970s to make the then-military dictatorship's opponents disappear. The latest auteur efforts For decades, the Cannes Film Festival has been catnip for the world's most acclaimed filmmakers. This year was no different, with Wes Anderson debuting his latest quirky all-star effort, The Phoenician Scheme, a few days before it comes to US cinemas on 30 May. Benicio del Toro plays a 1950s industrialist who, in the middle of a spate of assassination attempts, names his estranged daughter (Mia Threapleton), a nun, as his heir. The good news is that if you found Anderson's last few efforts over-styled and underwhelming, The Phoenician Scheme is apparently a return to enjoyable form. Largely thanks to Threapleton. Honourable mention: Spike Lee and Denzel Washington reunite for the first time in almost 20 years for Highest 2 Lowest, an English-language reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa's High and Low. Washington plays a successful New York City record producer forced into a ransom scenario that tests his morals. The film is already lined up for an Apple TV+ debut on 5 September. Queer experience on screens The Cannes Film Festival is always welcoming of LGBT+ content, even having an independent Queer Palm accolade for films that excel in their depiction of non cishet experience. There were several contenders for the award in 2025 (it eventually went to The Little Sister), but the most intriguing is the rule-bending romance Pillion. Described as a gay version of Babygirl, this directorial debut from Harry Lighton sees Harry Potter's Harry Melling enter into a sub/dom relationship with Alexander Skarsgård's aloof biker. It's kinky but also tender in its exploration of consensual power dynamics within a relationship. Honourable mention: South African filmmaker Oliver Hermanus, who previously made the likes of Moffie and Queer Palm winner Beauty (AKA Skoonheid), debuted historical gay romance The History of Sound at Cannes this year. Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor star as two men who connect over their mission to record American folk music circa World War I. The comparisons to Brokeback Mountain are there by default. A quick second shout-out also must go to Honey Don't!, a consciously B-grade detective comedy from Ethan Coen, which sees Margaret Qualley's lesbian private investigator hook up with Aubrey Plaza's cop. Charlie Day and Chris Evans also star. Of families and generations It's been called Arthouse with a capital A, but historical drama Sound of Falling, from German filmmaker Mascha Schilinski, emerges from Cannes heralded as something boldly original due to its storytelling approach – which dips into and interweaves the lives of four girls on a farm in northern Germany over the course of a century. It turns out that women's experience doesn't really change, with trauma having a way of seeping through time. Considered a grim watch, Sound of Falling was a tied winner of the Jury Prize (alongside Sirat), which is typically bestowed on up-and-coming filmmakers seen as driving the industry forward creatively. Honourable mention: The Grand Prize is Cannes's second highest honour and that went this year to Sentimental Value, from festival favourite Joachim Trier. Could this Norwegian drama, about the complex relationship between sisters, and daughters and fathers, finally earn Stellan Skarsgård an Oscar nomination? Also worthy of a Must Watch List spot is My Father's Shadow, the first ever Nigerian film to make it onto the festival's Official Selection. In his feature debut, British-Nigerian director Akinola Davies Jr. has told a semi-autobiographical tale with his brother Wale, set against the backdrop of the 1993 Nigerian election. Siblings spend a day with their estranged father (Sope Dirisu) and learn surprising things. The film earned a Camera d'Or Special Mention. One to talk about Finally, if you're looking for the most divisive movie release of Cannes 2025, that dubious honour has to go to Eddington, the latest from Hereditary, Midsommar, and Beau Is Afraid filmmaker Ari Aster. Is it an escalating parody of American divisiveness? Does it actually harbour MAGA leanings as it jeers at mask mandates and other liberal ideas? With a wider release set for July, you'll have to watch this moody modern Western, which pits Joaquin Phoenix's small-town sheriff against Pedro Pascal's mayor in the early days of the Covid pandemic, with their friends and neighbours taking sides, and things turning violent. DM
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
I attended Cannes Film Festival for the 1st time. These are the movies I'd tell you to see — and skip — when they arrive in theaters.
I didn't expect to spend most of my time at the Cannes Film Festival in the beautiful French Riviera with my eyes glued to my phone, furiously refreshing the ticketing pages to get a coveted seat at a screening, but it paid off. I saw 11 movies over the course of six days. Over the last few years, Cannes has become a major hot spot for filmmakers hoping to have their movies considered for the Oscars. In 2024, it gave us Best Picture winner Anora, buzzed-about box office shocker The Substance and the awards season villain of the century, Emilia Pérez. This year, the festival's top prize (the Palme d'Or) went to It Was Just an Accident, with other highly anticipated films like The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sirât and Sound of Falling nabbing other accolades. This might be the last time you hear about those titles until January, but trust me, they'll be back for awards season in full force. Often at festivals, movies screened for cinephiles on the ground never make it to a wider audience. But Cannes is now the battleground for trendy film distributors hoping to get movie lovers talking for the rest of the year and during awards season. Many of the movies I saw will be coming soon, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're all snatched up in the next few weeks for theatergoers' viewing pleasure. I left after the first week of screenings, so I was crushed to miss out on buzzy flicks like Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent and It Was Just an Accident. The ones I did get to see have been haunting me in the best way, though. Here are my favorites from the festival — and the ones I've already forgotten. Jennifer Lawrence is already an Oscar winner and a legend, but her brief time away from the spotlight was clearly refreshing because she turns this sad story about how a woman becomes increasingly unhinged after having a baby into a riveting masterpiece. It's visually stunning, and Robert Pattinson is delightfully pathetic, but Lawrence steals every scene. It sold for a whopping $24 million, and if Lawrence doesn't get an Oscar nod for this one, I'll eat my Cannes-branded tote bag. I had a particularly intense Mission: Impossible screening complete with the cast and my first-ever standing ovation, which went on for 7.5 minutes, but the movie is objectively big, loud and fantastic even without all of the pageantry of a premiere. The alleged final movie of the franchise is in theaters now, so you won't have to wait to see it, but try to go IMAX if you can! You'll want to see Tom Cruise defying gravity and logic in the sanctuary of a big-screen theater, because it's truly a religious experience. All you need to know about Sirât is that a father goes with his son to find his missing daughter at a rave, and it gets worse from there. The movie has an infectious score, and the plot is so jaw-droppingly unsettling and unexpected from start to finish that I was white-knuckling my seat. Several people walked out of my screening, and when it ended, I ranted to my husband for five minutes straight about how upsetting it was. The next morning, I woke up realizing I had seen a masterpiece. Thank goodness Neon is bringing it to theaters. I was particularly invested in Eddington because I spent hours standing in line to get a glimpse of its star-studded cast members like Pedro Pascal and Austin Butler, but the COVID-era Western satire fell flat for a lot of critics. When my screening ended, a man in front of me stood up, shouted 'Boo!' and briskly exited the theater. It might be a little too soon for anyone to fully appreciate the uncanniness of pandemic life onscreen, but the polarizing movie comes to theaters July 18 regardless. Plenty of actors premiered their directorial debuts at Cannes this year: Kristen Stewart, Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson all had buzzy screenings. But I was lucky to see Urchin, which Babygirl standout Dickinson wrote and directed, as my final movie of the festival. I loved how evident it was in the film that Dickinson's acting talent comes from his deep emotional intelligence. His directing elevated what could have been a depressing film about a man struggling to break out of the cycle of addiction and homelessness into a poignant tale that will haunt me. Nouvelle Vague, or New Wave, is Richard Linklater's French-language, black-and-white ode to director Jean-Luc Godard. It recreates the filming of Godard's most iconic movie, Breathless, in 1959, and all the antics that ensued when the chaotic director pieced together a masterpiece based solely on vibes. That might sound a little pretentious and inaccessible to most audiences, and maybe it is, but this was Cannes, baby! There was so much witty banter and so many references to influential filmmakers that my heart turned into a glowing ball of cinephilic pride. It felt like being in a college film class again. It's coming to Netflix, so you can have that feeling in your own living room. If you've seen a Wes Anderson movie before, you'll be familiar with what goes down here: Quirky characters, elaborate set pieces and a series of ultra-famous faces. Benicio del Toro stars as a businessman who taps his nun daughter (newcomer Mia Threapleton) as his sole heir, but assassins and business rivals — including Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston, who they must defeat in a basketball game — cause trouble for them along the way. Michael Cera is particularly delightful in his role. It's just a blast. I was expecting a slow and sweet romantic drama to be Cannes's opening night movie, but I wasn't prepared for it to be a musical. The film follows a celebrity chef who must return to her hometown after a family emergency and reconnects with an old crush. It was a lot like The Bear, but with singing. One thing that pervaded my jet-lagged mind during the screening, though, was how much I loved the main character's haircut. Should I get bangs? Though I came to Cannes hoping to see controversy and critical accalaim, I was quietly moved by The Little Sister, which stars Nadia Melliti in her first-ever role as a Muslim teenager secretively coming to terms with her queer identity. The movie demands patience and attention — a tall order for a long day of screenings — but delivers with one particularly gorgeous scene between the protagonist and her mother in which not much is said directly. I won't spoil it, but I promise it's worth it, and Melliti unexpectedly won Cannes's Best Actress prize for it. Case 137 is about a detective investigating an act of violence by police officers — a timely premise that I have, unfortunately, seen played out on nearly every season of Law and Order in a tight 40 minutes. What I will remember far longer than anything that happened in the movie, though, is the fact that one of its stars was banned from walking the red carpet at the premiere because of rape allegations against him. It was the first ban of its kind at Cannes, and it sparked quite a bit of discourse on the Croisette. I was low on energy and worried about time when I slipped into the premiere screening of this German-language film about girls growing up in the same farmhouse over the span of 100 years. How many times could I watch generational trauma unfold without getting bored and worn down? Endless, apparently. Its stars, who I had never heard of, delivered performances I'll never forget, and the plot went places I'd never think to go. The standing ovation was cut short for time — Mission: Impossible premiered after this one — but Sound of Falling was the best of the festival for me. I may give it my own standing ovation when it comes to theaters stateside.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
I attended Cannes Film Festival for the 1st time. These are the movies I'd tell you to see — and skip — when they arrive in theaters.
I didn't expect to spend most of my time at the Cannes Film Festival in the beautiful French Riviera with my eyes glued to my phone, furiously refreshing the ticketing pages to get a coveted seat at a screening, but it paid off. I saw 11 movies over the course of six days. Over the last few years, Cannes has become a major hot spot for filmmakers hoping to have their movies considered for the Oscars. In 2024, it gave us Best Picture winner Anora, buzzed-about box office shocker The Substance and the awards season villain of the century, Emilia Pérez. This year, the festival's top prize (the Palme d'Or) went to It Was Just an Accident, with other highly anticipated films like The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sirât and Sound of Falling nabbing other accolades. This might be the last time you hear about those titles until January, but trust me, they'll be back for awards season in full force. Often at festivals, movies screened for cinephiles on the ground never make it to a wider audience. But Cannes is now the battleground for trendy film distributors hoping to get movie lovers talking for the rest of the year and during awards season. Many of the movies I saw will be coming soon, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're all snatched up in the next few weeks for theatergoers' viewing pleasure. I left after the first week of screenings, so I was crushed to miss out on buzzy flicks like Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent and It Was Just an Accident. The ones I did get to see have been haunting me in the best way, though. Here are my favorites from the festival — and the ones I've already forgotten. Jennifer Lawrence is already an Oscar winner and a legend, but her brief time away from the spotlight was clearly refreshing because she turns this sad story about how a woman becomes increasingly unhinged after having a baby into a riveting masterpiece. It's visually stunning, and Robert Pattinson is delightfully pathetic, but Lawrence steals every scene. It sold for a whopping $24 million, and if Lawrence doesn't get an Oscar nod for this one, I'll eat my Cannes-branded tote bag. I had a particularly intense Mission: Impossible screening complete with the cast and my first-ever standing ovation, which went on for 7.5 minutes, but the movie is objectively big, loud and fantastic even without all of the pageantry of a premiere. The alleged final movie of the franchise is in theaters now, so you won't have to wait to see it, but try to go IMAX if you can! You'll want to see Tom Cruise defying gravity and logic in the sanctuary of a big-screen theater, because it's truly a religious experience. All you need to know about Sirât is that a father goes with his son to find his missing daughter at a rave, and it gets worse from there. The movie has an infectious score, and the plot is so jaw-droppingly unsettling and unexpected from start to finish that I was white-knuckling my seat. Several people walked out of my screening, and when it ended, I ranted to my husband for five minutes straight about how upsetting it was. The next morning, I woke up realizing I had seen a masterpiece. Thank goodness Neon is bringing it to theaters. I was particularly invested in Eddington because I spent hours standing in line to get a glimpse of its star-studded cast members like Pedro Pascal and Austin Butler, but the COVID-era Western satire fell flat for a lot of critics. When my screening ended, a man in front of me stood up, shouted 'Boo!' and briskly exited the theater. It might be a little too soon for anyone to fully appreciate the uncanniness of pandemic life onscreen, but the polarizing movie comes to theaters July 18 regardless. Plenty of actors premiered their directorial debuts at Cannes this year: Kristen Stewart, Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson all had buzzy screenings. But I was lucky to see Urchin, which Babygirl standout Dickinson wrote and directed, as my final movie of the festival. I loved how evident it was in the film that Dickinson's acting talent comes from his deep emotional intelligence. His directing elevated what could have been a depressing film about a man struggling to break out of the cycle of addiction and homelessness into a poignant tale that will haunt me. Nouvelle Vague, or New Wave, is Richard Linklater's French-language, black-and-white ode to director Jean-Luc Godard. It recreates the filming of Godard's most iconic movie, Breathless, in 1959, and all the antics that ensued when the chaotic director pieced together a masterpiece based solely on vibes. That might sound a little pretentious and inaccessible to most audiences, and maybe it is, but this was Cannes, baby! There was so much witty banter and so many references to influential filmmakers that my heart turned into a glowing ball of cinephilic pride. It felt like being in a college film class again. It's coming to Netflix, so you can have that feeling in your own living room. If you've seen a Wes Anderson movie before, you'll be familiar with what goes down here: Quirky characters, elaborate set pieces and a series of ultra-famous faces. Benicio del Toro stars as a businessman who taps his nun daughter (newcomer Mia Threapleton) as his sole heir, but assassins and business rivals — including Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston, who they must defeat in a basketball game — cause trouble for them along the way. Michael Cera is particularly delightful in his role. It's just a blast. I was expecting a slow and sweet romantic drama to be Cannes's opening night movie, but I wasn't prepared for it to be a musical. The film follows a celebrity chef who must return to her hometown after a family emergency and reconnects with an old crush. It was a lot like The Bear, but with singing. One thing that pervaded my jet-lagged mind during the screening, though, was how much I loved the main character's haircut. Should I get bangs? Though I came to Cannes hoping to see controversy and critical accalaim, I was quietly moved by The Little Sister, which stars Nadia Melliti in her first-ever role as a Muslim teenager secretively coming to terms with her queer identity. The movie demands patience and attention — a tall order for a long day of screenings — but delivers with one particularly gorgeous scene between the protagonist and her mother in which not much is said directly. I won't spoil it, but I promise it's worth it, and Melliti unexpectedly won Cannes's Best Actress prize for it. Case 137 is about a detective investigating an act of violence by police officers — a timely premise that I have, unfortunately, seen played out on nearly every season of Law and Order in a tight 40 minutes. What I will remember far longer than anything that happened in the movie, though, is the fact that one of its stars was banned from walking the red carpet at the premiere because of rape allegations against him. It was the first ban of its kind at Cannes, and it sparked quite a bit of discourse on the Croisette. I was low on energy and worried about time when I slipped into the premiere screening of this German-language film about girls growing up in the same farmhouse over the span of 100 years. How many times could I watch generational trauma unfold without getting bored and worn down? Endless, apparently. Its stars, who I had never heard of, delivered performances I'll never forget, and the plot went places I'd never think to go. The standing ovation was cut short for time — Mission: Impossible premiered after this one — but Sound of Falling was the best of the festival for me. I may give it my own standing ovation when it comes to theaters stateside.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Cannes/Oscars Connection: Could One of This Year's Fest Titles Wind Up the Next ‘Anora'?
For many years after the 1955 film Marty won the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or and then went on to win the best picture Oscar, there was little additional evidence of a Cannes/Oscars connection. But in the last five years, both Parasite and — just months ago — Anora followed in Marty's footsteps. Indeed, within the last year, specifically, the relevance of one event to the other became harder than ever to dispute, as an unprecedented 31 Oscar noms were allocated to films that had played in Cannes — spread between Anora, The Apprentice, Emilia Pérez, Flow, The Girl with the Needle, The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, The Seed of the Sacred Fig and The Substance — and 40 percent of the eventual Oscar winners traced back to the fest, including Anora (best picture, director, actress, original screenplay and film editing), Emilia Pérez (original song), Flow (animated feature) and The Substance (makeup/hairstyling). More from The Hollywood Reporter Cannes: 'March of the Penguins' Director to Judge Immersive Competition 'How to Have Sex' Director Molly Manning Walker Heads Up Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Cannes: Sally Hawkins, Matthew Broderick, Martin Freeman Join Simon Bird's 'Pretend I'm Not Here' Perhaps the increasing overlap is the result of the Academy significantly upping the percentage of its membership that is based outside of the U.S. in recent years, resulting in more cosmpolitan tastes along the lines of what Cannes is famous for. Regardless, speculation is already ramping up about whether or not there are films slated to screen on the Croisette this May could show up at the Dolby next March. Among the likeliest candidates, based on buzz amongst industry insiders and their filmmakers' track records, are Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme (Focus) and Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest (A24). The Phoenician Scheme, which stars Benicio del Toro as a wealthy businessman who designates his daughter, a nun, as the sole heir to his estate, is playing in competition, as did three previous Anderson titles — 2012's Moonrise Kingdom, 2021's The French Dispatch and 2023's Asteroid City — which collectively went on to zero Oscar noms. But Phoenician is said to be Anderson's strongest work since The Grand Budapest Hotel, which premiered at Berlin and went on to nine Oscar nominations, including best picture, four of which resulted in wins in crafts areas, where his films always shine. Highest 2 Lowest, Lee's reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa's 1963 film High and Low, is a crime-thriller that reunites him with his longtime muse Denzel Washington. Their previous collaborations include 1992's Malcolm X, for which Washington received a best actor Oscar nom, but also several films that were completely overlooked by the Academy. In recent years, though, Lee and the Academy seem to be increasingly on the same wavelength; 2018's BlacKkKlansman was nominated for six Oscars, including best picture, and Lee won best adapted screenplay, while 2020's Da 5 Bloods was nominated for one. I'd also keep an eye on a late addition to the competition lineup, Lynne Ramsay's dark comedy Die, My Love, a sales title that stars Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence as a new mother experiencing post-partum depression. It is said to be a true return-to-form for J-Law, who is also a producer of the project, and could help Ramsay finally crack the Academy, which has entirely overlooked her past work, most egregiously with 2011's We Need to Talk About Kevin. Richard Linklater is always someone to watch. The five-time Oscar nominee's latest is sales title Nouvelle Vague, a black-and-white, French-language competition film about the making of the French New Wave classic Breathless. If there's one thing the Academy loves, it's movies about movies — see: The Artist, The Fabelmans, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Mank, Hugo and La La Land, among others. This one counts Guillaume Marbeck and Zoey Deutch among its stars. Other English-language titles worth keeping an eye on: competition film The Mastermind (Mubi), the latest from Kelly Reichardt, whose slow-paced previous works have failed to resonate with the Academy, but whose latest is apparently a '70s-set heist film and stars Josh O'Connor; competition film Eddington (A24), the latest from Ari Aster, who has heretofore specialized in genre films, which are infrequently embraced by the Academy, but whose latest, which stars Pedro Pascal, Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone and Austin Butler, is apparently about COVID-era politics; another competition film, Oliver Hermanus's The History of Sound (Mubi), which stars 'It' actors Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor in a gay love story set in the early 20th cenutry; and Eva Victor's Sundance-to-Directors' Fortnight closing pic Sorry, Baby (A24), which stars Victor as a college professor trying to recover from a sexual assault, was produced by Moonlight Oscar winner Barry Jenkins and already has A24 behind it. There are also two films in the Un Certain Regard lineup from actors-turned-rookie directors: Scarlett Johansson's Eleanor the Great, starring June Squibb as an elderly woman trying to rebuild her life after her best friend's death, which Oscar specialists Sony Classics have bet on; and Harris Dickinson's Urchin, about a homeless man trying to escape a cycle of self-destruction, which is still seeking distribution. Among non-English-language fare, consider competition film Sentimental Value, which reunites filmmaker Joachim Trier and actress Renate Reinsve, who previously collaborated on 2021's The Worst Person in the World, for which Reinsve won Cannes' best actress prize, and which received a best international feature Oscar nom. The North American rights to this Norwegian-language dramedy have already been acquired by Neon, winner of the last five Palme d'Or prizes. Still seeking distribution are a handful of other films that are entirely or primarily in a language other than English. Said to be outstanding is Mascha Schilinski's German-language competition title Sound of Falling, which centers on four women from different historical eras whose lives are interconnected. It's likely to attract considerable sales interest. There's also Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio's The Wave, which is playing in the Cannes Premiere section and should not be underestimated, given that Lelio was awarded the best international feature Oscar for 2018's A Fantastic Woman, five years after his film Gloria was also the country's submission for that contest. His latest Spanish-language effort sounds charactertistically eccentric: it's a musical inspired by 2018 feminist protests against gender-based violence and Chile's patriarchal government. Any film starring Isabelle Huppert is noteworthy, and Thierry Klifa's French-language The Richest Woman in the World, which is screening out of competition, seems like a great showcase for the Elle best actress Oscar nominee: it's based on the true story of the billionaire behind the L'Oreal fortune, who became romantically involved with a much younger man. Mario Martone, who was behind Italy's 2022 Oscar submission Nostalgia, is back with Fuori, a competition film, adapted from a 1983 novel, about three women who meet in prison and form a lifelong bond. Julia Ducournau's previous French-language body horror film, Titane, was awarded the Palme in 2021, but was not submitted by France for the best international feature Oscar. However, her latest, Alpha, comes on the heels of The Substance, which showed that the Academy may now be more open to such films. Venerated Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has never been Oscar-nominated, but his latest, It Was Just An Accident, about a minor accident that sparks a series of escalating consequences, sounds promising, and the Academy has embraced Persian-language films to a greater extent than ever over the past decade or so. (Just last year, one was nominated for best international feature and another won best animated short.) An interesting case is Directors' Fornight selection Lucky Lu, which is Canadian filmmaker Lloyd Lee Choi's modern-day, New York-set, Chinese-language variation on the Italian neorealist classic The Bicycle Thief. Would Canada ever submit a Chinese-language film as its entry for the best international feature Oscar race? Finally, the closest one could get to irrefutable proof of an increased Cannes/Oscars connection would be if the Dardenne brothers of Belgium — Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, neorealist specialists who have been awarded more total prizes from Cannes than any other filmmaker or filmmaking team, including twice the Palme d'Or — can finally land their first Oscar nom. Their latest, The Young Mother's Home, is playing in competition, and therefore might well end up as Belgium's official submission for the best international feature Oscar, as have four of their previous films. This one is about five women and their children living together in a center for young mothers. Of course, Cannes also often launches awards-contending documentary and animated features. This year, a doc to watch is I Am Not Your Negro Oscar nominee Raoul Peck's Orwell: 2+2=5, about the life of George Orwell, which Neon will handle in the U.S. And strong animated prospects are Ugo Bienvenu's Arco, a Natalie Portman-voiced and produced selection in the Special Screenings section (still seeking U.S. distribution); and A Magnificent Life, a French film about Marcel Pagnol that was directed by Sylvain Chomet, who has twice been nominated for the best animated feature Oscar, which Sony Classics is backing stateside. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Vogue
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson Wreak Havoc in Die My Love
Cannes isn't Cannes without its big, bold misses. Last year's edition had them in spades: Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, Jacques Audiard's Emilia Pérez, Paolo Sorrentino's Parthenope, and David Cronenberg's The Shrouds, to name but a few. This year, I'm sorry to report that one of them is Lynne Ramsay's breathlessly awaited Die My Love, a searing drama about a woman in the midst of a spectacular breakdown, which stars none other than Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Sissy Spacek, and LaKeith Stanfield. Given Ramsay's distinctive, highly respected oeuvre—Ratcatcher, We Need to Talk About Kevin, You Were Never Really Here—and the caliber of these movie stars, on paper this seemed to be a prospective Palme d'Or frontrunner, before going onto Oscar glory. In reality, it isn't and shouldn't be. We meet our two gorgeous leads, Grace (Lawrence) and Jackson (Pattinson), in the dilapidated farmhouse they now occupy. Two former New Yorkers with creative ambitions—she, to write a great American novel; he, to record an album—they have inherited it from Jackson's uncle, who recently passed away, and intend to put all of this new space to good use. They do—but not in the way they expected to. An electric, head-spinning montage zips us forward in time, as they dance together with reckless abandon and have desperate, hungry sex on the floor. Soon, Grace is pregnant, and then their son, Harry, is six months old, as she wonders what happened to them. Now, their previously wild, open, and limitless lives revolve around the baby, and they have begun to drift apart. As that union erodes, Grace visits the distressed Pam (Spacek), Jackson's mother, who lives nearby and, since her own husband's death, can most often be found sleepwalking down a local highway, rifle in hand. Grace also develops a strange obsession with a biker (Stanfield) who stalks their house. Oh, and she's pushed further to the edge when Jackson brings home an excitable puppy, who barks all night while the baby cries and he continues to sleep soundly. The conditions are in place for an explosive downward spiral: there are infidelities, followed by an attempt at reconciliation, and then everything goes awry once again in epic fashion.
