Predictions for the 77th Cannes Film Festival Awards

*Editor’s Note: As is always the case, Robert did an excellent job with these predictions, which I’m sure will be more accurate than my own, even if I did nail the Palme d’Or last year, as you can see here. His picks are below, with a very thorough write-up, followed by my quick, comment-free ones, for comparison.*

Honestly, I don’t know why my boss still lets me lead these Cannes Film Festival prediction pieces since he’s bested me for the second year in a row. And that is what he did, to be clear. Could I self-soothe by reassuring myself that we “technically tied?” Sure. Do I need to kid myself in thinking that correctly predicting the Prix d’interprétation masculine warrants the same bragging rights as correctly predicting the Palme d’Or? No, I’m not going to indulge in that level of self-delusion. I can only hope that this time I can break the streak and correctly gauge the mindsets of Jury President Greta Gerwig and her colleagues J. A. Bayona, Ebru Ceylan, Pierfrancesco Favino, Lily Gladstone, Eva Green, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Nadine Labaki, and Omar Sy as they deliberate on which films in the Main Competition lineup deserve which prizes.

This festival has been more contentious than previous ones, from calls for a general strike to protest the working conditions and compensation of the crewmembers who set up and maintain these venues in the first place to the horrific oppression of the artists responsible for one of the Main Competition entries that I’ll be discussing a little more later in the piece. But for now, we’ve seen lovely tributes to Meryl Streep and Studio Ghibli and will soon watch them recognize George Lucas for his seismic impact on the entertainment industry even though he should have released the Star Wars IP into the public domain.

Amidst all of this, I’m polishing off my crystal ball to try to look past all of that and predict who the ultimate winners will be this weekend…

Prix du scenario: The Seed of the Sacred Fig – Mohammad Rasoulof

Right off the bat, I am taking a bit of a shot in the dark. The Seed of the Sacred Fig is premiering at Cannes right now as of the publishing of this article, so it’s impossible for me to know for sure how it’s going to be received by audiences there. However, sight unseen, I do believe it will be generally regarded as an intelligent polemic on Iranian society since that was also the consensus on Mohammad Rasoulof’s previous film, There is No Evil. That movie won the Golden Bear in 2020, by the way. The lead-up to the premiere of this movie has also been fraught with controversy, as Rasoulof was arrested and charged with violating Iran’s laws prohibiting criticism of the government shortly after he was announced to be competing at Cannes. He was found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison as well as flogging, but don’t worry, he was able to escape along with most of the cast and crew of the film and will be present at today’s screening.

So am I saying Gerwig’s jury will just hand him a prize to make a political statement? Well… yes and no, but I do not mean to be cynical in predicting such a declaration. With so many artists in America who talk a big game about suffering and risking it all for their art, it’s not all that common to see those stated convictions actually tested. Rasoulof actually walks the walk for his films, amassing a pretty substantial criminal record in his home country just to get them produced and screened. A screenplay award also strikes me as a fitting means of recognizing what sounds like the kind of domestic-drama-as-parallel-to-broader-social-conflicts that Middle Eastern cinema has excelled at over the last twenty years. No matter what its reception today, I’m just glad it’s being seen and its director is a (for now) free man.

Prix de la mise en scène: The Girl with the Needle – Magnus von Horn

Severe. Brutal. Uncompromising. Meticulous. Harrowing. All of these have been descriptors of Magnus von Horn’s historical drama very loosely based on a real, and terrifying, person. Though there have been more than a few Main Competition entries that have amassed a reputation for being hard to watch, The Girl with the Needle is the only one that hasn’t attracted a vocal cadre of detractors slamming it as empty provocation (which is why I am not predicting any prizes for The Substance or The Shrouds). Not only have critics praised the surprising thematic consistency drawn between the stark post-World War I setting here with von Horn’s previous and seemingly wildly different movie in tone and milieu, the modern fitness influencer fable Sweat, but have also gone out of their way to note the film’s striking Gothic imagery emmeshed with the subtle observations of early 20^th century patriarchy surrounding the brutal main plot that elevates it above a mere true crime yarn, and I think Gerwig’s jury will want to reward that unflappability and visual care from a director whose star is rising fast in international cinema.

Prix d’interprétation masculine: Barry Keoghan – Bird

The one category I tend to do consistently well with! Even during my old timey Awards Circuit days, when I was but a mere pup, my crystal ball was always pretty good about which man would walk away with the acting award. One of the reasons why, I think, has to do with the kinds of men who typically win this award: widely beloved international / arthouse darlings in movies that remind us of why we love them. Kōji Yakusho, Song Kang-ho, Joaquin Phoenix, Shahab Hosseini, Vincent Lindon, and Timothy Spall have all fit this bill. Even if you didn’t 100% agree with the specific performances they won the award for… can you really complain about any of these guys coming up to the stage to jovial applause at the Croissette?

So who could be seen as That Kind Of Male Actor this time around? Frustratingly, there’s a surprising paucity of competitors featuring those kinds of actors in big showcase roles this time around: the ripest ones being arguably The Apprentice (where renowned television actor Jeremy Strong has been getting best-in-show notices as the 45^th and possibly future 47^th President’s ruthless mentor Roy Cohn), Kinds of Kindness (with very positive reviews of Everyman character performer Jesse Plemons among the ensemble; also the husband of a Cannes Best Actress winner!), and The Shrouds (with Vincent Cassel seemingly doing what Antonio Banderas did in Pain and Glory by playing a version of the film’s own director). And then there’s Bird, Andrea Arnold’s latest turbulent exploration of female adolescence, but this time with a reportedly pseudo-supernatural twist. All three of the film’s principal cast have been praised by virtually every critic at the festival, and while I was prepared to throw my hat in for Franz Rogowski – who I still insist should have been a Best Lead Actor Oscar nominee for Great Freedom – the descriptions of Barry Keoghan’s contribution have persuaded me to place a last-minute bet on his portrayal of a struggling, impulsive single father having more of an effect on the jury than Rogowski’s also-praised but reportedly more enigmatic inhabitation of a character that might not even exist outside of the imagination of troubled tween Bailey (played by newcomer and potential Cannes Best Actress contender Nykiya Adams). Certainly, he has established himself in the international cinema stage at least as much as his German co-star, and will be a fine representative of recognition for the movie as a whole.

Prix d’interprétation feminine: Mikey Madison – Anora

Now here is an incorrect prediction I made last year that turned out more… let’s just say interesting than I initially believed it would be. No, Sandra Hüller did not win the Best Actress award at Cannes for her performance in what became the Palme d’Or recipient Anatomy of a Fall. She did, however, go on from there to manage a well-earned Academy Award nomination for Best Lead Actress at the 96^th Academy Awards earlier this year and was, in my eyes at least, the most deserving of the nominees. So it is entirely possible that I will be wrong about this particular prediction but nevertheless select someone who will be an unexpected Oscar threat in a surprising awards powerhouse. While the number of women giving acclaimed performances among the Main Competition has been especially high this time around, especially especially from newcomers and nonprofessionals, it is Mikey Madison – who you may remember as one of the misbegotten Manson cultists in Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood – who has been receiving the most consistent, downright revelatory, praise from critics and attendees at the festival.

This is, admittedly, a pretty risky prediction, since Anora is also one of the most acclaimed films of the entire Main Competition and it is a very real possibility that I am going to repeat the exact same mistake I made last year and wrongly select the eventual Palme d’Or winner for the Best Actress prize, instead. But I have not seen any other competition entry earning reviews that all unanimously went out of their way to shower praise on its actress the way they have to Madison; how allegedly essential her exuberance and skillful navigation of the film’s myriad tonal shifts were to making the movie as beloved as it has reportedly been at the festival (Bird and The Girl with the Needle were the only other two with approachable levels praise for their leading ladies, and even then…). If I’m just as wrong about Madison as I was about Hüller last year, then, well… I look forward to seeing her become a future Academy Award nominee on the back of this performance!

Prix du Jury: Kinds of Kindness

Grand Prix: Caught by the Tides

Palme d’Or: Grand Tour

Every year, I have to clarify that these top three awards – which basically amount to the Third, Second, and First Place prizes at Cannes – are effectively randomly selected and I would not be even remotely surprised or embarrassed if I picked the correct three movies for these awards but the exact prizes they won were completely different from how I’m predicting they’ll shake out. Yes, I am taking partial credit for A Hero, Fallen Leaves, and EO, thank you very much. So instead of pretending that I’m using any precise methodology for each film being slotted in their specific prize predictions, I’m going to be a little more intellectually honest with you all and give you my justification for why these three movies broadly appear to be the frontrunners for the Palme and/or the runner-up prizes.

Aside from Anora, the three movies that have enjoyed the warmest reception among the Main Competition are the dark anthology Kinds of Kindness from Yorgos Lanthimos, the impressionistic character drama Caught by the Tides from Jia Zhangke, and the continent-spanning epic romantic dramedy Grand Tour from Miguel Gomes. Each one has been described as a salient commentary on these modern times without coming off like A Commentary On These Modern Times™, and all three of them are from filmmakers who have cultivated reputations as being among the best international filmmakers to have emerged in the 21^st century, let alone among the most acclaimed living filmmakers of their home countries. I feel slightly skeptical that Lanthimos will win two of the most prestigious prizes from FIAPF-accredited international film festival competitions in such a short period of time, and that he’s returning to very cruel, arch dark comedies about people being weird and mean to each other could give the impression that he’s “playin’ the hits” rather than stretching himself like he did with Poor Things. Zhangke’s entry is reportedly one of the most ambitious projects of the entire festival, not only exploring the precarious state of China but also reflecting on his oeuvre through nonlinear storytelling and a combination of narrative storytelling and documentary staging blended together from footage he’s shot over the course of the last two decades. This could very easily end up with the Palme or the Best Director award, but I feel like it’s ultimately going to come in second to Grand Tour since everything I have read about it sounds not only as similarly beautiful and sensuous and engaging as Tabu, the astonishing film that first got Gomes on my radar a dozen years ago, but also feels like a striking exception to what has been a reportedly brutal lineup of competition films. Gerwig’s jury is going through films with violence, bigotry, human misery, organized crime, monstrous men, metaphors for hopelessness and societal ruin; they can certainly stomach that kind of days-long cinematic gauntlet, of course, but wouldn’t that result in a movie like Grand Tour leaving a much stronger impression on them when they finally talk about what they’ve seen? Wouldn’t something described by nearly every critic who has seen it as “joyous,” “lovely,” and “effervescent” stick out in their minds even more? And it’s not like they’d be recognizing just some fluffy, easygoing lark; this movie was reportedly a logistical miracle to pull off, with several dozen different COVID-era restrictions being overcome for the on-location shots and employing a single sound stage resourcefully to pull off several other complex sequences, resulting in a reportedly epic experience. Feels just… right, for this particular festival, and this particular jury.

And that’s it. We’ll find out soon if Joey will best me for the third consecutive time…

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77^th Cannes Film Festival Predictions (Joey)

Prix du scenario: Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou – Kinds of Kindness (alternate: Sean Baker – Anora and Andrea Arnold – Bird)

Prix de la mise en scène: Coralie Fargeat – The Substance (alternate: David Cronenberg – The Shrouds and Paolo Sorrentino – Parthenope)

Prix d’interprétation masculine: Jeremy Strong – The Apprentice (alternate: Jesse Plemons – Kinds of Kindness and Ben Whishaw – Limonov: The Ballad)

Prix d’interprétation feminine: Mikey Madison – Anora (alternates: Karla Sofía Gascón – Emilia Pérez and Demi Moore – The Substance)

Prix du Jury: Grand Tour (alternates: The Apprentice and The Shrouds)

Grand Prix: Bird (alternates: Kinds of Kindness and Parthenope)

Palme d’Or: Emilia Pérez (alternates: Anora and The Substance)

Well, what do you all think, Awards Radar Community? Whose predictions do you think will ultimately prevail? Which of the Main Competition entries are you most looking forward to? Let us know in the comments below…

Stay tuned to see who and what take home prizes from the 77th Cannes Film Festival!