Maxance Vincent
The 78th annual Cannes Film Festival is slowly making its way to the spotlight, as awards season will more than surely kick-off when film enthusiasts from around the world travel to La Croisette for two weeks of what will hopefully be incredible cinema. Last year, Sean Baker‘s Anora went on to win the Palme d’Or, the first American feature to accomplish this since Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, and began the long journey to capture the hearts of awards voters and ultimately win five Oscars, including Best Picture.
It’s been a relatively good streak for NEON, who has distributed the Palme d’Or winner for five consecutive years. Could they go for number 6 in 2025? It remains to be seen, but they have one title that’s highly primed to debut at this year’s festival, and that is none other than Julia Ducournau‘s Alpha. Having won the Palme d’Or for Titane in 2021, the Golshifteh Farahani and Tahar Rahim-starring movie could very much run for competition at Cannes and potentially be a major Palme d’Or contender as well.
Another potential NEON title that could make its way to La Croisette would be Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, starring Renate Reinsve and Elle Fanning. Reinsve won the Best Actress prize at the 2021 festival, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if this movie premieres in or out of competition.
Wes Anderson‘s new movie, The Phoenician Scheme, is out this year, and what better way to bolster attention on the project than having it premiere at Cannes? His last two films, The French Dispatch and Asteroid City, had the privilege of doing so, so why not his latest? The fact that it will be released at the end of May feels like the prime release strategy to have the stars of the movie walk the Cannes red carpet.
Speaking of May releases, there’s a massive blockbuster looking to make quite the splash at Cannes with an out-of-competition premiere of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Tom Cruise did walk the Croisette for Top Gun: Maverick, so it would naturally be a fitting end for Ethan Hunt if he did the same with his fellow cast and crew. There’s always one massive production premiering at the festival. In 2023, it was Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Last year, it was Megalopolis. Now, Cruise seems ready to return and give us a final installment for the ages.
Some other titles that could be of interest and be well-positioned to premiere at this year’s edition of the Cannes Film Festival are Celine Song‘s Materialists, Kelly Reichardt‘s The Mastermind, Jim Jarmusch‘s Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Ari Aster‘s Eddington, Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Bugonia, Nicolas Winding Refn‘s The Avenging Silence, Arnaud Desplechin‘s Une affaire, and Richard Linklater‘s Nouvelle Vague.
The 2025 edition of the Cannes Film Festival will take place from May 13 to 24, with Juliette Binoche acting as Jury president for the main competition. Concrete information should arrive soon, so stay tuned for more!
Source: THR
Also, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes apparently wrapped filming on Young Mothers sometime last year, so we can definitely mark that one down as a guaranteed Main Competition entry. You’d literally have to go back over thirty years to find the last film from them that wasn’t featured at the festival.
Oh they’re a lock if their film is ready.