The 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is looking to be another knockout, with some of this year’s hottest features, including Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, and Ari Aster’s Eddington set to premiere on the Croisette.
Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch announced this year’s line-up at a press conference in Paris Thursday morning.
The 2025 competition line-up is packed with auteur heavyweights, including Kelly Reichardt, who returns to Cannes competition with The Mastermind, an art-heist drama starring Josh O’Connor and John Magaro, set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War; Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier, who returns to the Croisette after his 2021 triumph (with The Worst Person of the World) with Sentimental Value, also featuring Renate Reinsve; and dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who will be back in Cannes competition with his latest drama, A Simple Accident.
Two-time Palme d’Or winners the Dardenne Brothers return with their latest slice of Belgian social realism, The Young Mother’s Home; South African director Oliver Hermanus (Moffie) will get his competition debut with The History of Sound, a WWI gay romantic road movies, starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor; and French veteran Dominik Moll will be repping the home side with his latest, the French crime drama Dossier 137.
Julia Ducournau, who won the Palme d’Or in 2021 with her explosive, and divisive, body horror classic Titane, returns to Cannes competition with Alpha, a 1980s-set shocker that follows an 11-year-old girl who is rejected by her classmates after it is rumored she has been infected with a new disease.
U.S. distributor Neon, which is coming off an unprecedented five-year winning streak of Palme d’Or winners (Parasite (2019), Titane (2021), Triangle of Sadness (2022), Anatomy of a Fall (2023), Anora (2024)) has two shots at making it six straight, with both Alpha and Trier’s Sentimental Value in its stable.
Cannes on Tuesday confirmed this year’s worst-kept festival secret: Tom Cruise will return to the Croisette for the world premiere of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which will have an out-of-competition bow in Cannes ahead of its May 23 global release by Paramount.
Frémaux said the festival screened 2,909 features in its selection process, an all-time record.
Cannes reaffirmed its position as the world’s number one film festival last year, with Cannes 2024 selections racking up a total of 31 Oscar nominations, and nine wins, led by Sean Baker’s 2024 Palme d’Or winner Anora which rode its success on the Croisette all the way to 5 Academy Awards, including best picture. Last year’s festival also produced the break-out successes of Emilia Pérez, The Substance and animated winner Flow, further stoking interest in this year’s selection.
Among the out of competition highlights this year are Jodie Foster-starrer Vie Privée, directed by Rebecca Zlotowski, the music documentary Bono: Stories of Surrender from Blonde and Killing Them Softly director Andrew Dominik, about the U2 frontman; Amrum, the latest feature from German director Fatih Akin, starring his In the Fade collaborator Diane Kruger; Sebastián Lelio‘s Spanish-language feminist musical The Wave; and The Disappearance of Joseph Mengele from Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov.
Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar will be packed with directorial debuts, including Eleanor the Great, Scarlett Johansson’s first turn behind the camera, which stars June Squibb; Harrison Dickinson’s Urchin, a British drama about a homeless man in London; and My Father’s Shadow, a hotly-anticipated debut from British-Nigerian filmmaker Akinola Davies starring Gangs of London and Slow Horses actor Sope Dìrísù.
French star and Oscar winner Juliette Binoche will head up the 2025 Cannes jury, which is picking the Palme winners, as president. Robert De Niro will be honored with an honorary Palme d’Or for lifetime achievement at the Cannes opening ceremony this year.
COMPETITION
Alpha, Julie Ducournau
Dossier 137, Dominik Moll
The Eagles of the Republic, Tarik Saleh
Eddington, Ari Aster
Fuori, Mario Martone
The History of Sound, Oliver Hermanus
In Simple Accident, Jafar Panahi
La Petite Derniere, Hafsia Herzi
Leave One Day, Amelie Bonin
The Mastermind, Kelly Reichardt
Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater
The Phoenician Scheme, Wes Anderson
Renoir, Chie Hayakawa
Romeria, Carla Simone
The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho
Sentimental Value, Jochim Trier
Sirat, Oliver Laxe
Two Prosecutors, Sergei Loznitsa
Young Mothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
UN CERTAIN REGARD
Eleanor the Great, Scarlett Johansson
My Father’s Shadow, Akinola Davies Jr
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, Diego Céspedes
Pillion, Harry Lighton
Urchin, Harris Dickinson
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