What’s going to be this year’s “Anora”? As the Cannes Film Festival rapidly approaches, that’s the question for artistic director Thierry Fremaux and movie buffs around the world.
A month before Cannes Film Festival’s press conference, the official selection is still very much a work in progress, with little reliable information filtering through about which movies have already been invited. In fact, as of Friday — despite the volume of splashy prediction stories — it appears that only three films have so far been given a golden ticket to compete in Cannes. Variety can reveal that one of them is Jim Jarmusch’s anticipated “Father Mother Sister Brother“ starring Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and Tom Waits.
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The last edition of the festival, which Fremaux had warned would be slightly weaker due to the impact of the double Hollywood strikes, proved to be anything but. Headlined by Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning “Anora,” which went on to land the best picture Oscar, Cannes also saw the bows of award seasons favorites like “Emilia Pérez,” “The Substance” and “Flow.”
If 2024 was a quieter festival, 2025 is set to be an absolute banger, with one insider telling Variety that it “feels like the first post-strike Cannes,” with many major titles submitted and a “real pressure on slots.”
At this point in time, it’s impossible to know for sure what the lineup will look like, with very few films having actually been screened for Fremaux and his committee. However, Variety dug deep to find out which movies have been submitted, which have a shot at making the cut and which are definitely not bowing on the Croisette.
READY TO BE SUBMITTED:
Besides Jim Jarmusch’s “Father Mother Sister Brother,” American filmmakers are looking to be out in full force for this 78th edition. One of the buzziest submissions, that seems tailor-made for Cannes is Richard Linklater’s French-language “Nouvelle Vague,” about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless” and the birth of the French New Wave (produced by ARP Selection). Linklater was just at the Berlin Film Festival with “Blue Moon,” about legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart, starring Ethan Hawke and Margaret Qualley. His last time in Cannes’ official selection dates back to 2006, the year he had “Fast Food Nation” in competition and “A Scanner Darkly” at Un Certain Regard.
Spike Lee, who was last in Cannes to preside over the jury in 2021, is expected to bring his A24 movie “Highest 2 Lowest,” a reimagining of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller “High and Low,” starring Denzel Washington. Wes Anderson is also one of the Croisette regulars expected back on the French Riviera with his Focus Features film “The Phoenician Scheme,” the story of a family business starring Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Tom Hanks and Scarlett Johansson. He’s been to Cannes with “Asteroid City,” “The French Dispatch” and “Moonrise Kingdom,” which opened the festival in 2012.
Other American helmers tipped for Cannes include Ari Aster with his A24 Western black comedy “Eddington“ starring Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix; Gregg Araki’s erotic thriller “I Want Your Sex” starring Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman and Charli XCX; Kelly Reichardt’s Mubi-produced “The Mastermind,” set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and starring Josh O’Connor as an art thief; and Kristen Stewart‘s feature directorial debut “The Chronology of Water,” starring Imogen Poots and adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 bestselling memoir. Meanwhile, Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” is still rumored to be a shoo-in to premiere out of competition, likely right before or on May 21, the day it hits theaters, but Paramount has not made a final decision, sources say.
Buzzy films with top talent that are anticipated to be in the pipeline for Cannes also include Karim Aïnouz’s “Rosebush Pruning,” an adaption of Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 dark satire “Fists in the Pocket” starring Elle Fanning, Riley Keough, Callum Turner and Pamela Anderson (co-produced by Mubi, repped by The Match Factory).
Among the international auteurs that are well positioned to return to the Croisette are the two-time Palme d’Or-winning Dardenne brothers with their social drama “The Young Mother’s Home” (repped by Goodfellas); Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” a Neon-acquired family drama with Renate Reinsve, the breakout star of the Norwegian director’s Oscar-nominated “The Worst Person in the World,” alongside Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning (repped by MK2 Films); Rebecca Zlotowski’s “Vie Privée,“ a Paris-set thriller starring Jodie Foster and Daniel Auteuil (repped by Goodfellas); Fatih Akin’s 1945-set “Amrum,” re-teaming the helmer with “In the Fade” star Diane Kruger and based on the autobiographical novel of screenwriter Hark Bohm (repped by Beta Cinema) and German up-and-comer Mascha Schilinski’s “The Doctor Says I’ll Be Alright, but I’m Feelin’ Blue,” a film spanning four decades and revolving around four young women.
Other possibilities include Julia Ducournau’s “Alpha,” her follow-up to Palme d’Or-winning body horror “Titane” starring Golshifteh Farahani and Tahar Rahim (repped by FilmNation, Charades); László Nemes’s post-World War II Hungarian family drama “Orphan,” his long-gestating follow up to the Oscar-winning visceral Holocaust drama “Son of Saul,” which won Cannes’ jury prize (repped by Charades, New Europe); Chinese director Bi Gan’s sci-fi thriller “Resurrection,” starring Jackson Yee and Shu Qi (repped by Les Films du Losange); veteran Italian helmer Mario Martone’s “Fuori,” a biopic of feminist writer Goliarda Sapienza starring Valeria Golino (repped by True Colours); Brazilian critic-turned-helmer Kleber Mendonca Filho’s “The Secret Agent,” a political thriller headlined by “Civil War” star Wagner Moura and set in the late 1970s during the final years of Brazil’s military dictatorship (repped by MK2 Films); and Pietro Marcello’s “Duse,” a film starring Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as the legendary Italian stage diva Eleonora Duse, alongside Noémie Merlant (repped by The Match Factory).
Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov, who presented “Limonov, The Ballad” last year, is also expected to be back in competition with “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,” an adaptation of Olivier Guez‘s gripping novel by the same name. The film stars August Diehl as the fugitive Auschwitz doctor-torturer, who fled to Argentina at the end of WW2 (repped by Kinology).
MAYBE:
We got mixed signals on a few films, including Lynne Ramsay’s horror film “Die, My Love,” starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, and Luca Guadagnino’s thriller “After the Hunt” with Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield — which, despite its fall release date, could still bow at Cannes according to our intel. Other uncertainties include Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice,” and Alice Winocour’s “Couture,” starring Angelina Jolie as an American film director and set during the frenzy of Paris Fashion Week, as well as “The History of Sound,” Oliver Hermanus’s gay romance starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor. Both “The History of Sound” and “Couture” might premiere in the fall.
NOT HAPPENING:
Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Bugonia”; Paul Thomas Anderson’s untitled film, Paul Greengrass’ “The Lost Bus”; Luc Besson’s “Dracula”; Celine Song’s “Materialists”; Antonin Baudry’s “De Gaulle”; Romain Gavras’ “Sacrifice”; Cedric Jimenez’s “Chien 51;” Julian Schnabel’s “In the Hand of Dante,” starring Oscar Isaac and Jason Momoa; Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine,” starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt; and Nicolas Winding Refn’s “The Avenging Silence” (which hasn’t even started shooting).
Alex Ritman, Nick Vivarelli and Clayton Davis contributed to this report.
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