Who will win the Palme at Cannes? [2025 edition]

lol I pulled that from the Cannes site and didn't realize that they inexplicably translated part of Nouvelle Vague into English

Is that the Paul Eddington biopic we’ve all been waiting for?

"New Vague" vmic for Linklater

I'm far from a cinephile but my heart says it's Reichardt's year.

"Reichardt heist movie" makes me curious.

Is Chie Hayakawa taking the slot usually reserved for Naomi Kawase?

I was hoping that Bi Gan's "Resurrection" would be included. Maybe it's not ready. His first two films, "Kaili Blues" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night" were both really good I thought

I'm curious about Mascha Schilinski's "Sound of Falling", which has received a lot of advance praise

If we haven't seen them (like THE MASTERMIND by Kelly REICHARDT), I have no idea

nobody has seen them! I am merely keeping up an annual thread started in the last few years by Eric H.

thank you jaymc!

Yes, since they are premiering at Cannes, none of us has seen them. It's just speculation based on knowledge of and love for the directors, general film gossip, plot points put forward ahead of time, and hype by companies hoping to acquire the films

I think 3 or 4 more films may be added to the lineup. The 2025 Cannes Film Festival runs from May 13th - May 24th, so we'll at least get to see what people attending the screenings think by the middle of the festival before this poll closes May 21st

Neil Young (UK film critic based in Austria) already has his yearly odds on his website, which will keep changing until the end of the festival, and right now his top 5 is

4/1 Chie Hayakawa RENOIR
5/1 Mascha Schilinski SOUND OF FALLING
6/1 Jafar Panahi A SIMPLE ACCIDENT
8/1 Carla Simón ROMERÍA
8/1 Julia Ducournau ALPHA

https://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/reviews/cannes2025/

I mean - he could only have marginally more insight at this point than we do

Lynne Ramsay and Saeed Roustayi added to the competition. Perhaps we need a new poll?

And when at least a few of us have watched'em.

isn't this how the poll has always been done?

Definitely more interesting excercise when none of us have watched these. Reading the Cannes lineup based on history, names, rumours.

isn't this how the poll has always been done?

― jaymc, Friday, April 25, 2025

I know and I don't like it! It's like when people discussing Oscar win possibilities without watching the nominated movies. Pedantic complaint, I know, carry on.

It should end earlier, before anyone has seen them. I agree it's not interesting if people vote based on the hype at the festival.

But I think it's fun to vote on something as absurd as what a random jury will call the best. We should def do a poll on who will win the conclave in Rome as well.

my vote for the conclave is Matteo Zuppi

Anyway, I think voting based on the hype of the festival is what animates these threads.

I wish they had added the Bi Gan film, but he apparently ran into problems with censors

"Back in February, Juliette Binoche was named president of the jury for the 78th Cannes Film Festival, but the jury itself had yet to be unveiled, that is, until today."

"Joining Binoche is a diverse group of international artists: American actress Halle Berry, Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher, Franco-Moroccan author Leïla Slimani, Congolese filmmaker and producer Dieudo Hamadi, South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo, Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas, and American actor Jeremy Strong."

Well, that changes everything. It must be Carla Simón's to lose, right?

On a more serious note, I could easily see her take it. 'Alcarràs' was really good. The one I'm most excited about is Oliver Laxe. 'Mimosas' was crazy and the trailer to the new one makes it seem like he's the token 'experimental' choice this year like Gomes or Serra earlier.

I've never watched Mimosas but it sounds interesting. I loved Alcarràs

According to World of Reel, a tentative schedule has leaked for the competition entries

May 14: Schilinski, Loznitsa, McQuarrie
May 15: Moll, Laxe
May 16: Aster, Herzi
May 17: Ramsay, Linklater, Hayakawa
May 18: Mendonça, W. Anderson
May 19: Ducournau, Saleh, S. Lee
May 20: Martone, Panahi, Zlotowski
May 21: Hermanus, Trier, Simón
May 22: Roustaee
May 23: Reichardt, Dardenne

I have read that the films thought to be the strongest are usually shown in the middle/latter part of the festival. That doesn’t mean much, but the thought is that the earliest films shown are forgotten by the end, and the last films are shown after everyone has made up their minds.

Reichardt’s film for the second time gets scheduled on the last day, but I don’t think she cares about any awards. (Dardennes’ film “Rosetta”, their first film at Cannes, which won the Palme D’Or, was also screened on the last day in 1999 apparently.) There are a lot of unknowns about the scheduling, probably involving post-production and what the directors have to say about their own preferences for when they want to show up based on their schedules

Also according to them: “As for Bi Gan’s “Resurrection,” it’s apparently booked to screen on May 22, but has still not been announced by Cannes. Hopefully, it passed through Chinese censors and will indeed be playing at the festival. The runtime for that film is said to be 2.5 hours.“

There was an announcement today that Bi Gan's film "Resurrection" will be in the official competition, which is very last minute, since the festival starts next week

Wow! So cool :) Hope there's an even longer longtake this time.

Haven't seen any of these but rooting for Reichardt, haha.

So the festival started off with Robert De Niro accepting an honorary Palme d'Or

new odds according to Neil Young:

3/1 Chie Hayakawa RENOIR [116min] Jap/Fra/Phi/Sin/Indo
7/2 Bi Gan RESURRECTION [160] Chi/Fra
5/1 Mascha Schilinski SOUND OF FALLING [149] Germany
5/1 Carla Simón ROMERÍA [115] Spa/Ger
7/1 Jafar Panahi IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT [105] (previous times in competition: 1) Iran/Fra/Lux
8/1 Joachim Trier SENTIMENTAL VALUE [135] (2) Nor/Fra/Den/Ger

https://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/reviews/cannes2025/

I don't know much about Chie Hayakawa, but I don't think she is like Naomi Kawase. Hayakawa's first film was Plan 75, which won a special recognition in the Camera d'Or competition. It was unsettling.

The description of this new film is:

"Suburban Tokyo, 1987. 11-year-old Fuki's father, Keiji, is battling cancer, and in and out of hospital. Her mother, Utako, is constantly stressed out from caring for Keiji while holding down a full-time job. Left alone with her rich imagination, Fuki becomes fascinated by telepathy and falls ever deeper into her own fantasy world."

it sounds interesting to me

Early Kawase is really good, btw. Shara especially.

I liked her film Sweet Bean from 2015. That's the only one I've seen.

Mascha Schilinski's The Sound of Falling has gotten great reviews from Indiewire and Variety. It seems like it doesn’t have a coherent narrative as much as a sense of resonance of ghosts and trauma across generations.

Sergei Losnitza is the Ukrainian director of Two Prosecutors, also presented today in competition.

“Set in a provincial Soviet town in 1937, at the height of Josef Stalin’s reign of terror, Loznitsa’s latest is a harrowing portrait of one man’s powerlessness when confronting the ruthless machinery of a brutal, capricious state.”

Losnitza made Donbass 7 years ago which won the 2018 Un Certain Regard’s directing prize and My Joy 10 years ago. Both of them are beautiful but insanely chaotic films

I see now his name is spelled Loznitsa

tomorrow we get Dominik Moll with Dossier 137. He is a director who has been in competition twice before, with With A Friend Like Harry... (2000) and Lemming (2005). I have not seen his films and know nothing about him

also Oliver Laxe, for a film about a father's search for his missing daughter in the deserts of southern Morocco. He won the Directors' Fortnight Prize in 2010 for You Are All Captains, the Critics' Week Grand Prize in 2016 for Mimosas, and the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize in 2019 for Fire Will Come. I have not seen any of his films either

Mascha Schilinski's The Sound of Falling has gotten great reviews

yeah, I really want to check this out

Loznitsa has become a major documentarian lately, with major works about Ukrainian history like 'Maidan' about the revolution and 'The Invasion' about the war. Plus he has made a series of documentaries based on archival footage, of which 'State Funeral', featuring insane never seen before footage made for a propaganda documentary about the funeral of Stalin which was never finished. The new film looks like the most austere he has ever been, but it gets really great reviews. Perhaps it might be his popular breakthrough?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmJE6KWkVXM

I saw 'With a Friend Like Harry' in highschool more than twenty years ago. Never felt the need for more Moll...

But as stated above, the Laxe might be the one I'm looking forward to the most. 'Mimosas' is a classic, and the trailer for 'Sirât' looks great!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r854X85Q49s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HvwhOY63Ig

I usually like to follow Cannes through a mix of podcasts and tweets. The former seem quite slow compared with previous years (at least anglophone ones): my favourite one, Nick Rapold's Last Movie I Saw has had one episode with guest Alison Willmore (they both adored The Sound of Water). Nothing from Film Comment podcast so far this year. The Izzy and Murtado Picture Show is a new one on me though.

As for tweets, it's all a bit fractured now, with some people on Bluesky. Refuse to check Threads as well.

The Sound of Falling, rather!

The Shape of Water
The Sound of Music
The Chronology of Water

Bleurgh

I see that THE MYSTERIOUS GAZE OF THE FLAMINGO has made an early bid for Cannes-iest title of the year.

I don't know what to believe about any of these reports, but it's fun to read them.

As for Loznitsa's Two Prosecutors, David Jenkins had this to say about it:

"Loznitsa’s lackadaisical film comprises three intimate set pieces based around extended and poetically-literate dialogue scenes. In between these moments, we see shots of Kornyev waiting and often dozing off. He fights with patience against this unseen foe, yet his naivety is all too conspicuous when it comes to believing for even a second that he might succeed in his well-meaning odyssey against the all-encompassing power structure.

Two Prosecutors offers a fairly standard critique of the bureaucratic superstate in which there is always someone a few steps ahead ready to stomp you under its boot heel. Shot in the oppressively boxy 1.37:1 aspect ratio, the film is beautifully framed, blocked and edited, with editor Danielius Kokanauskis in particular locating a series of hypnotic, pendulum-like rhythms in the extended conversation sequences.

Yet as serious and prescient as the film may be politically, it feels too much like a quaint variation on a story that’s been told many times before (not least by Loznitsa himself!), all likely herded under the clichéd thematic banner of “Kafkaesque”. It’s a supremely well-made piece of work whose function and message never quite manage to transcend the prosaic. Still, in the strange times we’re currently living through, maybe it’s worth sounding that necessary siren one more time for luck."

from little white lies

https://lwlies.com/festivals/two-prosecutors-first-look-review/

so mostly positive

as far as Dossier 137 goes, Indiewire also gave it a mostly positive review:

xhttps://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/dossier-137-review-1235123685/

reading the description, it reminds me of Jacques Audiard's Paris, 13th District

tomorrow we get Ari Aster's Eddington, which I'm looking forward to. The poster image is kind of shocking. It is a close-up of art by David Wojnarowicz depicting bison being forced off a cliff in New Mexico, as a metaphor for how our government treated people with AIDS in the late 80s. (He died of AIDS in 1992.) It is supposedly a pandemic film. I don't know what the connection is

I loved and hated Beau Is Afraid

Also tomorrow there is a film by Hafsia Herzi, in competition for the first time. She is a French/Tunisian/Algerian woman, and her film is called La petite dernière.

It is about a woman leaving her close-knit suburban family to study philosophy in Paris, and she finds herself caught between her religious upbringing and the freedom of student life in the city.

The poster image you mention is pretty familiar to a lot of folks, though, as it was the single cover for U2’s “One.”

I didn't know that!

Just reading about Kristen Stewart's directorial debut, The Chronology of Water, which includes among its supporting cast both Jim Belushi and Kim Gordon.

NY Times:

Aster is keen to zero in on the moment when our fraying social fabric was torn apart, and the movie has already inspired battle lines as strongly drawn as the political sides “Eddington” means to satirize. Early reviews have been wildly mixed, and at a cocktail party that followed the Cannes press screening, I watched several critics square off: Though fans of the film found it bold and daring, detractors called it unfunny, too on the nose, and more eager to lampoon annoying liberals than the conservative main characters.

The Guardian hated it

Interesting

The reviews of Oliver Laxe’s Sirât suggest that everyone has been wowed by this film. Most reviews have loved it, but I read one that said its abrupt shift in tone 2/3 of the way in was too extreme, and was to its detriment.

Nicholas Rapold's podcast btw, mentioned by Alba above, has a new episode discussing Two Prosecutors and Dossier 137

It's honestly fairly normal that no US films win. The Zone of Interest only sorta US film winning in 2023. War Pony won Camera d'Or in 2022 if that counts. And even if those count, no US film won anything in 2021.

There's a lot of US films in competition these years, but they honestly don't win that much, usually.

Seems like this is the first year in a while that no American film won any award?

before Anora, the last American film in competition to win an award was BlacKkKlansman in 2018

Oh wow, I’m totally off. I was confusing the awards with the hyped American performances/directors that didn’t win.

This thread has been interesting to follow

Is there any chance that someone here has a gift link to Justin Chang’s article “All the Films in Competition at Cannes 2025, Ranked from Best to Worst” from the New Yorker? Or an archive link? I would love to read it, he posted a link to it this morning, but it’s behind a paywall for me

He seems enthusiastic about this edition of Cannes

this stays between us:

https://archive.fo/DZJea

thank you so much, symsymsym!

np :) he's a very good writer imo, I appreciate being guided towards the piece

Dan, are you on faculty anywhere these days? I pay a $70/year “educator rate”, easily one of my best value subscriptions

I'm not. That is a good rate. I'm thinking I will trade out my subscription to The Atlantic for The New Yorker.

I cancelled my subscription to the LA Times. What a worthless, uninteresting website! and with a heinous owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong. It's shocking that for such a big city there is no good paper. When they let Justin Chang go and then refused to endorse anyone in the last election I knew it was time to cancel.

SF is a fraction of the size of LA, but has two interesting papers, SFChronicle and SFStandard, and also has a free website SFGate.

LA times is pretty bad if you’re used to real national papers. I forget how much I pay for that one but it’s probably too much

The show goes on, unfortunately

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n12/daniella-shreir/diary

In lieu of a Lav Diaz thread - anyone caught Magellan yet? Single screening here in a month's time.

No but want to

I'm watching the Panahi tonight. I should create a thread for him.

The 2026 Cannes competition looks like it will be interesting. We will see most of the lineup tomorrow

It looks fine, but surprised at how few films are in the sidebars so far. Perhaps they fill them up later, but it looks a bit empty.

Not the most exciting lineup, but could be a lot worse. Hopefully a couple of films will be added, and then we do a poll? I'll probably be voting for Grisebach no matter what, but some good names might pop up at the last minute. Bi Gan did last year.

Actually, scratch that, it looks pretty boring? I just realized there were more films at Berlin that I was genuinely excited to see. And that's kinda bad. The quality will doubtless be much better than Berlin overall, but there's not a lot of stuff that promises to be new and exciting.

It looks dull as hell.

I dunno, new films from Almodovar, Farhadi, Hamaguchi, Kore-eda, Mungiu, Pawlikowski, and Sachs? I'm interested.

It always looks better with Quinzaine and Critics Week added. But yeah, it looks very stale.

I mean, I love a lot of what those directors made in the twenty-thirty years ago...

Plenty of younger generation too. And Andrey Zvyagintsev's first film in nearly a decade (not sure how his nationality will affect things). I'm excited.

Takashi Miike, Radu Jude, and James Gray films may also join the lineup.

I don't understand how this lineup is bad, or even dull. We haven't even seen any of the films yet, and it doesn’t feature any old relics like the Dardennes or Coppola or Schrader or Moretti or Loach

It has a lot of directors I really like, and has nine(!) filmmakers who have never been in the main competition before (compared with five last year).

It's hard to believe Grisebach's last film, "Western", was 9 years ago. Zyagintsev almost died during the pandemic of covid complications and has been out of action for a while

There are already 21 films, and they don't usually allow more than 22. I think only one more will be added, and it is likely to be be James Gray's "Paper Tiger"

What Dan S said. I liked the most recent films of pretty much all those established names just fine. Curious about the likes of Dhont too. (He says, scanning Wikipedia's list of the main competition.) Admittedly I don't monitor coming attractions at all -- are there obvious existing omissions?

As far as omissions go, people are complaining that Herzog's "Bucking Fastard" starring the Mara sisters is not in the competition but instead in Cannes Premieres. Whatever. Quentin Dupieux apparently requested that his film not be shown in competition but in Midnight Screening. I'm glad that Nicolas Winding Refn's film "Her Private Hell" also will screen out of competition because I don't like him

I'm looking forward to the Dhont film, he is just 35 years old and has only made 2 previous films (both of which I thought were really good, and both won prizes at Cannes). This is his foray into historical drama, it apparently was finished and submitted the day before the announcement, and it seems like a big stretch for him. We will see

Let's wait a few days to see what else is added, and then, jaymc, can you start a new poll to end May 22nd or 23rd (the day the announcements are made)? That way we can express our opinions about our favorites and talk about all of the films as they are first screened

I will post the existing lineup for those here who aren't obsessive about this

Minotaur (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
The Man I Love (Ira Sachs)
The Beloved (Rodrigo Sorogoyen)
Fatherland (Pawel Pawlikowski)
Moulin (László Nemes)
Night Stories (Léa Mysius)
Fjord (Cristian Mungiu)
Notre salut (Emmanuel Marre)
Gentle Monster (Marie Kreutzer)
Nagi Notes (Koji Fukada)
Hope (Na Hong-jin)
Sheep in the Box (Hirokazu Koreeda)
Garance (Jeanne Herry)
The Unknown (Arthur Harrari)
All of a Sudden (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)
The Dreamed Adventure (Valeska Grisebach)
Coward (Lukas Dhont)
The Black Ball (Javier Ambrossi & Javier Calvo)
A Woman's Life (Charline Bourgeois-Taquet)
Parallel Tales (Asghar Farhadi)
Bitter Christmas (Pedro Almodóvar)

That seems like a very solid list to me, and allows for potentially interesting new directors to debut like Javier Ambrossi/Javier Calvo, Charline Bourgeois-Taquet, Emmanuel Marre, Lea Mysius, and Jeanne Herry, as well as several other directors who have not been recognized before by this festival

Aaah, I see. Thanks Dan S. (XP, RE: scuttlebutt etc.)

Back to 2025 for a second, can anyone now vouch for the excellence or otherwise of these ones that haven't crossed my path?

ROMERÍA by Carla SIMÓN
EAGLES OF THE REPUBLIC by Tarik SALEH
ALPHA by Julia DUCOURNAU
DOSSIER 137 by Dominik MOLL
LA PETITE DERNIÈRE by Hafsia HERZI
FUORI by Mario MARTONE
TWO PROSECUTORS by Sergei LOZNITSA

As far as I know none of those are currently available in the US, they maybe will be on streaming in a year or two, but it raises an interesting point

sure, Dan, I can start a 2026 poll in a few days

I get what you're saying, Dan S, my first response was mostly that there didn't seem to be anything obviously embarrassing this year. It seems solid, it will be good. I just don't think it's that inspiring or exciting. A lot of directors who are very good at making more or less the same film over and over. Compared to even just last year, with Panahi, Loznitsa, Bi Gan, Laxe, and Ducournau, there's not a lot of excitement. Doubtlessly some will exceed expectations, some will flop, but I feel like I know what most of those films will be like.

It's hard to know what could have been in competition, what wasn't ready in time, etc, it'll be more clear once Quinzaine adds their lineup. But Kantemir Balagov was rumored, that would look good next to Zvyagintsev. Having Mungiu but not Radu Jude seems really old as well. Reygadas and Alonso was rumored as well, but there's nothing from Latin America?

This still from Pawlikowskis new film looks really good, but... Does it excite anyone? Looks like business as usual.

https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image001.jpg

Lol what? Most great directors find their voice and pretty much mine it to do make similar films over and over. If you want directors doing different things and looking for new kicks then you want hacks.

Whatever dude. Troll be trolling.

Keep saying that Fred, it will never ever stop from pushing back.

Can y'all please keep it out of this thread?

Has anyone seen Bi Gan's Resurrection? It's streaming on the Criterion Channel now in the US. It is long and very hard to follow, but it is about a future where everyone lives forever but they can't dream, and about a 'deliriant' who lives in dreams/films and haunts the characters in multiple subsequent eras. Each chapter is about a different sense (sound, sight, hearing, sense, touch).

It is almost incomprehensible, but seems like it follows the history of film itself and it incorporates so many different styles of filmmaking. It includes one of Bi's signature long single-takes, this time in sepia. It is really something to watch. It won the Cannes Prix Spécial last year, I'm think because the jury president Juliette Binoche insisted.

not sepia really, just a red filter

I saw Resurrection by nefarious means partly because it seemed like literally everyone I was aware of having seeing it at MIFF in August was crazy about it. I did find the early passages, the homage to Expressionism, etc, pretty compelling. But it became a bit numbing after a while. I'd be prepared to believe it benefits from a second viewing.

Has anyone seen Bi Gan's Resurrection? It's streaming on the Criterion Channel now in the US. It is long and very hard to follow, but it is about a future where everyone lives forever but they can't dream, and about a 'deliriant' who lives in dreams/films and haunts the characters in multiple subsequent eras. Each chapter is about a different sense (sound, sight, hearing, sense, touch).

It is almost incomprehensible, but seems like it follows the history of film itself and it incorporates so many different styles of filmmaking. It includes one of Bi's signature long single-takes, this time in sepia. It is really something to watch. It won the Cannes Prix Spécial last year, I'm think because the jury president Juliette Binoche insisted.

― Dan S, Friday, April 10, 2026 9:12 PM

We discussed it in the film detrius thread and Bi Gan has his own thread:

Let Bi Gans be Bi Gans

Jesus, Kantemir Balagov, Radu Jude and Lisandro Alonso are in Quainzaine. That makes the Main Competition look pretty pathetic.

Though other filmmakers might have protested against the inclusion of Jesus. Unfair competition.

"Diary of a Chambermaid"!!! (From Jude. Finally looked it up. Interesting.)

I wonder why the Balagov and Jude weren't chosen for competition. Balagov's Beanpole was lovely, and Jude's Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World was one of the better films I have seen in the last couple of decades