Cannes Movie Competition 2025 reveals lineup with new movies from Ari Aster, Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson

Coming off a 2024 version that produced the Academy Award best-picture winner Anora, in addition to a variety of Oscar contenders in Emilia Pérez, The Substance and The Apprentice, the French movie competition responded with a 2025 lineup stuffed with big-name auteurs.

The official choice

Thierry Frémaux, Cannes’ inventive director, introduced the alternatives in a information convention in Paris with competition president Iris Knobloch.

Requested if he was underneath stress after producing so many Oscars contenders final yr, Frémaux stated the competition organizers really feel like an athlete placing his title again on the road.

“What occurred final yr was nice,” he stated. “And what occurred the yr earlier than was nice. The final seven, eight years, Cannes and the movies of Cannes have been nice.”

Entries embody Aster’s Eddington, a pandemic-set Western starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone; Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, starring Benicio Del Toro as a European profiteer and Linklater’s appropriately French-language Nouvelle Obscure, about Jean-Luc Godard and the French New Wave.

Julia Ducournau, whose Titane gained the Palme d’Or in 2021, making Ducournau solely the second feminine filmmaker to ever obtain Cannes’ high honor, will return to the competition with the Eighties New York-set Alpha, about an 11-year-old with a guardian who has AIDS.

Two movies starring Josh O’Connor made it into the competitors lineup: Oliver Hermanus’ The Historical past of Sound, co-starring Paul Mescal, and Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, an artwork heist movie set throughout the Vietnam Battle.

Fremaux altogether introduced 19 movies vying for the Palme d’Or, six of that are directed by girls.

Different beforehand Cannes regulars coming again embody two-time Palme winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The Belgian filmmaking brothers’ newest is titled “Younger Moms.” Joachim Trier, whose The Worst Individual within the World was a spotlight of the 2021 Cannes, is again in competitors with “Sentimental Worth,” which likewise stars Renate Reinsve.

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who was imprisoned throughout the launch of his final, secretly made movie, 2022’s No Bears, and never launched till he went on a starvation strike, will unveil his newest movie, Un Easy Accident.

Among the many movies some had hoped may present up in Cannes however that weren’t introduced have been Terrence Malick’s long-awaited Jesus drama “The Means of the Wind,” Spike Lee’s Akira Kurosawa remake “Highest 2 Lowest,” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After One other.” New movies by Jim Jarmusch and Kristen Stewart had additionally been anticipated within the Cannes lineup.

Requested about their absence, Fremaux declined to remark, saying he wished to as an alternative give attention to the images which made the minimize. He, nonetheless, stated extra movies could possibly be later added to the choice.

An hour after the press convention in Paris, nonetheless, Lee stated on Instagram that “Highest 2 Lowest” is, certainly, going to Cannes.

“Bon Jour. Good Morning. Whaddup. Da New SPIKE LEE JOINT-HIGHEST 2 LOWEST Starring My Brother DENZEL WASHINGTON Has Been Invited To Da 2025 CANNES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (In The Out Of Competitors Class),” Lee wrote.

Representatives for the competition did not instantly reply to messages.

Taking part in within the competition’s Un Sure Regard sidebar is Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, “Eleanor the Nice,” starring June Squibb. Harris Dickinson, the “Babygirl” star, will even premiere his directorial debut, “Urchin,” in the identical part.

Bono will even be coming to the Croisette for the premiere of “Bono: Tales of Give up,” Andrew Dominik’s movie of the singer’s one-man stage present. That can play in Cannes’ particular screening part.

Cannes earlier introduced that “Mission Not possible: The Closing Reckoning” will launch on the competition, which three years in the past bestowed an honorary Palme d’Or on Tom Cruise. This yr, Robert De Niro is about to obtain one throughout the competition’s opening ceremony.

Following within the footsteps of Greta Gerwig, Juliette Binoche will head the jury that determine this yr’s Palme d’Or. Knobloch stated it is the primary time in 60 years that two girls succeed one another on this position.

The competition runs Could 13-24. The opening night time movie, enjoying out of competitors, will probably be “Go away One Day,” the primary film by French director Amélie Bonnin.

___

Coyle reported from New York

(Through inputs from AP)