The 2025 Cannes Film Festival is underway with Leave One Day by first-time French filmmaker Amelie Bonnin serving as the opening-night pic.
This year’s lineup includes major Hollywood premieres including Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme starring Benicio del Toro and Michael Cera, Richard Linklater’s Paris-shot Breathless homage Nouvelle Vague, Jochim Trier’s Sentimental Value and Titane Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau’s Alpha to name a few.
They are joined by new films from stalwart auteurs including horrormeister Ari Aster’s buzzy A24 feature Eddington, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s In Simple Accident and Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson has landed in Un Certain Regard with her first directorial effort, Eleanor the Great.
Croisette regulars Kirill Serebrennikov, Raoul Peck and Sebestian Lelio will debut new works in the Cannes Premiere section.
Read all of Deadline’s takes below throughout the festival, which runs through May 24 on the French Riviera. Click on the title to read the full review and keep checking back as we update the list.
Bono: Stories of Surrender
Section: Special ScreeningsDirector: Andrew DominikCast: BonoDeadline’s takeaway: Bono describes “shouting” the songs U2 became known for; here, in the reimagined versions, the tone is plaintive and slower, fitting for a show that’s intended to be reflective. He spellbinds with stories – not to mention songs – delivered in prose that makes him a worthy successor to Ireland’s exceptional writers. — MC
The Chronology of Water
Section: Un Certain RegardDirector: Kristen StewartCast: Imogen Poots, Thora Burch, Michael Epp, Earl Cave, Jim BelushiDeadline’s takeaway: Kristen Stewart directing debut is simultaneously raw and intricately constructed, as precise and potentially perilous as a Jenga skyscraper. At the same time, so much technical complexity does create a sense of distance from what we are being told. We see what happened to Lidia Yuknavitch, we understand it, we appreciate Stewart’s artistry. The net effect, to be honest, is a bit chilly. — SB
Dossier 137
Section: CompetitionDirector: Dominik MollCast: Léa Drucker, Jonathan Turnbull, Sandra Colombo, Come Peronnet, Solàn Machado-Graner, Valentin CampagneDeadline’s takeaway: The tremendous Léa Drucker gives vitality to every move and counter-move in this police procedural of serious purpose and sober delivery. It is purposeful filmmaking, firm in its convictions. — SB
Eddington
Section: CompetitionDirector: Ari AsterCast: Joaquin Phoenix, Deirdre O’Connell, Emma Stone, Micheal Ward, Pedro Pascal, Cameron Mann, Matt Gomez Hidaka, Luke Grimes, Amèlie Hoeferle, Clifton Collins Jr., William Belleau, Austin Butler, Landall GoolsbyDeadline’s takeaway: Dressed up as a neo-noir western, this pandemic saga drips with biting, dark political humor. But though all its parts don’t quite knit together, Eddington is what you might call a big swing — a film that’s more serious than it first seems, seeing Covid as the Big Bang that landed us right where we are now. — DW
Leave One Day
Section: Out of Competition (Opening-night film)Director: Amélie BonninCast: Juliette Armanet, Bastien Bouillon, Dominique Blanc, François RollinDeadline’s takeaway: Leave One Day is a very particular kind of crowd-pleaser that doesn’t do anything especially new, and, even then, doesn’t really do it in a very distinctive way. Crucially, though, it has heart, capturing a sense of time having passed and an optimism for the time to come. — DW
Left-Handed Girl
Section: Critics’ WeekDirector: Shih-Ching TsouCast: Janel Tsai, Shih-Yuan Ma, Nina Ye, Brando HuangDeadline’s takeaway: Co-writer/producer Sean Baker’s first film since his Oscar triumphs focuses on three generations of females, their quest to make it in Taipei after living in the countryside and the well-hidden secrets and lies permeating this clan. Strong performances all around hold it all together. — PH
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Section: Out of CompetitionDirector: Christopher McQuarrieCast: Tom Cruise, Esai Morales, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Angela BassettDeadline’s takeaway: The Final Reckoning, with action that even the most jaded film bore can’t say they’ve ever really seen before, holds up as a stand-alone feature. The callbacks and in-jokes require a fair bit of knowledge, since they span the franchise’s whole lifetime in unexpected ways, but it’s pretty easy to pick up all the jigsaw pieces and, when it really gets going, immediately forget all about them. — DW
The Plague
Section: Un Certain RegardDirector: Charlie PolingerCast: Everett Blonck, Kenny Rasmussen, Kayo Martin, Joel Edgerton, Lucas Adler, Caden Burris, Elliott Heffernan, Nicolas, Rasovan, Lennox Espy, Kolton LeeDeadline’s takeaway: Set at an all-boys water polo summer camp, The Plague is on the precipice of horror, since bullying and targeting are their own brand of horror. The film looks like it inevitably is going to fall down the rabbit hole of standard genre tropes at any moment, but it’s smarter than that and always keeps it credible. — PH
The President’s Cake
Section: Directors’ FortnightDirector: Hasan HadiCast: Banin Ahmad Nayef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Rahim AlhajDeadline’s takeaway: The first major film from Iraq ever to play in Cannes also might earn the country’s first Oscar nomination. Yes, it is that good. Young Banin Ahmad Nayef is the beating heart of this debut feature from Hasan Hadi, which is quite accomplished across the board — PH
Sirât
Section: CompetitionDirector: Óliver LaxeCast: Sergi Lopez, Bruno Núñez Arjona, Jade Oukid, Tonin Janvier, Richard Bellamy, Stefania GaddaDeadline’s takeaway: Óliver Laxe doesn’t quite land the ending, effectively a switch-and-bait that promises big beats and action then delivers some quiet time for introspection and meditation. Along the way, though, Sirât is certainly a trip, a new way of framing family and loss, with a killer soundtrack for the hardcore. — DW
Sound of Falling
Section: CompetitionDirector: Mascha SchilinskyCast: Hanna Heckt, Lea Drinda, Lena Urzendowsky, Laeni Geiseler, Zoë Baier, Luise Heyer, Susanne WuestDeadline’s takeaway: Cinema is too small a word for what this sprawling yet intimate epic achieves in its ethereal, unnerving brilliance; forget Cannes, forget the Competition, forget the whole year, even — Sound of Falling is an all-timer. — DW
Two Prosecutors
Section: CompetitionDirector: Sergei LoznitsaCast: Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Aleksandr Filippenko, Anatoliy BeliyDeadline’s takeaway: Two Prosecutors — a very slow and very talky chamber piece that could be the most terrifying comedy that Aki Kaurismäki never made, or a Chaplin-esque horror film about the evils of bureaucracy in a world ruled by morons — is one of Sergei Loznitsa’s most accessible films to date, with relevance to every country wrestling with authoritarian political parties right now. — DW
Urchin
Section: Un Certain RegardDirector: Harris DickinsonCast: Frank Dillane, Megan Northam, Amr Waked, Karyna Khymchuk, Shonagh MarieDeadline’s takeaway: Built around a charismatic performance from Frank Dillane, Harris Dickinson’s remarkable feature debut takes the tropes of socially conscious British cinema and fashions a deceptively nuanced cautionary tale that isn’t so much about the failings of that society as our own personal capacity for self-destruction.
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