This month, the eyes of the movie world will be on the Cannes Film Festival.
The French Riviera spectacular will play host – starting on Tuesday – to some of the most anticipated movies of the year in a constant parade of red carpets and megawatt premieres. This year, Hollywood studios are mostly on the sidelines. But for more than 78 years, Cannes has been an unparalleled showcase and sun-dappled circus for some of the best in cinema.
Last year, that included Oscar nominees like "Sentimental Value,” "The Secret Agent” and "It Was Just an Accident.” This year is just as likely to produce a crop of contenders. In recent years, movies like "Parasite” and "Anora” have launched at Cannes and gone on to win best picture at the Academy Awards.
Presiding over the jury deciding the Palme this year is South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-Wook. At the opening ceremony on Tuesday, Cannes will also bestow an honorary Palme d’Or on Peter Jackson. Later, Barbra Streisand will get one, too.
So there will be much to keep an eye on at this year’s Cannes, including "The White Lotus.” The HBO series has come to the Croisette – the Mediterranean city's famous promenade – to shoot its fourth season.
On the screen, these are some of the movies that should stir Cannes.
Na Hong-Jin isn’t as well-known as some of his fellow Korean filmmakers, but he may be poised for a breakout moment this year. His latest is a long-gestating sci-fi thriller that Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux said "constantly changes genres.” The cast has both Korean and Hollywood stars, including Hwang Jung-Min, Zo In-Sung, Jung Ho-Yeon, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Taylor Russell.
Though not initially announced as part of the festival competition slate, James Gray’s latest Queens-set drama was subsequently added. And it instantly became one of the most anticipated and star-studded American films at the festival. Gray, the filmmaker of "Armageddon Time” and "The Immigrant,” tells a story about two brothers (Adam Driver, Miles Teller) who become mixed up with the Russian mafia. Scarlett Johansson co-stars.
The Romanian director Cristian Mungiu is a heavyweight of European cinema because of films like the 2007 Palme d’Or winner "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” and 2022’s "R.M.N.” Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve star in his latest as a Romanian-Norwegian couple who move to the wife’s remote Norwegian hometown.
Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski is best known for a pair of black-and-white, powerfully succinct period dramas: "Ida” and "Cold War.” His latest makes it three. It stars Hanns Zischler as the German author Thomas Mann on a road trip following World War II. Accompanying him is his daughter, played by Sandra Hüller.
The Japanese auteur Ryusuke Hamaguchi makes his French-language debut. Hamaguchi’s 2021 opus "Drive My Car” made history as the first Japanese film nominated for best picture. His 2023 follow-up, "Evil Does Not Exist,” was also acclaimed. "All of a Sudden,” starring Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto, is about a nursing home director and a terminally ill Japanese playwright.
Long revered for his delicate humanism, the Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda will unveil his latest. Kore-eda has already won the Palme d’Or, for 2018’s "Shoplifters.” But his three decades of moviemaking have made him a never-to-be-missed filmmaker of exquisite tenderness. The sci-fi "Sheep in the Box” is about a couple, grieving the loss of their son, who adopt an infant humanoid robot.
Before Gray’s film entered the competition, Ira Sachs’ "The Man I Love” was the sole American selection. Coming quickly on the heels of Sachs’ "Peter Hujar’s Day,” with Ben Whishaw, "The Man I Love” stars Rami Malek as a an actor with a life-threatening illness in 1980s New York, preparing for what could be his final performance.
The French filmmaker Arthur Harari, three years ago, co-wrote the Palme d’Or winner "Anatomy of a Fall” with his partner, Justine Triet. In "The Unknown,” Harari directs and co-writes a film about a photographer who, after photographing a woman at a party and then following her, wakes up in her body. Starring Léa Seydoux.
The Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev has been behind some powerfully potent dramas, including 2014’s "Leviathan” and 2017’s "Loveless” – both of which were Oscar nominated. After a near-death experience during the pandemic, Zvyagintsev returns to Cannes with a business executive in crisis in rural Russia.
Steven Soderbergh’s documentary about John Lennon’s final interview, granted at the Dakota in New York just before he was killed, drew headlines after Soderbergh acknowledged using artificial intelligence to illustrate some of Lennon’s more philosophical musings. But the film, playing in Cannes as a special screening, promises to lend unparalleled intimacy with the great Beatle.
Pedro Almodovar is among the most regular filmmakers in Cannes. This festival, he'll debut "Bitter Christmas,” a multilayered melodrama about filmmaking, grief and aging. After making his English-language debut with "The Room Next Door,” starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, Almodovar is back in his native Spain with one of his most personal films yet.
