The 2025 Cannes Highlights: Breakouts, Big Names, and the First Oscar Contenders
This year’s Cannes Film Festival (which spanned from Tuesday, May 13th to Saturday, May 24th) delivered one of the most electrifying and unpredictable slates in recent memory. Ranging from experimental passion projects and long-gestating auteur works to breakout indie hits and a few early Oscar contenders already shaping the awards conversation. Here are the standouts, surprises, and stumbles from the Croisette.
The heart of Cannes lies in the quiet, poetic works tucked into the Directors’ Fortnight or Un Certain Regard sections, often films that demand patience, risk, and emotional investment.
‘Sound of Falling’ (Germany)
A sensory tapestry that evokes the pastoral stillness of Béla Tarr and the deep consciousness of Chantel Akerman, this German drama ‘Sound of Falling’ follows four women across generations on the same rural farm. While they never meet, they remain spiritually tethered through trauma, isolation, and silence. Director Mascha Schilinski’s daring structural experiment uses disjointed chronology and ambient sound design to create a ghostly sense of continuity. Acquired by MUBI, this one may be slow, but it has already built a passionate following.
‘Urchin’ (United Kingdom)
Actor-turned-director Harris Dickinson makes an arresting debut with ‘Urchin,’ a minimalist character study about a homeless man trying to escape the cycle of poverty on the fringes of London. Shot on gritty 16mm and deeply indebted to the Safdie Brothers’ kinetic style, Dickinson’s film is a bruising and surprising work of compassion, despair, and survival.
Documentarian Raoul Peck’s return to Cannes is a searing, sprawling docu-essay hybrid that revisits George Orwell’s radicalization, tying his iconic novels 1984and Animal Farmto the contemporary rise of fascism. In a vein similar to the 2021 documentary series ‘Exterminate All the Brutes,’ Peck connects colonialism, surveillance, and modern authoritarianism in an overwhelming but urgent fashion. Expect this documentary to appear in “essential” lists rather than Oscar predictions.
‘Adam’s Sake’ (France)
Opening Semaine de la Critique, Laura Wandel returns with a restrained, ethically probing drama about medical bureaucracy, parenting, and systemic harm. Léa Drucker delivers a career-best performance alongside Anamaria Vartolomei. Quiet, devastating, and sure to be studied.
Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson are a magnetic duo in ‘Die, My Love,’ Lynne Ramsay’s searing adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s novel. Set in the countryside, Lawrence plays a woman unraveling from postpartum depression in a darkly comic, deeply tragic performance that’s already being called a career-best. It’s an uneasy descent, anchored by Ramsay’s piercing formalism and Lawrence’s fearless work.
Kelly Reichardt brings her methodical, slow-burn style to the heist genre with ‘The Mastermind,’ casting Josh O’Connor and Alana Haim as art-world misfits pulled into high-stakes crimes that become a meditation on failure, value, and authenticity. With Reichardt’s favorite John Magaro in a key role, the film is gently funny and quietly radical in its pacing and subtle humor.
Jafar Panahi’s triumphant and hard-earned return to the Cannes red carpet was historic. ‘It Was Just an Accident’ is a masterful revenge drama blending political allegory, suspense, and theatrical surrealism. What starts as a simple car accident descends into abduction, crime, and chaos. What unfolds is part existential thriller, part morality play, and all brilliance. Panahi was previously sentenced to six years in prison and a one-year ban from filmmaking in 2010, being detained again in 2022 for supporting fellow Iranian filmmakers who were being targeted by their government. Panahi fought to make this film, and his bravery paid off.
Grand Prix: ‘Sentimental Value’ (Norway)
Joachim Trier cements his status as one of the great contemporary humanists with ‘Sentimental Value,’ his long-awaited follow-up to 2021’s ‘The Worst Person in the World.’ This film is a moving and complex drama about two estranged sisters navigating the reappearance of their father, Gustav. Trier deepens his emotional palette here, with support from familiar actors like Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning. The Grand Prix is well-earned, as this is the rare film that feels both intimately Scandinavian and universally affecting. Expect it to figure heavily into year-end lists and Oscar ballots.
Jury Prizes ‘Sirât’ and ‘The Sound of Falling’
Two daring visions, including previously mentioned ‘The Sound of Falling,’ shared this year’s Jury Prize:
‘Sirât’ (Spain, France)
Oliver Laxe’s ‘Sirât’ is a mystical, slow-burning Moroccan desert epic that explores Islamic eschatology and moral trials through the story of a father searching for his nomadic daughter through an EDM festival. With echoes of Tarkovsky and Malick mixed with the thumping sensuality of Gaspar Noé, its hallucinatory imagery and religious symbolism left audiences transfixed and stirred.
Spike Lee’s polarizing update of Akira Kurosawa’s legendary film ‘High and Low,’ starring Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky, has been called both melodramatic and revelatory. Stylish but narratively fractured, the film has its defenders, but critics are split on its neo-noir intentions. Ice Spice’s unexpected cameo briefly overshadows the movie itself.
‘Honey Don’t!’ (United States)
The second entry in the writing duo of Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s lesbian B-movie trilogy (after ‘Drive Away Dolls’), ‘Honey Don’t’ features Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Charlie Day, and Chris Evans. Despite the high camp potential, the film never quite clicks tonally. Plaza is a standout, but the satire sometimes feels too broad for its own good.
Early Oscar Contenders: The Awards Season Starts in France
‘Sentimental Value’
Now with the Grand Prix under its belt, Joachim Trier’s film is officially a frontrunner heading into awards season. Its potent mix of family drama, theater-world satire, and literary melancholy will resonate across categories. Expect a campaign focused on Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Supporting Actor, and possibly Best Director if the momentum holds.
‘Die, My Love’
Lawrence’s lead performance is one of the year’s best so far. A shoo-in for Best Actress nominations and potentially more if voters respond to Ramsay’s pitch-black humor and visual rigor.
‘Eleanor the Great’
Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut ‘Eleanor the Great’ features a heartbreaking and hilarious turn from 95-year-old June Squibb as a woman pretending to be a Holocaust survivor. With real survivors featured and cinematography by Hélène Louvart (‘La Chimera’), this intergenerational story of aging, grief, and identity will be a major player in the adapted screenplay and actress races. Sony Pictures Classics will likely give it a prestige fall release and play on Squibb’s narrative for awards attention.
‘The History of Sound’
Oliver Hermanus’s romantic epic starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor is lush, sensual, and deeply emotional. A sweeping portrait of queer love against the backdrop of war and art, with a script by Ben Shattuck, this is the kind of old-school prestige romance that could clean up in below-the-line categories, and perhaps secure nominations in more.
2025 Cannes in Review
The 2025 Cannes Film Festival gave us everything: bold statements, subtle truths, artistic risks, and a few future Oscar nominees. As the fall festival season approaches, films like ‘Sentimental Value,’ ‘Die, My Love,’ and ‘Eleanor the Great’ already feel like frontrunners. But Cannes, as always, reminds us that cinema is bigger than awards, it’s about vision, voice, and a room full of people watching the same flickering light and feeling something real.
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