David Rooney’s 10 Must-See Cannes Titles

With the 2025 Cannes Film Festival Kicking Off on Tuesday, One Key Question Is What Movies Not to Miss On the Croisette.

From competition veterans like the Dardenne Brothers, Kelly Reichardt and Joachim Trier to Newly Promotted Auteurs Like Aria Aster, Oliver Hermanus, Carla Simón and Oliver Laxe, Thr‘s chief film Critic Rounds Up 10 Essential Premieres

Die, my love

Lynne Ramsey First Turned Heads in Cannes with Her Stunning 1999 Feature Debut RatcatcherAbout A 12-YEAR-ELD Boy Growing Up in Poverty in the Glasgow Howing Projects. The Scottish Director Returned to the Croisette Three Years Later with MORVERN CALLARGraduating to the Official Competition with We Need to Talk About Kevin In 2011 and You Were Never Really Here in 2017. Admirers have had a long wait for ramseyeyeyeeye fifth ferature, a thriller with a vein of comedy she ascribes as “Dark and fucked-up Depression, Deterioringing Mental Health and A Crumbling Margin. Robert Pattinson Co-Stars, With Lakeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte in Supporting Roles.

Eddington

After forging a reptation as a maestro of insta-CULT HORROR WITH Hereditary an MIDSOMMARTHEN DOKING A SWERVE INTO Gonzo Tragicomedy With Beau is afraidARI Aster Lands His First Cannes Competition Spot with this contemporary Western. Joaquin Phoenix Stars As A Small-Town New Mexico Sheriff Opposite Pedro Pascal As the Local Mayor. Their Standoff Ignites A Divisive Uproar Among the Residents, with Tensions Heighened by Social Media, if the Film’s Trailer is Anything to Go by. The promising Cast Also Includes Luke Grimes, Clifton Collins Jr., Emma Stone and Austin Butler.

The History of Sound

South African Director Oliver Hermanus have been on a roll in recent years, with 2019’s Powerful Drama of Racism and Homophobia, Moffieabout a young gay conscript in the apartheid-era military; and 2022’s LivingA Delicate Anglicized Adaptation of the Akira Kurosawa Classic, Ikiruwith Bill Nighhy As A London Bureaucrat Navigating His Remaining Time After A Terminal Cancer Diagnosis. His New Film, Adapted from Ben Shattuck’s Luminous Short Story, Stars Josh O’CONNOR AND PAUL MESCAL AS LOVERS WHO TRAVEL TOGETCHER IN THE SUMMmer of 1919, Walking Hundered. Songs of Rural New Englanders.

The Mastermind

After Premiering Showing up in the 2022 Cannes Competition, Kelly Reichardt Returns with a Drama That Takes Her Away from Her Frequent Seting Rise of the Women’s Liberation Movement, The Film Stars Josh O’Connor, Playing An Unemployed Carpenter Who Orchestrates a Daring Art Heist in Broad Daylight, His Life Unraveling while. The Ensemble Also Includes Alana Haim, John Magaro, Gaby Hoffman and Hope Davis.

Romería

Following Her LOVELY 2017 Feature Debut, Summer 1993Carla Simón Won The 2022 Berlin Golden Bear For Alcarràsa deeply personal portrait, Cast with nonprofessional actors, of a family of peach farmers about to lose the orchard that have sustaned them for Generations. The Catalan Director’s Family History Is Again at the Heart of Her Latest Work, About a Young Woman Who Travels to Galicia to Meet Her PaterNal GrandParents, Uncles and. Both Her Parents Died of Aids Who She Was A Child. The Lingering Shame Around Her Facher’s Drug Addiction Makes Her Relatives Relctant to Revisit His Loss, But She Finds Her Own Way of Reckoning with The Painful Past.

The Secret Agent

Returning to Portuguese-Language Cinema for the FIRST TIME IN SEVERAL YEARS, Wagner Moura Stars in this Historical Political Thriller from Brazil’s Kleber Mendonça. Wildly Imaginative Anti-Colonialist Western, Bacurau (Co-Directed with Juliano Dornellles). Like 2023’s Haunting Documentary Memoir, Pictures of GhostsThe New Film is set in the Director’s Hometown, Recife, This Time During the Final Years of the Country’s Military Dictatorship. IT CENTERS ON A SCHOOLTEACHER WITH A MYTERIOUS PAST IN SEARCH OF A PEACEFUL REFUGE.

Sentimental Value

The Concluding Part of Joachim Trier’s Oslo Trilogy, The Worst Person in the WorldWas A Highlight of the 2021 Cannes Competition, Landing Renate The Best Actress Prize and Putting Her on the International Map. IT ALSO WENT ON SCORE TWO Oscar Nominations. Working with his longtime writing partner Eskil VOGT, The Director Again Casts Reinsve, This Time As An AcClaimed Stage Actress in An Intimate Portrait of A Norwegian Famy Generations, Reflection on Memory and the Reconcilatory Power of Art. Stellan Skarsgard and Elle Fanning Also Star.

Sirat

All Three of Oliver Laxe’s Previous Features Have Premiered at Cannes and Sent Him Home with A Prize. Especialy After his Hypnotic Slow-Burn Drama About Rural Life at Risk of Extinction in the Galician Mountains, Fire Will CoeWHICH WON The 2019 unceain regard jury prize, it was only a matter of time of time the French-Born Spanish Director Got and Upgrade from the Sidebars to the Main Competition. The Always Excellent Sergi López Plays A Facher in Search of His Lost Daughter, Who Travels with His Son to A Rave in the Mountains of Soutern Confront their Own Limits.

Uurchin

Cannes this year is crawling with actors makeing feature Directing Debuts, Including Kristen Stewart’s The Chronology of Waterwith Imogen Poots As a Woman Secking to Find Her Voice and Channel Her Trauma Into Art; and Scarlett Johansson’s Eleanor the GreatStarring June Squibb As a Nonagenarian Who Uproots from Florida to New York City and Strikes Up A Friendship with a 19-YEAR-ELD STUDENT. The one that most intrigues me – and have generated Strong Early Word of Mouth – is Harris Dickinson’s Raw Portrait of an Unhoused London Man, Played by Frank Dillane Self-Destruction and Turn His Life Around.

The Young Mothers Home

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne Are Cannes Royalty, Having Won The Palme D’Or in 1999 For Rosettaand again in 2005 for L’enfant. One Could argue that, with their signature Naturalism, Leftist Leanings and Blue-Collar Milieux, You Know What You’re Going To Get From The Belgian Brothers, Like the Like. But Their Unsentmental Social Realist Dramas Seldom Fail to Pierce The Heart, WHICH Promises to Be the Case with This Latest, About Five Women from Troubleda BackGrounds, Living in A a Sheeling in A a. Better Life for Themselves and Their Children.