2025 Cannes Film Festival Lineup: New Films From Wes Anderson, Julia Ducournau, Joachim Trier, Double Josh O’Connor In Competition

The official selection of the 78th Cannes Film Festival was revealed today, featuring an exciting slate of Festival newcomers and mainstays. In a reprise of the 2021 edition, Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau (Titane) returns with her new coming-of-age tale Alpha, alongside Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World) and Joachim Trier’s latest drama, Sentimental Value. Both films are being distributed by NEON, a Cannes Film Festival (and Academy Awards) lucky charm.

Iris Knobloch, President, and Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate, have announced the Official Selection of the 78th Festival de Cannes, during the press conference on April 10, 2025. The 78th Cannes Film Festival runs May 13-24. Oscar and Cannes-winning actress Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, Certified Copy) is this year’s President of the Jury. Her jury will be announced in the coming days.

After three buzzy titles, Ari Aster makes his debut on The Croisette with Eddington, a Western/horror ensemble film starring Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Pedro Pascal, and Austin Butler. Josh O’Connor will be pulling double duty at the Festival with two films in competition, Kelly Reichardt’s art heist thriller The Mastermind and Oliver Hermanus’ gay period romance The History of Sound, co-starring Paul Mescal, both from MUBI, which hit it big last summer with The Substance.

Wes Anderson’s star-studded cast of The Phoenician Scheme will see Benicio del Toro, Michael Cera, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed, Benedict Cumberbatch and Scarlett Johansson on the red carpet steps and Johansson will also be there to premiere her directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, in the Un Certain Regard section. The drama stars June Squibb (Thelma) as a 90-year-old woman from Florida who moves to New York City after the death of her best friend and strikes up an unlikely friendship with a 19-year-old. In other actor-turned-director debuts, Babygirl star Harris Dickinson will be premiering his first movie as director, Urchin, also in Un Certain Regard. The film stars Frank Dillane as a homeless man in London who struggles to reintegrate into society. Other first-time helmers in the sidebar include Harry Lighton, whose BDSM romance Pillion stars Alexander Skarsgaard and Harry Melling, while Sope Dirisu leads Akinola Davies Jr.’s first feature My Father’s Shadow.

But as always with Cannes, sometimes it’s what missing that raises the biggest eyebrows. While some Cannes regulars like the Dardennes are here in competition, 2021 Jury President Spike Lee had been tapped early as a lock for the lineup but was not mentioned today. In fact, just over an hour after the festival revealed its lineup — which did not include his new film Highest 2 Lowest — the Oscar-winning director took to Instagram to say that the film will be premiering there, albeit out of competition. [UPDATE: Cannes presiden Thierry Fremaux confirmed that the film will indeed premiere OOC]

“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 Competition Category),” Lee wrote under a photo of a patch that says Highest 2 Lowest 2 Cannes.

Highest 2 Lowest is a reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller High and Low starring two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington and produced and distributed by Apple Original Films and A24. As it happens every year there are a few films that are revealed later in the weeks leading up to the fest.

Bono: Stories of Surrender is a reimagining of Bono’s critically acclaimed one-man stage show, “Stories of Surrender: An Evening of Words, Music and Some Mischief…” The film is directed by Andrew Dominik (Blonde) and will appear in the Special Screenings section. Thierry Klifa’s The Richest Woman in the World, starring Isabelle Huppert, will premiere out of competition.

On Wednesday, May 14, actor and producer Tom Cruise, his long-time collaborator, director and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, and the cast will walk the steps of the Palais des Festivals with the world premiere of the 8th chapter in the venerable Mission: Impossible series, The Final Reckoning. This marks Cruise’ third appearance on the Croisette: the first in 1992, for the premiere of Ron Howard’s Far and Away, and then returning 30 years later in 2022, with the out of competition premiere of Top Gun: Maverick, where he received the festival’s honorary Palme d’Or.

Speaking of, two-time Academy Award-winning actor Robert De Niro will receive this year’s Honorary Palme d’Or on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, during the opening ceremony of the festival. 14 years after presiding over the Cannes jury himself as its president, De Niro said of the honor, “I have such close feelings for Festival de Cannes… Especially now when there’s so much in the world pulling us apart, Cannes brings us together — storytellers, filmmakers, fans, and friends. It’s like coming home.”

Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen (The Beasts, series’ Riot Police and The New Years), will serve as jury president for this year’s edition of Cannes Critics’ Week. He will be joined by Oscar-winning UK actor Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah), Moroccan journalist Jihane Bougrine, French-Canadian cinematographer Josée Deshaies (The Beast, Saint Laurent) and Indonesian producer Yulia Evina Bhara (Tiger Stripes). The parallel Cannes section devoted to emerging talents and first and second features runs from May 14 to 22 this year.

Director Christophe Honoré (Sorry Angel, Marcello Mio, Ma mère) will be the jury president of this year’s Queer Palm, which honors films with LGBTQ+ subjects and themes.

French actor, author and director Laurent Lafitte will be the Master of Ceremonies.

Here is the lineup of the In Competition, Out of Competition, Un Certain Regard, Cannes Premiere and Special Screenings of the 78th Cannes Film Festival, with Critics’ Week and Director’s Fortnight to come.

Competition

Alpha, Julia Ducournau

Dossier 137, Dominik Moll

The Eagles of the Republic, Tarik Saleh

Eddington, Ari Aster

Fuori, Mario Martone

The History of Sound, Oliver Hermanus

Leave One Day, Amelie Bonin

The Mastermind, Kelly Reichardt

Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater

La Petite Dernière, Hafsia Herzi

The Phoenician Scheme, Wes Anderson

Renoir, Chie Hayakawa

Romeria, Carla Simone

The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho

Sentimental Value, Jochim Triet

A Simple Accident, Jafar Panahi

Sirat, Oliver Laxe

Sound of Falling, Mascha Schilinski

Two Prosecutors, Sergei Loznitsa

Young Mothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Un Certain Regard

Aisha Can’t Fly Away, Morad Mostafa (1st film)

Eleanor the Great, Scarlett Johansson (1st film)

Heads or Tails?, Matteo Zoppis, Alessio Rigo de Righi

Karavan, Zuzana Kirchnerová (1st film)

L’inconnue de la Grande Arche, Stephane Demoustier

The Last One for the Road, Francesco Sossai

Meteors, Hubert Charuel

My Father’s Shadow, Akinola Davies Jr

The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, Diego Céspedes (1st film)

Once Upon A Time In Gaza, Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser

A Pale View of Hills, Kei Ishikawa

Pillion, Harry Lighton (1st film)

The Plague, Charlie Polinger (1st film)

Promised Sky, Erige Sehiri

Urchin, Harris Dickinson (1st film)

Out of Competition

The Coming of the Future, Cedric Klapisch

Highest 2 Lowest, Spike Lee

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Christopher McQuarrie

Partir un Jour, Amélie Bonnin (Opening Film) (1st film)

The Richest Woman in the World, Thierry Klifa

Vie Privée, Rebecca Zlotowski

Midnight Screenings

Exit 8, Genki Kawamura

Songs of the Neon Light, Juno Mak

Cannes Premiere

Amrum, Fatih Akin

Connemara, Alex Lutz

The Disappearance of Josef Mengele, Kirill Serebrennikov

Orwell, Raoul Peck

Splitsville, Mike Corvino

The Wave, Sebestian Lelio

Special Screenings

Bono: Stories of Surrender, Andrew Dominik

The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol, Sylvain Chomet

Tell Her That I Love Her, Claude Miller

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Sophia Ciminello

Sophia is a lifelong film enthusiast who considers herself a scholar of Best Actress winners, the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, and 1970s cinema. She hosts and produces the podcast "Oscar Wild," where she celebrates her love of cinema with retrospectives, deep dives on all 23 Oscar categories, and interviews with directors and creatives. She thanks her mother for her love of Old Hollywood and her father for letting her stay up late to watch the Oscars when she was in preschool. Her favorite Best Picture winners are All About Eve and Ordinary People. You can follow her on Twitter @sophia_cim.

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