Which movies should you watch at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival? Loud and Clear recommends 20 films, from the most anticipated premieres to hidden gems and lesser known releases!
The 2025 Cannes Film Festival is just around the corner and we made a list of movies you shouldn’t miss this year! The 78th Festival de Cannes will take place on May 13-24, 2025, with World Premieres at the Palais and many exciting screenings at various venues on the Croisette. The line-up is out and it’s more exciting than ever, so it’s time to look at which films to add to your watchlists, from the most anticipated premieres to lesser known gems you don’t want to miss.
The official Cannes website currently lists 22 movies in competition but there are usually 23, so keep an eye out for new announcements. But also exciting are 20 films in Un Certain Regard, 5 that will be screened out of competition, 5 midnight screenings, 7 special screenings, 9 “Cannes premiere” movies, and a tribute to Pierre Richard. The immersive strand, which was added last year, is also returning, and as always, some of the most promising movies will premiere in the collateral section: Directors’ Fortnight (Quinzaine des Cinéastes), Critics’ Week (Semaine de la Critique), and l’ACID.
So without further ado, let’s take a look at our list of 20 movies to watch at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival! You’ll find them below in alphabetical order. The films are recommended by our writers Hayley Croke and Philip Bagnall, who will be at the festival this year for Loud and Clear Reviews! Keep an eye on the site for our Cannes coverage and don’t forget to follow us on our socials to get our updates from the festival!
1. Alpha
Cannes 2025: In Competition
Director & Writer: Julia Ducournau
Country: France
At Cannes, before there was The Substance, there was Titane. Titane, written and directed by Julia Ducournau, may be one of the most far-out films to ever earn the Palme d’Or. Chalked full of sex, body horror and violence, the film had several walkouts during its premiere at the 2021 festival, yet it still left with the top prize.
The first time since her 2021 win, Ducournau is back with another body horror film, Alpha. The film’s titular character, a 13-year-old named Alpha, is going through a rough time. She lives alone with her mother and one day, she comes home from school with a tattoo on her arm. This tattoo causes both her and her mother’s lives to come crashing down.
Ducournau’s projects promise to challenge viewers. She presents a raw, unfiltered look at the grotesque and asks audiences why they can’t seem to look away. Her execution of her singular vision and unrelenting boldness is what makes Alpha one to keep an eye out for. (H.C.)
2. Caravan (Karavan)
Un Certain Regard
Director & Writer: Zuzana Kirchnerová
Country: Austria
While it’s always exciting to see who will be returning to the Croisette with a new project, the names that line these lists were once brand new to the same worldwide audiences. Their breathtaking performances, potent messages and artful storytelling turned them into names we are all so quick to recognize. Cannes is truly the place to make a name for yourself as a creative, and it’s our job as journalists and critics to point you towards the pictures that promise to be worthy of your time.
Zuzana Kirchnerová’s debut feature film Karavan tells the story of a doting single mother to a disabled teenage son. After devoting her life to being a caretaker, she dares to dream of taking a solo vacation to a friend’s house in Italy for some time to herself. But once his care arrangements fall through, she must bring her son along on her dream trip. With a compelling storyline and two enticing short films under her belt, Kirchnerová’s Karavan will most definitely be one to watch for. (H.C.)
3. The Chronology of Water
Un Certain Regard
Director: Kristen Stewart
Writers: Kristen Stewart, Andy Mingo, Lidia Yuknavitch
Country: United States
After a long-standing history with the Cannes Film Festival, Kristen Stewart will have her directorial debut at this year’s festival. The Chronology of Water is a biographical, queer romantic drama based on Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir of the same name.
The story follows an Olympic swimming hopeful, played by Imogen Poots, who tries to use her success in the pool to flee from her abusive household. While she strives to pull herself out of the unfortunate circumstances she was born into, her struggles with addiction threaten to keep her from overcoming the troubles of her past. (H.C.)
4. Die, My Love
Cannes 2025: In Competition
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Writers: Lynne Ramsay, Enda Walsh, Alice Birch
Country: U.S.A.
Lynne Ramsay returns to Cannes seven years after successfully launching You Were Never Really Here at the festival (where it won Best Screenplay and Best Actor). Adapted from Ariana Harwicz’s acclaimed novel, Die, My Love centres on a young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) succumbing to postpartum depression and psychosis following the birth of her child. Themes of fractured and frustrated motherhood need a deft hand to bring them to life onscreen (Last year’s Nightbitch being a recent example of a film that couldn’t make it work), but the director of We Need To Talk About Kevin should handle it well. Co-producing the film as well as leading it, Lawrence heads up an all-star cast, including Robert Pattinson, Lakeith Stanfield, Nick Nolte and Sissy Spacek (P.B.)
5. Eddington
Cannes 2025: In Competition
Director & Writer: Ari Aster
Country: United States
In 2018, Ari Aster turned the horror genre on its head with his debut feature film Hereditary. The following year, he would redefine the concept of a “cult classic” with Midsommar and in 2023 he would show audiences how terrifying nightmares can really be with Beau Is Afraid. Few modern directors have established themselves and their voices so clearly, so quickly in their careers as Ari Aster has. No matter what his latest project is, you can’t help but feel yourself drawn to its dark strangeness.
In his first-ever Cannes appearance, he will present his latest film, Eddington. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Austin Butler and Emma Stone, Eddington takes place in May of 2020 in the small town of Eddington, New Mexico. With so much uncertainty and such a widespread desire for order, things come to a head as a small-town sheriff fights with the town’s mayor for power over their people. If you thought 2020 was a strange time, just wait to see Aster’s take on it. (H.C.)
6. Eleanor The Great
Un Certain Regard
Director: Scarlett Johansson
Writers: Tory Kamen
Country: U.S.A.
The Un Certain Regard strand often offers a leg-up to debut and upcoming filmmakers, though it’s unlikely Scarlett Johansson needs the help. Still, her feature debut as a director is an enticing prospect. The titular Eleanor (June Squibb) has lived in Florida for decades, but she moves back to New York after her best friend’s death. This tale of defining oneself in the face of encroaching old age follows Squibb’s winning turn in Thelma, bringing humour and empathy in spades. She’ll be a valuable asset to Johansson, who will doubtlessly seek to define her film with both humanity and energy (P.B.)
7. Highest 2 Lowest
Out of Competition
Director: Spike Lee
Writers: Spike Lee, Alan Fox
Countries: U.S.A./Japan
After Scorsese and Coppola introduced their latest opuses to the world at the last two festivals, this year’s Competition is missing a heavy-hitting American auteur vying for the Palme d’Or. The closest we get is Highest 2 Lowest, the latest joint from three-time Palme nominee Spike Lee, but playing out of Competition. It’s a brave man that remakes one of Akira Kurosawa’s most acclaimed films, but then High and Low was adapted from an American novel, so the move from Japan to contemporary New York might not be so jarring. Lee’s muse Denzel Washington plays a music mogul caught in a moral dilemma when his family and employees get caught up in a kidnap plot. Expect moral murkiness and an intense Washington performance (P.B.)
8. The History of Sound
Cannes 2025: In Competition
Director: Oliver Hermanus
Writer: Ben Shattuck
Country: United States
The History of Sound has been Oliver Hermanus’s passion project for the past five years, and its grand debut will take place at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor, it tells the story of two young men who set out to record the lives, voices and music of Americans against the background of The Great War.
This film is a coming home of sorts for all involved. It will be Mescal’s first return to the Croisette since his 2022 Cannes debut as Calum, a melancholy young father, in Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun, which earned him his first Academy Award Nomination. It will also be O’Connor’s first time back since his 2023 appearance for La Chimera, where he played Arthur, a jaded tomb raider, in a role that also gained him massive critical appeal.
Director Oliver Hermanus is no stranger to Cannes as well, having won the Queer Palm Award in 2011 at the Cannes Film Festical for his film Beauty. Given the history this cast and crew have with the festival and the talent they effortlessly exude into all of their project, The History of Sound will be one of the most highly anticipated films at this year’s festival. (H.C.)
9. It Was Just an Accident
Cannes 2025: In Competition
Director: Jafar Panahi
Writers: TBC
Countries: France/Luxembourg
After Mohammad Rasoulof fled Iran under penalty of flogging and imprisonment to present The Seed of the Sacred Fig at last year’s festival, his compatriot Jafar Panahi returns to the Croisette this year with his latest. Owing to Panahi’s precarious legal situation, details on It Was Just an Accident are scant. His 2011 film This Is Not A Film had to be smuggled out of Iran to be presented at Cannes, and the festival has proven to be an important showcase for directors that are critical of the Iranian regime and its policies. As a result, it’s unlikely the director will attend the festival in person, but Panahi’s film will doubtlessly give voice to his feelings in his absence (P.B.)
10. Left-Handed Girl
Critics’ Week (Semaine de la Critique)
Director: Shih-Ching Tsou
Writers: Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker
Country: Taiwan
Shih-Ching Tsou is another exciting name to add to the list of directorial debuts at this year’s festival. The long-time collaborator with last year’s Palme d’Or winner Sean Baker is set to have her first solo-directed film screen in the Semaine de la Critique section.
Left-Handed Girl follows a single mother who returns to Taipei with her two daughters and reunites with her immediate family. The mother opens a stand in a vibrant night market and her and her daughters are pushed to adapt to a brand new environment while still trying to maintain a family unit. As the mother and her two daughters begin to spend more time with their traditional family, family secrets begin to unravel.
Tsou has been a producer on several of Baker’s projects, including Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket. Given the critical success of the movies this team has collaborated on, Left-Handed Girl should definitely be a film on everyone’s must-watch list. (H.C.)
11. The Mastermind
Cannes 2025: In Competition
Director & Writer: Kelly Reichardt
Country: United States
Kelly Reichardt returns to the Croisette with her brand new thriller, The Mastermind, starring Josh O’Connor, Alana Haim and John Magaro.
Set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, The Mastermind is a film about a man who sets in place a heist to steal four paintings from a museum in broad daylight. With the changing social tides, women’s liberation and the political unrest of 1970s America, the stakes couldn’t be higher and his chances of pulling it off couldn’t be more narrow. While Reichardt is known more widely for her sensitive films that take a contemplative look at life, as seen in her projects like Wendy and Lucy and Showing Up, this turn in genre and ambitious plot promises to show a new side of an already beloved director. (H.C.)
12. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Out of Competition
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Writers: Christopher McQuarrie, Erik Jendresen
Country: U.S.A.
It’s the biggest and last Mission: Impossible film; do you need any more explanation? Tom Cruise and co. will be hoping The Final Reckoning makes a big splash on the Croisette after Dead Reckoning’s disappointing box office in 2023. Christopher McQuarrie’s fourth film in the franchise follows on from the end of Dead Reckoning, as Ethan Hunt and his team hunt down a powerful AI with the power to destroy the world as we know it. Like Cruise’s Hunt, the film will need to hit the ground running, but as we prepare to bid farewell to this fun and surprisingly consistent franchise, it is bound to bring firepower aplenty for its big finale (P.B.)
13. New Wave (Nouvelle Vague)
Cannes 2025: In Competition
Director: Richard Linklater
Writers: Holly Gent, Laetitia Masson, Vincent Palmo Jr., Michèle Pétin
Country: France
Spike Lee may be brave in remaking Kurosawa, but Richard Linklater could be even more courageous by directing Nouvelle Vague, a recreation of the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s À Bout de Souffle, and having it premiere at Cannes. À Bout de Souffle (Breathless) is one of the most recognisable and best loved films of the French New Wave, though an homage such as this would likely have rankled the late auteur. Still, Linklater clearly identifies with Godard’s methods; that same energy has allowed him to make two films this year (Blue Moon was unveiled at Berlin in February). Linklater has attempted to recreate Godard’s style to capture the rough and ready methods he employed. Whether this is inspired or indulgent remains to be seen. (P.B.)
14. The Phoenician Scheme
Cannes 2025: In Competition
Director & Writer: Wes Anderson
Country: United States
Wes Anderson and Cannes are two creative forces that seem to fit perfectly together. Anderson is returning to Cannes this year with yet another star-studded, aesthetically perfected epic called The Phoenician Scheme.
Benicio Del Toro stars as one of the richest men in Europe with a taste for danger and a lack of a succession plan. While he has plenty of children to choose from, nine boys and a nun, he chooses his only daughter, with whom he has an extraordinarily strained relationship. As he introduces her into his world, there seems to be danger at every turn and entities that are constantly vying to claim his power and level of influence once he meets his predictably unfortunate end. (H.C.)
15. Renoir
Cannes 2025: In Competition
Director: Chie Hayakawa
Writers: Chie Hayakawa
Countries: Japan/France/Philippines/Singapore/Indonesia
In 1980s Tokyo, a young girl retreats into her imagination while her father battles cancer and her mother tries to hold the family together. Chie Hayakawa’s drama sounds grounded, until our young heroine starts investigating if she has telepathic abilities. Hayakawa can take a standard setup and turn it on its head; her debut feature Plan 75 (which was screened in Un Certain Regard in 2022) depicted a very sinister variety of retirement planning. Her second feature promises an enrapturing blend of family drama, coming-of-age story, and hints of the supernatural, resulting in a unique take on all three (P.B.)
16. The Secret Agent (O Agente Secreto)
Cannes 2025: In Competition
Director & Writer: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Countries: Brazil/France/Germany/Netherlands
South American directors are always among the most hotly anticipated at film festivals, but few offer as singular a body of work as Kleber Mendonça Filho. The acclaimed filmmaker behind the likes of Bacurau and Aquarius specializes in immersive character pieces that offer food for thought and images that shock. O Agente Secreto sounds very much in his wheelhouse. Wagner Moura plays a teacher with a shady past, whose relocation to a bigger city thrusts him into a hotbed of intrigue and danger. It’s nearly three hours long, but Mendonça fans know this is how he immerses you in the worlds he creates. A complex and potentially violent picture awaits (P.B.)
17. Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi)
Cannes 2025: In Competition
Director: Joachim Trier
Writers: Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier
Country: Norway
In 2021, Joachim Trier captured a rare type of magic with his film The Worst Person in the World. The movie premiered at the 74th Cannes Film Festival, where Renate Reinsve won the award for best actress.
At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, The Worst Person in the World writer Eskil Vogt, Trier and Reinsve have teamed up once again to bring us Sentimental Value. The film follows a renowned stage actress named Nora (Reinsve) who lives with her younger sister in their family home. When their once-famous film director father comes back into their lives, offering Nora a role in his latest movie, Nora must find a way to grapple with his unexpected intrusion and the chaos it causes.
The excitement this reunion between Vogt, Trier and Reinsve has caused cannot be overstated, with expectations of this brand new collaboration already set rocket high. (H.C.)
18. Sorry Baby
Directors’ Fortnight (Quinzaine des Cinéastes)
Director & Writer: Eva Victor
Countries: U.S.A./France
The Directors’ Fortnight strand usually offers a fresh platform to films that have had little fanfare beforehand, but Sorry, Baby is an exception. Eva Victor’s directorial debut comes with buzz and acclaim from the Sundance Film Festival, including a screenwriting award. Victor plays Agnes, a college professor recovering from an assault. It’s only when an old friend comes to town that Agnes realizes how stuck she’s become, and decides to dig deeper through her trauma. This ‘ripped from the headlines’ dramedy is driven by Victor’s commitment as director, lead and screenwriter, with many critics noting its striking balance between its drama and humour (P.B.)
19. Urchin
Un Certain Regard
Director & Writer: Harris Dickinson
Country: United Kingdom
In 2022, Harris Dickinson starred in the Palme d’Or-winning film The Triangle of Sadness. Just three years later, the festival will be screening Dickinson’s directorial debut, Urchin, in the Un Certain Regard section.
Urchin tells the story of Mike, an unhoused person in London, trying to turn his life around but struggling to break free from a cycle of self-destruction. Dickinson is in good company, as fellow Cannes stars Kristen Stewart and Scarlett Johansson will be showing their directorial debuts at the festival. (H.C.)
20. Young Mothers (Jeunes Mères)
Cannes 2025: In Competition
Directors & Writers: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Countries: Belgium/France
Belgian filmmaker brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have been Cannes stalwarts since The Promise screened in the Directors’ Fortnight almost 30 years ago. Since then, their brand of kitchen sink drama has brought them acclaim aplenty, including two Palmes d’Or (for Rosetta and The Child). Fans may agree their recent works haven’t matched their 2014 masterpiece Two Days, One Night, but that doesn’t mean they’re devoid of their trademark humanity and compassion. Their latest, about five young women united by their shared desire to raise their children right against an impoverished backdrop, will be keenly anticipated by the Jury and critics alike (P.B.)
More Movies to Watch at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival:
- A Magnificent Life, Sylvain Chomet – Special Screenings
- Astin Sem Eftir Er, Hlynur Palmáson – Cannes Premiere
- Bono: Stories of Surrender, Andrew Dominik – Special Screenings
- Dangerous Animals, Sean Byrne – Directors’ Fortnight
- Death Does Not Exist, Félix Dufour-Laperrière – Directors’ Fortnight
- Enzo, Robin Campillo – Directors’ Fortnight
- Honey Don’t, Ethan Coen Midnight Screening
- L’Aventura, Sophie Letourner – L’ACID, Opening Film
- L’Inconnu de la Grande Arche, Stéphane Demoustier – Un Certain Regard
- Love Letters, Alice Douard – Critics’ Week
- Miroirs No 3, Christian Petzold – Directors’ Fortnight
- Once Upon A Time in Gaza, Arab and Tarzan Nasser – Un Certain Regard
- La Petite Dernière, Hafsia Herzi – Out of Competition
- Romería, Carla Simón – In Competition
- Sound of Falling, Mascha Schilinski – In Competition
- The Wave (La Ola), Sebastián Lelio – Cannes Premiere
The 78th Cannes Film Festival will be held on May 12-24, 2025.
