Cannes Filmfestival 2025

Sound of Falling

Instruktør: Mascha Schilinski
Medvirkende: Luise Heyer, Lena Urzendowsky, Filip Schnack
Land: Tyskland

“The lives of four generations of women are woven together with a poetry and unpredictability that both enchants and unsettles – and leaves the viewer with a painful awareness of the conditions that women have endured throughout time. What a breakthrough for German director Mascha Schilinski, a clear contender for the Palme d’Or.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

“A fever dream museum piece that jettisons a traditional narrative structure to tell an epic tale connecting the stories of four generations of women. A well-crafted movie that will frustrate as many audiences as it will excite.”

J. Sperling Reich, Celluloid Junkie

Two Prosecutors

Instruktør: Sergei Loznitsa
Medvirkende: Alexander Kuznetsov, Anatoliy Belyy, Vytautas Kaniusonis
Land: Letland, Frankrig, Tyskland, Holland, Rumænien, Litauen

“The process of a prosecutor reaching a prisoner in need is filmed in great detail and in a particularly slow manner so the viewer can feel the pain of the entire process. Till a few years ago, this film could have been shown with a warning that this could happen in the future, if we don’t protect our democracy. Now it feels like a prophecy.”

Pragya Mishra, Dainik Prabhat Kiran

“It’s pure Kafka when Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, with chamber-drama precision and a few carefully chosen tools, leads us into the Soviet Union of 1937 — what he himself calls the peak of Stalin’s reign of terror. Here an endless bureaucratic labyrinth of power unfolds, where no critics of the system ever escape. We know the horrors from history, which is precisely why the film’s real impact lies in its chilling parallels to Putin’s Russia.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

Dossier 137

Instruktør: Dominik Moll
Medvirkende: Léa Drucker, Yoann Blanc, Guslagie Malanda
Land: Frankrig

“The main competition usually includes at least one socially engaged French drama – and Dossier 137 ranks among the strongest. With its authentic account of police violence against Yellow Vest protesters in Paris in 2018 and a chilling exposé of why the system fails when the police are left to investigate themselves, the film resonates powerfully. Léa Drucker delivers a riveting, awards-worthy performance as the idealistic investigator fighting against all odds.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

“A rigorous, step by step procedural about how difficult it is to hold the police to account when they step out of line. Lea Drucker’s performance is compelling, but the film is conventional even in its use of multimedia semi-documentary elements.”

Lee Marshall, Screen

Sirat

Instruktør: Oliver Laxe
Medvirkende: Sergi López, Bruno Núñez, Stefania Gadda
Land: Spanien, Frankrig

“This film knocks the wind out of you. It begins as a hedonistic rave, intertwined with a father and son searching for the daughter/sister, then evolves into a nerve-wracking survival thriller in the desert, and ends as a shocking blend of apocalyptic horror and thought-provoking refugee drama. The sound design deserves a special Palme d’Or.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

“A sonic midnight movie that the viewing of which is an experience unto itself. As uneasy, and at times, objectionable as the Sirat makes its audience, few will ever forget having seen it. Nor will they want to.”

J. Sperling Reich, Celluloid Junkie

“Oliver Laxe’s film is a courageous work that appears to be about a father searching for his daughter in the Moroccan desert with his son but is actually about a group of people heading towards their doom. There is no classic feature film dramaturgy, the plot is playful, and there are no real characters – unless you consider the forces of nature to be one. And then, of course, there is the music ...”

Géza Csákvári, Népszava

The Little Sister

Instruktør: Hafsia Herzi
Medvirkende: Park Ji-min, Mouna Soualem, Némo Schiffman
Land: Frankrig, Tyskland

“Hafsia Herzi delivers a moving, queer coming-of-age drama propelled by its compelling lead actress Nadia Melliti whose burgeoning sexual identity conflicts with her religious beliefs.”

J. Sperling Reich, Celluloid Junkie

“Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Stewart, and Harris Dickinson are among the actors making their directorial debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. French filmmaker Hafsia Herzi also began her career as an actor, and with her fourth feature, she reaffirms her talent behind the camera. The Little Sister, based on Fatima Daas’s autofictional novel The Last One, is a tender and sensual portrait of a young queer Muslim woman (a strong debut by Nadia Melliti) torn between faith and desire. The film is heartbreakingly relatable for anyone who’s ever been young and hopelessly in love. Comparisons to Abdellatif Kechiche’s Palme d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Colour are inevitable, but Herzi’s perspective is distinctly feminine – told with warmth, honesty, and quiet dignity.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

Eddington

Instruktør: Ari Aster
Medvirkende: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone
Land: USA

“Watching Eddington with high expectations is hurting it, but what hurts it more is its own ambition to say everything, and above all to be a social commentary on what happened during the Pandemic, which feels outdated already. It distracts it from being a character study of the interesting protagonist, which could have made it a much better film.”

Hosam Fahmy, Chroum

Renoir

Instruktør: Hayakawa Chie
Medvirkende: Yui Suzuki, Hikari Ishida, Lily Franky
Land: Japan, Frankrig, Singapore, Filippinerne, Indonesien

“It’s remarkable how Japanese director Chie Hayakawa manages to craft such a delicate, poetic, and fundamentally innocent film about an eleven-year-old, curious, and imaginative girl who—amid her loneliness—is confronted with her father’s slow death from cancer, her mother’s emotional overload, a dangerous encounter with a predatory family man, and dark fantasies of being suffocated.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

“A sensitive, empathetic portrait of a young girl coping with grief – which unstitches the borders between reality, dream and nightmare.”

Lee Marshall, Screen

Nouvelle Vague

Instruktør: Richard Linklater
Medvirkende: Zoey Deutch, Alix Bénézech, Paolo Luka-Noé
Land: Frankrig

“Some days it seems we live in a horrid world where the majority of humans care less and less about art. Yet here comes a comet: Linklater’s agile, witty, elegant picture isn’t just about the making of a 66-year old movie that only film lovers and bona fide old people care about. It's a movie that is itself about the bold, muscular act of caring.”

Stephanie Zacharek, Time

“It takes both courage and a fair amount of audacity for an American director to take on a tribute to the cornerstone of the French New Wave – and perhaps the crown jewel of French cinema itself: Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960). An iconic film that shattered classical cinematic language and paved the way for a new aesthetic. But Richard Linklater rises to the challenge with impressive ease in his spirited and delightfully funny black-and-white comedy about the chaotic creation of Breathless. Linklater reminds us, that great art often takes root in the heart of creative chaos.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

Die, My Love

Instruktør: Lynne Ramsay
Medvirkende: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Nick Nolte
Land: USA

“Not even Lynne Ramsay’s visually poetic direction or Jennifer Lawrence’s intense and explosive performance as the new mother suffering from postpartum depression and unfulfilled desire can conceal that the film keeps going in circles, grasping for an ending it never truly finds.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

“Lynne Ramsay’s adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s spiky novel about postpartum madness is both brutal and beautiful. To watch Jennifer Lawrence’s performance is to see a bruise spread and deepen before your eyes. There’s no saving her character, no matter how much you wish you could.”

Stephanie Zacharek, Time

The Secret Agent

Instruktør: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Medvirkende: Wagner Moura, Udo Kier, Gabriel Leone
Land: Brasilien, Frankrig, Tyskland, Holland

“A remarkable and mischievous recreation of a decade when Brazil was under military dictatorship and a life wasn’t worth much. Director Kleber Mendonça Filho brings vivid colors, fascinating characters and, not least, a daring cinematic vision to the tragedy.”

Kjetil Lismoen, Aftenposten

The Phoenician Scheme

Instruktør: Wes Anderson
Medvirkende: Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera
Land: USA, Tyskland

”The Cannes Film Festival loves Wes Anderson for his exquisite, eccentric style and his ability to fill the red carpet with mostly American stars. Mia Threapleton is an intriguing new face in his colorful gallery of characters, and while The Phoenician Scheme offers an entertaining story about a filthy-rich entrepreneur’s cynical schemes, it suffers from the same weakness as many of the director’s more recent films: Wes Anderson no longer has anything to say.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

“For those who may not like Wes Anderson's movies because they have become somewhat cliché of ... well, Wes Anderson, his latest film, The Phoenician Scheme, employs all of his usual tropes and stylings to much better effect.”

J. Sperling Reich, Celluloid Junkie

Eagles of the Republic

Instruktør: Tarik Saleh
Medvirkende: Lyna Khoudri, Fares Fares, Cherien Dabis
Land: Sverige, Frankrig, Danmark, Finland

“How long can you be a victim before you become a collaborator? We don’t really get the answer in Tarik Saleh’s drama about Egypt’s most famous movie star, who is forced to star in a propaganda movie, but at least it’s always good to see Fares Fares.”

Géza Csákvári, Népszava

“The always watchable Fares Fares plays a vain Egyptian movie star who is put under pressure when the regime forces him to portray President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in a glossy propaganda film. The tension builds effectively, but a surprising twist sends the plot in a new and not entirely convincing direction. The humor occasionally feels misplaced, and overall, Swedish-Egyptian director Tarik Saleh’s previous film Boy from Heaven – also about being a pawn in a cynical power game – is far stronger. That film won an award at Cannes; Eagles of the Republic will likely not do the same.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

Alpha

Instruktør: Julia Ducournau
Medvirkende: Emma Mackey, Golshifteh Farahani, Tahar Rahim
Land: Frankrig, Belgien

“The pandemic affected many films in this edition of Cannes. In Alpha we see a virus that’s transforming people into white stone, still the main interesting element in the narrative is the relationships within a French family with an Imazighen background. Love, fear of loss, anger, mystical beliefs and loss of control are mixed in an intense journey that’s highlighted by unique acting performances from the three main actors and especially Tahar Rahim.”

Hosam Fahmy, Chroum

“Julia Ducournau illustrates just how fine the line can be between brilliance and misjudgment. Titane, her Palme d’Or-winning breakthrough, is a feminist, body-horror action blast that hits with both force and originality. Her follow-up Alpha misses the mark entirely. A coming-of-age story is mixed with an overly explicit AIDS allegory – featuring a virus that turns its victims into marble statues that slowly crumble to dust – in a messy, manic, and overamped film that chases effects without ever truly delivering them. The central time structure is so confusing it risks going over the heads of much of the audience.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

It Was Just an Accident

Instruktør: Jafar Panahi
Medvirkende: Madjid Panahi
Land: Iran, Frankrig, Luxembourg

“Jafar Panahi is not just a director, but a writer and human rights activist who has faced imprisonment for defying the laws of the Iranian dictatorship. In his latest film, we get to see what prisoners like himself have endured and are enduring in Iran. Being blindfolded and questioned for hours, while knowing the interrogating officer only by his voice. Through the characters Panahi gives a voice to the people who find themselves to be victims of the regime. The most striking feature is a powerful ending, which puts repentance and forgiveness at the forefront – not revenge – which is exactly what needs to happen in the real world.”

Pragya Mishra, Dainik Prabhat Kiran

“64-year-old Jafar Panahi doesn’t shy away from a fight. After years of conflict with the Iranian authorities and two imprisonments, his new film is his most overtly political yet – with no metaphors or everyday realism to shield the message. A group of Iranians believe they have, by chance (hence the title), recognized a man as the one-legged prosecutor who tortured them in prison. Revenge or forgiveness? With minimal means, Panahi creates maximum intensity in a story that borders on a psychological thriller. It features the most chilling creak of a prosthetic leg in film history – and an ending that hits like a punch to the gut. A very strong Palme d’Or contender, and at the very least, a film that deserves an award.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

Fuori

Instruktør: Mario Martone
Medvirkende: Valeria Golino, Matilda De Angelis, Elodie
Land: Italien, Frankrig

“The Italian film Fuori is less a portrait of a writer and more a blend of slacker movie and petty-crime drama. It’s clearly the work of a male director primarily drawn to the erotic undertones in the relationship between Goliarda Sapienza and the young, heroin-addicted woman she meets in prison. If Sapienza truly is one of the great writers of the 20th century — as the closing text claims — then she deserved a (female) director willing to dig deeper into her story and her inner world.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

“A fascinating, if frustrating portrait of the legendary Italian author Goliarda Sapienza who got her break posthumously. Valeria Golino plays her convincingly, while Matilda De Angelis is sensational as her partner in crime. Sapienza spent only a few days in the prison she later wrote about. Here it seems like years – an omission of facts that we should be made aware of.”

Kjetil Lismoen, Aftenposten

Romería

Instruktør: Carla Simón
Medvirkende: Tristán Ulloa, Sara Casasnovas, José Ángel Egido
Land: Spanien, Tyskland

“This loosely autobiographical feature from Catalan filmmaker Carla Simón has a wistful, earthy glow. The story of a young woman searching to unravel the secrets of the parents she never knew. Romería – shot in Galicia, with its vivid, salty-blue air – reminds us that there are always new ways to tell stories we think we've seen dozens of times before.”

Stephanie Zacharek, Time

“A recurring theme at this year’s festival has been how artists fail their children – from Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value to Romane Bohringer’s documentary Tell Her That I Love Her. In Carla Simón’s autobiographical Romería, 18-year-old Marina searches for her roots after losing both her hippie parents to AIDS as a child. The film is too long and too talkative, but in the moment when Marina, through the magic of cinema, is allowed to meet her parents, something truly special happens.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

The History of Sound

Instruktør: Oliver Hermanus
Medvirkende: Paul Mescal, Molly Price, Josh O'Connor
Land: Storbritannien, USA

“Oliver Hermanus’ intense film, set on the East Coast during the 1920s, possesses an aching reticence with riveting central performances by Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal.”

Lee Marhsall, Screen

“One can easily have many reservations about this film about two men – a singer and a musicologist – who fall in love and travel through the forests of the northeastern United States to record authentic folk songs on wax cylinders. But when the nature imagery, music, and narrative come together in perfect harmony, The History of Sound attains a rare, almost spiritual power. And Paul Mescal undoubtedly deserves the award for the festival’s best male performance.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

Sentimental Value

Instruktør: Joachim Trier
Medvirkende: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas
Land: Norge, Frankrig, Tyskland, Danmark, Sverige, Storbritannien

“Melancholy is a distinctive element of Joachim Trier’s films. In Sentimenal Value we get to experience it again within a family dynamic and on a meta-level we also experience how dealing with such melancholy in art and cinema is not as sweet as we might imagine. With its visuals and spoken and unspoken dialogue it is one of those masterpieces that leaves you in tears and long-lasting thoughts. Consciously and unconsciously.”

Hosam Fahmy, Chroum

“Plays about theatre and films about filmmaking tend to be self-absorbed and painfully dull. Joachim Trier combines both genres and pulls it off surprisingly well. Sentimental Value doesn’t quite reach the emotional heights of his masterful coming-of-age Oslo trilogy, but it’s an intelligent, poetic, and often very funny exploration of how self-centered artists fail the people closest to them – especially their children. Trier suggests that art itself can be a way to heal old family wounds, but whether that idea truly holds up is more open to doubt.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

Woman and Child

Instruktør: Saeed Roustaee
Medvirkende: Parinaz Izadyar, Payman Maadi, Soha Niasti
Land: Iran

“Saeed Roustayi puts a widowed mother and her immediate family at the center of his touching, and at times heart wrenching, story. Though what starts out as a straightforward family drama, evolves into a gripping and satisfying study of rage and poor decision making.”

J. Sperling Reich, Celluloid Junkie

“Woman and Child begins as classic social realism – a portrait of harsh everyday life in Iran that piques intellectual interest more than emotional involvement. But when tragedy strikes, the film shifts into a gripping thriller about a single mother’s desperate struggle against the patriarchy and a deeply misogynistic legal system. Parinaz Izadyar is superb in the lead role, and the film contains bold, dramatic, and existential moments that stand out as some of the highlights of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

Resurrection

Instruktør: Bi Gan
Medvirkende: Shu Qi, Jackson Yee, Mark Chao
Land: Kina, Frankrig

“Chinese director Bi Gan has made the most enigmatic and surreal film of the festival. A journey through both Chinese history and the history of cinema, told in episodes rich with symbolism and visual ingenuity. In an alternate universe, humans can live forever – as long as they don’t dream. The exception is the Fantasmer, a mythical being whose many lives form the core of the film. The highlight is an unbroken tracking shot, lasting more than 30 minutes, through alleys and illusions. Resurrection is both a tribute to and an elegy for the magic of cinema – a space for dreams and contemplation, which Bi Gan fears is slowly disappearing.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

“Bi Gan’s Resurrection reframes the history of cinema as a kind of twentieth-century monster story that pans out over six time-distanced episodes with no clear connection. Packed with dazzling sets and effects, and touching on multiple genres and styles, it is a sometimes exhausting ride, but also a memorable and exhilarating one. An intensely, sometimes hermetically personal project done on a vast scale, using all the resources, analogue and digital, that today’s film industry can summon.”

Lee Marshall, Screen

The Young Mother's Home

Instruktør: Jean-Pierre Et Luc Dardenne
Medvirkende: Elsa Houben, Lucie Laruelle, Janaina Halloy
Land: Belgien, Frankrig

“Since the Belgian Dardenne brothers won the Palme d’Or in 1999 with Rosetta – a groundbreaking work of uncompromising realism and deep human empathy – Luc and Jean-Pierre have been regular fixtures in Cannes’ main competition, appearing roughly every three years. Over time, their films have become more plot-driven, but with The Young Mother’s Home, they return to their roots. This time, we follow not just one, but four or five young women living in a home for teenage mothers, all facing social and psychological challenges. The film creates a powerful sense of intimacy – as if the audience is holding these fragile lives in their own hands, barely daring to breathe.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

“A tale of five girls who are starting their journeys with motherhood. We see the world from their perspective, with little personal details, touches, gasps and gazes. Once again, the Dardenne brothers do what they do best, delivering a shaking social criticism through very personal realistic cinema.”

Hosam Fahmy, Chroum

The Mastermind

Instruktør: Kelly Reichardt
Medvirkende: Gaby Hoffmann, Josh O'Connor, John Magaro
Land: USA, Storbritannien

“American indie queen Kelly Reichardt demythologizes the heist film with an anticlimactic tale about the most incompetent robbery imaginable. The result is fascinating in its own quietly understated way. The 1970s aesthetic is spot on – from the golden-brown color palette to the finely detailed production design and the bulky American cars that evoke pure nostalgia. But the film's weakness lies in its character development. We never get a convincing sense of why James is willing to risk his family and future. Reichardt fails to establish the inner pressure that would make his desperate act believable.”

Claus Christensen, Ekko

“A typical Kelly Rechardt film, with the director’s usual signature style, pace, and atmosphere. Perhaps there is a little more humor this time around, and of course, all of this is topped off with a superb Josh O’Conor, resulting in a wonderful cinematic adventure.”

Géza Csákvári, Népszava