Thierry Frémaux and Iris Knobloch announced the lineup for the 78th Cannes Film Festival this morning, confirming some suspicions of what would premiere this year while dashing some dreams of a few potential inclusions. The festival had already announced that they would premiere the newest from Tom Cruise, who plans to end the nearly three-decade saga of Ethan Hunt in “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning,” out of competition. In competition, Cannes attendees will witness the launch of new works by Ari Aster (“Eddington”), Richard Linklater (“Nouvelle Vague”), Wes Anderson (“The Phoenician Scheme”), The Dardenne Brothers (“Young Mothers”), Kelly Reichardt (“The Mastermind”), Joachim Trier (“Sentimental Value”), and Julia Ducournau (“Alpha”). It should be noted that Neon already has the rights to those last two, and they’re on a five-year winning streak of the Palme d’Or.
One of the most exciting surprises this morning was a new film in competition from Jafar Panahi, whose “A Simple Accident” was understandably not on anyone’s radar as the filmmaker has to work in secret. The rest of the films in competition include works by Dominik Moll (“Dossier 137”), Tarik Saleh (“The Eagles of the Republic”), Mario Martone (“Fuori”), Oliver Hermanus (“The History of Sound”), Hafsia Herzi (“La Petite Derniere”), Chie Hayakawa (“Renoir”), Carla Simone (“Romeria”), Kleber Mendonça Filho (“The Secret Agent”), Oliver Laxe (“Sirat”), Mascha Schilinksi (“The Sound of Falling”), and Sergei Loznitsa (“Two Prosecutors”).
Interesting projects in programs out of competition include the directorial debuts of Scarlett Johansson (“Eleanor the Great”) and Harris Dickinson (“Urchin”), Andrew Dominik’s “Bono: Stories of Surrender,” Fatih Akin’s “Amrum,” Raoul Peck’s “Orwell: 2+2=5” and Sylvain Chomet’s “The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol.”
A few expected titles were absent on Thursday morning, most notably Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest,” although the filmmaker was on social media this morning announcing that his film was going to play at Cannes, so it seems likely to be added later. Works by Park Chan-wook, Lynne Ramsay, and Terrence Malick were also on some wish lists for Cannes 2025 but will have to be late additions too if they’re to premiere there.
Come back in May for all of our extensive Cannes coverage of everything above. See you there.
Update: Frémaux confirmed later in the day that “Highest 2 Lowest” would play Out of Competition.
