Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux and President Iris Knobloch have officially announced the 78th Annual Cannes Film Festival film slate.
The festival will take place from May 13th to the 24th. It was announced earlier that Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) will premiere at the festival, bringing Tom Cruise back to the Croisette three years after Top Gun: Maverick (2022) landed at the festival.
The French festival is one of the world’s most respected film festivals, bringing together artists from around the globe and premiering the most acclaimed, bold, and daring films. The announcement comes months after last year’s Palme d’Or winner, Anora (2025), became the third Palme winner to win the Oscar for Best Picture, along with four other Oscar wins. Other titles that premiered at Cannes last year, such as Emilia Perez (2024), The Substance (2024), and Flow (2024), all garnered multiple nominations and won a total of four Oscars.
Acclaimed French actress Juliette Binoche will preside over the Cannes jury as its president, with the rest of the members to be announced in the future.
The opening night film will be Amelie Bonin’s feature debut, Leave One Day (2025). This will be the first time a feature debut will open the festival.
The festival finds famous actors, such as Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson, premiering their directorial features, Eleanor the Great (2025) and Urchin (2025), respectively, in the Un Certain Regard category.
Directors are returning to the festival with their Cannes follow-ups, such as the In Competition titles like Julia Ducournau’s Alpha (2025). She returns to the festival after winning the Palme with her body-horror drama, Titane (2021).
Acclaimed Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier returns with Sentimental Value. His previous film, The Worst Person in the World (2021), won Canne’s Best Actress for Renate Reinsve, who also returns with Sentimental Value. Indie distributor, Neon, is behind both Cannes titles, as they are on a hot streak with winning the last five Palme d’Ors, starting with Parasite (2019). Neon is also premiering Michael Corvino’s Splitsville (2025) in the Cannes Premier category.
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne return to the festival with their latest In Competition film, The Young Mother’s Home (2025). The brothers have won the Palme d’Or twice, for Rosetta (1999) and L’Enfant (2005). Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi returns with his latest, In Simple Accident (2025). He won the Cannes Best Screenplay award for 3 Faces (2018). Another Cannes favorite, Kleber Mendonça Filho, returns with The Secret Agent (2025). Filho returns after his previous films, Aquarius (2016) and Bacurau (2019), and also played In Competition with the latter co-winning the Jury Prize (alongside 2019’s Les Misérables).
It wouldn’t be a Cannes festival without Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme (2025), starring an ensemble cast led by Benicio del Toro in the competition slate, as the festival has always included Anderson to compete for the Palme. Ari Aster makes his Cannes debut with Eddington (2025), starring Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, and Pedro Pascal. Richard Linklater will premiere Nouvelle Vague (2025), his second upcoming film of 2025, after premiering Blue Moon (2025) at the Berlin Film Festival.
Out of nineteen films announced for the In Competition section for the Palme d’Or, six are from female filmmakers. This year, we have Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind (2025); Hafsia Herzi’s La Petite Dernière (2025); Carla Simon’s Romeria (2025); Chie Hayakawa’s Renoir (2025); Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling (2025); and Ducournau’s Alpha.
In the announcement, Frémaux noted the Cannes selection committee watched 2,909 films submitted for this year’s selection (a record), which includes films In Competition for the Palme d’Or, Out of Competition, the Un Certain Regard, Cannes Premiers, Special Screenings, and more. There will be additional films announced in the coming days, as Cannes plays it close to the wire for last-minute additions, but here are the officially selected films for the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival:
In Competiton
Sentimental Value – Joachim Trier
Alpha – Julia Ducournau
The Phoenician Scheme – Wes Anderson
Eddington – Ari Aster
Young Mother’s Home – Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne
Renoir – Hayakawa Chie
The History of Sound (2025) – Oliver Hermanus
La Petite Dernière – Hafsia Herzi
Sirat (2025) – Oliver Laxe
Nouvelle Vague – Richard Linklater
Two Prosecutors (2025) – Sergei Loznitsa
Fuori (2025) – Mario Martone
The Secret Agent – Kleber Mendonça Filho
Dossier 137 (2025) – Dominik Moll
A Simple Accident – Jafar Panahi
The Mastermind – Kelly Reichardt
Aigles of the Republic (2025) – Tarik Saleh
Sound of Falling – Mascha Schilinski
Romería – Carla Simó
Un Certain Regard
Meteors (2025) – Hubert Charuel
My Father’s Shadow (2025) – Akinola Davies Jr
The Mysterious Gaze Of The Flamingo (2025) – Diego Céspedes
Once Upon A Time In Gaza (2025) – Arab Nasser, Tarzan Nasser
A Pale View Of Hills (2025) – Kei Ishikawa
Aisha Can’t Fly Away Anymore (2025) – Morad Mostafa
Eleanor The Great – Scarlett Johansson
L’inconnue de la Grande Arche (2025) – Stephane Demoustier
Pillion (2025) – Harry Lighton
The Plague (2025) – Charlie Polinger
Urchin – Harris Dickinson
Out of Competition
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning – Christopher McQuarrie
The Coming Of The Future (2025) – Cedric Klapisch
The Richest Woman In The World (2025) – Thierry Klifa
Vie Privée (2025) Rebecca Zlotowski
Cannes Premier
Splitsville – Michael Angelo Covino
The Wave (2025) – Sebastián Lelio
Orwell (2025) – Raoul Peck
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele (2025) – Kirill Serebrennikov
The source for the full list of selected films is listed at Cannes.
Update Courtesy of Amritpal Rai
Feature Image from the Hollywood Reporter & Mubi; Still from ‘Sentimental Value’