With Hollywood studios largely absent, this year’s Cannes Film Festival leaned into its indie roots, with no clear Palme d’Or frontrunner emerging from a strong field of arthouse directors ahead of Saturday’s closing ceremony. The nine-member jury led by South Korean director Park Chan-wook must choose one of 22 films from Cannes veterans, including Spain’s Pedro Almodovar, Iran’s Asghar Farhadi and Romania’s Cristian Mungiu, for the festival’s top award. Winning an award at Cannes typically transforms careers, shapes the awards season that follows and cements
directors in the canon. Recent examples include last year’s second-place winner, “Sentimental Value” starring Renate Reinsve, which later took the Oscar for best international feature film, as well as 2024 winner “Anora”, which went on to sweep the Oscars with five wins. All bets are off Several films have drawn strong early reactions from critics and audiences, though the race remains open. The Guardian’s critic, Peter Bradshaw, predicts Russian Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Minotaur”, about infidelity and moral corruption, as the winner, while on prediction market platform
Polymarket, care home drama “All of a Sudden” from Japan’s Ryusuke Hamaguchi was in the lead on Friday evening. On industry publication Screen Daily’s jury grid that collates reviews, “Minotaur”, “All of a Sudden” and “Fatherland” from Poland’s Pawel Pawlikowski have the three highest scores.
Cannes Film Festival, Palme d'Or, Park Chan-wook, Andrey Zvyagintsev, Minotaur, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, All of a Sudden, Pawel Pawlikowski, Fatherland, Pedro Almodóvar, Asghar Farhadi, Cristian Mungiu