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James Mottram

The 78th Cannes Film Festival had a bit of everything.
Tom Cruise jetted into town for the final Mission: Impossible film. Robert De Niro received an honorary Palme d’Or and spoke out powerfully against the Trump regime. Denzel Washington got snappy with a photographer on the red carpet.
But in a year where the stars really did turn out in force, the quality of the films was somewhat mixed, with nothing on the scale of Parasite or Anora that might make it all the way to the Oscars. Still, there was plenty to feast on.
These are 10 of the best movies seen at the Cannes festival this year.
1. Young Mothers


Some critics had suggested that the two-time Palme d’Or-winning Dardenne brothers were not the force they once were, with their recent films less convincing than their earlier ones.
But this multi-stranded tale of adolescent mothers living in a shelter in Liėge, Belgium, is right up there with the best of their work, filled with empathy and humanity.
Intercutting between various stories, this ensemble film is utterly heartbreaking at points, especially in its telling of the tale of Jessica (Babette Verbeek), distraught that she was abandoned by her own mother and now about to give birth.
Winner of the award for best screenplay, it arguably deserved more.
2. Case 137

After 2022’s sublime The Night of the 12th, director Dominik Moll continued in the same vein with another marvellous police procedural, screened in competition for the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or.
The film is set against the backdrop of the “yellow vest” protests that rocked France in 2018. Léa Drucker gives a stirring turn as an internal affairs officer investigating the unlawful shooting of a young man mixed up in the riots.
A methodical look at the difficulties – and importance – of policing the police, it went unrewarded by the jury, but this film deserves a long shelf life.
3. Enzo


The opening film of the festival’s Director’s Fortnight strand, Enzo is a beautiful coming-of-age story laced with the confusion of adolescence.
The story of a 16-year-old boy (Eloy Pohu) who rejects his bourgeois upbringing to work as a bricklayer’s apprentice, it is a perfectly measured character study, and shows Enzo tentatively exploring his sexuality and painful feelings of love.
It was scripted by the late Laurent Cantet, who previously won Cannes’ Palme d’Or for The Class and was intending to direct it until he fell ill. The film was realised by Robin Campillo (120 BPM) after Cantet died, making this a wonderful union of two souls.
4. It Was Just An Accident


That esteemed director Jafar Panahi was able to travel to Cannes was something of a miracle, given he has twice been imprisoned by the Iranian authorities and banned from making movies.
No doubt the trip was worth it. Panahi walked away with the Palme d’Or, making him one of only four directors to ever win the big three – following his Golden Lion in Venice for 2000’s The Circle and Golden Bear in Berlin for 2015’s Taxi Tehran.
The story of a lowly blue-collar worker (Vahid Mobasseri) who kidnaps the man (Ebrahim Azizi) he believes was his state interrogator, It Was Just An Accident is a film fuelled by pent-up rage. By turns shocking, absurdist and harrowing, it felt right that such a political work took the top prize.
5. The Secret Agent


Kleber Mendonca Filho claimed best director and Wagner Moura the best actor award for this wild tale, set mainly in 1977, about a man (Moura) who returns to his hometown only to find himself embroiled in state corruption and violence.
Death so haunts this story you can practically smell the rotting flesh, from the corpse left stinking up a garage forecourt in the prologue to the severed human leg found in the guts of a dead shark.
A very strange, but frequently inventive snapshot of Brazilian society.
6. Sentimental Value


Joachim Trier reunited with Renate Reinsve, the star of his 2021 Cannes sensation The Worst Person in the World, for this meditation on fatherhood and filmmaking.
Stellan Skarsgard plays Gustav, a celebrated, self-absorbed film director who has a somewhat troubled relationship with his two grown-up daughters (Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas).
It was not the only movie about the movies in competition – Richard Linklater’s crowd-pleasing Nouvelle Vague, about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, also played – but the film’s melancholic tone resonated with audiences.
The jury bestowed it with the festival’s grand jury prize, and there could be few complaints about that decision.
7. The Mastermind


Kelly Reichardt’s low-key art theft tale is to heist movies what her 2013 drama Night Moves was to political thrillers.
Set in the United States in the 1970s, with protests about the Vietnam war swelling in the background, it stars Josh O’Connor as James, an unemployed Massachusetts carpenter who steals four paintings from a museum only to see his plans unravel, which causes him to go on the run.
Reichardt almost deconstructs the crime genre here, offering a muted portrait of an increasingly desperate man cut to the rhythms of an infectious jazz score. Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza) co-stars as James’ bewildered wife.
8. Eddington


Ari Aster’s state-of-the-nation neo-western is a sprawling, seductive yarn starring Joaquin Phoenix as the sheriff of a small New Mexico town who becomes increasingly unhinged during a Covid-19 lockdown.
Eddington has plenty of political resonance, with the ramifications of black man George Floyd’s murder by a white police officer also being felt as protesters gather on the streets. Aster lets the film simmer for two hours before it truly ignites in a crazy final act.
Pedro Pascal co-stars as the mayor who clashes with Phoenix’s lawman, while Emma Stone and Austin Butler also feature in what is a twisted X-ray of the American soul.
9. Pillion

British director Harry Lighton’s debut brought the house down when it screened in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.
It tells the charming, comic story of a nerdy loner named Colin (Harry Melling) who falls into a submissive relationship with an enigmatic biker named Ray (Alexander Skarsgard). Lighton never giggles at the more extreme side of their sexual dynamic, but finds humour and tenderness instead.
Imagine a Mike Leigh movie crossed with a Bruce LaBruce film and you are some way to capturing the spirit of this wonderful little gem of a movie. Lighton received the best screenplay prize when the Un Certain Regard jury gave out its awards.
10. Urchin


Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness) was one of three actors making his directorial debut in the festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar, alongside Scarlett Johansson (Eleanor the Great) and Kristen Stewart (The Chronology of Water).
His film, Urchin, was easily the best of the three, a well-crafted tale about a young homeless man living on the streets in London.
Awarded best actor by the Un Certain Regard jury, Frank Dillane is thoroughly convincing in the lead role, and looks like he truly lived the character. Dickinson dares to go beyond social realism with moments of fantasy that distinguish Urchin from British kitchen sink dramas.
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American cinema

Cannes 2025: 10 of the festival’s best films, from Sentimental Value to Pillion and Urchin

Renate Reinsve (left) and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in a still from Joachim Trier’s film Sentimental Value, winner of the grand jury prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Photo: Handout

Léa Drucker in a still from Case 137.

Harry Melling (left) and Alexander Skarsgard in a still from Pillion.

Why Sons of the Neon Night, new Hong Kong crime movie from Juno Mak, took 8 years to make

Lau Ching-wan in a still from Sons of the Neon Night, directed by Juno Mak. The film is set in a dark, dystopian, perennially snow-covered Hong Kong in 1994.

Juno Mak (second right) poses with (from left) Louis Koo, Gao Yuanyuan and Tony Leung at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2025. Photo: AP

Takeshi Kaneshiro in a still from Sons of the Neon Night.

A still from Sons of the Neon Night.

Louis Koo in a still from Sons of the Neon Night.

Mak says that directors need to have the courage to turn their backs on their audience. Photo: AP

Cannes 2025: Resurrection movie review – Shu Qi, Jackson Yee in Bi Gan’s ambitious drama

Jackson Yee in a still from Resurrection, directed by Bi Gan and co-starring Shu Qi. Photo: Handout

(From left) Shu Qi, filmmaker Bi Gan, Jackson Yee and Li Gengxi arrive for the screening of the film Resurrection at the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 22, 2025. Photo: AFP

Cannes 2025: Love on Trial movie review – Koji Fukada explores dark side of Japanese pop

Kyoko Saito as J-pop star Mai in a still from Love on Trial (category TBC), directed by Koji Fukada. Yuki Kura co-stars.

Fictional J-pop girl group Happy Fans perform in a still from Love on Trial.

Yuki Kura (left) as Kei and Kyoko Saito as Mai in a still from Love on Trial.

Takeshi Kaneshiro, one of the ‘most good-looking’ actors in Hong Kong cinema and star of some of Wong Kar-wai and Peter Chan’s best movies, is a man of mystery

Takeshi Kaneshiro at an interview with the Post in July 2004. Kaneshiro, who debuted as a singer in Taiwan in 1992, has not been seen on the big screen since 2017 – but remains as popular as ever. Photo: SCMP

Takeshi Kaneshiro and Zhou Dongyu in a still from “This Is Not What I Expected” (2017).

Takeshi Kaneshiro and Brigitte Lin in a still from “Chungking Express” (1994). 

Takeshi Kaneshiro and Kyoko Fukada in a still from the drama series “God, Please Give Me More Time” (1998).

(From left) Xu Jinglei, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Andy Lau, Jet Li, Jacky Heung and director Peter Chan promote “The Warlords” at an event in December 2007. Photo: SCMP

Takeshi Kaneshiro in a still from “Perhaps Love” (2005).

Takeshi Kaneshiro and Michele Reis in “Fallen Angels” (1995). Photo: Block 2 Pictures and Jet Tone Contents

Takeshi Kaneshiro in an interview with the Post in December 2006. Photo: SCMP

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Star-studded but with no stand-out films to contend for Oscars, Cannes 2025 still had a lot to offer, including The Mastermind and Eddington


Star-studded but with no stand-out films to contend for Oscars, Cannes 2025 still had a lot to offer, including The Mastermind and Eddington.


Cannes 2025: 10 of the festival’s best films, from Sentimental Value to Pillion and Urchin

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Star-studded but with no stand-out films to contend for Oscars, Cannes 2025 still had a lot to offer, including The Mastermind and Eddington

1. Young Mothers

Star-studded but with no stand-out films to contend for Oscars, Cannes 2025 still had a lot to offer, including The Mastermind and Eddington