From left, Divya Prabha, Payal Kapadia, Chhaya Kadam and Kani Kusruti after winning the Grand Prix for the film All We Imagine as Light.LOIC VENANCE/Getty Images
No doubt this year was one of the weaker editions of the Cannes Film Festival, which wrapped up this past weekend. This was in no small part a result of last year’s Hollywood strikes, which delayed productions left and right.
Francis Ford Coppola was there to premiere his latest, Megalopolis, a film self-funded for US$120-million. The reviews were split, and the film left the awards empty-handed. But despite the overall sense that this year’s films couldn’t compare to 2023′s incredible batch, there were some winners. Here are the best films of the fest:
Anora
Sean Baker, right, winner of the Palme d'Or for the film Anora, poses with Vache Tovmasyan, left, and Samantha Quan.Scott A Garfitt/The Associated Press
It doesn’t always happen, but the best film won. Sean Baker’s Anora nabbed the Palme d’Or. It is the first U.S. film to win the prestigious prize since Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life in 2011. Featuring an all-timer performance from Mikey Madison as a Manhattan stripper who falls for a rich Russian playboy, Baker’s latest is an ambitious, bold, glossy and hysterically funny screwball comedy tackling upper- and lower-class divides.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Many believed that Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, an indictment of the Iranian regime, might win the Palme, mostly due to its socio-topical resonance, but the film and its director were awarded a “Special Jury Prize.” Rasoulof, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran, just for making art, secretly escaped his country and made it to Cannes on time for the premiere.
All We Imagine as Light
Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light is the first Indian film in the Cannes competition in more than 40 years. It wowed critics and received the Grand Prix – second place. Well deserved for this dreamy film, which tells the story of three Mumbai nurses who decide to escape the city. This is slow and poetic cinema that pays off in its hypnotic finale. We’ve never seen India shot quite like this before.
Emilia Perez
Karla Sofia Gascon, co-winner with Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz of the Best Actress award for their roles in the film Emilia Perez, reacts with director Jacques Audiard during the closing ceremony of the 77th Cannes Film Festival.Stephane Mahe/Reuters
Jacques Audiard’s musical won two awards: the Best Actress prize jointly for its three leads, Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez, and the third place Jury Prize. This is a movie musical, in Spanish, about a Mexican drug lord who transitions to a woman, leaving his family behind and starting up a new life. A passionate vision of a film that came to us from a director who has always been preoccupied with the roots and dynamics of male violence. Emilia is a slight change – a modern melodrama, filled with intrigue and shot with dazzling colours – but no less violent than Audiard’s previous films.
Kinds of Kindness
Jesse Plemons won the Best Actor prize for his three performances in Yorgos Lanthimos’s triptych anthology Kinds of Kindness. Although unexpected, it was well deserved as Plemons carried the film for its first two stories. He has never given a stronger performances in his career than in this film, a surreal look at characters living on the fringes of life.
The Story of Souleymane
Coming from French director Boris Lojkine, this is a tremendously moving film, a social drama about a struggling Guinean immigrant, who makes modest cash as an Uber Eats delivery man, frenetically cycling around the city. The film tackles a crucial 72 hours in his life, where he also has to prepare for an asylum application interview. Lojkine uses a handheld camera to shoot the story – part socio-realism drama and part thriller.
The Substance
Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, an instant body-horror classic, shocked the Croisette. This is an absolute onslaught of audacity – sound, imagery and blood – pointing fingers at Hollywood’s obsession with female beauty. A has-been female actress (Demi Moore) stumbles upon a mysterious package that “reenergizes” her DNA and spawns a younger version of herself (Margaret Qualley). The film is immense – a brilliant feminist Hollywood satire that mixes Sunset Boulevard with The Fly. It is dark, funny and bloody essential
The Apprentice
It was a risk for director Ali Abbasi to make a film about Donald Trump, but you know what? The Apprentice work as an origin story of what made Trump who he is today, zeroing in on sketchy operator Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) as the biggest influence that shaped the 45th president. Abbasi’s gradual transformation of Trump avoids a Saturday Night Live-style parody. It’s actually quite restrained. It helps that Sebastian Stan’s performance as The Donald nails the former president’s defining mannerisms, quirks and facial expressions.
The Girl With the Needle
Magnus Von Horn’s shockingly penetrative film can be characterized as gothic horror and features some rather disturbing imagery, always rooted in realism. Lead protagonist Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne) goes through an arduous journey of societal survival in 19th century Copenhagen. Abandoned and pregnant, while striving to climb out of poverty, she discovers her employer might be doing the unthinkable.