The Festival Experience, Film Rankings, and Award Season Predictions
The Festival Experience
6:30 AM. Alarm. Suit up. Take train. Croissant.
7:55 AM. Open the site while on the train. Internet’s not great. Ticketing opens at 8. No luck. All gone. Michelle snags one.
8:30 AM. First movie of the day. Good thing the seat isn’t too comfy. Movie’s fine. Moving on.
11:00 AM. A 40-minute break. I spend 30 of it refreshing the ticket page. Still nothing. Second movie. I spot the last-minute line and think: “Good thing I already have a ticket for this one.”
1:00 PM. That one felt long. Ticket page still empty. Run to the last-minute line for the 4PM. It’s already big, but we should be fine. Michelle holds our spot. I go grab focaccia. It’s delicious.
3:55 PM. They let us in. We get the penultimate row. Screen’s the size of an iPhone. Look—Wagner Moura! Wild haircut.
7:00 PM. Back to the line. No time to process what I just watched. Another focaccia. The next movie starts at 9PM. The line is massive. Will we make it?
8:58 PM. We make it! We walk the red carpet. Look—Scarlett Johansson is here. I think about taking out my phone. A security guard reads my mind and starts moving toward me before I even reach for it. I sit down. Still no tickets.
11:00 PM. Bliss. Fantastic movie. One I’ll never forget. Open the ticket page. Refresh 30 times. The dreaded red “Not Available” message suddenly turns into a “Book Ticket” button. I click. “Ticket not available.”
11:30 PM. Thinking about a certain scene. Was that from movie #2? No, that was yesterday. Open the site again. Refresh three times. The button turns into “Book.” I click—and I got it! No line tomorrow at 8:30. I can sleep one extra hour.
2:30 AM. Back at the hotel. Notes from all the films written down. What a day. Ready to sleep. I pray that next year I somehow get a Press Pass so I don’t have to do all this again. But let’s be real—I want to do it all again.
4 hours of seleep. If I’m lucky.
That was how at least three of my days went. My first Cannes. I knew I couldn’t pack in as much as other festivals (TIFF total: 46—never again). The goal was 25. FOMO pushed me to 33. I stopped at 27—a power outage on the last day robbed me of a perfect 30. Never more than that—the films are too dense, and the city is too fantastic to rush through.
Still, we squeezed in some time off in Antibes and Cannes—two amazing cities—and fit in some great restaurant detours. I met wonderful people, in line and outside. I want to meet even more next time.
More often than not, I’d walk out of a film disliking it, only to check Letterboxd and see everyone raving. “Maybe I suck at this,” I’d think.
Spotted a few celebrities. Dressed up 80% of the days. It was hot. It rained. But I was always well dressed. Best days of my life? You bet.
Ranking Everything I Saw
Now, onto the films themselves. I have to admit—aside from the top four, I found this year’s lineup a bit underwhelming. But those top four made the entire trip worth it.
Here’s my ranking of everything I saw at Cannes 2025, from worst to best.
27. Highest 2 Lowest
Sorry, Denzel and Spike Lee, but I hated your effort here. It didn’t help that I had just finished watching the classic High and Low during the festival. This remake is overscored, tonally all over the place, and often unintentionally hilarious—a mess where every actor seems to think they’re in a different movie. The direction either feels completely checked out or weirdly showy in the moments that should be the more thematically important. A big disappointment.
26. The Little Sister
Nadia Melliti fully deserved the Best Actress prize—she’s the only good thing in this extremely watered-down version of Blue is the Warmest Color. The film avoids any real conflict or actually saying anything meaningful, and while it might come off as tender to some, it left me completely cold.
25. Eddington
Ari Aster’s follow-up to Beau Is Afraid captures the paranoia and stupidity of humanity during the pandemic quite well—but that doesn’t make it a smart film in itself. It constantly abandons its subplots, and by the end, it seems content just portraying the worst of human behavior without saying anything meaningful about it. Joaquin Phoenix is good in it, though he really should stop working with Aster.
24. A Private Life
Jodie Foster is the one reason to watch the French A Private Life—a disjointed experience that unnecessarily throws in visions and hypnosis on top of an already needlessly complicated plot. Not even Foster’s fully committed performance can save it.
23. Splitsville
Occasionally funny but mostly disjointed, Splitsville plays like a vanity project for its writing duo—featuring two deeply unlikable male protagonists paired with a far more compelling woman, all while the film celebrates their brand of humor and, yes, their dick size.
22. Two Prosecutors
Two Prosecutors captures the boredom of bureaucracy a little too well—it ends up making the audience bored too. At its core, there’s a compelling story about how fascism creeps into society, and it is interesting to watch a disillusioned protagonist slowly come to terms with his country’s corruption. But everything unfolds so slowly, and with such a sense of inevitability, that it becomes hard to stay engaged. Andor just tackled similar themes with much more urgency and impact.
21. The History of Sound
Feels like folk music—tender, nostalgic, easy to admire, but too subdued to truly stir. The performances are appropriately restrained, but the characters are so inward that it becomes difficult to genuinely connect with them.
20. The Phoenician Scheme
Wes Anderson’s latest is, unfortunately, his weakest yet. It’s as meticulously crafted as ever, with some great moments scattered throughout and a hilarious turn from Michael Cera—but it’s also oddly unmemorable. Despite brushing up against heavier themes, it feels like Anderson’s heart just wasn’t in it.
19. Romería
Delicate and full of texture, Romería ultimately misses an emotional punch. A long flashback meant to deliver that impact feels underwhelming, and the film wraps things up a little too neatly in the end.
18. Urchin
Harry Dickerson’s directorial debut shows promise, but the script is too conventional to truly explore the themes it’s reaching for. There’s plenty of empathy and a fantastic lead performance, but the film remains frustratingly shallow.
17. The Secret Agent
I’m a terrible Brazilian. The Secret Agent presents an extremely smart metaphor—suggesting that those persecuted during Brazil’s dictatorship lived like secret agents—but it loses its impact with an overly long second act, a weak epilogue, and layers of themes and references that demand extreme familiarity with both Brazilian history and the director’s past work. Given the spotlight this film has in Brazilian cinema, I was hoping for something more accessible.
16. Meteors
Meteors feels like a French Sundance film that somehow snuck into Cannes. It has a solid lead performance, but overall, it’s too simple and easy for its own good.
15. Pillion
Pillion deserves credit for making Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård a surprisingly convincing couple. It explores what drives someone to submit to another—but it is another case where the script doesn’t dig deep enough.
14. The Chronology of Water
Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut is undeniably ambitious and features some fantastic scenes, but it loses focus amid stylistic excess and an juvenile overuse of profanity.
13. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
This year’s Cannes blockbuster was the latest Mission: Impossible, which delivers two fantastic, franchise-best action sequences—buried in nearly three hours of plodding franchise recaps, a terrible AI villain, and the lingering mistake of killing off Rebecca Ferguson’s character in the previous installment.
12. Case 137
Case 137 is a solid, if conventional, look at police complicity—how power is abused and effortlessly protects itself. It doesn’t say anything particularly new, but it’s engaging and efficiently told.
11. Resurrection
The hardest film to pin down—and one I don’t feel equipped to fully review without a second watch—is the extremely ambitious, three-hour Chinese dreamscape Resurrection. I was impressed, but also deeply confused… and, unfortunately, checked out.
10. Sound of Falling
Sound of Falling grew on me over the course of the festival—I even decided to rewatch it on the last day. Equally ambitious, it’s arguably the festival’s most artsy film. Undeniably gorgeous, but also frustratingly distant. It never fully comes together, but it surely transports you.
9. Nouvelle Vague
Richard Linklater’s film about the making of Breathless is meticulously crafted, but it never really feels like it’s trying to be a great film. It simply exists—and is charming while it lasts.
8. Die My Love
Jennifer Lawrence is captivating and ferocious, and the film sparks to life a few times—but it’s too ambiguous to resonate and too inconclusive to fully satisfy.
7. Alpha
Many were disappointed by Julia Ducournau’s follow-up to Titane. And while Alpha isn’t on the same level as her previous work, I found it to be emotional and bold in its own right.
6. Dangerous Animals
One of the best films I saw at Cannes was also one of its least Cannes-y. This survival horror is tightly paced, turning a familiar genre setup into something genuinely thrilling and deeply satisfying.
5. Woman and Child
Woman and Child isn’t the most thematically profound film of the festival, but it’s easily one of the most gripping. It’s intense, fast-moving, and unafraid of going big—too big, perhaps—but it never stops being watchable.
4. It Was Just An Accident
From here on, the next four films were truly fantastic—and made the entire trip worth it. The Palme d’Or winner, It Was Just an Accident, is perhaps the festival’s most resonant film. It explores justice and revenge with remarkable emotional depth and a surprising dose of humor.
3. Sirât
Under the surface of its wild desert journey, Sirât reveals a soulful meditation on grief, empathy, and the families we build from brokenness.
2. The Plague
I was deeply moved by The Plague’s depiction of adolescence and bullying. Watching it brought back memories of my own teenage years—in the worst way. It reminded me how deeply subtle bullying can cut, how a single stray comment can chip away at a kid’s self-worth, and how early we learn to hide parts of ourselves just to get by.
1. Sentimental Value
The masterpiece of the festival. Sentimental Value isn’t just Joachim Trier’s best film—it’s the best thing I saw at Cannes 2025. A deeply affecting story about memory, legacy, and the damage we inherit and pass on. Fantastically acted and superbly written, it moved me to tears during a film within the film. For Trier, now entering a new phase of life, this feels like his most emotionally mature work yet. And for me, it made the entire trip worth it.
Oscar Chances
After last year’s big crossover between Cannes titles and Oscar nominations, expectations were high for this year’s lineup. Personally, I don’t see the same level of awards momentum happening again. Being honest, I think only four films from this year’s selection have a real shot—and even then, only one feels like it could have a serious presence.
Films with Oscar Potential
1. Sentimental Value
- Categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supp Actor, Best Supp Actress 2x, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing.
- By far the most awards-friendly film of the lineup—and also the best—it features a fantastic cast, follows Trier’s previous Best Screenplay nomination, and is the kind of film that will be loved by just about everyone.
2. It Was Just An Accident
- Category: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay
- Iran won’t submit It Was Just an Accident (watch Woman and Child take its spot), and neither will France, so a Best International Feature nomination is off the table. I don’t think that will hurt it too much overall, but I also don’t see the film as a sure-thing in other categories either.
3. Sirât
- Categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Sound, Best Score, Best Foreign Film
- Wishful thinking? Maybe. But I think audiences will love this film, and I can see it following a path similar to what The Substance did last year. Sure, it doesn’t have a Demi Moore-sized lead, but it’s equally impactful—and features two scenes people will be talking about for a long time. Combined with its fantastic sound design and score, this feels like a true dark horse.
4. The Secret Agent
- Category: Best Foreign Film
- If it weren’t for I’m Still Here, I’d say the chances of this happening are pretty slim. The Brazilian population will do their best, but to be honest—they’ll be scratching their heads once they actually watch the film and will have a hard time truly defending it. Wagner Moura won Best Actor for lack of competition (sorry), and he won’t be a serious contender.
I don’t see any of the others—including Die My Love or Sound of Falling—having a real shot. That said, I didn’t get to see Arco (thanks to the power outages on the last day), but it could be a surprise contender in the Best Animated Feature category.
Here you can find all my reviews from the festival. See you next year, Cannes!