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      Last Year’s Cannes Winners Won Big at Oscars. Can the 2025 Crop Do the Same?

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      The most likely movies to grab academy voters are “Un Simple Accident,” “Sentimental Value” and “Nouvelle Vague.” But none are primarily in English.Awards strategists used to be wary of the Cannes Film Festival, claiming it came too early in the calendar to launch a lasting Oscar campaign.They don’t say that anymore.The last two editions of Cannes have proved to be a veritable gold rush, producing three best-picture nominees each. The 2024 festival proved particularly fruitful, as films that premiered at Cannes — including “Emilia Pérez,” “The Substance,” “Flow” and the eventual best-picture winner, “Anora” — won a combined nine Oscars.But this year’s crop of Cannes contenders may have a harder time hitting those highs. The three films with the strongest best-picture potential are all primarily in a language other than English, and the academy has never nominated more than two such films in a single year for the top Oscar. Still, as the academy grows ever more global, it’s possible all three could break through.The first big contender is Jafar Panahi’s “Un Simple Accident,” a taut moral drama about former Iranian prisoners who believe they’ve tracked down their old torturer. The winner of the Palme d’Or, “Un Simple Accident” is the most accessible movie yet from Panahi, a dissident filmmaker who has twice been imprisoned by Iranian authorities. And like the last five Palme winners, the film will be distributed by Neon, which has a track record of steering them to Oscar glory.Only one thing gives me pause. Neon also handled last year’s Cannes entry “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” which had a similar back story: It, too, was directed in secret by an Iranian dissident, though even with that compelling narrative, it couldn’t muster more than an international-film nomination. Hopefully, Panahi’s Palme win will nudge Neon to campaign even harder for “Un Simple Accident,” which could factor into the picture and director categories with the right push.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As George Lucas’s ‘Starship’ Museum Nears Landing, He Takes the Controls

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      After years of delays, the mammoth Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is finally approaching completion in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.Despite its looming presence, though, the museum being built by George Lucas, creator of the “Star Wars” franchise, has long seemed to lack the sort of defining mission that would protect it from being dismissed as a vanity project.What is a museum of narrative art? And why is Lucas building one?Even now — 15 years since Lucas first proposed a museum, and eight years after ground was broken in Los Angeles — many questions remain about an ambitious but somewhat amorphous project that is now slated to be completed next year.There has also been turbulence as the museum nears its final approach. In recent weeks the museum has parted ways with its director and chief executive of the past five years and eliminated 15 full-time positions and seven part-time employees, including much of the education department. Lucas is now back in the director’s chair, installing himself as the head of “content direction” and naming Jim Gianopulos, a former movie studio executive and Lucas Museum trustee, as interim chief executive.The filmmaker George Lucas has appointed himself head of “content direction” at the museum he is creating in Los Angeles. Laurent Koffel/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesIts former director, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, had been hired five years ago from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her outsider’s eye and knowledge of the museum world had been expected to broaden the raison d’être for the institution so that it would do more than serve as a monument to things that Lucas has collected or produced. But as of April 1, Jackson-Dumont departed in a move that was framed as a resignation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A ‘Mission: Impossible’ Fan Favorite Returns 3 Decades Later

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      When Rolf Saxon first auditioned to play William Donloe in Brian De Palma’s 1996 “Mission: Impossible,” he didn’t think he had gotten the role of the bumbling C.I.A. analyst who is outsmarted by Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt during a break-in at Langley headquarters.He waited an hour and a half for De Palma, who then saw him for just five minutes. Saxon figured that was it. But not only did he get the role, making him a crucial player in what would become an iconic scene, he’s now back playing that same character nearly 30 years later in “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.” It’s a return that distinctly raises the profile of the self-described “jobbing actor,” who spent the past 10 years mostly doing theater in the Bay Area.“When this came along, it was like, ‘Wow, are you kidding?’” he said in a video interview. “This is fantastic. This is a nice little cherry on top.”In the first film, Donloe only has a few minutes of screen time. He’s a working stooge who is poisoned by Ethan’s team in its quest to steal a list of covert agents off his computer housed in a secure vault. While Donloe goes back and forth to the bathroom to throw up, Ethan drops down from a ceiling vent to pull off his caper. When Donloe returns to the vault, he finds a knife on his desk and realizes he messed up big time. His fate is sealed by Kittridge, the Impossible Mission Force official, who says, “I want him manning a radar tower in Alaska by the end of the day.” Donloe’s main role is collateral damage.But according to the “Final Reckoning” director Christopher McQuarrie, Donloe made a big impact. In fact, he said in an interview, fans frequently asked him when he was going to bring the character back. For a long time, he didn’t understand why Donloe engendered such love, until he heard the question framed in a different way: “When is the team going to do right by what they did to Donloe?”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Un Simple Accident’ Wins Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival

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      The film, “Un Simple Accident,” was directed by Jafar Panahi, a longtime festival favorite. The award capped a contest that was widely seen as the strongest in years.The sun was still shining when the 78th Cannes Film Festival came to an emotional, exhilarating close with the Palme d’Or going to “Un Simple Accident,” from the Iranian writer-director Jafar Panahi.The announcement was met with cheers and a standing ovation in the Grand Lumière Theater. Accompanied by his actors, some who began weeping, an equally moved Panahi kept on his sunglasses as he accepted his award.A longtime festival favorite, Panahi had until recently been barred from making movies in Iran or traveling outside the country. Although the restriction has been lifted, he shot “Un Simple Accident” clandestinely.The movie tracks a group of men and women who join together after one of them kidnaps a man they believe tortured them in prison. Panahi, who has been imprisoned several times, drew his inspiration from stories he heard from other inmates while he was at Evin Prison in Tehran.The Palme for Panahi capped what was widely seen as one of the strongest festivals in years. For some, the selections offered reassuring evidence that the art would continue to endure — and thrive — despite the problems facing the industry. Certainly, President Trump’s recent threat to institute a 100 percent tariff on movies made in “foreign lands” had cast a shadow over the opening ceremony. By the close of the festival, however, the bounty of good and great work had palpably buoyed spirits.The Palme d’Or was decided upon by a nine-person jury led by the French actress Juliette Binoche. “My friends, this is the end — it was such a show,” she said, turning to her fellow jurists, who included the American actor Jeremy Strong and the Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia. Given Binoche’s auteur-rich résumé, it is perhaps unsurprising that this jury gave a special award to the Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan for “Resurrection,” a delirious, elegiac journey through cinema history.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Michael Roemer, Maker of Acclaimed but Little-Seen Films, Dies at 97

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      His “Nothing but a Man” and “The Plot Against Harry” drew critical praise but never found an audience. He said he took “a certain pride in not having been a success.”Michael Roemer, an independent filmmaker who earned critical praise for his keen understanding of character and his sensitive exploration of relationships in a slender portfolio that included “Nothing but a Man” and “The Plot Against Harry,” died on Tuesday at his home in Townshend, Vt. He was 97. His death was confirmed by his daughter, Ruth Sanzari.Mr. Roemer’s interest in moviemaking began at Harvard in the late 1940s. In 1939, when he was 11 and living in Berlin, he and his sister had been among thousands of Jewish children rescued from Nazi Germany and sent to England. There he would stay — writing plays to improve his English, he said — until he came to the United States in 1945, at the end of World War II.His career as a director began when NBC gave him the opportunity to make “Cortile Cascino,” a 46-minute documentary about slum life in Palermo, Sicily, that he made with Robert M. Young. It was also the start of a pattern in which his films would all but disappear for decades at a time.“Cortile Cascino” depicted a Sicilian life so grim that NBC executives balked at putting it on the air. It did not reappear until it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 1993.Long delay also befell “Nothing but a Man,” directed by Mr. Roemer and written by him and Mr. Young, a frequent collaborator. With Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln in central roles, it tells the story of a Black railroad worker married to a preacher’s daughter who struggles to maintain his dignity in the segregated Alabama of the early 1960s.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      15 Unforgettable Looks From Cannes 2025: Rihanna, Dakota Johnson and More

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      Three-dimensional gowns, thigh-high men’s boots, adult-size bibs and more.Organizers of this year’s Cannes Film Festival cast a conservative shadow over the red carpet with the release of a new dress code noting that, “for decency reasons, nudity is prohibited.” The rule was seen as an attempt to tamp down on so-called naked dressing, a trend that in recent years has inspired more people to wear less coverage as a way to get attention.Whether it stopped people from showing skin was debatable. But it certainly didn’t stop stars from making waves with their appearances. Some, like the actor Jeremy Strong, took Cannes as an opportunity to test color palettes: He wore a range of pastels (purple, green, salmon) that would rival the selection at an Easter egg hunt. Others, like the models Bella Hadid, used the festival to debut new hair (she went blond).Of all the clothes on display at Cannes, which ends on Saturday, these 15 looks were some of the most memorable for myriad reasons — nakedness mostly not among them.Isabelle Huppert: Most Brat!Miguel Medina/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe fine threads used to construct the actor’s Balenciaga gown had the delicacy of natural hair, but the chemical green color now firmly linked to Charli XCX and her “Brat” album.Pedro Pascal: Most ‘Sun’s Out, Guns Out’!Sarah Meyssonnier/ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At Cannes, Sneaky Period Pieces and Film Lovers’ Delights Rule the Screen

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      Movies from China, Brazil, Iran and elsewhere prove that there’s so much more to cinema than Hollywood would have us believe.On Thursday, a few minutes after 10 p.m. on the 10th day of the Cannes Film Festival, a multitude of exhausted attendees — critics, programmers, industry types — abruptly woke up. The Chinese movie “Resurrection” had started, sending an immediate jolt through the theater. It was electric, dramatic, fantastic. People shifted in their seats to lean closer to the screen in the 1,068-seat auditorium. Experiencing awe can transform brains and bodies, and we were lit.A deliriously inventive, elegiac, self-reflexive fantasy written and directed by Bi Gan, “Resurrection” tracks a tragic mystery being, an entity known as a Fantasmer (Jackson Yee), across cinema history. A dreamer who clings to illusions, the Fantasmer’s journey effectively mirrors that of film itself, from its beginnings to its uneasy present. What makes the film especially delectable is that Bi Gan changes visual styles and narrative techniques throughout this movie odyssey. The opening section seems to take place around the time that the 19th century gives way to the 20th, but more precisely looks like — and heavily references — films from the art’s first few decades. Sometime later, a guy out of a Hollywood noir or a Jean-Pierre Melville thriller shows up.Chockablock with nods to other films and filmmakers, “Resurrection” is a cinephile’s delight. It was especially pleasurable to watch Bi Gan’s references to the pioneering Lumière brothers in a festival that showcases its award ceremony in a theater that bears their name. “Resurrection” may be wreathed in melancholy, but Bi Gan’s own journey through cinema is enlivening and encouraging. It was another reminder that great movies continue to be made despite the industry’s continuing agonies, which only deepened when, the week before the festival opened, President Trump threatened to impose a crushing 100 percent tariff on movies that were produced in “foreign lands,” though the White House has said no final decision had been made.The threat cast a lingering pall. The world’s largest film marketplace — where an estimated 15,000 industry professionals meet, great and make deals — takes place simultaneously with the festival. And the news out of the market was less than happy. “Did Trump’s tariffs hijack the world’s busiest film market?” read a headline on the France 24 news site. “Strong Festival, Soft Market” is how The Hollywood Reporter characterized the event’s final stretch.Whatever that means for our moviegoing future, this year’s festival was gratifyingly strong, the finest in a long time. The selections in the main competition — which vie for the Palme d’Or — can be a mixed bag, the product of programming taste, yes, but also favoritism, backroom politicking and other considerations. The festival functions as a vital showcase for European cinema, but it also relies on celebrity-driven movies to attract the news media that promotes it. That’s one reason the event is so protective of its red carpet and helps explains some of its much-derided rules, like no selfies on the steps leading to the Lumière.Lav Diaz revisits an explorer’s brutal travels in “Magellan.”Rosa FilmesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Best Movies of 2025, So Far

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      Our critics picked 10 films that you might have missed but that are worth your time on this long holiday weekend.“Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” and the live-action “Lilo & Stitch” are flooding theaters this Memorial Day weekend. But if you don’t want to follow the crowd, it’s also a good time to catch up on some terrific films you may have missed earlier in the year. I asked our chief film critic, Manohla Dargis, and our movie critic, Alissa Wilkinson, to recommend releases worth your time. All are in theaters or available online.‘Sinners’In theaters.The story: The twins Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) return from Al Capone’s Chicago to open a juke joint in Clarksdale, Miss. That’s when the devil, or rather, an Irish vampire, shows up in this talker of a film.Manohla Dargis’s take: Directed by Ryan Coogler, this “is a big-screen exultation — a passionate, effusive praise song about life and love, including the love of movies. Set in Jim Crow Mississippi, it is a genre-defying, mind-bending fantasia overflowing with great performances, dancing vampires and a lot of ideas about love and history.”Read the review; interviews with Coogler and Jordan, and other cast members; and a critic’s essay.‘I’m Still Here’Stream it on Netflix or rent it on most major platforms.Fernanda Torres in “I’m Still Here.”Alile Onawale/Sony Pictures ClassicsWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More