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    At Cannes, Can You Trust the Length of a Standing Ovation?

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    The applause at premieres like “Mission: Impossible” or “The History of Sound” is often timed and reported breathlessly. But there’s more to the story.For decades, the Palme d’Or was the most prestigious award that the Cannes Film Festival could bestow. But there’s a new honor that many films appear to be vying for: Which movie can earn the longest standing ovation?The ovations here have always been supersized, but in recent years, industry outlets like Deadline, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have turned the duration of the applause into a competitive spectacle. Headlines crow that “The History of Sound” (starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor) earned a nine-minute ovation, “Alpha” (Julia Ducournau’s follow-up to “Titane”) was applauded for 12 minutes, and “Sentimental Value” (from Joachim Trier) earned a stunning 19-minute ovation. A Palme pecking order is then heavily implied.As someone who covers Oscar season, I understand the temptation to turn artistic achievements into a horse race. Still, when it comes to the way these standing ovations are reported, appearances can be deceiving.First, some background. After a film’s closing credits conclude at Cannes, a camera is trained on the cast and director, broadcasting their reactions on the huge screen in the Grand Théâtre Lumière. It’s customary for the camera operator to isolate each actor in close-up for individual moments of applause, meaning that larger ensembles often garner the longest ovations. If the actors are then willing to interact with each other and reshuffle into new pairings, the ovation can be especially prolonged.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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      How Do You Follow One of the Craziest Cannes Movies Ever?

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      Julia Ducournau, who won the Palme d’Or for “Titane,” returns with the body-horror tale “Alpha.” The critical reception has not been kind.Many filmmakers dream of earning a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, but success here comes with a steep downside: It sets sky-high expectations for your follow-up and the European critics can be merciless if that next film falls short.After “The Artist” premiered at Cannes in 2011 and went on to win the best picture Oscar, the director Michel Hazanavicius returned three years later to the festival with “The Search,” which was so roundly booed that it never found a major U.S. distributor. The director Olivier Assayas followed his French hit “Clouds of Sils Maria” (2014) with “Personal Shopper” (2016), a film I actually preferred but French critics hissed at during the end credits.And after Nicolas Winding Refn won the best director award at Cannes for the Ryan Gosling film “Drive” (2011), his next two movies were booed here. I’ll never forget that when Refn’s “The Neon Demon” concluded with a dedication to the director’s wife, Liv, a critic stood up next to me and shouted expletives at poor Liv in a thick French accent.The latest filmmaker to face this gilded dilemma is Julia Ducournau, the French director who won the Palme d’Or four years ago for “Titane.” Rarely has that top prize gone to a movie so gory and wild: It followed a lesbian serial killer who has sex with a car, and that was just the first act! Ducournau’s Palme win felt bracingly new, not least because it was only the young director’s second movie. Where would she go from there?In the years since, rumors swirled that Ducournau felt significant pressure to deliver a worthy follow-up. On Monday, she finally unveiled that film, “Alpha,” and Cannes critics pounced. Topping a movie as audacious as “Titane” was always going to be difficult, but the brutal reception suggests that some critics here were eager to cut Ducournau down to size.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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      Cannes Film Festival 2025: What to Watch From This Year’s Star-Packed Lineup

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      The event is packed with high-profile English-language movies, including the new “Mission: Impossible” and a Jennifer Lawrence-Robert Pattinson drama.The 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival begins Tuesday, and this lineup is particularly star-packed. Which titles could follow in the path of last year’s big breakouts like “Anora” and “The Substance”? Here are the stories we have our eye on this year.It’s a Hollywood-heavy lineup.Though Cannes is traditionally known for showcasing the best in global cinema, the lineup is packed with so many high-profile English-language films that it could be mistaken for a festival in Hollywood.The biggest premieres include “Die My Love,” which pairs Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson as a couple in a crumbling marriage; the new Spike Lee film, “Highest 2 Lowest,” with Denzel Washington; and Wes Anderson’s caper “The Phoenician Scheme,” with Benicio Del Toro leading an ensemble that includes Michael Cera, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hanks and Riz Ahmed.There’s also the romantic drama “The History of Sound,” with Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor; Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague,” a tribute to the French new wave; and “Eddington” from Ari Aster (“Midsommar,” “Hereditary”), with an A-list cast featuring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone and Austin Butler. And if that weren’t Hollywood-heavy enough, Tom Cruise will debut his final “Mission: Impossible” movie on the festival’s second day.Actors are making their directorial debuts.Kristen Stewart, Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson are all Cannes mainstays, but for this year’s fest, the three actors are instead stepping behind the camera for their feature directing debuts. And lest you assume they’re making vanity projects, all three declined starring roles in their own movies.Stewart’s long-in-the-works “The Chronology of Water” will bow first, starring Imogen Poots as a young woman struggling with issues of addiction and sexuality. Next up is “Urchin,” from the “Babygirl” breakout Dickinson, about a London drifter (Frank Dillane) struggling to find his place in society. And the second week of the festival will debut Johansson’s “Eleanor the Great,” a comedy starring June Squibb.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