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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

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      Cannes Film Festival: When the Stars Come, a Traverso Is There for Pictures

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      Gilles Traverso is the third in a line of photographers from his family to capture the film elite every year of the Cannes Film Festival.When the Cannes Film Festival begins this week, it will be its 78th year. And in each one of those years, a member of the Traverso family will have been there to photograph it.Gilles Traverso, 67, is one of three generations of photographers who has taken pictures of the directors, actors and other members of the film elite who flock to the French city each year for the event.This year will be his 49th festival. Since he began photographing it alongside his father, Henri, in 1977, Gilles has witnessed the event transform as digital cameras have proliferated, the number of photographers attending has exploded and celebrities have become more inaccessible to the public.“The Cannes Film Festival is an exaggerated reflection of the time we live in,” he said in an interview in Cannes. But, he added, “What I hate is to say it was better before. I hate that. No, it was not better, it was something different.”Gilles Traverso is the latest of three generations of photographers from his family who have captured the stars and events at Cannes. This year’s festival will be his 49th.François Ollivier for The New York TimesThe Traverso family, originally from the Piedmont region of Italy, first moved to Cannes in the mid-19th century. In 1919, Auguste Traverso, then in his early 20s, set up a photography shop just as the city was beginning to evolve from a small fishing village to a vacation destination for the wealthy.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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      Thierry Klifa on His Fascination With ‘The Richest Woman in the World’

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      The director Thierry Klifa discusses his new film, “The Richest Woman in the World,” based on the true story of the French billionaire Liliane Bettencourt.The world’s richest woman falls under the spell of a younger man. In the space of several years, she gives him more than $1 billion in cash, annuities and works of art — until her daughter steps in and reveals all in what turns into an international scandal.That’s the true story of the French billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, heir to the world’s largest cosmetics company, L’Oréal, and her longtime friend and confidant, the author and photographer François-Marie Banier. A fictionalized version of the saga — “The Richest Woman in the World,” starring Isabelle Huppert — will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, which runs through May 24.A disclaimer at the movie’s start says it is “very loosely” inspired by real-life events and contains elements of “pure fiction,” including private exchanges between family members. And the director Thierry Klifa has made sure to change all the names. Yet the movie still hews very closely to the actual events (as recounted in a three-part documentary available on Netflix, “The Billionaire, the Butler, and the Boyfriend.”)Admittedly, Huppert looks nothing like the real-life Madame Bettencourt, who was recognizable by her heavily lacquered coiffure and strictly tailored suits. In the movie, Huppert has silky shoulder-length hair and a much younger look. She comes across as a playful Parisienne who is seduced by the flamboyant Fantin (the fictionalized version of Banier) and allows him to change everything: her clothes, her art collection, her life.In a recent video interview, Klifa discussed the scandal, why he became interested in it, and why he chose Huppert. The conversation, translated from French, has been edited and condensed.The director Thierry Klifa was “instantly fascinated” by the real-life story of the French billionaire who gave away part of her fortune to a younger man.Francois DourlenWe 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 the Cannes Film Festival, These Screenings Are on the Beach

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      Cinéma de la Plage is the Cannes Film Festival’s free program of nightly film screenings on the beach and under the stars.On a warm afternoon in late April, La Croisette hummed with life. Families pushed strollers along the boardwalk, children trailed behind with dripping ice cream cones, and tourists posed for selfies silhouetted against the Mediterranean. At Plage Macé, a centrally-located public beach, people tanned, played volleyball and went for a dip.For the next two weeks, Plage Macé has been transformed into an outdoor theater, outfitted with a massive movie screen — nearly 80 feet by 20 feet — and an elaborate sound system, with 600 deck chairs available on a first-come-first-served basis.This is Cinéma de la Plage, the Cannes Film Festival’s free program of nightly film screenings. At a film festival notorious for its exclusivity, this is one event where everyone is welcome, no matter who they are — or how they are dressed.“Cinéma de la Plage is evidence that the Cannes Film Festival never forgets it has to remain a cultural and popular event,” Thierry Frémaux, the festival’s artistic director, explained in an email.Camilla Amelotti works at a children’s attraction, Les P’tits Bateaux (The Li’l Boats), directly in front of Plage Macé. In between selling souvenir magnets and handing out remote controls for miniature yachts, she described Cinéma de la Plage as an accessible alternative to the festival’s indoor screenings, especially for film-loving locals.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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      The Actress Anamaria Vartolomei Brings a Fearless Streak to Her Roles

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      The actress’s latest film, “Adam’s Interest,” will open the Critics’ Week showcase at the Cannes Film Festival.Anamaria Vartolomei began her film career when she was 12 opposite Isabelle Huppert in a film about a controversial photographer and her daughter. And in the past few years, Vartolomei, now 26, has blazed through a slate so ambitious that it resembles one of Huppert’s typically prolific runs — each film different from the last.The Romanian-born actress’s recent rise began with a heartbreaking starring role in “Happening” as a French university student in the 1960s who seeks an abortion. It won the Golden Lion for best film at the 2021 Venice Film Festival — where the director Bong Joon Ho was the head of the jury. Bong cast Vartolomei in the dystopian film “Mickey 17” as a shrewd shipmate of Robert Pattinson’s repeatedly replicated drone.By the time “Mickey 17” came out earlier this year, she’d projected a mesmerizing mystique in the French blockbuster “The Count of Monte Cristo.” Her fearless streak was also recently on display in “Being Maria,” in which she plays the actress Maria Schneider, star of “Last Tango in Paris,” and “The Empire,” a loopy intergalactic yarn set in rural France.Her latest movie, “Adam’s Interest,” opens the Critics’ Week showcase at the Cannes Film Festival, which runs through May 24. Vartolomei plays a mother who risks losing custody of her child after he is hospitalized. In a video interview — seated beneath a wall of pictures featuring “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Breathless” and “Scarface” — she explained why the film’s raw realism appealed to her and how it was achieved. The following conversation has been edited and condensed.In your career, you tend to choose characters who have limited power or autonomy. But they do what they can with what they have.Yeah, I love this. It speaks to me personally, and I think it speaks to everyone in a way. I mean, freedom belongs to us, but it’s hard to admit that we have power over it. Sometimes we feel like we depend on others’ perspectives regarding our freedom. You think about pleasing others, and you forget what you really want. I like characters that know they want something, but they don’t really know how to obtain it. They finally find a way because if they find their truth, they will find peace.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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      ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,’ Plus 6 Things to Watch on TV This Week

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      The reality show returns to Hulu, while AppleTV+ debuts a new sci-fi series.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that are airing or streaming this week, May 12-18. Details and times are subject to change.Sexy!First there was #MomTok, and then came “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” a reality series following a group of TikTok-famous moms who are either practicing Mormons or are in the community. The first season was a hit and became Hulu’s top-watched unscripted series in 2024. Now the ladies from Utah are ready for more dirty sodas, baby daddy drama and rehashing of the swinging scandal. Joining the cast is Miranda McWhorter, who was involved in the original TikTok drama that popularized the group. Add some coconut creamer to your Dr Pepper, read up on the Book of Mormon, and pour your coffee down the drain because Taylor Frankie Paul, Jen Affleck, Demi Engemann and the others are so back. Streaming Thursday on Hulu.Why are Chad Michael Murray and Scott Patterson in Nova Scotia, Canada? Because “Sullivan’s Crossing” is back for a third season, of course. The series follows the neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan (Morgan Kohan) who fled to the small town that her father, Sully (Patterson), lives in to get away from a work-related scandal. Now, three years later, Maggie and Cal (Murray) are officially an item, and the trio are dealing with the aftermath of a diner fire from the Season 2 cliffhanger. It’s about to be cottage season in Canada, and this show perfectly sets those vibes. Wednesday at 8 p.m. on the CW.The Ryan Murphy series “Doctor Odyssey” has left viewers with lots of questions: Was it all a fever dream? Why is this cruise ship equipped with a CT machine? How can we clone Joshua Jackson in real life? It is unclear whether any of these questions will be answered in this week’s finale. The show — which follows the lives of a doctor and two nurses in charge of a cruise ship’s infirmary who spend more time canoodling, drinking and relaxing in the hot tub than doing any actual work — has covered orca attacks, mistaken pregnancies and the dangers of a raw diet. During the season (or series, ABC has yet to renew the show) finale, Max (Jackson) deboards the ship and, needless to say, several natural disasters strike. Thursday at 9 p.m. on ABC and streaming the next day on Hulu.Thrilling!Let’s set the scene for the new thriller series “Duster”: The year is 1972, we’re in the Southwest and Rachel Hilson plays the F.B.I.’s first Black female agent. With Josh Holloway’s character at her side as a getaway driver, the two go on a mission to break up a growing crime syndicate. Of note, this is J.J. Abrams’s first co-writing gig in six years, since “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” Thursday at 9 p.m. on Max.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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      ‘Nonnas’ Review: Oversauced

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      Vince Vaughn plays a restaurant owner who hires Italian grandmothers to cook for him in this corn-filled gabagool.From the homily-stuffed script (“food is love,” “beautiful is a feeling”) to the relentlessly on-the-button soundtrack (please god, no more “Funiculì Funiculà”), “Nonnas” serves up ethnic comedy on a platter of ham and cheese.Based on a true story, this four-grannies-and-a-funeral caper tosses finely aged ingredients — Susan Sarandon, Lorraine Bracco, Brenda Vaccaro, Talia Shire — into a slurry of Italian caricature and cliché. At its center sits Joe Scaravella (an oddly anemic Vince Vaughn), a Brooklyn transportation worker who, after his mother’s death, decides to honor her by opening a restaurant on Staten Island and hiring Italian grandmothers, or nonnas, as his chefs.Each has a single, identifiable characteristic. Meet Roberta (Bracco), the salty Sicilian and erstwhile best friend of Joe’s mother; Antonella (Vaccaro), the feisty Bolognan widow whom Joe meets at an Italian market; Teresa (Shire), the retired nun with a cheeky secret; and Gia (Sarandon), the independent glamour-puss whose enviable cleavage demands commentary.“How do you bake over those things?,” Roberta inquires, not unreasonably. Sadly, this is as saucy as Liz Maccie’s screenplay allows. Even when Joe reconnects with Olivia (an ill-served Linda Cardellini), the prom date he once unceremoniously dumped, the movie stubbornly refuses to spark. The director, Stephen Chbosky, appears unaware that food can be sexy, or that young Joe — in a glowing, idyllically staged flashback to 40 years earlier — is infinitely more excited by bubbling Bolognese and sugared pastries than his adult self is by Olivia. Their belated dance to Chris de Burgh’s oft-recycled “The Lady in Red” is so lacking in chemistry they might as well be neutered.Corny and cloying, “Nonnas” struggles to gin up energy in a plot whose every roadblock (the dwindling finances, the failed building inspection, the opening-night disaster, the desperate plea for critical attention) is comfortably predictable. The movie’s real drag, though, is a main character with no identity beyond his mother’s depressing house and no personality beyond nostalgia. Joe is a void, and Vaughn — who can occasionally be riveting, as we saw in projects like “Brawl in Cell Block 99” (2017) and the unfairly maligned second season of “True Detective” (2015) — too often shuffles through his scenes as if narcotized.This muffled affect, along with Chbosky’s pedestrian direction and his reliance on overly literal needle drops (again with the Billy Joel?), forces everyone else to work twice as hard. The ladies, professionals all, are up for it, gamely selling sitcom setups and prepackaged sentiment with a gusto that suggests a better, more authentic movie might have lurked beyond the bromides. One where, when a former nun prays for a miracle, it won’t arrive before she has even dusted off her knees.NonnasRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Summer of 69’ Review: A Crash Course in Carnal Knowledge

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      Jillian Bell’s feature directorial debut centers on a nerdy teenager who hires a stripper for a sexual education, but the movie favors modesty over vulgarity.High schoolers revving up to lose their virginities by graduation are a teen comedy mainstay. The cheekily titled “Summer of 69,” directed by the comedy actress Jillian Bell, turns the trope on its head, so to speak, by centering on a nerdy young woman who pledges to master a specific sexual position. (You can venture a guess.)Abby (Sam Morelos) is a 17-year-old video game streamer with zero bedroom experience and a whopper of a crush on Max (Matt Cornett), a hunky classmate. So when she hears that he favors that particular position, she hires a local stripper named Santa Monica (Chloe Fineman) for a crash course in carnal knowledge.In her feature directorial debut, Bell conjures a mood of gentle bawdiness cut with sincerity. There’s a visit to the vibrator shop, and a running joke in which Abby misunderstands the nature of certain sex acts. But for the most part, the movie is free of the cutting loose and potty mouthing endemic to its genre. Instead of antics, the movie is powered by a feminist streak in which sexual prowess and even pleasure take a back seat to confidence, friendship and self worth.The modest tone is fitting, for while Abby is on the verge of adulthood, she still acts like a child, and her immaturity bumps up awkwardly against the movie’s ribald premise. Fortunately, “Summer of 69” is a two-hander, and Fineman brings comic chops and genuine feeling to playing the tutor with a heart of gold.Summer of 69Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More