While the palm trees of the Croisette quiver to the rhythm of the spotlights, the Cannes Film Festival 2025 is a dense, plural and profoundly cinephile event. From major comebacks to creative tributes and international revelations, here are the must-see films that have already won awards and acclaim, or are on the verge of turning cinemas upside down.
Leave one day
Amélie Bonnin's Partir un jour opened this 78th edition with an unexpected score: an intimate musical comedy, driven by the impulse to return to one's roots. We follow Cécile, a passionate cook on the verge of opening her own gourmet restaurant. But when her father suffers a heart attack, she returns to her native village - a return that is forced on her, but soon spurred on by a meeting with her childhood sweetheart. Memories flood back, as do doubts: old dreams, family roots and suppressed desires intersect in a soberly staged film, punctuated by delicate moments of song. A warm, bittersweet film that questions the paths we choose, or those we abandon. A touching work about regrets, reunions and silences that weigh as heavily as words. Currently playing in cinemas.
Die, My Love
With Die, My Love, Lynne Ramsay delivers a wild, hypnotic interior fresco. In an isolated countryside, a woman struggles with her contradictions: the desire for solitude and the need to belong, dreamed-of motherhood and the visceral rejection of the norm. The film explores the brutality of desire and the gentle terror of family love. Carried by an intense trio - Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson and Lakeith Stanfield - the story shifts between intimate chaos and visceral strangeness. An incandescent portrait of a woman on the edge of the world, where every ordinary gesture becomes an emotional enigma. In cinemas soon.
Renoir
Directed by Chie Hayakawa, Renoir takes viewers to Tokyo in 1987. We follow Fuki, an 11-year-old girl confronted with her father's illness and her overworked mother's absence. A suspended summer opens up for her, filled with solitude, strange rituals and childhood impulses. The film paints the portrait of a young girl with an uncommon sensitivity, seeking to make contact with the living, the dead and even herself. Between poetic realism and discreet mysticism, this Asian-European co-production is a contemplative gem. Release date: September 17, 2025.
L'Inconnu de la Grande Arche
Stéphane Demoustier tackles one of the flagship projects of the Mitterrand presidency: the Grande Arche de la Défense. In 1983, Johan Otto von Spreckelsen, a Danish architect unknown in France, was the surprise winner of the architectural competition. The film recalls his arrival in Paris, his architectural ideals, and his confrontation with political realities and bureaucratic delays. Starring Claes Bang, the film oscillates between biopic and political thriller, revealing the tensions between vision and execution, and the price of greatness. In cinemas soon.
New Wave
This is the story of Godard's breathless shooting... told in the style of Godard himself. Richard Linklater's homage to Godard is free, moving and rich, with the legendary shooting becoming a pretext for immersion in the very spirit of the Nouvelle Vague. The film plays with codes, destructures scenes and pays tribute to an era that changed cinema. Between metacinema and casual elegance, this is a jewel for lovers of the 7th art. Scheduled for release on October 8, 2025.
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
Tom Cruise makes a triumphant return to the Croisette with this eighth opus in the Mission Impossible saga , presented out of competition but welcomed as a world premiere. Always without an understudy, always on the edge of the abyss, Cruise pushes the limits of action cinema. The film features one dizzying scene after another, breathless choreography and intimate confrontations. At 62, the actor still embodies a certain idea of adventure cinema: physical and spectacular. A living myth in a hard-hitting film. Scheduled for release on May 21, 2025.
