The 76th annual Cannes cinema Festival has begun, and it promises to wow cinema lovers all around the globe with its splendour, stars on the famed red-carpet steps outside the Palais des Festivals, and, of course, a first look at many of 2023’s most anticipated films.
There’s the final Indiana Jones film, as well as another collaboration between Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese.
We also have Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore collaborating on Todd Haynes’ May December, a historical drama starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law, and Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke scorching up the screen in Pedro Almodóvar’s LGBT Western.
Here are ten films that are already creating a lot of attention ahead of their Cannes premieres…
Jeanne du Barry
Johnny Depp plays King Louis XV of France, who fell madly in love with the working-class courtesan Jeanne du Barry, also known as Madame du Barry, played by the film’s director, Mawenn, in his first acting appearance since his legal fights with ex-wife Amber Heard.
Against all social conventions, he scandalously transports her to his Versailles chateau, where her appearance further scandalises the court.
Benjamin Lavernhe, Pierre Richard, Melvil Poupaud, Pascal Greggory, and India Hair also appear in the French-language film.
Jeanne du Barry, the festival’s opening film, has sparked fresh controversy after Mawenn allegedly admitted to attacking a French journalist by yanking his fair and spitting in his face.
Thierry Fremaux, the director of the Cannes picture Festival, has also stepped out and rejected actress Adele Haenel’s assertions that the industry will “do anything to defend its rapist chiefs,” as well as addressing criticism of a Depp-led picture opening this year’s festival.
Speaking at a press conference ahead of the festival’s opening night, as per Variety, Fremaux told journalists: ‘If you thought that it’s a festival for rapists, you wouldn’t be here listening to me, you would not be complaining that you can’t get tickets to get into screenings.’
He added: ‘To tell you the truth, in my life, I only have one rule, it’s the freedom of thinking, and the freedom of speech and acting within a legal framework.
‘If Johnny Depp had been banned from acting in a film, or the film was banned we wouldn’t be here talking about it.’
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
In the fifth film in the Indiana Jones franchise, directed by James Mangold and premiered at Cannes, Harrison Ford returns for one more adventure as the daring archaeologist Indiana Jones.
The fourth film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, was not well-received by reviewers or many fans in 2008, but it was a box office success, generating over $790 million on a $185 million budget.
This time, Ford, 80, is joined by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who plays his headstrong niece Helena, in a race against time to acquire a mythical artefact that has the power to change the course of history.
It’s 1969, which places Indy in the context of the Space Race against the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, Mads Mikkelsen’s character, Jürgen Voller, is a NASA member and ex-Nazi participating in the moon-landing programme who desires to make the world a better place as he sees fit.
John Rhys-Davies reprises his role as Sallah, and Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, and Boyd Holbrook all join the ensemble.
It is the first Indiana Jones film not written or directed by George Lucas or Steven Spielberg, but both act as executive producers.
Asteroid City
We’re still reeling from the TikTok Wes Anderson fever and fans’ fixation with an AI-generated version of Star Wars helmed by the filmmaker, and Anderson is back with his next film.
Asteroid City is, of course, a science fiction romantic comedy drama in which the schedule of a Junior Stargazer conference is drastically disturbed by world-changing events.
The teaser shows The Grand Budapest Hotel director Anderson at his best, with his signature stylings, pastel colours, and retro ambiance.
He’s also put together one of the most outstanding casts of his career, which is saying a lot.
Along with Margot Robbie, Steve Carell, and Liev Schreiber, Tom Hanks makes his deadpan Anderson debut.
Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Edward Norton, and Jeff Goldblum are among the previous Anderson collaborations.
Strange Way of Life
The release of the Strange Way of Life trailer in April sparked immediate comparisons to Brokeback Mountain, which is fitting given that Pedro Almodóvar was offered the chance to direct the 2006 Oscar-winning film with Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger.
The short follows Pedro Pascal’s cowboy character Silva as he rides across the desert on horseback to see an old buddy he hasn’t seen in 25 years, Sheriff Jake, played by Ethan Hawke.
The clip shows the couple unravelling their surprise romantic past with one another in dramatic-scored and photographed moments that harken back to Hollywood’s glory days of Westerns.
There’s also gunplay, horseback riding, dust fights, and The Last of Us actor Pascal caring to Hawke on his sickbed.
‘Years ago, you asked me what two men could do living together on a ranch. I’ll answer you now,’ Pascal tells him in a comment that likely single-handedly drove a large chunk of the online reaction.
Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese has returned to Cannes, 47 years after introducing Taxi Driver to boos, walk-outs, and a rebuke from jury president Tennessee Williams.
It later won the festival’s highest prize, the Palme d’Or.
His current picture once again stars Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, with whom he has previously collaborated on The Aviator, Gangs of New York, and The Departed.
Killers of the Flower Moon is an Apple Original film based on David Grann’s nonfiction book about a series of mystery murders of Osage tribe members in Oklahoma in the 1920s that spurred a massive FBI investigation featuring J Edgar Hoover.
Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, and Brendan Fraser round out the cast.
It will be Scorsese’s first Western and his most costly production to date, with a budget of roughly $200 million (£159 million).
May December
Todd Haynes, who won the Cannes Film Festival in 1998 with Velvet Goldmine, is back with a love drama starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.
Haynes is known for films like as the unorthodox Bob Dylan biography I’m Not There and the love period piece Carol starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
May December follows an actress (Portman) as she researches the real-life lady (Moore) she is supposed to play in a film, 20 years after her and her husband’s renowned tabloid romance captivated the nation, due in part to their enormous age difference.
Their partnership begins to crack under the strain of the investigation into their history.
Filmed in the atmospheric city of Savannah, Georgia, the film also stars Charles Melton, Piper Curda, Elizabeth Yu, and Gabriel Chung.
Firebrand
Firebrand, directed by Karim Anouz and based on Elizabeth Fremantle’s 2013 novel Queen’s Gambit, will have its Cannes debut this month.
It stars Oscar winner Alicia Vikander as Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife who survived him.
Katherine has done everything she can to strive for a new future based on her extreme Protestant ideals since being named Regent while Henry is fighting overseas.
When an unwell and paranoid King arrives, he unleashes his rage on the radicals, accusing Katherine’s childhood friend of treachery and burning her at the stake, causing Katherine to battle for her own survival.
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Filmed on location at Derbyshire’s Haddon Hall for an authentic feel, the film stars Jude Law as the latest in a long line of gorgeous men cast to play the Tudor monarch in his dying days.
Sam Riley and Eddie Marsan play Thomas and Edward Seymour, respectively, with Simon Russell Beale, Ruby Bentall, Erin Doherty, and Patsy Ferran also appearing.
The Zone of Interest
The Zone of Interest is partially based on Martin Amis’s 2014 novel of the same name, which takes place at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The film follows commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig as they seek to establish a dream life for their family in a house and garden close to the camp. It is an A24 co-production directed by Jonathan Glazer.
It was shot on location in 2021 in Auschwitz, the site of one of the most renowned Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust.
Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller feature as the leads, with Daniel Holzberg, Sascha Maaz, and Max Beck also appearing.
Glazer, who was born in the United Kingdom, previously enjoyed critical success with his 2013 picture Under the Skin, which starred Scarlett Johansson, and his cinematic debut Sexy Beast in 2000, which starred Sir Ben Kingsley and Ray Winstone.
Monster
Hirokazu Kore-eda wrote and directed the drama, which represents his first return to a Japanese-language movie after the international success of 2018’s Shoplifters, which earned him the Palme D’Or at Cannes that year.
He also received an Oscar nomination for best international feature picture.
Sakura And plays a mother who challenges a teacher after witnessing troubling changes in her son Minato’s conduct.
The reality, however, gradually emerges as the narrative develops through the perspectives of the mother, instructor, and kid.
It also stars Eita Nagayama as the instructor, Hori, Soya Kurokawa as Minato, and Yko Tanaka as the principal.
Kore-eda will have a picture in competition at Cannes for the fourth time, having previously done so with Like Father, Like Son (which won the Jury Prize), Our Little Sister, and After the Storm.
He directed the South Korean drama Broker in 2021, which competed at Cannes again last year.
He also helmed The Truth in 2019 with Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke.
Elemental
Disney will close the 2023 Cannes Film Festival with Pixar’s latest film, Elemental.
It’s the latest in a long series of films from the studio that have premiered there, including Up, Inside Out, and Soul.
Peter Sohn, who directed The God Dinosaur in 2015 and voiced Buzz’s robo-cat buddy SOX in last year’s Lightyear, directs Elemental.
They official synopsis reads: ‘In a city where fire, water, land, and air residents live together, a fiery young woman and a go-with-the-flow guy are about to discover something elemental: How much they actually have in common.’
Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie voice central characters Ember and Wade, while Catherine O’Hara and Wendi McLendon-Covey are also in the voice cast.
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