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With Juliette Binoche chairing a jury alongside writer Leïla Slimani and director Payal Kapadia, here is a look at what you need to know about the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.
“It must be a French dream”, said Juliette Binoche on stage at the Oscars after receiving the award for Best Supporting Actress for The English Patient (1996). Another dream will soon come true for the actress: that of presiding over the jury of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, to be held from May 13 to 24. Alongside her, two other faces of French cinema will be present: Laurent Lafitte as Master of Ceremonies, and Christophe Honoré as President of the Queer Palm. Below, everything you need to know about the 78th edition of the world’s biggest film festival.
Quentin Tarantino guest of honor at Cannes Classics
For the opening of Cannes Classics, Croisette regular Quentin Tarantino will be the guest of honor, celebrating the greatest masterpieces of the seventh art in the festival’s Official Selection. On this occasion, the man who won the Palme d’Or for Pulp Fiction in 1994 will pay tribute to George Sherman by presenting two westerns – Le mustang noir (1949) and Sur le territoire des Comanches (1950) – and will take part in a discussion with critic and filmmaker Elvis Mitchell.
Other Cannes Classics highlights include a pre-opening screening of Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, to mark the centenary of its production, and a 25th anniversary screening of Alejandro G. Iñárritu ‘sDog Lovers (which won the Grand Prix de la Semaine de la critique at its Cannes premiere in 2000), in the presence of the director. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Czech-American director Miloš Forman’s The Cuckoo’s Nest, Cannes Classics is also planning a screening. The program concludes on Friday May 23 with the high-definition restoration of Barry Lyndon (1974), the epic film by Stanley Kubrick.
The official 78th Cannes Film Festival posters
After the poetically beautiful poster for the 77th edition, borrowed from a scene in Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s Rhapsody in August, the 2025 Cannes Festival features the embrace of Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant in Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman, in which the latter plays the role of director, co-writer, producer and cinematographer. The film won the Palme d’Or in 1966, before triumphing at the Oscars in the categories of Best Foreign Film and Best Original Screenplay. As for the two performers, they both won acting awards at Cannes: he in 1969 for Z, and she in 1980 for Le Saut dans le vide.
As you may have noticed, two posters are being presented this year (a first in the festival’s history). The committee explains “that this embrace (the anagram of eternity!) is undoubtedly the most famous of the 7th Art, […] that you can’t separate a man and a woman who love each other, […] that you can’t separate that man from that woman”, and so has chosen to pay tribute to them with a double official poster. “A man and a woman. Facing each other, but together.”
Who makes up the 64th Semaine de la Critique jury?
After unveiling its sublime poster, taken fromAlexis Langlois ‘s Les Reines du drame, presented last year, the 64th Semaine de la Critique reveals its jury. Spanish director, screenwriter and producer Rodrigo Sorogoyen (whose films include As Bestas and Madre) is president of the jury. He will be joined by Moroccan journalist Jihane Bougrine, French-Canadian cinematographer Josée Deshaies (La Bête, À son Image), Indonesian producer Yulia Evina Bhara (whose credits include Tiger Stripes and 24 Hours with Gaspar) and Oscar-winning British actor Daniel Kaluuya, seen in the horror film Get Out and the poignant Judas And The Black Messiah. This is not the first time that Rodrigo Sorogoyen has been approached for this role. At the previous edition of the Cannes Film Festival, he had to give way to French filmmaker Sylvia Pialat for personal reasons. This year, it will award the Grand Prix AMI Paris, the Prix French Touch du Jury, the Prix Fondation Louis Roederer de la Révélation and the Prix Découverte Leitz Ciné.
First Alpine Award goes to Thomas Cailley
A new addition to the festival’s awards program, the Prix Alpine honors “filmmakers who have the audacity to break with codes and define new paths for French and international cinema”. A new official partner of the Société des réalisatrices et réalisateurs de films (SRF), the prize will now be awarded every year at Cannes. And to inaugurate it, Thomas Cailley will be the first recipient. The French director and screenwriter, who made a name for himself with Love at First Fight (2014), but whose breakthrough came with The Animal Kingdom (2023), which won acclaim at the 2024 Césars (with no fewer than 5 awards), will receive his trophy on May 22, 2025, during the closing ceremony of the Quinzaine des cinéastes.
An honorary Palme d’or for Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro will receive an honorary Palme d’or for his entire career at the 78th edition’s opening ceremony on Tuesday, May 13. De Niro, who was President of the Jury in 2011, says he has “very strong feelings for the Cannes Festival. “Cannes brings us together: storytellers, filmmakers, admirers and friends. It’s like coming home.”
It was in 1976 that the American actor, director and producer met his Cannes “home” for the first time. He presented not one, but two films: 1900 by Bernardo Bertolucci, and Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese which also won the Palme d’Or. Unforgettable in his role as a New York cab driver, De Niro continued his collaboration with Scorsese. “He learned to play the saxophone for New York, New York, took up boxing and gained 30 kilos for Raging Bull, for which he was responsible and which won him the Oscar for Best Actor”, recalls the Cannes committee in a press release. His appearances on the Croisette are becoming more and more frequent. These included La Valse des pantins, which opened the festivities in 1983,Il était une fois en Amérique the following year, and Mission, with which he played the lead role in a second Palme d’Or. His last appearance was in 2023, for the film Killers of the Flower Moon by his friend. Robert De Niro will be the guest of honor at this year’s festival, inviting festival-goers to join him for an exceptional masterclass on Wednesday May 14 in the Salle Debussy.
Christophe Honoré, president of Queer Palm
Since 2010, the Queer Palm has been celebrating films that embrace LGBTQIA+ themes with sincerity and courage, from all the selections presented at the Cannes Film Festival. Chaired by director and screenwriter Lukas Dhont, last year’s award went to Emanuel Pârvu’s feature film, Three Kilometers to the End of the World (in the shorts category, Elena López Riera’s Les Fiancées du sud was the winner). This year’s jury president is Christophe Honoré. “At a time when contemporary creation is once again under attack from the Reactionary International, it seems all the more urgent to highlight and celebrate queer films. To be a filmmaker, to belong to a sexual minority and to support the truth of one’s desires in one’s films is a reckless sincerity, which always weakens. Hence the importance of the Queer Palm at the heart of the Cannes Film Festival: it is both a refuge and a platform, a struggle and a tenderness”, he declared. The filmmaker, author and playwright came to the Croisette last year to present his latest film, Marcello mio, in official competition.
Laurent Lafitte, master of ceremonies
It’s in the costume of the terrible Gérard de Villefort, sworn enemy of Pierre Niney in The Count of Monte Cristoby Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, that we left Laurent Lafitte. And it’s in the role of Master of Ceremonies that we’ll soon find him—an obvious choice for the festival, which is spotlighting one of the favorite faces of French cinema.
Trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique in Paris and the Guildford School of Acting in England, Laurent Lafitte worked under some of the greatest directors before becoming a writer and director himself. His stint at the Comédie Française, from 2012 to 2024, did much to consolidate his status as a key actor on the sets and stages of this legendary institution. After playing a number of plays from the repertoire (Voltaire, Shakespeare, Proust, Marivaux and Renoir), he ended his theatrical adventure by playing Cyrano de Bergerac in the Salle Richelieu, a role for which he was nominated for the Molière for Best Actor. In 2025, he will play the emblematic Albin in the musical La cage aux Folles at the Théâtre du Châtelet, directed byOlivier Py. But a few lucky festival-goers will be able to cross paths with him on the Croisette before then… The actor will host the ceremonies of the 78th edition, succeeding Camille Cottin, who was perfect in the role last year.
Actress Juliette Binoche presides over the jury
Juliette Binoche is an actress in a class of her own. Since the 1980s and her first major role in André Téchiné ‘s Rendez-vous (presented on La Croisette in 1985), Juliette Binoche has been living out her desire for cinema, turning in one masterful performance after another, as well as more discreet ones, to nurture a flawless career with no fear of side-stepping. “I was born at the Cannes Film Festival”, she often declares. The first actress to win an acting award at the three major film festivals of Cannes, Venice and Berlin (only Julianne Moore has achieved the same feat), the French actress, who is as beloved in Hollywood as she is in Europe, succeeds the American Greta Gerwig to present the next Palme d’Or. Last year, Sean Baker’s American drama Anora triumphed.
“For the second time in the Festival’s history, two female artists will pass on this prestigious torch” of jury presidency, noted the organizing committee in a press release. The first was in the 1960s, when Italian film icon Sophia Loren replaced Olivia de Havilland. Sixty-five years later, with Juliette Binoche, the great mass of cinema has chosen an artist appreciated by audiences and critics alike: “I look forward to sharing these moments of life with the members of the Jury and the public,” she declares in the same press release. In 1985, I climbed the steps for the first time with the enthusiasm and uncertainty of a young actress; I never imagined I would return 40 years later in the honorary role of President of the Jury. I weigh up the privilege, the responsibility and the absolute need for humility.“
Who makes up the juries at the 78th Cannes Film Festival?
To get an idea of the 78th Cannes Film Festival’s jury, it’s worth taking a look back at last year’s program. All We Imagine As Light, last year’s Grand Prix winner, sees its director join the jury presided over by Juliette Binoche. Alongside her, a predominantly female panel will be on hand, including the formidable Alba Rohrwacher (seen in the films of her sister, Alice), French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani and American actress Halle Berry. Discover the full jury below:
The Competition jury
French actress Juliette Binoche (president)
American actress Halle Berry
Indian director and screenwriter Payal Kapadia
Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher
French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani
Congolese director, documentary filmmaker and producer Dieudo Hamadi
Korean director and screenwriter Hong Sang-soo
Mexican director, screenwriter and producer Carlos Reygadas
American actor Jeremy Strong
Un Certain Regard jury
British director, screenwriter and cinematographer Molly Manning Walker (President)
Franco-Swiss director and screenwriter Louise Courvoisier
Croatian director of the Rotterdam International Film Festival Vanja Kaludjercic
Italian director, producer and screenwriter Roberto Minervini
Argentine actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart
Passing the torch at Cannes 2025
Juliette Binoche, who has worked with French directors Jean-Luc Godard, Olivier Assayas, Claire Denis and Leos Carax, as well as Canadian David Cronenberg, Japanese Hirokazu Kore-eda, Pole Krzysztof Kieslowski and Austrian Michael Haneke, is expected to take to the Cannes red carpet, which she walked last year at the opening ceremony, where she presented an honorary Palme d’or to Meryl Streep before declaring her admiration, with tears in her eyes: “You’ve changed the way we see women in the world and in cinema. You’ve given us a new image of ourselves.” Prior to this, Juliette Binoche came to Cannes for the Official Selection presentation of La Passion de Dodin Bouffant, directed by Trần Anh Hùng.
With less than two months to go before the opening, the Cannes 2025 Festival must now put together the rest of the jury. The announcement of the films selected for the Official Competition is expected on Thursday, April 10, at 11am. For its part, the Quinzaine des Cinéastes, an independent parallel selection for new voices in contemporary cinema, recently unveiled its poster for 2025: a painting by Harmony Korine(Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy, Spring Breakers), with the following comment: “The characters in the painting are called Twitchys. They’re always lurking and playing. They’re very happy to be in Cannes :)”. The Quinzaine des Cinéastes, which has produced such talents as Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Martin Scorsese, Chantal Akerman, Susan Sontag, Alice Rohrwacher and Takeshi Kitano, is also due to announce its selection in the coming weeks.
This article was originally published on Vogue France.
