Cannes can feel like a make believe place, even if you’re there: a tiny French town transformed by glamor (the gowns!) once a year, it is, above all else, a supremely dedicated celebration of cinema and a true goldmine of boundary-pushing storytelling that sets the bar every year. There are the red carpets and there are the standing ovations, but there’s also just some really good movies. Being on the ground, whoever you are, is a privilege that cannot be taken for granted: so we have a duty to bring home, to you, the riches worth tuning in for.

A lot of big names made their way to the Croisette in 2025, filmmakers we’ll be talking about for the next ten months and beyond (Anora, Parasite and Portrait of a Lady on Fire were all recently born here, after all), but there were also countless artists deserving of (and receiving!) your attention beyond the bright lights, already bubbling under in your reviews. So here are some for your watchlists: the films our team on the ground could not stop thinking about, the ones we still can’t stop talking about—titles for your watchlists, your best-of lists, and almost definitely your forever Four Faves one day soon. We don’t take that responsibility lightly.

Picks below from Ella Kemp, George Fenwick, Iana Murray, Isaac Feldberg and Rafa Sales Ross.

Dangerous Animals

Directed by Sean Byrne
Written by Nick Lepard

Dangerous Animals injected the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar with a ruthless shot of adrenaline, mashing the shark movie with a serial killer story to create a vastly entertaining, unapologetically brutal and proudly schlocky horror-thriller, the likes of which Australia does so well. Sean Byrne, acclaimed director of The Loved Ones, directs this script from Nick Lepard about a deranged skipper named Tucker (Jai Courtney) who captures young women and feeds them to sharks off Australia’s Gold Coast. Yellowstone’s Hassie Harrison is Zephyr, the American vagabond surfing her way through Australia who is kidnapped by Tucker, forcing her into a battle of wills to survive.

As the title suggests, the sharks aren’t the only threatening creature Zephyr has to contend with, and Dangerous Animals wrings as much terror out of Tucker’s unhinged thirst for blood as it does from the sharks—which are filmed, if anything, with a reverence and beauty that rebuffs the damage done by shark movies before it. Courtney gets to flex acting muscles we’ve never seen before, playing Tucker with a delicious mix of charisma and mania, while Harrison expertly crafts a wounded-but-headstrong heroine who becomes a thrill to root for as she attempts to outsmart her mercurial captor.

It’s not reinventing the wheel, but Dangerous Animals is a breathlessly fun diversion out to the terrifying ocean, well worth seeing on the big screen, as Mitch recounts, “The vibe in the cinema was absolutely electric—people cheering, groaning, moaning, hooting and hollering. Applause erupted multiple times.” GF

It Was Just an Accident

Written and directed by Jafar Panahi

Over two decades stood between the last time Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi walked the Cannes red carpet with his Un Certain Regard-winning thriller Crimson Gold and now, as the Palme d’Or winner for It Was Just an Accident. Within that time, the filmmaker was persecuted by his home country, convicted of “propaganda against the state” of Iran, repeatedly imprisoned, and banned from filmmaking for twenty years. The latter has, of course, not stopped Panahi, who has made some of his greatest films within this period, including Taxi and This Is Not a Film. It Was Just an Accident, like many of Panahi’s work, delves into the devastating consequences of the regime. While the filmmaker doesn’t step in front of the camera this time around, the picture feels perhaps his most personal, a searingly vulnerable look into how injustice feeds anger that feeds vengeance that feeds guilt.

On the surface, this is the story of the titular simple accident. A father runs over a dog; the dead animal kills the engine; the father heads to a mechanic; there he meets a man whose darkest nightmares have been scored to his voice. What follows is part thriller, part absurdist comedy, leading to the greatest end scene of the year so far. It’s a film of high stakes, with Enzo, Nicolas, and more calling it a “masterpiece,” and Julian aptly pointing out its central question: “Can we move on from atrocities perpetrated by those on the other side of the blindfold, and is it even worthwhile if that means finding oneself embracing that other side to do so?” RSR

Lucky Lu

Written and directed by Lloyd Lee Choi

If there was ever proof that cinema really is timeless, look no further than Lucky Lu, Lloyd Lee Choi’s slice of American neorealism which updates Bicycle Thieves for the age of Uber Eats. Chang Chen stars as the titular Lu, a New York transplant making ends meet as a food delivery driver. On one fateful shift, his bike is stolen at the worst imaginable time: on the day his wife and young daughter are flying in to him after years apart. A cruel East Coast winter feels even colder in this film, where towering buildings don’t signal opportunity so much as they indicate how low in the capitalist hierarchy Lu finds himself.

Despite how unrelentingly bleak Lucky Lu might be, it’s never lacking in comion for the protagonist’s struggle. A powerfully restrained Chen plays Lu as stoic and stone-faced until the cracks show, and Alejandro praises the actor for “carrying the weight of quiet turmoil and endless obstacles with gripping intensity.” As the story of a first generation immigrant, several were struck by how closely the film mirrored their own histories, while Andy had his own singular viewing experience: “I can’t count how many times I muttered ‘that sucksss,’” he says of watching Lu’s tumultuous journey. Lu isn’t so lucky after all. IM

My Father’s Shadow

Directed by Akinola Davies Jr.
Written by Davies Jr. and Wale Davies

This year has brought quite the crop of high-profile feature debuts to Cannes, from Kristen Stewart’s kaleidoscopic The Chronology of Water to Harris Dickinson’s politically sharp Urchin, but very few other first outings have proved as unanimous as Akinola Davies Jr.’s beautifully layered, often heartbreaking Un Certain Regard entry My Father’s Shadow—the first-ever Nigerian film to feature in Official Selection at Cannes. The director, who wrote the screenplay with brother Wale, casts real-life brothers Godwin and Chibuike Marvellous Egbo as Akin and Remi, two young boys elated to be reunited with distant father Fola (a stunner of a performance by Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù) after months of separation.

The kids are even more thrilled to hear their dad is planning a day trip to Lagos, the three setting off on a journey of great mishaps but even greater teachings. In My Father’s Shadow, Davies Jr. captures the labyrinthine Nigerian capital through the eyes of the two boys who, in the space of a day, come to understand their dad as a full human being—perfect and flawed and theirs. Letterboxd have fallen in love with this tender portrayal of family, with Douglas calling it “a winding, wondrous film about what it’s like to never know someone, but for that person to spend their life in search of your safety and happiness” and Lillie praising the film’s tangible sense of place and time, noting “to see the world through the eyes of another is one of the greatest gifts of being alive.” RSR

The rest of the film stays with Nino over the next three days as he meanders through Paris, crashing alternately with his mom, his friends and a new crush as he reckons with his diagnosis. Setting a movie about cancer in the days immediately before the character begins treatment is Locquès’ masterstroke, and it sets Nino apart from other stories on the topic; right before the shape of Nino’s life changes completely, the audience is with him as he undergoes the psychological transformation that precedes the physical, as he is forced to consider his mortality for the first time.

Locquès wrings moments of staggering beauty out of Nino’s interactions with his friends, as he gently opens himself up to reconnection; he helps his friend with fertility injections in the bathroom at a party, and has a charmingly hilarious non-physical sexual encounter with his crush later in the film; both are shot with a fly-on-the-wall softness by Locquès. Though it’s working on a small scale, Nino is “captivating, gentle,” writes Alissane, “a surge of vitality even as death comes knocking.” GF

Pillion

Written and directed by Harry Lighton

Harry Lighton’s adaptation of the novel Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones is a slick, smart and surprisingly heartfelt exploration of sub-dom relationships, with Harry Melling delivering a brave, affecting performance as Colin, a shy young man taken on as a submissive by an astoundingly handsome and assertive biker (Alexander Skarsgård). Throughout Pillion, their dynamic ranges from awkward to painful to sweet, with Lighton’s concise, intelligent script—winner of the Un Certain Regard Best Screenplay award—closely examining the quiet emancipation of a young man learning how to safely and proudly express his kinks and desires.

The nuance with which Lighton explores a BDSM relationship on-screen is remarkable, as TakeTheCannolis writes, “Nothing makes the audience cheer like kink and graphic sex used lovingly and without judgement to explore desire and identity.” Melling, meanwhile, expertly guides viewers through Colin’s kaleidoscope of emotions as he tests out what brings him pleasure, and quickly learns what doesn’t, with some of the film’s most cathartic moments arising as Colin discovers what asserting power as a sub might look like. “The film is a gay fever dream: raw and carnal,” Ali writes. “Filmmaking that still dares to seduce, to wound, and to tell the truth.” GF

Prepare yourself: this is a transportive experience. “I’d watch this again tonight, if only to be reminded how alive cinema still is,” Laura writes. “I don’t know where I went, but I’m not back yet.” Vojta concurs in a glowing five-star review, adding that “watching Resurrection means dreaming with your eyes open.” Aly even suggests the optimal conditions for a film like this: “I think the ideal watching experience of this would require two Celsius energy drinks and a hefty edible.” Sounds like a plan. IM

The Secret Agent

Written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho

Letterboxd member Kleber Mendonça Filho brought the carnival of Recife to the Cannes red carpet for the world premiere of his third feature to play in competition at the festival, a deliciously tropical take on the classic political thriller, The Secret Agent. The film—which entered a select club of those to win two awards at the festival, earning Filho a Best Director prize and star Wagner Moura Best Actor—trails Moura’s Marcelo as he arrives back in his hometown in the northeast, leaving behind a tumultuous season farther down south. This undefinable ride begins as a mystery and unfolds as something murkier, full of many pleasures, with Filho harnessing his cinephilia to build an homage not only to those unlawfully persecuted during Brazil’s nefarious military dictatorship but to the auteurs that helped provide the young director with a safe space as a child living through those years.

Our mighty Brazilian contingent on Letterboxd has gathered to one of their own with great force, with Lorenna highlighting how Filho has “a capacity to understand movie genre conventions, reinvent the tropes, emulate the iconography of Hollywood and put a ‘sugar on it’ or a Brazilian flavor,” and Michel echoing that by saying The Secret Agent “has the air of a ’70s American thriller with a Recife flavor that makes for a perfect connection between Hollywood and Brazil.” Shot in stunning anamorphic Panavision, this is one to be seen big, and luckily for us all, it has been snapped by NEON for the US, MUBI for the UK, and by many other major distributors worldwide. RSR

Sirât

Written and directed by Oliver Laxe

It starts at a rave in the Moroccan desert, bodies writhing between waves of pulsing bass, kicking up dust as the sun beats down. Their faces scarred and sunburned, some of them missing limbs, these people dance as if destined to do so until they drop. In Islamic eschatology, we’re told, the word “sirât” refers to a bridge—thinner than a hair and sharper than a sword—that connects heaven and hell, and that purgatorial place between ecstasy and agony is one that revelers in this scorching, remote expanse seem all too eager to reach. Into this desert daze wanders Luis (Sergi López) and his son Esteban (Bruno Nuñez), searching for his daughter, from whom they haven’t heard in months. As the military arrives, warning of a global crisis, father and son impulsively travel deeper into the desert, where another rave is to be held.

From there, Oliver Laxe’s fever dream of a fourth feature—which split Cannes’ third-place jury prize with Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling—twists and turns like a snake over coals, pushing its characters past points of no return, through transcendent respites and shattering tragedy, even as Laxe retains mesmerizing control over the odyssey’s metaphysical tone. It’s “Hit the Road meets Sorcerer, set to an ambiently throbbing, washed-out, psychedelic rave score that lends the gut-punches an existential dread and the humor a pitch-black tone,” writes Luke. One of the first competition titles to premiere, Sirât floored Cannes audiences sensorially and psychologically; per Brother Bro, the film hits like “an existential shotgun to the chest,” while Dima calls it “the best bad trip ever.” IF

Urchin

Written and directed by Harris Dickinson

The vibe across the Letterboxd reviews of Urchin circles a combination of iration and playful ire, to the tune of “how is Harris Dickinson so good at everything?” But as the dust settles over the Babygirl actor’s directorial debut, I think the film’s profound creativity and stark emotional truth will outlive its maker’s star power. That comes in large part from Dickinson’s lead (a shrewd move to not rely on his own proven talent to carry this thing) Frank Dillane, who won Best Performance in this year’s Un Certain Regard sidebar in Cannes. Playing rough sleeper Mike in Dickinson’s story of the inescapable cyclical nature of self-destruction and societal failure, Dillane delivers an incendiary breakout performance wise beyond his years, that leaves an impact not a million miles away from Frankie Corio’s major arrival on the Croisette with Aftersun a few years back.

Zachary calls Dillane “radiant” in Urchin, writing, “A testament to how actor and director are in lock step is in the ways the camera will linger on him for a bit too long for comfort before transitioning into the next moment—Dillane’s performance is less about acting, more about being.” The Mike Leigh (and Ken Loach, and Sean Baker) comparisons are ripe, but the way this thing moves speaks to a freshness and courage that only comes from this specific generation of filmmaking, and societal injustice, that we’re living through. I’m on the same page as Jente: “Gorgeous and ugly and harsh and tender, somewhere on a new plane between realism and the surreal.” It’s the singular, innovative work of a cinephile who’s been waiting years to show us what he could do. EK