The 2025 Cannes Film Festival started a bit slow but ended with a few bangs from the big screen and from the jury. Now, as a summer-long countdown to the next round of festivals begins, we have more than enough time to sort through the lessons and potential ripples from this one. For this moment in time, here are the biggest twists, outcomes, and possible paths forward that Cannes 2025 has revealed.
The Most Likely Outcome Came To Pass – Mostly
As everyone predicted before Cannes had started, NEON indeed walked away with its sixth consecutive Palme d’Or winning film. As everyone also predicted before Cannes had started, NEON and Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” was indeed the heavy favorite to win as one of the last two films standing. But what everyone didn’t expect was NEON acquisition “It Was Just An Accident” and Iranian master director Jafar Panahi keeping NEON’s winning streak alive instead at the very end.
As such, whereas everyone would have immediately put “Sentimental Value” into their Oscar Best Picture fields if it won the Palme, “It Was Just An Accident” will likely not garner that kind of benefit of the doubt. Nonetheless, even if “It Was Just An Accident” goes the way of “Titane” as a NEON Cannes winner that is shut out the rest of the season, it still did exactly what NEON bought it to do on Cannes awards night – regardless of what comes later.
The “Brazilian Army” Has Its Next Mission
By the end of last season, Brazil was celebrated in more ways than one for powering “I’m Still Here” to a Best International Film Oscar, a Best Picture nomination, and a Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Torres. But as much as so many in America were shocked at Brazil’s voting power last year, they will not be caught off guard this year – especially after “The Secret Agent” won both Best Director and Best Actor prizes at Cannes.
Ironically, this Brazilian film is starting out almost exactly how Brazil’s former arch-nemesis “Emilia Pérez” did last year, with two Cannes awards, including an acting win. Of course, Best Actor winner Wagner Moura didn’t have to split an acting prize with three other people, while Best Director winner Kleber Mendonca Filho surely won’t face the kind of cultural appropriation backlash that Jacques Audiard did.
Given that NEON might also have “Sentimental Value” and “It Was Just An Accident” up for Best International Feature, the “Brazilian army” may have a more challenging task ahead than they did in taking down the much less acclaimed or online-friendly “Emilia Pérez” last year – and Moura’s popularity in Brazil likely isn’t on a Torres level of fandom yet. Even so, no one will let themselves be surprised by any show of Brazilian might this time.
The Jennifer Lawrence = Demi Moore Narratives Are Alive But Shaky
As soon as MUBI bought “Die, My Love” after Jennifer Lawrence’s rave reviews and immediate award season buzz came out, it was all too easy to remember what MUBI did with another Cannes “comeback” vehicle a year ago and beyond. Although Demi Moore’s comeback in “The Substance” came around under far different circumstances, and although Lawrence was just in a Best Picture nominee four years ago, there are some comparisons to be made.
Both were anointed by Hollywood at a young age, only to be targeted and taken down just as quickly. Both went many years before headlining a worthy film again, and both launched “comebacks” at Cannes under female auteurs, pushing them to the depths of wild yet tragically relatable madness. Therefore, once MUBI flocked to Lawrence and Lynne Ramsay’s graphic parable of postpartum depression as it did for Moore and Coraline Fargeat’s graphic parable of beauty and aging, the narratives began to write themselves.
However, the Cannes jury put a wrench into that parallel – not by failing to award Lawrence for Best Actress, which Moore didn’t even pull off, but by not honoring “Die, My Love” anywhere else. Once “The Substance” won Best Screenplay at Cannes and cemented itself as something more formidable than a mere Moore body horror vehicle, it had legitimacy right from the start. But without such Cannes validation, “Die, My Love” and the MUBI team will have to start at a disadvantage this year.
There Were No “Emilia Pérez” Or “Triangle Of Sadness” Level Cannes Winners
Maybe if this was a year like 2024, “Die, My Love” could have overcome having good but not great reviews to win something. Yet, for whatever reason, movies with highly divisive reactions and scores like “Emilia Pérez” or the 2022 winner “Triangle of Sadness” did not have a jury so willing to ignore outside backlash.
For about the first week or so, there weren’t many high-scoring, rave-reviewed films in competition to speak of, except for eventual co-Jury Prize winners “Sound of Falling” and “Sirat.” But by the end, films with equal if not higher scores like “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value,” “It Was Just An Accident,” “Resurrection,” and “The Young Mother’s Home” boosted the field and then swept all its awards. Even when a more mixed reviewed film like “The Little Sister” won something, it wasn’t for the movie itself but for far more praised Best Actress winner Nadia Melliti.
All told, even if not everyone agreed with what won or what got which award, the vast majority seemed to agree that Cannes’ cream of the crop rose to the top this year – which doesn’t always happen.
This Will Not Be A 2023 Or 2024 Kind Of Post-Cannes Awards Season
On the flip side, despite how the most acclaimed films all won something at Cannes, few seem to be confident that they’ll keep winning – not like the biggest Cannes winners of 2023 and 2024.
Until “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value,” “It Was Just An Accident,” and others came along in the second week, there was anxiety that this Cannes field wasn’t delivering the same level of future Oscar contenders we’ve been spoiled with the last two years. Even now, it’s not easy to make a case that one or two future Best Picture nominees could premiere here – let alone the three Cannes launched each year in 2023 and 2024.
In 2023, six eventual Best Picture nominees were first screened before the fall festivals, while 2024 unveiled four before then. Yet in 2025, with only “Sinners” and maybe two or three Cannes films with a real Best Picture campaign ahead to speak of now, the Best Picture lineup looks more wide open going into fall than it has been in a while.
The Fall Festivals Are Now On The Clock – And More Important Than Ever
For the moment, hopes that a Cannes film can do what “Anora” and “Parasite” did are very slim. Between that, Sundance seemingly not launching a “CODA“-like contender, and “Sinners” probably not being an “Everything Everywhere All at Once” or “Oppenheimer” level of early box office hit turned awards phenomenon yet, the fall festivals at Venice, Toronto, Telluride, and New York are going to have to pick up the slack big time.
Not counting the 2020 pandemic year, when “Nomadland” won it all after virtual premieres at Venice, no Best Picture winner premiered at any of the fall festivals in a normal year since “Green Book,” of all films, did it from TIFF in 2018. But if Venice, TIFF, NYFF, or Telluride want to finally fix that, this looks like the best opportunity they’ve had yet.
Barring something like “One Battle After Another,” “Wicked: For Good,” or “Avatar: Fire and Ash” becoming a frontrunner without a festival premiere, the fall festivals may make or break the Best Picture race once again – and we have three long months of waiting to figure out how.
What were your takeaways from this year’s Cannes Film Festival? How do you feel it helped shape the Oscar race this early in the season? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
