Since no one has seen a frame yet from most films at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, it’s extra hard to predict which films can win the Palme d’Or and the future Oscar buzz that goes with it. However, recent history has made most predict “Sentimental Value” by default, if only because it is from a studio in NEON that has won the last five Palme d’Or prizes. But maybe that makes “Sentimental Value” an overvalued kind of pick – especially since, unlike its predecessors, most everyone sees this one coming.
When “Parasite,” “Titane,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” and “Anora” won at the last five Cannes Film Festivals, they were all underdogs or under the radar in some way. But since “Sentimental Value” has the kind of early bullseye none of these winners had before their Cannes premieres, something about that might make a sixth straight NEON Cannes win feel like fool’s gold.
It all started with “Parasite” in 2019, which was a highly anticipated movie even back then, from director Bong Joon Ho, who was already a big deal in many circles. Still, absolutely no one could have foreseen in May 2019 that “Parasite” would not only win the Palme d’Or but also become the first Cannes winner in 60+ years to win the Oscars. Between that and being the first foreign language Oscar Best Picture winner, “Parasite” was the kind of phenomenon no one predicted to be at Cannes or anywhere else.
In a smaller way, “Titane” defied all precedent as well when it won in 2021. It was one thing for a class satire/black comedy/tragedy like “Parasite” to break all rules and traditions at Cannes and elsewhere. But it was quite another to award a body horror film involving car sex, mistaken identity, and a woman with a titanium plate in her head pretending to be a grieving man’s son. One could give it an asterisk since it was a pandemic year, the first year Cannes returned after canceling the 2020 festival, and a year where “Titane” didn’t win anything else after Cannes anyway. Even so, it still counted as NEON’s second straight Palme d’Or win that no one saw coming.
The third straight Cannes win for NEON may not have been as shocking, given that “Triangle of Sadness” writer/director Ruben Ostlund was already a past Cannes winner. The manner of “Triangle of Sadness’s” win in 2022 was more startling since it was far from the most acclaimed and highest-scoring film at the festival. Yet throughout that entire season, “Triangle of Sadness” overcame a fair share of detractors and backlash to stake its place at the Oscars, and it started by overcoming that first wave of detractors and backlash at Cannes in a way “Parasite” and “Titane” never had to do.
Things were different a year later in more ways than one since “Anatomy of a Fall” and director/co-writer Justine Triet wasn’t on anyone’s radar, at least not in the way Joon Ho and Ostlund were before their victorious films premiered. Yet in a year where most of the early Cannes hype was on films like “The Zone of Interest” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a multi-language courtroom drama that involved 50 Cent music, the most intense martial fight scene since “Marriage Story,” and a death that remained unsolved right to the end stole the spotlight, the Palme d’Or, and an eventual Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay several months later.
Triet and her film may have snuck up on everyone in 2023, but NEON’s fifth straight Palme d’Or winner in 2024 was another matter. Though much like with “Parasite,” no one really expected “Anora” to be such a huge leap for its acclaimed auteur writer/director, let alone an Oscar sweeper that made Sean Baker the biggest single-season Oscar winner of all time. Like Joon Ho, Ostlund, and Triet, Baker crossed over from indie success to Oscar contender/winner in a way no one expected before Cannes or even after Cannes at that.
If anything, this is perhaps the biggest factor that now separates “Sentimental Value” writer/director Joachim Trier from past NEON Cannes winners. While Oscar season success felt like a pipe dream for the likes of Joon Ho, Triet, Baker, and Ostlund before Cannes, it is somewhat expected for someone like Trier, who already broke through as an Oscar nominee for “The Worst Person in the World” in 2021. That film also competed at Cannes but lost to “Titane,” which is yet another reason pundits expect Trier to take the next step with “Sentimental Value” this year.
After “The Worst Person in the World” squeezed into the Best Original Screenplay field in 2021, experts fully predict that “Sentimental Value” will go a step further if it does meet expectations at Cannes. Unlike “Parasite,” “Titane,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” and “Anora,” Oscar pundits are fully prepared to put “Sentimental Value” in their early major Oscar fields even before it screens. Indeed, after “The Worst Person in the World” couldn’t get in for Best Picture, get Trier in for Best Director, or get Renate Reinsve in for Best Actress, prognosticators will be ready to put them all in this time if they win big at Cannes this time.
Still, that is not how “Parasite,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” or “Anora” started out at the very beginning of their Cannes to Oscar pipelines. If the magic formula for NEON has been to sneak up on Cannes audiences and voters before winning big there and at the Oscars, are they setting themselves up to finally fail if everyone can see them and “Sentimental Value” coming this time? And after five straight Cannes Film Festivals where a NEON film came in as the underdog or undervalued in some way, will it start out as the all too easy favorite, or will it work against it this time?
“Sentimental Value” technically isn’t NEON’s only play, as it is also offering “Titane” director Julia Ducournau’s newest film in “Alpha.” Maybe the big twist this time is that Ducournau will stun everyone again and keep NEON’s winning streak going that way, especially after Cannes’ appetite for body horror grew even larger with “The Substance” last year. But on the chance Ducournau can’t make lightning strike twice herself, will NEON putting most of its chips on Trier pay off as expected instead?
Maybe after five straight wins, NEON has to be due to lose at some point, even if “Sentimental Value” isn’t a creative disappointment. For all anyone knows, it’s another non-NEON film’s turn to come from nowhere and make its auteur director the kind of awards season contender they weren’t expected to be. That could apply to Lynne Ramsey for “Die, My Love,” Kelly Reichardt for “The Mastermind,” Mascha Schilinski for “Sound of Falling,” Oliver Hermanus for “The History of Sound,” Ari Aster for “Eddington,” or even a past Oscar nominee roaring back like Wes Anderson for “The Phoenician Scheme” or Richard Linklater for “New Wave.” Or maybe a complete newcomer outside of NEON and everyone else’s eye thus far will surprise Cannes and shake up the season to come.
Usually, NEON has used that formula to win at Cannes, but it seems it can’t rely on that in 2025. Of course, after winning five straight Palme d’Or awards, it would be impossible by now for any NEON Cannes film to really surprise anyone. Perhaps at this point, the biggest surprise would be if there was no real surprise, and “Sentimental Value” indeed just did what everyone expects it to do and keep NEON’s perfect Cannes 2020s record intact. But if this is finally the year for it to lose, maybe “Sentimental Value’s” value really did sound too good, or too easy, to be true after all.
What is your early prediction to win the Palme d’Or this year? Do you think NEON will win again with “Sentimental Value,” “Alpha” or something else entirely? 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
