The 76th Cannes Film Festival gets underway this May and the Croisette is about to light up with glittering showcases of the finest international filmmaking. From Hollywood epics to arthouse gems, here are the movies you need to know about.
1. Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese's mammoth new drama (it's nearly four hours long) is screening out of competition at Cannes. It adapts David Grann's horribly compelling book of the same name, a chilling account of the systematic elimination of the oil-rich Osage Nation tribe in Oklahoma, and the conspiracy hovering behind the killings.
The grandiose cast includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro, Brendan Fraser, Jesse Plemons and John Lithgow. It's safe to say we're keeping an eye on Killers of the Flower Moon ahead of its theatrical release this October.
2. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Steven Spielberg is out, director James Mangold is in for the fifth (and possibly final?) Indiana Jones adventure. The movie is screening out of competition at Cannes and is ready to inject some popcorn levity into the highfalutin' arthouse surroundings.
Now upwards of 80, Harrison Ford is back in the hat and jacket and cracking the whip as archaeologist-adventurer Indiana Jones. He now finds himself washed up in the 1960s American space race, but a latent Nazi conspiracy brings Indy into contact with old enemy Voller (Mads Mikkelsen). Fortunately, Indy has an assist from goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) who has seemingly picked up his contradictory thieving/preservation philosophy.
Will Ford go out with a bang to the sound of John Williams' reliably rousing soundtrack? Here's hoping. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is released on June 30th.
3. Asteroid City
There's no mistaking a Wes Anderson movie. From crash zooms to whip-pans, static tableaux to intentionally artificial backdrops, his offbeat movies blur the lines between live-action and animation. His latest, Asteroid City, continues the trend and boasts a veritable constellation of A-list stars ready to get their quirk on.
Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton and Adrien Brody are just some of the big names in this story of a high school star-gazing trip gone awry. Both the parents and the kids are as eccentric as each other in Anderson's first America-set film since 2012's Moonrise Kingdom. Asteroid City hits the UK on June 23rd.
4. The Zone of Interest
The elusive and brilliant Jonathan Glazer presents his first movie since 2013's astonishing sci-fi oddity Under the Skin. Relatively little is known about the British helmer's latest, save that it's set in a Nazi concentration camp and revolves around the love affair between an officer and the wife of the camp commandant.
It sounds typically provocative and challenging, something at which the mercurial Glazer excels. His prior films, including Sexy Beast and Birth, as well as Under the Skin, have challenged our emotional preconceptions so we await his latest with bated breath.
5. Strange Way of Life
Spain's leading filmmaker Pedro Almodovar is famous for painting in bold colours, both literal and physical. The acclaimed helmer of Euro arthouse hits including All About My Mother is back with a new Western-themed short movie, Strange Way of Life.
The Black Phone's Ethan Hawke appears opposite The Last Of Us' Pedro Pascal for a story of two old friends who reconnect after 25 years apart. Almodovar revealed in a statement that the film’s title "alludes to the famous fado by Amalia Rodrigues, whose lyrics suggest that there is no stranger existence than the one that is lived by turning your back on your own desires."
6. Occupied City
Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen now turns his hand to documentary filmmaking. Occupied City explores the trials and tribulations of Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, McQueen adapting his wife Bianca Stigter's illustrated book Atlas of an Occupied City, Amsterdam 1940-1945.
“Living in Amsterdam is like living with spirits," McQueen says. "It looks like there are two parallel worlds. The past is always present.”
7. The New Boy
TÁR star Cate Blanchett promises to burn up the screen again in this Australian drama from director Warwick Thornton. The director's movie Sweet Country was released to much acclaim in 2017 and expectations are high for this follow-up in which a young Aboriginal boy winds up at a remote monastery presided over by Blanchett's nun.
8. Monster
We recently screened Hirokazu Kore-eda's bittersweet drama Broker for Unlimited members, and it went down a treat with fans of the empathetic, sensitive filmmaker. Now, the acclaimed helmer, whose critical hits have also included Shoplifters and I Wish, is said to be invoking Akira Kurosawa's classic puzzle-box thriller Rashomon in his latest offering Monster, which unspools an event from three different perspectives.
Monster is playing as part of the Official Selection strand at Cannes and is the final film scored by the revered Ryuichi Sakamoto who passed away at the end of March.
9. The Last Oak
The uncompromising Ken Loach once again takes the hatchet to contemporary British life. The Last Oak explores a rapidly-vanishing institution, the local village pub, while also acting as a cross-section of the Syrian migrant experience.
10. May December
Acclaimed director Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine; Far From Heaven) reunites with his regular collaborator, Oscar-winner Julianne Moore. She plays one half of a once-notorious celebrity tabloid couple whose past comes hoving back into view when an actress (Natalie Portman) arrives on the scene with the aim of playing Moore's character in a movie.
The 2023 Cannes Film Festival runs from May 16th to May 27th, so tweet us @Cineworld with the movies you're most excited about.
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