Cannes Film Festival 2025: Line-up includes directing debuts from Scarlett Johansson, Harris Dickinson

Scarlett Johansson will premiere her feature directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.
The film stars June Squibb as a 90-year-old woman from Florida who becomes friends with a 19-year-old student. It also stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jessica Hecht.
Johansson, who had previously directed a short in 2009 and a concert film in 2015, will screen her movie in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival.
Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.British actor Harris Dickinson will also premiere his first directed feature, Urchin, about a drifter on the margins of society, in the Un Certain Regard section. Dickinson, who also wrote the screenplay, has had a meteoric rise since 2021 having starred in the likes of Babygirl, The King’s Man and Triangle of Sadness.
Cannes’ 2025 line-up is an impressive mix of globally renowned auteur filmmakers such as Wes Anderson, Kelly Reichardt and the Dardenne brothers in the official competition as well as big names such as Spike Lee and Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning.
The festival, head annually in the south of France in May, is a favourite launching pad for international filmmakers and Hollywood studios. A premiere at Cannes comes with cache and winners of its top prize, the Palme d’Or, gain global attention.
Last year’s Palme d’Or honouree, Anora, went on to claim the Oscar best picture. Parasite, the 2019 South Korean social satire also started its zeitgeist dominance by winning the Palme d’Or.
Among the onscreen talent who might be expected to walk this year’s Cannes red carpet in support on their film are Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Benicio Del Toro, Benedict Cumberbatch, Joaquin Phoenix, Josh O’Connor, Paul Mescal, Emma Stone, Gael Garcia Bernal, Alexander Skarsgard, Jodie Foster, Nicholas Braun and Isabelle Huppert.
Robert De Niro will be awarded an honorary Palme d’Or and Juliette Binoche is leading the competition jury.
Australian filmmaker Andrew Dominik (Blonde, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Chopper) will premiere music doco Bono: Stories of Surrender at a special screening at the festival.
OFFICIAL COMPETITION
Alpha - Julia Ducournau
Dossier 137 - Dominik Moll
The Eagles of the Republic - Tarik Saleh
Eddington – Ari Aster
Fuori – Mario Martone
The History of Sound – Oliver Hermanus
La Petite Derniere – Hafsia Herzi
The Mastermind – Kelly Reichardt
Nouvelle Vague – Richard Linklater
The Phoenician Scheme – Wes Anderson
Renoir – Chie Hayakawa
Romeria – Carla Simone
The Secret Agent – Kleber Mendonca Filho
Sentimental Value – Joachim Trier
A Simple Accident – Jafar Panahi
Sirat – Oliver Laxe
Sound of Falling – Mascha Schilinksi
Two Prosecutors – Sergei Loznitsa
Young Mothers – Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
UN CERTAIN REGARD
Aisha Can’t Fly Away – Morad Mostafa
Eleanor the Great – Scarlett Johansson
Heads of Tails? – Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis
Homebound – Neeraj Ghaywan
Karavan – Zuzana Kirchnerova
L’inconnu de la Grande Arche – Stephane Demoustier
The Last One for the Road – Francesco Sossai
Meteors – Hubert Charuel
My Father’s Shadow – Akinola Davies Jr
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo – Diego Cespedes
Once Upon a Time in Gaza – Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser
A Pale View of the Hills – Kei Ishikawa
Pillion – Harry Lighton
The Plague – Charlie Polinger
Promised Sky – Erige Sehiri
Urchin – Harris Dickinson
OUT OF COMPETITION
Colours of Time – Cedric Klapisch
Highest 2 Lowest – Spike Lee
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning – Christopher McQuarrie
Partir un jour – Amelie Bonnin
The Richest Woman in the World – Thierry Klifa
Vie Privee – Rebecca Zlotowski
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Bono: Stories of Surrender – Andrew Dominik
The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol – Sylvain Chomet
Tell Her I Love Her – Romane Bohringer
MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
Dalloway – Yann Gozlan
Exit 8 – Kawamura Genki
Songs of the Neon Night – Juno Mak
CANNES PREMIERE
Amrum – Fatih Akin
Connemara – Alex Lutz
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele – Kirill Serebrennikov
Orwell: 2+2=5 – Raoul Peck
Splitsville – Michael Angelo Covino
The Wave – Sebastian Lelio