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

Headshot of Wenlei Ma
Wenlei Ma
The Nightly
Scarlett Johansson says she doesn't want fans asking her for photos when she's not working.
Scarlett Johansson says she doesn't want fans asking her for photos when she's not working. Credit: AAP

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.

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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

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