Preview, round-ups and reports
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Cannes ups its game: the 2018 programme isn’t resting on any laurels
With innovation and discoveries the promise at a decidedly not on-demand festival, Cannes seems to have decided to burnish its leadership credentials, says Nick Roddick.
Monday 16 April 2018 -
Sinners and saviours at Cannes 2018: a late-midway round-up
The festival is quieter in the wake of Weinstein, but the Competition films have come out punching – not least Spike Lee’s potent race satire BlacKkKlansman, reports Nick James.
Wednesday 16 May 2018 -
Cannes Film Festival awards 2018: read our reviews of the winning films
Koreeda Hirokazu’s Shoplifters won 2018’s Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or – leaving Lee Chang-dong’s equally loved Burning empty-handed. Read all of our reviews of the award-winners here.
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What should have won Cannes 2018’s Palme d’Or?
This year there were at least eight great candidates for the prize, says Nick James.
Saturday 19 May 2018 -
Raze the red carpet: Cannes 2018 responds to #MeToo
To the #TimesUp moment and the world after Weinstein, Cannes offered an anti-harrasment hotline – but mostly just ceded its platform to women themselves to make the change, says Rebecca Harrison.
Friday 18 May 2018 -
The best short films at Cannes 2018
The shorts selections in the Competition, Cinefondation, Quinzaine and Semaine offered up miniature marvels that sometimes exhibited more craft in a matter of minutes than some visionaries were able to realise in a much meatier runtime, report Catherine Bray and Jake Cunningham.
Thursday 24 May 2018 -
3 days in Cannes – and one step on the festival’s ladder
The Cannes Film Festival can seem like cinema’s impregnable citadel on a hill – but one of its modernising initiatives for 2018 was a special final-weekend pass for budding young cinephiles, 3 Days in Cannes. Naomi Obeng joined the raid.
Friday 25 May 2018
Reviews – in some kind of preferential order
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Burning first look: Lee Chang-dong’s film sets a noirish love triangle alight
Lee Chang-dong’s masterful and unclassifiable follow-up to Poetry teems with ambiguity, inevitability and sublime mystery, says Jessica Kiang.
Friday 18 May 2018 -
Dead Souls first look: Wang Bing meets the survivors of Mao’s Anti-Rightist purge
Wang Bing’s harrowing, eight-hour documentary explores a long suppressed, and utterly horrific, chapter of China’s history, writes Giovanni Marchini Camia.
Saturday 12 May 2018 -
Girl first look: a touching portrait of a transgender ballet dancer
Lukas Dhont’s debut feature is a breathtakingly empathetic tale of a young woman struggling to be at peace in her body, with a breakout performance from Victor Polster, writes Katherine McLaughlin.
Tuesday 15 May 2018 -
Cold War first look: Pawel Pawlikowski’s seductive tale of love in an age of borders
Shot in gorgeous monochrome, the latest film from the Polish director centres on a whirlwind romance between two musicians in a divided post-war Europe, says Nick James.
Friday 11 May 2018 -
Shoplifters first look: a wonky family lament that weaponises Koreeda’s compassion
Japanese master Koreeda Hirokazu steals up on our feelings with a subtly, furiously humane analysis of his perennial theme – family, here at its most impromptu and vulnerable, writes Jessica Kiang.
Tuesday 15 May 2018 -
Ash Is Purest White first look: Jia Zhangke’s magisterial mob critique
Jia Zhangke explores the masculine codes of his previous work in this ravishing, self-referential film about a woman in love with a mobster, with an astonishing lead performance from Zhao Tao, writes Giovanni Marchini Camia.
Sunday 13 May 2018 -
The Wild Pear Tree first look: Nuri Bilge Ceylan contemplates a restive rural homecoming
Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest follows a would-be writer’s reluctant return to his small-town fold, spinning an extensive series of conversational encounters into a typically rich, wry, melancholic mood-piece, says Geoff Andrew.
Friday 18 May 2018 -
Capernaüm first look: a potent indictment of a 12-year-old’s scraps of life
Salvation is barely a twinkle in the eye of pre-teen scrabbler Zain, driven to sue his parents for bringing him in to a life of destitution in Nadine Labaki’s furious, tumultuous Lebanese drama, writes Caspar Salmon.
Saturday 19 May 2018 -
Birds of Passage first look: gang warfare in the desert
The crime saga is reimagined in the tribal lands of north Colombia in this vivid, distinctive film from the makers of Embrace of the Serpent, writes Christina Newland.
Thursday 10 May 2018 -
Sauvage first look: a young man’s wild quest for love
Félix Maritaud pulls out the stops as a gay sex worker diving for a deeper connection in Camille Vidal-Naquet’s fulsomely passionate and explicit feature debut, writes Elena Lazic.
Sunday 13 May 2018 -
Happy as Lazzaro first look: Alice Rohrwacher practises magic neorealism
Alice Rohrwacher follows The Wondera with a boldly unsentimental tale of a holy innocent, an inexplicable miracle and a tyrannous aristocrat, writes Geoff Andrew.
Tuesday 15 May 2018 -
Long Day’s Journey into Night first look: Bi Gan’s film follows its own woozy dream logic
The dream-like, noir-ish second film from the twenty-something Chinese director Bi Gan follows a solitary man as he attempts to track down a past lover.
Wednesday 23 May 2018 -
In My Room first look: Ulrich Köhler welcomes the apocalypse
A before-and-after-the-wipeout portrait of an alienated news cameraman who suddenly finds himself alone and thriving, Ulrich Köhler’s social critique is horrifying, hilarious and deeply humane, writes Giovanni Marchini Camia.
Thursday 24 May 2018 -
BlacKkKlansman first look: Spike Lee uncloaks America’s heart of darkness
Spike Lee’s raucous investigative satire of American white nationalism whoops up a true fairy tale of anti-racist swamp-draining – without obscuring the bigger picture of a bigotry that endures, says Sophie Monks Kaufman.
Thursday 17 May 2018 -
Asako I & II first look: a mournful drama out of quarter-life-crisis doubt
A lost lover haunts a young woman in Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s beguiling and mysterious follow-up to ensemble epic Happy Hour, writes Michael Leader.
Wednesday 16 May 2018 -
Dogman first look: Matteo Garrone’s film grits its teeth in the face of life’s savagings
Marcello Fonte won the Best Actor award at Cannes for his role as a big-hearted but beleagued dog sitter who tries to turn worm in Matteo Garrone’s gimlet-eyed Roman revenger. John Bleasdale reviews.
Saturday 19 May 2018 -
My Favourite Fabric first look: unwrapping women’s lives in the Arab Spring
This delicate Syrian drama revolves around a nuanced performance from Manal Issa as a young woman uneasy in her skin and yearning for a more satisfying life, writes Rebecca Harrison.
Wednesday 16 May 2018 -
Wildlife first look: Paul Dano’s film is a picture of suburban sorrow
A teenage boy watches his parents’ marriage crumble in Dano’s nuanced directorial debut, which features exemplary lead performances from Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal, writes Ella Kemp.
Saturday 12 May 2018 -
Sorry Angel first look: Christophe Honoré's novelistic tale of gay life in the 90s
Graceful, subtle, satisfying and emotionally complex, this is one of Honoré’s best films, with a standout performance from Vincent Lacoste, writes Jonathan Romney.
Saturday 12 May 2018 -
Petra first look: Jaime Rosales’s playful family tragedy
Spanish auteur Jaime Rosales softens his experimental edges a notch with a cerebral and darkly witty melodrama in which a truth-seeking artist meets her malicious nemesis, writes Michael Leader.
Sunday 13 May 2018 -
Diamantino first look: a sweetly bizarre fantasy mocking the cult of fame
Unconventional storytelling, adorable pets and topical references swell this affectionate yarn about a Cristiano Ronaldo-esque soccer star being co-opted into an anti-EU plot, writes Sophie Monks Kaufman.
Tuesday 15 May 2018 -
Gräns (Border) first look: Ali Abassi unleashes a dark Scandinavian folk fantasy
Border guard Tina has a powerful nose for trouble in this twisted combination of procedural crime drama and animalistic romance, writes Sophie Monks Kaufman.
Monday 14 May 2018 -
Climax first look: Gaspar Noé’s dance demonic
Noé’s breathtaking one-room dance film turns up the heat on a troupe of unfortunate wrap-night celebrants, says Ella Kemp.
Monday 21 May 2018 -
Little Tickles first look: an unflinching exploration of abuse and therapy
Andrea Bescond’s impressive debut feature about a dancer who seeks out a therapist to help her come to terms with childhood abuse is an ode to the restorative powers of the arts, writes Rebecca Harrison.
Wednesday 23 May 2018 -
Woman at War first look: can a guerrilla earth mother have it all?
Benedikt Erlingsson’s follow-up to Of Horses and Men mixes absurdist comedy and tense thriller, with Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir as an eco-justice warrior faced with the challenge of juggling protest responsibilities and foster motherhood, writes John Bleasdale.
Thursday 24 May 2018 -
A Violent Desire for Joy first look: a monk embraces the French revolutionary spirit
An 18th-century monk, played with intense fervour by Quentin Dolmaire, is excited by the radicalism of the age and the sensuality of nature in Clément Schneider’s potent first feature, writes Caspar Salmon.
Thursday 24 May 2018 -
Mandy first look: Nicolas Cage wreaks revenge at the fiery gates of hell
Panos Cosmatos’s follow-up to Beyond the Black Rainbow is a gloriously lurid mock-80s revenge quest that aims a raging, roaring Nicolas Cage at villains from another dimension, reports Katherine McLaughlin.
Thursday 24 May 2018 -
Rafiki first look: the risk-taking lesbian romance banned in Kenya
This fresh and courageous coming-out drama from Wanuri Kahiu deserves to be seen, especially in its home nation where, as the film shows, homophobia is rife, writes Amy Taubin.
Monday 14 May 2018 -
El Angel first look: hitching a ride on a teenage killing spree
Luis Ortega’s film doesn’t judge the horrible crimes of its baby-faced serial killer anithero, played by Lorenzo Ferro. Instead it’s a subversively funny and cool take on the crime movie, writes Christina Newland.
Tuesday 15 May 2018 -
Angel Face first look: Vanessa Filho opens a toxic, trashy mother-daughter bond
Marion Cotillard is outshone by her youthful co-star Ayline Aksoy-Etaix in this flawed but emotionally vibrant melodrama – a remarkable debut from Vanessa Filho, writes Ella Kemp.
Monday 14 May 2018 -
Under the Silver Lake first look: David Robert Mitchell casts a voyeur into pop’s hall of mirrors
Andrew Garfield’s overgrown fanboy cum sleuth loses his girl and then himself in David Robert Mitchell’s compromised but cult-ready follow-up to It Follows, says Michael Leader.
Monday 21 May 2018 -
Ayka (The Little One) first look: Sergey Dvortsevoy tracks a runaway new mother in wintry Moscow
Sergey Dvortsevoy’s long-awaited follow-up to Tulpan holds close to a hard-pressed Kyrgyzstani migrant ducking and diving in the Russian metropolis; it’s sincere and hard-wrought if cinematically routine, says Geoff Andrew.
Saturday 19 May 2018 -
Resting heavily on a powerful performance by Vincent Lindon, Stéphane Brizé’s follow-up to The Measure of a Man is another portrait of contemporary European labour relations that convinces more in the general than in the particular, says Geoff Andrew.
Friday 18 May 2018 -
Three Faces first look: Jafar Panahi takes a road trip to familiar ground
The Iranian director’s latest is both one of his most conventional films and an enjoyable return to elements from both his and Abbas Kiarostami’s back catalogue, writes Geoff Andrew.
Tuesday 15 May 2018 -
Everybody Knows first look: the bells toll for another of Asghar Farhadi’s fissured families
The Iranian director’s sojourn to Spanish wine country marks a change of scene if not of tack, with Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem leading a starry clockwork family whodunnit, says Nick James.
Thursday 10 May 2018 -
Donbass first look: both too much and too little about the war in Ukraine
Though Sergei Loznitsa’s episodic film has valuable moments of insight, it lacks the quiet openness found in his documentaries, as it veers wildly between drama and farce, writes James Lattimer.
Thursday 10 May 2018 -
Girls of the Sun first look: Eva Husson's Kurdish war drama drills home female victimhood
Eva Husson’s crudely didactic drama about Kurdish women fighting the Islamic State emphasises misogynist pain and degradation at every chance, says Christina Newland.
Friday 18 May 2018
Further reading
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