Croisette wish­es: 20 films we’d like to see at Cannes in 2023

Though at times over the past six months, it has felt like the end would nev­er come, the Oscars are final­ly put to bed, and thus we have a mer­ci­ful con­clu­sion to the ever-length­en­ing awards sea­son. And so we may now safe­ly redi­rect our focus to the next major date on the movie-lover’s cal­en­dar, the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. The offi­cial selec­tion won’t be announced until the sec­ond half of April, but we all need some­thing to keep our­selves occu­pied until then, so let the marathon of spec­u­la­tion begin!

Those with their ear to the ground can rough­ly sur­mise at least a hand­ful of the titles bound for glo­ry on the Croisette this year, based on knowl­edge of which direc­tors have an as-of-yet unseen film ready to go and who’s got a pri­or in with the selec­tion com­mit­tee. Below, we’ve put togeth­er a ten­ta­tive wish list of twen­ty films with the poten­tial to fill out the pro­gram at Cannes, along with rumi­na­tions on the like­li­hood of their mak­ing the cut. Those tak­en to bet­ting would do well to put all their mon­ey on Mar­ty. What are you hop­ing might make an appearence? Tweet us @LWLies.

Killers of the Flower Moon

He may be one of the most sig­nif­i­cant film­mak­ers on the face of the Earth, but Mar­tin Scors­ese isn’t real­ly a com­pet­i­tive type of guy, his last movie to jock­ey for the Palme d’Or being After Hours in 1986 (and even that was well after the pre­mière in Amer­i­can cin­e­mas the pre­vi­ous year). So there’s a guar­an­teed hub­bub to the all-but-con­firmed news that the first West­ern of his career and his first link-up with muse Leonar­do DiCaprio in ten years will also send Scors­ese back into the fray for the first time in decades. The prospect of Leo’s pres­ence on the red car­pet brings to mind the last Cannes debut with this lev­el of can’t‑miss excite­ment: 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hol­ly­wood, which parleyed its hype into a huge box-office gross and a wind­fall of Oscar nom­i­na­tions. Scorsese’s financiers at Apple sure­ly hope to take a sim­i­lar path, with a full the­atri­cal run planned for lat­er this year.

Aster­oid City

In 2021, The French Dis­patch returned the Man in Cor­duroy to the Croisette fol­low­ing berths at the Berli­nale for his last two films released since Moon­rise King­dom opened Cannes in 2012. His undoubt­ed­ly charm­ing ren­der­ing of a ​“Junior Stargaz­er” con­ven­tion in a South­west­ern desert town shak­en by hap­pen­ings of cos­mic pro­por­tions has pro­vid­ed pro­gram­ming head Thier­ry Fre­maux with his oth­er locked-in mar­quee title, bring­ing with it a slew of stars (of the actor­ly vari­ety, that is, includ­ing Wes Ander­son new­com­ers Mar­got Rob­bie and Tom Han­ks). Dis­trib­u­tor Focus has sched­uled the the­atri­cal engage­ment for Anderson’s lat­est into the ear­ly-sum­mer slot that pre­vi­ous­ly turned Moon­rise King­dom into a hit, meant to cap­i­tal­ize on the word-of-mouth that’ll begin in the Palais.

About Dry Grasses

As a past Palme win­ner, Turkey’s Nuri Bilge Cey­lan has an infor­mal stand­ing invi­ta­tion to return to Com­pe­ti­tion when­so­ev­er he pleas­es, a duly-earned priv­i­lege that he’s expect­ed to exer­cise with his first film since 2018’s The Wild Pear Tree. By the sound of it, he’s set his sights on anoth­er politi­cized para­ble, though this one has a time­li­ness his pri­mal, terse work often seems unin­ter­est­ed in: a young teacher has near­ly wrapped up his required stint in a far-flung Ana­to­lian vil­lage, but his long-await­ed trans­fer to the big time in Istan­bul falls into jeop­ardy when a pair of female stu­dents accuse him (cor­rect­ly? false­ly? who’s to say?) of sex­u­al harass­ment. Who among us could’ve pegged Cey­lan for a can­cel cul­ture guy?

May Decem­ber

Todd Haynes’s lat­est isn’t lit­er­al­ly a Mary Kay LeTourneau biopic, but it’s not not that, either. There’s some­thing awful­ly famil­iar about Julianne Moore play­ing a female edu­ca­tor who entered into a tabloid-besot­ted affair with an under­age Asian-Amer­i­can stu­dent (Charles Melton, sure­ly eager to sup­plant Hot Archie tele­vi­sion show Riverdale as the thing he’s best known for), though Haynes takes it in a nov­el direc­tion from there. Instead of detail­ing their scan­dalous affair, he joins the cou­ple twen­ty years after the fact, when an actress (Natal­ie Port­man) observes the cou­ple as research for a film dra­ma­tiz­ing their sto­ry and reveals the fault lines between them in the process. With three Com­pe­ti­tion show­ings to date, a pair of world-class movie stars, and a grab­by hook, Haynes is all but assured that a spot will be saved for him.

The Beast

French mas­ter Bertrand Bonel­lo has had an up-and-down rela­tion­ship with Cannes: Saint Lau­rent got him into Com­pe­ti­tion back in 2014, only for his incen­di­ary fol­low-up Noc­tura­ma to get snubbed out­right. (Rumor has it the con­tro­ver­sial sub­ject mat­ter of the sexy teen ter­ror­ist thriller scared pro­gram­mers off). Zom­bi Child returned him to the Croisette, albeit in the Direc­tors’ Fort­night side­bar, but then he brought his pan­dem­ic lock­down what­sit Coma to Berlin. His lat­est effort sounds big enough to get him back into the main slate, boast­ing a high­er-than-usu­al bud­get, a pair of bona fide stars in Léa Sey­doux and George MacK­ay, and an ambi­tious sci-fi syn­op­sis trac­ing a love sto­ry across one hun­dred and thir­ty years. It’s like the old say­ing goes: ​“If you want to get into Cannes, make sure Léa Sey­doux is in your movie.”

The Empire

Gal­lic main­stay Bruno Dumont shot a pret­ty out-there take on the sci-fi space opera this past sum­mer, which should put him in good stead for his fifth appear­ance in the Lumiere. The pre­em­i­nent poet of France’s north­ern shores has tak­en to the Opal Coast of Li’l Quin­quin once again, peer­ing in on a small fish­ing vil­lage that’s been des­ig­nat­ed as a field of com­bat for knights from king­doms on rival plan­ets. The offi­cial press release also makes men­tion of ​“the birth of Mar­gat, the resur­gent Prince, pur­ple and ugly, the Beast of the End­times,” so we can rest assured that Dumont’s off-kil­ter sense of humor and loosy-goosy rela­tion­ship with real­ism haven’t gone any­where. How far this inter­galac­tic scale reach­es has yet to be seen, how­ev­er; feels weird to pic­ture Dumont going all in on CGI.

Red Island

Robin Campil­lo earned a lot of new admir­ers in 2017, when his AIDS activism dra­ma 120 BPM (Beats Per Minute) took the sec­ond-place Grand Prix. Their patience will be reward­ed any day now, with Campillo’s Mada­gas­car-set com­ing-of-age pic­ture set for a 2023 debut. Cir­ca 1970, a ten-year-old boy lives with his fam­i­ly in one of the last French mil­i­tary bases abroad, cling­ing to the final ves­tiges of the colo­nial empire. The blind­ers will soon be drawn from his inno­cent eyes, how­ev­er, as he comes to real­ize his com­plic­i­ty in larg­er sys­tems of pow­er and con­trol. Sounds like an homage to ear­ly Claire Denis seen through a kid’s‑eye view, which is to say it sounds like some­thing attend­ing press will be eager to see.

Strange Way of Life

Cannes’ door will always be open to Pedro Almod­ó­var, even if he just wants to drop in to show off his lat­est short. After dip­ping his toe into Eng­lish-lan­guage work with 2020’s half-hour Til­da Swin­ton show­case The Human Voice, he’s whipped up anoth­er short-form sketch with Hol­ly­wood-adja­cent per­son­nel: Sil­va (Pedro Pas­cal) rides a horse across the desert to vis­it one Sher­iff Jake (Ethan Hawke), a dear friend he hasn’t seen in twen­ty-five years, unaware that their reunion will not nec­es­sar­i­ly be a hap­py one. Speak­ing about the project on Dua Lipa’s pod­cast — which, sure — Almod­ó­var described it as ​“a queer West­ern, in the sense that there are two men and they love each oth­er.” The sub­ject mat­ters suits the genre sub­vert­er extra­or­di­naire, clear­ly attuned to the roil­ing homo­erot­ic sub­text that already under­girds the stub­ble-faced, chap-clad Western.

The Roy­al Hotel

Kit­ty Green might seem an unlike­ly pick for Cannes, hav­ing no pri­or rela­tion­ship to the fes­ti­val and a rel­a­tive­ly low pro­file despite a uni­form­ly strong body of work. But here are the facts: her ripped-from-the-head­lines thriller about a pair of back­pack­ers spi­ralling out in an Aus­tralian min­ing town shot last sum­mer, and has pre­sum­ably fin­ished post-pro­duc­tion. The film’s pro­duc­ers passed on Sun­dance, and don’t have much appar­ent cause to hold out for the fall fes­ti­vals. And they’re backed by Amer­i­can dis­trib­u­tor Neon, an out­fit with some weight to throw around. Cannes needs both female auteurs as well as up-and-com­ers to break up the parade of usu­al sus­pects. This could be a mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial pair­ing, and a sore­ly deserved plat­form for a film­mak­er ready for wider recognition.

L’Été Dernier

It’s been a while since provo­ca­teur par excel­lence Cather­ine Breil­lat showed out at Cannes — that was 2007, for The Last Mis­tress — but it’s also been a while since Breil­lat worked at all. After a decade of radio silence, she’s back with anoth­er firestarter sure to get peo­ple talk­ing. A lawyer (Léa Druck­er) falls into a furtive yet intense love affair with her teenaged step­son (Samuel Kircher) from the pre­vi­ous mar­riage of her hus­band (Olivi­er Rabour­din), throw­ing her per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al lives into chaos. It’s been too long since we’ve been able to drink in Breillat’s pun­gent mix of chilly eroti­cism and taboo-prod­ding revul­sion. Between this and Todd Haynes’ lat­est, we just need one more age-gap romance in which an old­er woman preys upon a younger man to clinch the trend pieces.

Club Zero

Friend of the fest Jes­si­ca Haus­ner has already been show­ing her lat­est dra­ma to buy­ers, pre­sum­ably in the hopes that they’ll be able to announce a splashy acqui­si­tion deal around the expect­ed pre­mière in Com­pe­ti­tion. The cun­ning anti-hor­ror pic­ture Lit­tle Joe got her into the big dance back in 2019, and it stands to rea­son that anoth­er Eng­lish-lan­guage fea­ture with a name-brand cast will do the same; the impro­lif­ic Mia Wasikows­ka makes a rare appear­ance as a pri­vate school teacher who lures her stu­dents into a cult ori­ent­ed around ​“extreme nutri­tion” (read: dis­or­dered eat­ing), a provoca­tive premise in all like­li­hood hid­ing more than meets the eye.

Napoleon

Though a release date has yet to be set for Rid­ley Scott’s epic por­trait of the famous­ly diminu­tive con­queror, word that the cut has been locked and spar­ing­ly screened for long-lead press sug­gests that an eye-grab­ber Cannes unveil­ing could be in the cards. The mid­dle­brow pop­ulist Scott may seem an odd fit for Europe’s high­est-pres­tige fes­ti­val — he last appeared in Com­pe­ti­tion all the way back in 1977, when he won the Best Debut Film award for his fresh­man fea­ture The Duel­lists — but between the over­all French­ness of the his­to­ry at hand and the inter­na­tion­al cast (includ­ing Joaquin Phoenix, Vanes­sa Kir­by, Tahar Rahim, and Ludi­vine Sag­nier), he may very well plant his flag on the one ter­ri­to­ry he’s nev­er been able to annex.

The Zone of Interest

Despite a shak­i­ly-sourced sto­ry last month that Jonathan Glaz­er was still hard at work on his adap­ta­tion of Mar­tin Amis’ nov­el, the cur­rent scut­tle­butt con­firms an ear­li­er tip that he’d have his act togeth­er in time for May. His first fea­ture in a decade puts a psy­cho­sex­u­al spin on the Holo­caust in the grand tra­di­tion of The Night Porter, as a Nazi offi­cer devel­ops for­bid­den feel­ings for the wife of his camp’s com­man­dant. Glazer’s already signed a deal with A24 to copro­duce and dis­trib­ute, and he’s got a pair of leads that each bring their own Cannes cred to the table as well. (Chris­t­ian Friedel appeared in Michael Haneke’s Palme win­ner The White Rib­bon way back in 2009, and San­dra Hüller starred in the glow­ing­ly-received Toni Erd­mann in 2016.) Unpre­dictable in every way aside from his con­sis­tent excel­lence, Glaz­er would be an atten­tion-attract­ing get for the Competition.

Mon­ster

No days off for Hirokazu Kore-eda, the Palme win­ner who appeared in Com­pe­ti­tion just last year with the Korea-set uncon­ven­tion­al fam­i­ly dra­ma Bro­ker. He’s going home to Japan for his next project, where he’s already set a pub­lic release date at the begin­ning of June, posi­tion­ing him per­fect­ly for a world pre­mière on the Prom­e­nade one month ear­li­er. No plot details have been shared about this intrigu­ing project, but we can safe­ly assume the mon­ster of the title to be of the metaphor­i­cal rather than lit­er­al per­sua­sion, writer Yuji Sakamoto’s expe­ri­ence being in domes­tic dra­mas close to Kore-eda’s usu­al purview of house­hold dis­cord. In any case, audi­ences can safe­ly bank on anoth­er round of qui­et emo­tion­al devastation.

Poor Things

From win­ning the Un Cer­tain Regard sidebar’s top prize in 2009 for Dog­tooth to Com­pe­ti­tion show­ings in 2015 with The Lob­ster and 2017 with The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos and Cannes go way back. So that makes the fest a log­i­cal launch­ing pad for his Franken­stein riff known to be in the can, what with the direc­tor already deep in pro­duc­tion on his enig­mat­i­cal­ly-titled next pic­ture And. Poor Things fea­tures Emma Stone as a drowned woman brought back to life by swap­ping her brain out for that of her unborn child, her doc­tor father (Willem Dafoe) per­form­ing the oper­a­tion to the hor­ror of her brutish hus­band (Mark Ruf­fa­lo). It could be a lit­tle out­ré for a full-blown Oscar play, despite Lan­thi­mos’ strong awards-sea­son show­ing for The Favourite, but it would fit right in around the Croisette.

Anato­my of a Fall

Still rel­a­tive­ly ear­ly on in her career, Jus­tine Tri­et made her first trip to Cannes in 2019 for the some­what cool­ly-received psy­chothriller Sibyl, which leaves her poised for anoth­er go-round now that she’s com­plet­ed her next film. She’ll con­tin­ue on with her pet themes of obses­sion and doubt in the Hitch­cock­ian tale of a Ger­man writer (San­dra Hüller, keep­ing busy these days) whose hus­band (Swann Arlaud) tum­bles to his death under mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances near their moun­tain home, the only one who real­ly knows the truth being their young son (Milo Macha­do Graner). There’s greater scruti­ny than ever on the lop­sided gen­der imbal­ance in the Com­pe­ti­tion line­up, and Triet’s evi­dent tal­ent dis­pels any ques­tions of box-ticking.

The Pot-au-Feu

Less so than the reg­u­lars mak­ing their umpteenth trip to the south of France, the fun of the Cannes pro­gram announce­ment comes from the less-active, left-field direc­tors tempt­ed to break a hia­tus by the lure of a Com­pe­ti­tion spot. This year’s Jerzy Skolimows­ki Award for Most Wel­come Come­back could go to Tran Anh Hung, already a Cam­era d’Or recip­i­ent for 1993’s The Scent of Green Papaya, an essen­tial piece of his native Vietnam’s nation­al cin­e­ma. His first film in sev­en years seems to be done, anoth­er French-lan­guage project to fol­low 2016’s Eter­ni­ty, fea­tur­ing Juli­ette Binoche as a hum­ble cook and Benoit Mag­imel as the haughty gour­mand employ­ing her. (The French dish known as the pot-au-feu, by the way, com­bines a broth course with a sec­ond course of the beef and veg­eta­bles low-boiled in it. The even­tu­al Alamo Draft­house theme menu writes itself.)

The Old Oak

The film­mak­er semi-affec­tion­ate­ly referred to as ​“Uncle Ken” by Britons was seen shoot­ing last May, which should give him plen­ty of time to ready his lat­est sear­ing indict­ment of the state’s fail­ures in the UK. He’s gen­er­al­ly tak­en aim at the foibles of gov­ern­ment-spon­sored cap­i­tal­ism, whether that’s the inhu­man­i­ty of the under-reg­u­lat­ed gig econ­o­my (as in Sor­ry We Missed You), or the demean­ing insuf­fi­cien­cy of England’s unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits pro­gram (as in the Palme-win­ning I, Daniel Blake). But his new project weaves in themes of race less com­mon in his fil­mog­ra­phy, focus­ing on an eco­nom­i­cal­ly deprived for­mer min­ing vil­lage shak­en by the sud­den influx of Syr­i­an refugees, the town’s sole pub trans­formed into a cul­ture-clash bat­tle­ground. Only time will tell whether this dar­ing set­up will cast the 86-year-old Loach as keyed-in and con­scious, or tin-eared and out-of-touch. Or per­haps both! Odds are we’ll get an answer soon enough.

Oppen­heimer

The mul­ti­plex may be the nat­ur­al habi­tat for the megabud­get­ed block­busters of Christo­pher Nolan, but Cannes’ Out of Com­pe­ti­tion sec­tion has cul­ti­vat­ed a friend­ly rela­tion­ship to Amer­i­can stu­dio tent­poles, open­ing Mad Max: Fury Road and Top Gun: Mav­er­ick in recent years. Nolan’s recount­ing of the atom­ic bomb’s inven­tion and fall­out would bring a surge of star wattage to the red car­pet, armed with a sprawl­ing ensem­ble that col­lects Cil­lian Mur­phy, Flo­rence Pugh, Emi­ly Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Rami Malek, Ken­neth Branagh, and about two dozen more name-brand actors. With each new under­tak­ing, Nolan seem­ing­ly sets out to con­struct the biggest film ever made; this time, he may have built some­thing so immense that not even the high­est-brow gate­keep­ers of cul­ture can deny it.

Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World

Roman­ian rab­bler­ouser Radu Jude has nev­er graced the shores of the Riv­iera before, but his Gold­en Bear win at the Berli­nale for the wide­ly praised sex com­e­dy Bad Luck Bang­ing or Loony Porn put him clos­er to the cen­ter of the glob­al art cin­e­ma radar. Just last month, he sold the rights to a pre­sum­ably com­plet­ed film pitched in the same reg­is­ter of social satire, also divid­ed into clear­ly demar­cat­ed parts: in the first, a belea­guered pro­duc­tion assis­tant criss-cross­es Bucharest to cast a work­place safe­ty video for a multi­na­tion­al con­glom­er­ate, and in the sec­ond, one inter­view subject’s tes­ti­mo­ny rais­es alarm bells at the com­pa­ny PR depart­ment, and the in-progress indus­tri­al film must be retooled to avoid dis­as­ter. With tongue osten­si­bly in cheek, Jude has called this ​“a film with no depth” and ​“even more ama­teur­ish than my last films.” Who’s not going to have a good time with that?