Cannes 2025 wrap: ‘Sentimental Value,' Jennifer Lawrence, June Squibb, and the 2026 Oscar contenders to know
The 2026 Oscar race has already started.
Over the last two weeks, several major titles premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, and it's a safe bet to assume many of the films and performances launched on the French Riviera will play a significant part in the forthcoming awards season.
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Ahead, the movies and actors who gained the most during the Cannes Film Festival.
Heading into this year's Cannes Film Festival, no movie had more awards buzz than Sentimental Value — and yet, somehow, it seems like the actual film surpassed those lofty expectations. The response at Cannes to Joachim Trier's latest was nothing short of ecstatic: Sentimental Value earned an absurd 19-minute standing ovation and was called a 'masterpiece' by critics and instantly became the film to beat for the Palme d'Or. Regarding its awards prospects, expect most pundits to pencil this one in for nominations in Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress for Renate Reinsve, and Best Supporting Actor for Stellan Skarsgård.
'Is Jennifer Lawrence About to Win Another Oscar?' asked Vanity Fair writer David Canfield after Die, My Love premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. It's a good question, unanswerable right now. Still, Lawrence's return to the Academy Awards as a nominee for the first time in 10 years seems likely. The Oscar winner received rave reviews for her portrait of a young mother caught in the grips of postpartum depression in Lynne Ramsay's latest. 'Cannes is a festival where Oscar narratives typically start to take shape, and while it's far too early to make predictions, Lawrence has announced herself as an early frontrunner,' wrote Esther Zuckerman for The Daily Beast. Overall reviews for Die, My Love leaned mixed — the movie, it seems, won't be for everyone — but that didn't stop Mubi from acquiring the project for a reported $20 million. It's potentially a perfect match, especially after Mubi threaded the awards needle this year with The Substance, another polarizing project from a female director that premiered at Cannes and drove Demi Moore into the Best Actress field.
This year, three of the five Best Actress nominees, including winner Mikey Madison, started at the Cannes Film Festival. Next year, history could repeat itself as Reinsve, Lawrence, and June Squibb could all land acting bids. Squibb, who would be the oldest nominee ever, plays the title character in Scarlett Johansson's directorial debut, Eleanor the Great. While the movie received some mixed reviews from critics, everyone seemed to agree that the 95-year-old actress has perhaps never been better. Sony Pictures Classics, a studio known for its ability to push unlikely contenders into the awards race — including Fernanda Torres this year for I'm Still Here — will release Eleanor the Great this fall.
Reviews for Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest suggest the movie is more of an entertaining thriller than a serious awards contender, which is excellent news for people who like their films to be movies. However, star Denzel Washington was frequently singled out as being at the top of his game. 'Washington is smooth as silk, delivering one of his best recent performances as a man caught in an impossible moral quandary,' wrote Pete Hammond for Deadline. 'It feels pointless to wax poetic about Denzel Washington's immense talent, but it needs to be said here as the now 70-year-old living legend continues to prove time and time again why he is one of the greatest actors of all,' added Matt Neglia for Next Best Picture. Washington missed an expected Oscar bid last year for Gladiator II, and the Best Actor field will probably have several significant contenders this year — including Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis — but counting out the two-time Oscar winner feels foolish.
Wes Anderson's new movie seems like par for the course for the famously fastidious filmmaker. So, let's already pencil in some Oscar buzz for production designer Adam Stockhausen, a four-time nominee who won an Oscar for Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel. Reviews for The Phoenician Scheme hailed the project as Anderson's best since that 2014 classic, and many singled out Stockhausen's intricate sets and designs.
Richard Linklater's French-language film about the making of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless received polite praise after its premiere, and currently lacks distribution. However, at least one awards pundit has already compared the project, shot in black-and-white, to The Artist, which won Best Picture. It's a different era of the Academy, but Hollywood loves to celebrate projects about filmmaking. So, once Nouvelle Vague gets dated, consider it an Oscar contender to watch for that comparison alone.
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Hybrid: Combination of scripted and unscripted content, such as podcasts that incorporate interviews within a larger narrative framework. v. Educational or Informative: Programs designed to inform, teach, or explain specific topics, including subjects such as science, history, technology, health, and wellness. vi. News or Current Affairs: Programs that discuss, analyze, and/or report on local, national, and/or global news and trending topics. vii. Entertainment and Pop Culture: Commentary or discussion of popular media, celebrities, and/or cultural trends. Eligible podcasts must consist primarily of original content. Repackaged or rebroadcast content from other media (e.g., film or TV content converted to podcasts) is not eligible. Eligible podcasts must have released at least six (6) episodes during the period between January 1, 2025 and September 30, 2025 (the 'Podcast Eligibility Period'), with each episode having a minimum length of thirty (30) program minutes. Foreign podcasts (programs produced principally outside the United States) are not eligible for podcast awards unless they are the result of a co-production (both financially and creatively) between a United States partner and a foreign partner. A 'United States partner' is a company legally organized and doing business in the United States or a controlled subsidiary or affiliate of such company. Podcast eligibility does not depend on the language(s) used in the program. Non-English-language podcasts released in the United States are eligible if they meet the other qualifying criteria. 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