Cannes 2025 Updates

Photo Credit: Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning © 2024 Paramount Pictures | Cannes Premier Red Carpet Christophe Bouillon / FDC | Robert De Niro © Brigitte Lacombe

Tom Cruise Will Present His Latest Mission Impossible Film, Robert De Niro To Receive the Honorary Palme d’Or, and the Official Selection Of the Films at Cannes Have Been Announced

Tom Cruise returns to the Croisette

This Cannes Film Festival will be Tom Cruise’s third time premiering a film at the famed French festival. His first time was in 1992 for Ron Howard’s Far and Away, and again in 2022 for Top Gun: Maverick. On May 14th the actor and producer will stand beside film director Christopher McQuarrie and the cast of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning to unveil the Paramount Pictures distributed film. The franchise has been going strong since its first film in the series in 1996.

Cruise and McQuarrie continue their partnership, working together again, with McQuarrie & Erik Jendresen co-writing the script, from Paramount Pictures (Top Gun, Rocketman) and Skydance.

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Written by Christopher McQuarrie & Erik Jendresen
Produced by Tom Cruise & Christopher McQuarrie
Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Mariela Garriga and Angela Bassett
French distribution: Paramount Pictures
French release: May 21, 2025
U.S. release: May 23, 2025

Robert De Niro to be honored

On May 13th, actor, director, and producer Robert De Niro will receive the honorary Palme d’or for lifetime achievement, 14 years after he Presided over the Jury in 2011.
Over his tenure, De Niro has played a host of colorful characters. His first films under just graduated director Brian De Palma were anti-hero characters in The Wedding Party, Greetings and Hi, Mom! His bohemian youth as the son of painters in New York, allowed him to draw on a streetwise attitude which, with its codes of conduct and ethics, would spice up his early performances and later blossom in front of Martin Scorsese’s camera, as described by notes from the Festival de Cannes.

Known for his Mafia characters like young Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II, he succeeded in the challenge of interpreting the early years of Marlon Brando’s character without imitating him. De Niro’s performance earned him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

“In 1976, he presented two masterpieces of the 7th Art in the Official Selection at the Festival de Cannes: Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, which won the Palme d’or. His perfectionistic acting had a lot to do with this award, between preparation (he obtained a New York cab driver’s license),” state announcement notes by the Festival de Cannes. In 1989 he founded TriBeCa Productions. In the 90s, De Niro took a turn with his characters, playing his authoritarian persona in comedies like John McNaughton’s Mad Dog and Glory, Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, Harold Ramis’ Mafia Blues, and Jay Roach’s cult hit Meet the Parents. By 1993 he was directing and did his first feature film, A Bronx Tale and thirteen years later he directed The Good Shepherd. After September 11th, he founded the TriBeCa Film Festival in 2002 as a move to help New Yorkers boost their battered city. His career achievements will be fully honored at the opening ceremony that will kick off the 78th Cannes Film Festival.

The official selection is out

All the films that will be shown during the Festival have been announced. Nineteen films are in competition, sixteen films are in certain regard, and seventeen films are out of competition. The most talked about films are Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” actress Scarlett Johansson who directed “Eleanor The Great” will be showing, Spike Lee who was jury president of the Festival in 2021 will be showing his film “Highest 2 Lowest,” the new Mission Impossible of course, and Ari Aster’s film “Eddington” about a sheriff combatting locals during the pandemic.

With less than a month until the Festival, news about what will be taking place is being released in what feels like every day. It’s bound to be another noteworthy year from the French Côte d’ Azur.