The Race to the Palme D'or
With only three days left in the Cannes Film festivals, there have been sixteen in competition films released, and six yet to release, popular news outlets have begun to release their rankings of the current films. Using audience reactions, general positives about the films and previous winners of the Palme D’or, all currently released films have been ranked from most to least likely to win the prestigious award at the end of the festival.
Leading the pack is Fatherland by Pawel Pawlikoswski. Fatherland centres on the relationship between the Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika, actress, writer and rally driver. In the summer of 1949, at the height of the Cold War, father and daughter embark on a challenging and emotional road trip in a black Buick taking them across a Germany in ruins – from US dominated Frankfurt to Soviet controlled Weimar.
Then in second is All of a Sudden by Ryusuke Hamaguchi . The first film follows the Director of a care facility for the elderly named Marie-Lou who strives to introduce an innovative care philosophy based on listening and respecting residents’ dignity, despite resistance from part of her staff. Her encounter with Mari, a Japanese theater director battling cancer, will profoundly reshape her path. By forming a deep, supportive friendship, the two women join forces in a shared struggle to “make the impossible possible.
Last on the podium is Andrey Zvyaginstev’s film Minotaur: Russia, 2022. When Gleb, a successful company director, finds himself under siege from mounting corporate pressures and an increasingly unstable world, the collapse of his carefully ordered life accelerates toward violence.
The rest of the films in order are as follows:
Paper Tiger by James Gray
Hope by Na Hong-jin
Fjord by Cristian Mungiu
Bitter Christmas by Pedro Almodóvar
Gentle Monster by Marie Kreutzer
Nagi Notes by Koji Fukada
The Unknown by Arthur Harari
Moulin by László Nemes
Sheep in the Box by Hirokazu Koreeda
The Beloved by Rodrigo Sorogoyen
A Woman’s Life by Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet
Garance by Jeanne Herry
Parallel Tales by Asghar Farhadi
Although The Man I Love by Ira Sachs, The Birthday party by Léa Mysius, Notre Salut by Emmanuel Marre, The Dream Adventure by Valenska Griesbach, Coward by Lukas Dhont and The Black Ball by Javier Abrossi and Javier Calvo are all yet to premiere, so things are subject to change as of now. Based on overall anticipation, I believe the only two films that may shake up this ranking are The Man I Love by Ira Sachs and Coward by Lukas Dhont. However, with such little time left in the festival there is a solid chance that this is the lineup going into the closing ceremony.
Just a reminder, this is not the definite Lineup for the festival; everything here is opinions based and published by IndieWire.
