The Cannes Film Festival initiates the process of selecting a number of the year’s top films each year. One of the most prominent festivals. Its 77th edition features a wide selection of intriguing new films from international filmmakers. Here are the selected few movies you should watch, in random order.  

All We Imagine as Light

Three decades later, an Indian feature film competing? Audiences are incredibly excited for Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light film. The story of this Indo-French production centres on Prabha (Kani Kusruti), a nurse who is surprised by a gift from her long-estranged husband. Anu, her roommate and younger friend (Divya Prabha) is looking for a quiet place to spend time with her partner. After travelling to a beach town, the two women discover that there is room for their aspirations to flourish. Her previous work, the documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing, won the Golden Eye award at Cannes a few years ago, and this is also Kapadia’s first feature debut.

Kinds of Kindness

Yorgos Lanthimos appears to have fully embraced his fascination with strangely funny and nonconformist roots from the Dogtooth era with his most recent competition feature. With some humorous trivia, Kinds of Kindness arrives. It was recorded during Poor Things’ post-production, bringing him back with actors Margaret Qualley, Emma Stone, and Willem Dafoe. This is also a triptych of separate stories combined, clocking in at 165 minutes. This one will be quite the ride if the crazy early reviews are any guide.

Megalopolis

With his masterpiece Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola returns to the French Riviera after many years away. It is undoubtedly a cinematic event of some sort. The fact that he used all of his wine fortune to self-produce Megalopolis tells the story of a renowned director who finally lets his creative freedom run wild and tells a story the way he wants to. After its premiere, the movie stars Aubrey Plaza, Giancarlo Esposito, Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Laurence Fishburne, has already caused controversy among critics.

The Balconettes

The closest thing fans of Portrait of a Lady on Fire imagine is a reunion. Working with Céline Sciamma, Noémie Merlant wrote the screenplay for The Balconettes, her sophomore feature film. In this dark comedy, Merlant, Sanda Codreneau, and Soheila Yacoub portray three women obsessed with their neighbours’ lives during a severe heat wave.

Santosh

In addition to All We Imagine as Light, Sandhya Suri’s drama Santosh, which opens in the Uncertain Regard section at Cannes this year, is another film showcasing India. The movie centres on Shahana Goswami, a widow whose late husband was assigned to the police force.

The Apprentice

Is there a market for a movie about a young Donald Trump? Cannes certainly is. In Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, Sebastian Stan portrays the former President. He recounts his early years as a protégé of attorney Roy Cohn (played by Jeremy Strong’s Kendall Roy in Succession). Even further, Abbasi asserts that The Apprentice is not satire. Maria Bakalova, who plays Ivana Trump in Borat, was cast.

Oh, Canada

Oh Canada, a film that Paul Schrader is presenting at Cannes, is thought to be his most autobiographical work to date. Richard Gere plays writer Leonard Fife and his journey to Canada in this Competition entry based on Russell Banks’ novel Foregone. Uma Thurman, Michael Imperioli, and Kristine Froseth make up the supporting cast, with Jacob Elordi portraying the younger version of him.

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