Cannes Film Festival sets lineup with Ari Aster, Wes Anderson and, yes, Spike Lee

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PARIS (AP) — New films from Wes Anderson, Ari Aster, and Richard Linklater will compete for the Palme d’Or at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, organizers announced Thursday.

Coming off a 2024 edition that produced the Academy Award best-picture winner “Anora,” as well as a number of Oscar contenders in “Emilia Pérez,” “The Substance” and “The Apprentice,” the French film festival responded with a 2025 lineup full of big-name auteurs.

Thierry Frémaux, Cannes’ artistic director, announced the selections in a news conference in Paris with festival president Iris Knobloch.

Asked if he was under pressure after producing so many Oscars contenders last year, Frémaux said the festival organizers feel like an athlete putting his title back on the line.

“What happened last year was great,” he said. “And what happened the year before was great. The last seven, eight years, Cannes and the films of Cannes were great.”

Entries include Aster’s “Eddington,” a pandemic-set Western starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone; Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” starring Benicio Del Toro as a European profiteer and Linklater’s appropriately French-language “Nouvelle Vague,” about Jean-Luc Godard and the French New Wave.

Julia Ducournau, whose “Titane” won the Palme d’Or in 2021, making Ducournau only the second female filmmaker to ever receive Cannes’ top honor, will return to the festival with the 1980s New York-set “Alpha,” about an 11-year-old with a parent who has AIDS.

Several high-profile films that some had hoped would show up in Cannes weren’t announced Tuesday in Paris, including Terrence Malick’s long-awaited Jesus drama “The Way of the Wind,” Spike Lee’s Akira Kurosawa remake “Highest 2 Lowest,” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another.” New films by Jim Jarmusch and Kristen Stewart had also been expected in the Cannes lineup.

Asked about their absence, Fremaux declined to comment, saying he wanted to instead focus on the pictures which made the cut. He, however, said more films could be later added to the selection.

An hour after the press conference in Paris, however, Lee said on Instagram that “Highest 2 Lowest” is, indeed, going to Cannes, and screening out of competition. Representatives for the festival later confirmed that Lee’s post was accurate, noting that the film wasn’t announced in the press conference because Cannes was awaiting confirmation that the movie’s star, Denzel Washington, would be in attendance. With that confirmed, “Highest 2 Lowest” will premiere on May 19.

Fremaux altogether announced 19 films vying for the Palme d’Or, six of which are directed by women.

Two films starring Josh O’Connor made it into the competition lineup: Oliver Hermanus’ “The History of Sound,” co-starring Paul Mescal, and Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind,” an art heist film set during the Vietnam War.

Other previously Cannes regulars coming back include two-time Palme winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The Belgian filmmaking brothers’ latest is titled “Young Mothers.” Joachim Trier, whose “The Worst Person in the World” was a highlight of the 2021 Cannes, is back in competition with “Sentimental Value,” which likewise stars Renate Reinsve.

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who was imprisoned during the release of his last, secretly made film, 2022’s “No Bears,” and not released until he went on a hunger strike, will unveil his latest film, “It Was Just an Accident.”

Playing in the festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar is Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, “Eleanor the Great,” starring June Squibb. Harris Dickinson, the “Babygirl” star, will also premiere his directorial debut, “Urchin,” in the same section.

Bono will also be coming to the Croisette for the premiere of “Bono: Stories of Surrender,” Andrew Dominik’s film of the singer’s one-man stage show. That will play in Cannes’ special screening section.

Cannes earlier announced that “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning” will launch at the festival, which three years ago bestowed an honorary Palme d’Or on Tom Cruise. This year, Robert De Niro is set to receive one during the festival’s opening ceremony.

Following in the footsteps of Greta Gerwig, Juliette Binoche will head the jury that decides this year’s Palme d’Or. Knobloch said it’s the first time in 60 years that two women succeed each other in this role.

The festival runs May 13-24. The opening night film, playing out of competition, will be “Leave One Day,” the first movie by French director Amélie Bonnin.

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Coyle reported from New York.