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Cannes 2024 Finale - The 8 Best Films to Watch Out For From the Fest
What are the best films out of this year's Cannes Film Festival? Which ones should you be taking an interest in? What films should be a priority for you to see? After diving into cinema for 12 days at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, after watching a total of 40 films, it's time to present my 2024 list of my Top 8 Favorites. This was my 14th year back to this festival (I also handed out 4 signed books), and I still love being there right in the middle of all the buzz and excitement, watching new cinema every single day. As I usually say - there's always more to see, always more to take our breath away. These eight favorites listed below are the ones that connected with me emotionally or intellectually, and I hope you'll consider watching a few when they arrive in your neighborhood. They are worth the wait - each one distinct and memorable. It might have been another lackluster Cannes overall, for the most part, though I am happy I caught a few bangers by the end. This is my very final recap of Cannes 2024 - don't skip a chance to watch any of these with an audience.
Cannes 2024: Coralie Fargeat's Freaky Body Horror 'The Substance'
What would you do to stay beautiful forever? This is a question that remains on the minds of many human beings on this planet. What will they do, how far will they go? What will they sacrifice? It's pretty much the Monkey's Paw concept mixed with an obsession with "beauty above all, always." The immensely talented French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat takes this concept for a totally bonkers ride in her exciting new body horror film The Substance, a vibrant spin on this trope about sacrificing oneself for endless beauty. The Substance in question is a mysterious medicinal creation from an unnamed company that allows anyone to stay beautiful - as long as they follow the rules. Much like in Gremlins, however, someone is going to break the rules and the rest of the film becomes "fuck around and find out" with the most grotesque, horrifying consequences anyone could imagine. And the crowd goes wild! The Cannes press screening audience nearly lost it - cheering and hollering and applauding ferociously at the end. This is what great horror is all about.
Cannes 2024: Abou Sangare is Unforgettable in 'Souleymane's Story'
This is the story of Souleymane. This is a story we need to hear. This is a story we need to understand. By now there's an entire subgenre of modern day refugee films - important, real stories about immigrants and refugees and asylum seekers struggling to make it safely into Europe and survive under the crushing weight of anti-immigration people and policy (also see: Green Border or Europa or Io Capitano). One of the latest entries in this subgenre is the film Souleymane's Story, also known as L'histoire de Souleymane in French (or The Story of Souleymane). This premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section and won two awards: Best Actor and a Jury Prize. It deserves both - the lead performance is exceptional and the storytelling in this is especially powerful. It's one of these films that might change your life - you'll never order food delivery again because it feels like exploitation when one of these guy's delivers.
Cannes 2024: 'Eephus' - A Baseball Film Like You've Never Seen Before
Within the sports movies subgenre, there have been tons of baseball movies made over the decades. It is America's pastime, after all! There's even an entire book published this month about baseball movies and their legacy. So it would seem as if we've seen it all – every kind of baseball movie has been made before by someone at some point; even Richard Linklater made a modern classic a few years ago (called Everybody Wants Some) and we featured a video edit of the best movies. Lo and behold, we have another classic that has just come up to bat. Carson Lund's Eephus is a baseball movie we've never seen before. And it's genius. It's an "old dudes play ball" indie comedy and it's hilarious. I laughed my ass off watching this, it's more fun than actually going to a ball game, and there's plenty to analyze about what's happening beyond the who's on first and who has the best pitch. Another Cannes 2024 gem that I'm glad I took the time to sit down with.
Cannes 2024: Mohammad Rasoulof's Film 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig'
One of the most anticipated films premiering at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival is The Seed of the Sacred Fig, the latest from acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof. His films have show regularly at festivals – Goodbye screened at Cannes 2011, Manuscripts Don't Burn at Cannes 2013, A Man of Integrity at Cannes 2017; his most recent 2020 film There Is No Evil won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The Seed of the Sacred Fig is especially important and potent because it really upset the Iranian government – they sentenced Rasoulof to eight years in prison as well as flogging, a fine and confiscation of his property just because he made this film. Part of the big question is why – what does it show and why is the Iranian government so afraid of it? Now we know. This remarkable film is about the current events in Iran, mainly the silencing of many women and young protestors who rose up in 2022 by removing burkas in opposition to the government's heinous morality police. Not only does the film capture this moment quite powerfully, the filmmaking is also extraordinary, making this nearly three-hour-long film gripping from start to finish.
Cannes 2024: Gilles Lellouche's 'Beating Hearts' is a Waste of Time
This is what it would look like if Michael Bay directed a romantic musical. Though this doesn't have nearly enough explosions or mind-boggling drone shots to really live up Bay's movies. Beating Hearts is a big, epic, flashy, cheesy, nearly-three-hour long French love story thriller made by a French filmmaker named Gilles Lellouche. He last directed an absurd comedy called Sink or Swim that played at Cannes 2018, and somehow he was able to secure a Main Competition slot this year at Cannes with his latest titled L'amour ouf in French (or just Beating Hearts in English). For some reason, before its premiere the movie was being referred to as a musical – but it's not really a musical. More of an epic, sweeping romance like Romeo + Juliet with two big dance sequences and tons of famous songs used in it. But there's no singing and it's not a classic musical, it's a drama about two lovers in France. The story is lifted from the classic The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, following young lovers who get split apart for 12 years then attempt to reconnect later on in life.
Cannes 2024: Sean Baker's Film 'Anora' is a One-of-a-Kind Sensation
It's always an especially exhilarating experience to stumble upon a film so completely unlike anything that has been made before that it leaves you on a cinematic high after walking out of the theater. At the midway point in the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, we finally get to experience the bliss of Anora, the latest film from American filmmaker Sean Baker. Anora is his eighth feature film so far, and he was already in Cannes in 2017 with The Florida Project (in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar) and again in 2021 with Red Rocket. This might just be hist best yet. France obviously loves him, but so does everyone else - this film has received the highest marks out of any in the Main Competition from all of the critics at this year's festival. The film's title is the name of the young woman who stars in the film, a young stripper from New York City named Anora who falls for a rich Russian kid after he pays her to hook up with him. On a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas they end up getting married (Vegas, baby Vegas!!) - but there's so much more going on in this film than just that.
Cannes 2024: Gints Zilbalodis' Animated Film 'Flow' Follows a Kitty
The story of a cat and his friends. Flow is an animated film made by the Latvian filmmaker named Gints Zilbalodis, his second feature after making Away (in 2019) which was a fable about loneliness. He's also known for many other animated short films that debuted online before he started moving into making these features. Whereas Away is about loneliness, Flow is about friendship, companionship, and loyalty. The title is once again a literal title because the story is about how we meet and befriend different people as life flows along, taking us to unknown destinations and through many trials & tribulations. Much like Away, the story is a metaphor for life as a human being, this time told through an adventure featuring different animals in a strange world. It's entirely dialogue free and features Zilbalodis' distinct cel-shading animation style, more rudimentary than Pixar or DreamWorks or Sony but still animated with heaps of emotion and compassion.
Cannes 2024: Yorgos Lanthimos' Funky Triptych 'Kinds of Kindness'
From the strange and wicked and peculiar mind of Greek mastermind Yorgos Lanthimos comes another disquieting new film that will disturb even more people. Only a few months after premiering Poor Things at the 2023 Venice Film Festival (here's my review of that one), Lanthimos is back on the festival circuit with his next film titled Kinds of Kindness. It's nearly three hours in total and instead being of one, long film it's three different stories cut together into a triptych feature that plays more like a mashup of funky "Black Mirror" ideas than something more straightforward. As expected with Lanthimos, it's proper mindfuckery of the highest order. Three weird stories that most probably won't enjoy watching because they're so strange and unsettling and don't follow the typical cinematic narratives most are familiar with. In fact, I'd say Kinds of Kindness is Yorgos Lanthimos's Twilight Zone. Sort of? Maybe? Many bizarre things happening in each of the stories that may or may not involve the supernatural. Or they are just about a bunch of crazy people.
Cannes 2024: Laetitia Dosch's Swiss Doggie Comedy 'Dog on Trial'
Are dogs more than just "things" that someone owns? Should they be considered in the same way as human beings when it comes to law and courts? Can animals be tried in court on their own separate from their owner? These are the important questions at the heart of this delightful, eccentric, amusing Swiss comedy called Dog on Trial. Originally known as Le Procès du Chien in French (the film was also titled Who Let the Dog Bite? in English but then changed just before the festival) the film is premiering at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in the same section as the other amazing dog film this year - Black Dog (read my review). It's more of a mainstream, kooky, laugh-your-butt-off comedy than most films playing at Cannes, which is fine, because it's still a great time. And it's also a dog lover's movie, once again, though with a caveat as it's more emotional than some might be able to handle. It's the story of a good dog being put on trial in Switzerland.
Cannes 2024: Lorcan Finnegan's Sun-Drenched 'The Surfer' is Sharp
"Everybody's gone surfin'..." Except for you and you! One of the highlights within the 2024 Cannes Film Festival line-up is the Out of Competition presentation of The Surfer starring the legendary Nicolas Cage. It's the fourth feature film from Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan, who also made his mark back at Cannes 2019 with the sci-fi flick Vivarium (here's my review of that one). He's back once again in Cannes with another entertaining contained, minimal (though maximal on the craziness), one-location story titled The Surfer, about a dude who starts a fight with the local surf bros who stop him from catching some waves on a secluded Australian beach. I had a fantastic time with this film! It's funny and absurd, but also clever and astute, commenting on way more than just the bro culture of surfers. In fact, I was intrigued to discover by the end that it's not actually about surfing culture or beaches, it's about capitalism and toxic masculinity.
Cannes 2024: Hu Guan's 'Black Dog' Film is One of the Best of the Fest
This film instantly joins the ranks as one of the best dogs movies ever made. There's usually one or two of these every year, so the "best dog movies ever" subgenre is constantly growing, but that's also totally fine. As a dog lover, I am more than happy to keep adding amazing movies to "best of" list. Especially when there's a new story to tell, especially when the production takes care of the dogs and animals on set, especially when the film makes you feel even more in love with dogs (if that's even possible). Black Dog is a new film from China from a filmmaker named Hu Guan, who has already made plenty of other feature films before this. He's obviously a dog lover, there's no way he could make this film if he wasn't. There's also a title card at the end when the credits come up stating that no animals were harmed in the making of the film, and all of the animals on set were properly taken care of. This is expected nowadays, of course, but it is still an important reassurance because it's a tricky film to pull off with a plot that involves some of the animals being harmed.
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