6 Films Shown At Cannes 2024 That We’re Excited About

With one of cinema's biggest periods of the year coming to an end, let’s take a look back at some of the films that made a buzz at Cannes this year, and why we’re excited to see them:

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Starting with one that has its theatrical release today, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is the prequel to the high-energy, high-heat and high-sand action-movie-on-speed Mad Max: Fury Road. The Tom Hardy-led epic has become one of the most highly-praised action films of recent memory and of all-time, with particular praise given to Charlize Theron and her portrayal as the one-armed badass Imperator Furiosa.

Called the best female action hero since Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in Alien, film fans yearned for more of the character. So what happened? George Miller called Anya Taylor-Joy and said “How would you like to fight Chris Hemsworth?” and she said “Sure, I reckon I could take him” and thus, this totally accurate portrayal of events resulted in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Taylor-Joy’s trajectory up the Hollywood ladder really has been quite incredible and something I mention any chance her name is brought up as Robert Eggers’ The Witch where she made her debut is one of my all-time favourites.

Reviews for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga have been positive, with it being referred to “another glorious swerve in mastermind George Miller's breathless race towards cinematic Valhalla” and if that doesn’t make you want to obnoxiously rev your engine on your way to the cinema then I don’t know what will.

Megalopolis

Megalopolis. Megaolpolis, Magalopolis, Megalopolis. The return of Francis Ford Coppola in the director’s chair comes with Megalopolis (which in case you hadn’t heard, is the name of the movie). Megalopolis (oh look, there it is again) is Coppola’s longtime passion project where he made himself an offer he couldn’t refuse and spent 120 million dollars of his own money in order to put together the vision that he has been envisioning for almost 50 years.

What is that vision, I hear you ask! Well, the apocalypse is now for a metropolis called New Rome as it is destroyed in an accident. Among its citizens is Adam Driver as Cesar- an idealist architect with the power to control time, and he plans on rebuilding New Rome as a sustainable utopia. The film features an ensamble cast with, among others, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne.

The critics are saying many things about Megalopolis. Some calling it messy, some a masterpiece, and some a messy masterpiece. They also aren’t short of the expected mega-puns with The Guardian commenting that it’s megabloated. The verdict may be out, but let’s see if the theatrical release pulls us back in, whenever a distribution deal is reached for this side of the pond.

The Apprentice

With the election looming, there’s no time like the present to delve into the early career of one Donald J Trump. If his name being attached the project wasn’t enough to increase interest, the threatened legal action by Trump’s campaign due to the alleged “tea” spillage by writer Gabriel Sherman and director Ali Abbasi. The depiction of some naughty actions by the former president could of course hinder Trump’s efforts to kick Joe Biden out of the president’s seat in the White House, and this film is either perfectly or horribly timed, depending on which side of the political spectrum you stand on.

With Sebastian Stan morphing into the future president, The Apprentice follows Trump’s time as a real estate businessman in the 1970s and 80s and his mentor-protégé relationship with American prosecutor Roy Cohn. The film isn’t a hit job though according to Deadline, where they talk about Trump never seeming so human, and Agence France Press talking about it charting his “decency being eroded as he learns the dark arts of dealmaking and tastes power.”

We’ll see what the general audience makes of it. StudioCanal have acquired the UK and Ireland rights.

Kinds of Kindness

The fact that a Yorgos Lanthimos film is being described as “disturbing” and “keeps you squirming in your seat” might just be the least shocking thing that you’ve heard this week- especially if you’re familiar with the filmmaker’s earlier works. Whilst his efforts in the more mainstream Hollywood scene are certainly not short of their awkwardness, cringiness and overall off-the-wall nature, Lanthimos’ 2009 film Dogtooth kickstarted a movement dubbed the “Greek weird wave” comprised of stories with strange behaviour, dysfunctional families, dark humour and plenty of social critiques.

Following four Oscar wins for Poor Things, Lanthimos reunites with Emma Stone for the fourth time and Willem Dafoe for a second and Jesse Plemons jumps on the weird wave for the first time! He also reunites with writer Efthymis Filippou, whom Lanthimos worked with on Dogtooth, The Lobster, Alps and The Killing of a Sacred Dear. This explains why it’s being called “pure sicko” even against his already pretty sicko body of work.

It'll hit big screens in June through Searchlight Pictures, and you better believe that we’ll be there!

Ghost Cat Anzu

There’s nothing quite like the undeniable charm of old-school Japanese animation. Ghost Cat Anzu elicits feelings of My Neighbour Totoro and Doraemon as a young girl befriends an unusually large phantom cat who acts as her guardian.

With a backdrop that focuses on grief after Karin loses her mother and is abandoned by her father, this French-Japanese co-production by directors Yoko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita does seem to be adding a bit of spice to a familiar formula with the cat being a gambling addict who spends all the money lent to him by Karin on the popular Japanese slot-type machine Pachinko. As one user on Letterboxd commented, “works because it gets that the most endearing part about cats is that they’re kinda dickheads”, which is a pretty hilarious way of putting it.

Critics reviews have been few so far but kind, with Cineuropa commenting that it boasts a “charming and warm, handmade quality.” It was picked up by GKIDS for distribution in the US but we are still awaiting UK news.

Mongrel

Taiwan-based Singaporean filmmaker Chiang Wei Liang is known for his several award-winning documentaries throughout his career based on the subject of migration and diaspora of Southeast Asians in modern Asia and the challenges that they face. After a string of successful short films, Chiang takes the migration topic, makes his feature debut with Mongrel.

In Mongrel, a Thai migrant nicknamed Oom is one of several illegal migrant workers in a remote mountain area of Taiwan. Oom works as a caregiver to the elderly and disabled and although lacks any formal qualifications, he is considerate, compassionate, and good at what he does. He and the others are treated poorly and endure it due to their lack of status in the country. He is also involved with far less humane tasks involving a local gangster so needless to say it sounds like there’s a lot on his plate.

What makes Mongrel even more exciting along with its strong critical reviews is that Chiang Wei Liang is one of a group of young filmmakers being mentored by the recently retired Hou Hsiao-hsien, known for his empathetic, meditational pieces such as Millennium Mambo and The Assassin. He is credited as a producer, but Screen Daily noted in their review of Mongrel that it differs from Hou’s style in that “it has an “exacting rhythm that aligns with its unsparing presentation.” No news on distribution as of yet.

What film or films are you most excited about in 2024?