After premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival last year, Catherine Breillat‘s first film in a decade, “Last Summer,” finally hits US theaters. Granted, it only screens at Angelika Film Center and Film At Lincoln Center in NYC, but after the stir the film caused on the Croisette, New Yorkers should seek it out next month.

READ MORE: ‘Last Summer’ Review: Catherine Breillat’s Devastating Drama Exposes Bourgeois Amorality [Cannes]

Breillat’s made her career on films focusing on taboo subjects, and “Last Summer” is no different.

Continue reading ‘Last Summer’ Trailer: Catherine Breillat’s Erotic Drama Hits NYC Theaters On June 28 at The Playlist.

It’s not every year that an animated feature premieres at the Cannes Film Festival to such universal acclaim. But that was the case with “Robot Dreams,” Pablo Berger‘s latest film about the misadventures of a dog and a robot in 1980s NYC.

Based on Sara Varon‘s comic of the same name, “Robot Dreams” won over critics easily on the Croisette last year.

Continue reading ‘Robot Dreams’ Trailer: Pablo Berger’s Cannes Favorites Arrives In Theaters Later This Year From NEON at The Playlist.

Wim Wenders returned to the Croisette at the Cannes Film Festival in a big way this year with “Perfect Days.” The German director’s first film since 2017’s “Submergence” wowed audiences at the festival, with the movie nabbing the Prize Of The Ecumenical Jury and the Best Actor Award for star Kōji Yakusho. Now, after further screenings at Telluride, TIFF, London, and NYFF this Fall, it’s time for US audiences to see “Perfect Days” for themselves.

Continue reading ‘Perfect Days’ Trailer: Wim Wender’s Cannes Hit Arrives At Angelika Film Center Tomorrow, Hits Theaters Everywhere In 2024 at The Playlist.

Fix up and look sharp, NYC filmgoers: Wang Bing‘s latest, “Youth (Spring),” begins its US theatrical rollout at Metograph next month. And the new documentary is just the first in a trilogy of new films Wang Bing has worked on since 2014. So if “Youth (Spring)” ends up a year-end favorite, get ready for two more films featuring the same people in due time.

READ MORE: ‘Youth (Spring)’ Review: The Kids Are Underpaid & Flirty [Cannes]

Premiering at Cannes earlier this year alongside Wang Bing’s other new film, “Man In Black,” “Youth (Spring)” charts the social and economic evolutions in 21st-century China through the lives of young migrant textile workers in Zhili, a factory town outside Shanghai.

Continue reading ‘Youth (Spring)’ Trailer: The First Doc In Wang Bing’s New Trilogy Arrives At Metrograph On November 10 at The Playlist.

It’s been a good year for Aki Kaurismäki and his latest film “Fallen Leaves” so far. After the movie’s world premiere, it won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival back in May. And as “Fallen Leaves” made its way through the Fall festival circuit, screening at Telluride and TIFF, it also won the Fipresci Grand Prix as the Best Film Of 2023.  

Continue reading ‘Fallen Leaves’ Trailer: Aki Kaurismäki’s Wry Tragicomedy Hits Theaters On November 17 at The Playlist.

While it didn’t win the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year, Tran Anh Hung‘s “The Taste Of Things” may have been the most delightful film at the festival. It won Hung Best Director, and received unanimously positive reviews from critics (read The Playlist’s review here). And now the movie gets a few more screenings at Fall festivals before it, with any luck, hits US theaters before 2023 is out.

Continue reading ‘The Taste Of Things’ Trailer: Tran Anh Hung’s Culinary Drama With Juliette Binoche & Benoît Magimel Hits US Theaters Soon at The Playlist.

Arguably the most famous or well-known filmmaker out of Finland, director Aki Kaurismäki, has made a career out of the deadpan; absurdist comedies with minimalism, sometimes defined by Shakespearean tragedy, very still minimal camera and witty drollery. The films of his that have a larger comedic bent have said to have a lot of kinship with the films of Jim Jarmusch. Since 1983, Kaurismäki has directed over a dozen features and his latest is “Fallen Leaves” which made a triumphant and well-received return to the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year where it won the esteemed Jury Prize.

Continue reading ‘Fallen Leaves’ Teaser Trailer: Aki Kaurismäki’s Latest Wry TragiComedy Opens November 17 at The Playlist.

It’s been a while since Michel Gondry‘s last film: eight years, in fact. But the “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind” director showed up at the Cannes Film Festival in May with a new film, “The Book Of Solutions.” Part of the festival’s Directors’ Fortnight, the film is a meta look at Gondry’s creative life, about a filmmaker stuck in a rut while trying to make a film.  

Continue reading ‘The Book Of Solutions’ Trailer: Michel Gondry’s First Film In Eight Years Features A Director In A Creative Crisis at The Playlist.

Whether a casual moviegoer or a die-hard cinephile, a Wes Anderson film is likely among your favorites. Anderson is a meticulous director who pours everything into the stories he tells. His most recent film, “Asteroid City,” is no different, and falls once again into the wacky, visually stunning, and amazingly cast categories the director’s known for. 

The film, which had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year before its theatrical release, takes place in a fictional desert town in the 1950s where a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention is being held after life-changing events happen.

Continue reading Wes Anderson’s ‘Asteroid City’ Celebrating Home Release With Exclusive Gift Set [Contest] at The Playlist.

What’s there to say about French director Michel Hazanavicius? His two “OSS 117” films with Jean Dujardin are foreign cult comedies. And then the duo struck gold stateside with “The Artist,” which won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor at the 2012 Oscars. But Hazanavicius hasn’t caught on with US audiences since then: not with 2014’s “The Search” with his wife Bérénice Bejo, or 2017’s “Redoubtable,” a regrettable biopic dramedy about Jean-Luc Godard.

Continue reading ‘Final Cut’ Trailer: Michel Hazanavicius’ Zombie Remake Screens At Tribeca Next Week, Hits Theaters On July 14 at The Playlist.

It would be nice to think that desires are nothing more than preferences, springing organically from a fixed identity and unaffected by outside circumstances such as personal history and societal norms. The reality is, of course, much thornier, and trying to disentangle the many different factors influencing our tastes and longings can quickly cause a lot of suffering. The complex question of nature vs. nurture represents one of vanishingly few areas of human life still infused with mystery and resisting essentialist, restrictive impulses; it can be cause for both horror and wonder.

Continue reading ‘Last Summer’ Review: Catherine Breillat’s Devastating Drama Exposes Bourgeois Amorality [Cannes] at The Playlist.

CANNES – The past decade has been an Oscar boom for Cannes. The French institution has premiered a Best Picture winner in “Parasite” and landed nine nominees over that span including three alone this past January with “Elvis,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness.” We’re not sure festival director Thierry Fremeux will land another Best Picture winner in 2024, but at least two Best Picture nominations seem very likely.

Continue reading Did The 2024 Oscars Get A Cannes Boost? at The Playlist.

Chinese author Yu Hua is no stranger to Cannes. The famed postmodernist writer’s work first graced the silver screens of the Palais back in 1994 with director Zhang Yimou’s masterclass adaptation of his seminal novel, “To Live.” A searing portrait of a single family’s struggle through China’s mid-century upheaval and the Cultural Revolution, “To Live” would go on to win the festival’s coveted Grand Prix award, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, and the Best Actor Award.

Continue reading ‘Only The River Flows’ Review: Wei Shujun Adapts A Bleak, Inscrutable Noir [Cannes] at The Playlist.

Alice Rohrwacher’s “La Chimera” flits between languages (English, Italian, French, German) as fluidly as it does mediums (35mm, Super16mm, and 16mm cinematography) and styles (jerkily sped up Chaplin-esque scenes, clinical CCTV footage, audacious 180-degree camera flips). Rohrwacher uses this mosaic of disparate approaches to hone in on other kinds of incongruous and unpredictable interplay: modern Italy and its ancient past, heartbreak and new love, and the real world and its spiritual mirror realm.

Continue reading ‘La Chimera’ Review: Another Enchanting Modern Myth From Alice Rohrwacher [Cannes] at The Playlist.

CANNES – The 2023 Cannes Film Festival has come to an end and that means the Palme d’Or winner has finally been revealed. Presented by jury president Ruben Östlund and special guest Jane Fonda, the honor went to Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall.” Recently acquired by NEON, it becomes the independent distributors fourth Palme winner over the past four years after “Titane,””Triangle of Sadness,” and Best Picture winner, “Parasite.”

READ MORE: “The Zone of Interest” Review: Jonathan Glazer’s often brilliant examination of human complicity [Cannes]

Tried becomes just the second woman in the 76-year history of the festival to win the Palme after “The Piano’s” Jane Campion and “Titane’s” Julia Ducournau.

Continue reading ‘Anatomy Of A Fall’ Wins Palme d’Or At 2023 Cannes Film Festival at The Playlist.

The official synopsis for Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days” is one of those rare occasions when a tightly-described premise encapsulates the immensity of a film: a janitor in Japan drives between jobs listening to rock music. In this case, the janitor is Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), an older man whose job is cleaning Tokyo’s elegantly designed public toilets. The rock music is a potpourri of classics, played straight out of rare cassettes lovingly inserted in the deck of Hirayama’s cleaning van. 

Continue reading ‘Perfect Days’ Review: Wim Wenders’ Latest Is A Moving Yet Not Unflawed Return To Form [Cannes] at The Playlist.

The average South Korean consumes around 80 packets of ramyeon a year. The rehydrated mix of dried, curly noodles, freeze-dried vegetables and a sachet of powdered soup is one of the country’s most beloved comfort foods, a quickly-whipped, heartwarming meal that sits at the tricky intersection of tasty and convenient. The characters in Hong Sang-soo’s “In Our Day” are in the minority who takes their ramyeon extra spicy, with thick gochujang paste seeping through the clear soup and tainting it red. 

Continue reading ‘In Our Day’ Review: Cats And Rock Paper Scissors Make Up Hong Sang-soo’s Charming Chronicling Of Routine [Cannes] at The Playlist.

The 2023 Cannes Film Festival ends tomorrow, but awards for the fest start today, at least in the Un Certain Regard category. With John C. Reilly presiding as Jury president, and Paula Beer, Davy Chou, Alice Winocour, and Émilie Dequenne as fellow jurors, announced their winners today on la Croisette. And the winner of the Uncertain Regard Prize?

READ MORE: ‘How To Have Sex’ Review: Snapshot Of Brits Abroad Proves A Refreshing Take On Female Sexual Coming Of Age [Cannes]

It’s Molly Manning Walker‘s debut film “How To Have Sex,” about three British teens who go on a rite-of-passage holiday that ends up much more sobering than the girls expect.

Continue reading Cannes 2023 Un Certain Regard Awards: Molly Manning Walker’s Debut ‘How To Have Sex’ Wins Top Prize at The Playlist.

CANNES – He had a bite of Wes Anderson’s world voicing Chief in the stop-motion animated “Isle of Dogs,” but Bryan Cranston is now officially a member of the auteur’s growing live action ensemble. The six-time Emmy Award winner, two-time Tony Award winner and Oscar nominee joined the club with his role as the inquisitive 1950s television program narrator in “Asteroid City.” And, if you’ve ever spoken to any of the other longtime Anderson collaborators, you quickly learn that for actors, a Wes Anderson movie is a blast.

Continue reading Bryan Cranston on Wes Anderson, ‘Asteroid City’ &, Oh Yeah, Cannes at The Playlist.

With Quentin Tarantino at the Cannes Film Festival for a special screening of John Flynn‘s 1977 flick “Rolling Thunder,” Deadline sat the director down for an interview to talk about his career, his upcoming final film “The Movie Critic,” and more. And in the chat, QT confirmed that “The Movie Critic” will indeed be the “last thing” he does as a feature film.

Continue reading Quentin Tarantino Confirms Again That ‘The Movie Critic’ Is His Last Film, But He Won’t Rule Out Directing A TV Series Someday at The Playlist.

There has been a lot of talk in recent years about cooking as a form of care, an idea intrinsically linked to the feminist revaluation of the work usually performed by women, which is most often unremunerated yet essential to day-to-day living. In cinema, this has translated to a surge of interest among film writers around the place and representation of cooking and eating on screen; a focus that represents another avenue for reclaiming a place for women within cinema, and, more generally, for recognizing that dynamics of care (as opposed to violence or exploitation) are all around us already, if we only look. 

Continue reading ‘The Pot-Au-Feu’ Review: Tran Anh Hung Returns With An Awe-Inspiring Ode To Pleasure In All Its Forms [Cannes] at The Playlist.

Quentin Tarantino is back at the Cannes Film Festival this year for a special screening in the Directors’ Fortnight. And after lots of speculation, QT revealed what film he’ll screen on la Croisette: John Flynn‘s 1977 thriller “Rolling Thunder,” which Tarantino dedicated an entire chapter to in his book “Cinema Speculation.” How’s that for a “Rendez-vous With Quentin Tarantino,” as Cannes billed the screening?

Continue reading Quentin Tarantino Says ‘The Movie Critic’ In His Upcoming Film Is Based On A “Cynical As Hell” Critic Who Used To Write For “A Porno Rag” at The Playlist.

In 2008, Kléber Mendonça Filho released “Crítico,” a documentary building upon his years of experience as a film critic to weave a rich chronicling of cinephilia that gathered over 70 critics and filmmakers to discuss cinema in all of its joys and contradictions. Fifteen years later and following great acclaim as a fiction feature director, Filho returns to documentary to investigate some of the themes he first prodded upon in his debut with “Pictures of Ghosts.”

READ MORE: 2023 Cannes Film Festival: 21 Must-See Movies To Watch 

As with Godard and Paris, Fellini and Rome, Scorsese, and New York, Filho is a filmmaker whose craft is deeply intertwined with his love of a city, in this case, the Pernambuco capital of Recife, in the north-east of Brazil.

Continue reading ‘Pictures Of Ghosts’ Review: Kléber Mendonça Filho’s Triumphant Return To Documentaries Is A Loving Ode To Cinemas at The Playlist.

Having previously won the Palme d’Or in 2001 for “The Son’s Room” and premiered the majority of his films in competition, Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti has been a mainstay at the Cannes Film Festival for several decades. His latest film, “A Brighter Tomorrow,” marks a welcome return to the French Riviera following the poorly-received “Three Floors.” Getting special permission from Cannes to release his films locally prior to hitting the Croisette, Moretti’s 14th feature was released in Italian theaters on April 20, where it has greatly resonated with audiences and earned around $4 million. 

Continue reading ‘A Brighter Tomorrow’ Review: Nanni Moretti’s Latest Is A Messy Meta Comedy About Filmmaking [Cannes] at The Playlist.

CANNES: Docudramas are inherently difficult to master. You’re attempting to meld real-life footage or people with actors and, often, fictionalized accounts that may substantially differ from the truth. In the case of “Four Daughters,” director and screenwriter Kaouther Ben Hania has succeeded in mastering the genre but, notably, by the slimmest of margins. It helps that her subject and source material are compelling enough to overcome the movie’s flaws.

READ MORE: “The Zone of Interest” Review: Jonathan Glazer’s often brilliant examination of human complicity [Cannes]

The follow-up to Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated 2020 narrative film, “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” her latest endeavor begins with Olfa Hamrouni and her two twentysomething daughters, Eya Chikahoui and Tayssir Chikhaoui, waiting in a production office or maybe a makeup studio or, possibly, just a room (it’s never really clarified) somewhere in Tunis, Tunisia.

Continue reading ‘Four Daughters’ Cannes Review: A Tunisian Mother Loses Her Daughters To Wolves at The Playlist.