Panahi wins Palme d'Or at 2025 Cannes Film Festival: A celebration of cinematic excellence
Shreeaa Rathi | TIMESOFINDIA.COM | May 28, 2025, 22:32 IST
( Image credit : AP, TOIGLOBAL )
The curtains have fallen on the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, marking a spectacular conclusion. Celebrated filmmaker Jafar Panahi clinched the coveted Palme d'Or for his latest masterpiece. This year's lineup featured an impressive twenty-two films, with Oliver Laxe's 'Sirat' receiving accolades from critics and audiences alike. Bi Gan's thought-provoking 'Resurrection' also caught the eye of festival-goers.
The 2025 Cannes Film Festival concluded with Panahi winning the Palme d'Or, capping off what was considered one of the strongest editions of the festival in years, as reflected by the wide range of prizes awarded by the Juliette Binoche-led competition jury. The festival showcased twenty-two films, with Oliver Laxe's "Sirât" earning high praise and Panahi's "It Was Just an Accident" winning the top prize. Bi Gan's "Resurrection" also garnered significant attention and a special jury prize.
The richness of the selection was reflected in the wide range of prizes handed out by the competition jury, presided over by the actor Juliette Binoche.
Ranking all the films in the competition, from best to worst, has become something of a tradition lately, and never have I struggled more with the task.
Oliver Laxe's "Sirât" begins with a rave in the Moroccan desert, set against whispers of a deadly global conflict. The film produced "the competition’s most sustained and enveloping contact high." The title, in Muslim eschatology, refers to a narrow bridge between Paradise and Hell. Laxe’s movie is both a nightmarish experience and an exhilarating one—a pitiless ordeal that is nonetheless underpinned by extraordinary love and tenderness. Laxe’s tremendously physical filmmaking has already triggered comparisons to “The Wages of Fear” and “Sorcerer”.
Panahi’s Palme d’Or winner, “It Was Just an Accident,” involves several folks cramming into a rickety van, arguing over where to go and what to do. The film reveals itself as a powerful moral thriller about the uncertainty of the truth, the abuses of the Iranian regime, the consequences of physical and psychological torture, and the choice between revenge and mercy. It builds to an astoundingly cathartic sequence, a one-take release of fury and horror that leaves you genuinely shaken—and unable to stop thinking about Panahi himself, a great dissident filmmaker who, not for the first time (or, I hope, the last), has turned the struggle of a lifetime into galvanizing art.
Bi Gan's "Resurrection" stars Jackson Yee and Shu Qi, leading the audience on a multi-part odyssey through a century’s worth of film history. The film riffs on “Blade Runner” and “Holy Motors”; pays homage to the Lumière brothers, F. W. Murnau, and Georges Méliès; and burrows deep into the landscape of genre, where spies, gangsters, spirits, monsters, and vampires hold the keys to cinema’s enduring popularity and its capacity for renewal. What makes “Resurrection” more than just another facile love letter to the medium is a melancholy awareness that such magic always comes at a cost—to the filmmakers who practice their art and the film lovers who bask in it. What the movies give, they also take away.
Mascha Schilinski's "Sound of Falling" was one of the best and most memorable films screened. The film marries ethereally elegant form to a damning thesis about the continuity of female suffering across the generations.
Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent” uses genre to political ends. Wagner Moura, playing a former university researcher, gives a star turn of revelatory magnetism. He received the festival’s Best Actor prize; Mendonça Filho was crowned Best Director.
Saeed Roustaee's "Woman and Child" presents a widowed mother exacting justice for an unspeakable loss. The mesmerizing Izadyar comes to resemble a furious, wide-eyed wraith—an almost mythical agent of retribution.
Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind” is an art-heist movie. The crime he commits is a foolish, bumbling, desultory affair, but Reichardt observes every moment of it—and the ensuing fallout—with her usual dolorous, low-key mastery.
Sergei Loznitsa’s “Two Prosecutors,” based on a novella by Georgy Demidov, unfolds like the bleakest of thought experiments.
Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” is an impeccably crafted behind-the-scenes account of how Jean-Luc Godard made “Breathless”. The three central performances, by Guillaume Marbeck (as Godard), Zoey Deutch (as Jean Seberg), and Aubry Dullin (as Jean-Paul Belmondo), hit their difficult marks with great skill and nary a whiff of self-congratulation.
Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” reunites Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård.
Dominik Moll's "Case 137" uses the gilets jaunes protests as a backdrop.
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s “Young Mothers” picked up another prize—Best Screenplay.
Carla Simón’s “Romería” makes a lovely return to autobiographical terrain.
Hafsia Herzi’s “The Little Sister” coaxes quietly powerful work from Nadia Melliti. Melliti won the festival’s Best Actress prize.
Chie Hayakawa’s “Renoir” is a drama about the impenetrable singularity of a young girl’s mind.
Tarik Saleh’s “Eagles of the Republic” is a slick contemporary fable about a fictional Egyptian movie star.
Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme” follows a reckless, wealthy nineteen-fifties industrialist.
Oliver Hermanus’s “The History of Sound” charts the forbidden and mostly alfresco romance between two young men.
Lynne Ramsay’s “Die My Love” stars Jennifer Lawrence.
Julia Ducournau’s “Alpha” follows a teen-ager named Alpha.
Ari Aster’s “Eddington” stars Joaquin Phoenix.
Mario Martone’s “Fuori” stars Valeria Golino as the novelist Goliarda Sapienza.
The richness of the selection was reflected in the wide range of prizes handed out by the competition jury, presided over by the actor Juliette Binoche.
Ranking all the films in the competition, from best to worst, has become something of a tradition lately, and never have I struggled more with the task.
Oliver Laxe's "Sirât" begins with a rave in the Moroccan desert, set against whispers of a deadly global conflict. The film produced "the competition’s most sustained and enveloping contact high." The title, in Muslim eschatology, refers to a narrow bridge between Paradise and Hell. Laxe’s movie is both a nightmarish experience and an exhilarating one—a pitiless ordeal that is nonetheless underpinned by extraordinary love and tenderness. Laxe’s tremendously physical filmmaking has already triggered comparisons to “The Wages of Fear” and “Sorcerer”.
Panahi’s Palme d’Or winner, “It Was Just an Accident,” involves several folks cramming into a rickety van, arguing over where to go and what to do. The film reveals itself as a powerful moral thriller about the uncertainty of the truth, the abuses of the Iranian regime, the consequences of physical and psychological torture, and the choice between revenge and mercy. It builds to an astoundingly cathartic sequence, a one-take release of fury and horror that leaves you genuinely shaken—and unable to stop thinking about Panahi himself, a great dissident filmmaker who, not for the first time (or, I hope, the last), has turned the struggle of a lifetime into galvanizing art.
Bi Gan's "Resurrection" stars Jackson Yee and Shu Qi, leading the audience on a multi-part odyssey through a century’s worth of film history. The film riffs on “Blade Runner” and “Holy Motors”; pays homage to the Lumière brothers, F. W. Murnau, and Georges Méliès; and burrows deep into the landscape of genre, where spies, gangsters, spirits, monsters, and vampires hold the keys to cinema’s enduring popularity and its capacity for renewal. What makes “Resurrection” more than just another facile love letter to the medium is a melancholy awareness that such magic always comes at a cost—to the filmmakers who practice their art and the film lovers who bask in it. What the movies give, they also take away.
Mascha Schilinski's "Sound of Falling" was one of the best and most memorable films screened. The film marries ethereally elegant form to a damning thesis about the continuity of female suffering across the generations.
Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent” uses genre to political ends. Wagner Moura, playing a former university researcher, gives a star turn of revelatory magnetism. He received the festival’s Best Actor prize; Mendonça Filho was crowned Best Director.
Saeed Roustaee's "Woman and Child" presents a widowed mother exacting justice for an unspeakable loss. The mesmerizing Izadyar comes to resemble a furious, wide-eyed wraith—an almost mythical agent of retribution.
Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind” is an art-heist movie. The crime he commits is a foolish, bumbling, desultory affair, but Reichardt observes every moment of it—and the ensuing fallout—with her usual dolorous, low-key mastery.
Sergei Loznitsa’s “Two Prosecutors,” based on a novella by Georgy Demidov, unfolds like the bleakest of thought experiments.
Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” is an impeccably crafted behind-the-scenes account of how Jean-Luc Godard made “Breathless”. The three central performances, by Guillaume Marbeck (as Godard), Zoey Deutch (as Jean Seberg), and Aubry Dullin (as Jean-Paul Belmondo), hit their difficult marks with great skill and nary a whiff of self-congratulation.
Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” reunites Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård.
Dominik Moll's "Case 137" uses the gilets jaunes protests as a backdrop.
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s “Young Mothers” picked up another prize—Best Screenplay.
Carla Simón’s “Romería” makes a lovely return to autobiographical terrain.
Hafsia Herzi’s “The Little Sister” coaxes quietly powerful work from Nadia Melliti. Melliti won the festival’s Best Actress prize.
Chie Hayakawa’s “Renoir” is a drama about the impenetrable singularity of a young girl’s mind.
Tarik Saleh’s “Eagles of the Republic” is a slick contemporary fable about a fictional Egyptian movie star.
Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme” follows a reckless, wealthy nineteen-fifties industrialist.
Oliver Hermanus’s “The History of Sound” charts the forbidden and mostly alfresco romance between two young men.
Lynne Ramsay’s “Die My Love” stars Jennifer Lawrence.
Julia Ducournau’s “Alpha” follows a teen-ager named Alpha.
Ari Aster’s “Eddington” stars Joaquin Phoenix.
Mario Martone’s “Fuori” stars Valeria Golino as the novelist Goliarda Sapienza.