The 2025 Cannes Film Festival is currently underway, and several of this year’s most anticipated films are being shown at the prestigious event. With world premieres including Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, there have been plenty of major releases at this year’s festival. These premieres have all continued the long-standing tradition of standing ovations from the audience, which can grow surprisingly lengthy.
The current record for the longest standing ovation at Cannes is held by Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, which received an astonishing 22 minutes of clapping following its premiere in 2006. Since then, films like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Mud have come close to breaking the long-standing record, managing 20 minutes and 18 minutes respectively. While nothing has quite challenged this accomplishment this year, audiences have continued to show their respect and admiration for the Cannes premieres.
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Sound Of Falling (3.5 Minutes)
Directed By Mascha Schilinski
- Release Date
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September 11, 2025
- Runtime
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149 Minutes
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Lena Urzendowsky
Angelika
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Claudia Geisler-Bading
Irm
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Sound of Falling may not have received the longest standing ovation after its Cannes premiere (at just 3.5 minutes), but the film has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from those critics in attendance (via Variety). The film marks Mascha Schilinski’s follow-up to her 2017 debut, Dark Blue Girl.
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Sound of Falling is a challenging film that is hard to sit through both because of its unique cinematic language & what it asks us to bear witness to.
Sound of Falling follows the lives of four young girls on a farm in rural Germany, whose lives become intertwined when they discover important truths about their past. ScreenRant’s review of Sound of Falling mirrors the consensus that it’s one of the festival’s finest offerings.
18
Leave One Day (5+ Minutes)
Directed By Amelie Bonnin
The opening film of this year’s Cannes Film Festival was Leave One Day, the first-ever directorial debut to open the festival. The film centers around an ambitious chef who yearns to open her own restaurant in Paris.
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Leave One Day Review: Cannes Opens With A Fuzzy French Musical That Leads With Easy Emotions
Cannes 2025 kicked off with a sentimental French musical that, while endearing, doesn’t inspire much movement otherwise.
The film received an impressive 5-minute standing ovation from the crowd after its premiere (via Deadline). The film was preceded by the festival’s opening ceremony, in which Robert De Niro was awarded an honorary Palme d’Or for his contributions to cinema.
17
Eleanor The Great (6 Minutes)
Directed By Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson has starred in plenty of great films throughout the years, from Avengers: Endgame to Marriage Story, but now she’s decided to direct her own. Eleanor the Great follows June Squibb’s protagonist as she attempts to grieve the loss of her lifetime best friend.
The film has received overwhelmingly positive reviews, with many critics praising its sense of humor and sincerity.
Johansson’s movie received a six-minute standing ovation at Cannes, with the director offering a short thank-you speech afterward for her “very timely” film (via Deadline). The movie has received overwhelmingly positive reviews, with many critics praising its sense of humor and sincerity.
16
Highest 2 Lowest (6 Minutes)
Directed By Spike Lee
Starring Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright, Spike Lee’s newest movie is a modern adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, which follows a wealthy businessman who finds himself extorted when his chauffeur’s son is kidnapped.
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Spike Lee going for a lighter tone, he achieves something different here, which makes Highest 2 Lowest easier to love in a way.
The film reunites Lee and Washington for the first time since 2006’s Inside Man, and the latter was awarded with an honorary Palme d’Or shortly before the screening. Afterward, audiences gave the film a six-minute standing ovation (via Deadline).
15
The Chronology Of Water (6.5 Minutes)
Directed By Kristen Stewart
Best known for her performances in Spencer and the Twilight saga, actress Kristen Stewart has turned her attention to directing, with her debut feature The Chronology of Water receiving a 6.5-minute standing ovation at Cannes (via Deadline).
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The Chronology of Water, through all its intricacies and fragments, is a stunning debut overflowing with confidence, authenticity, and soul.
The movie is adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir of the same name, which follows her journey growing up in the Pacific Northwest through complex relationships and difficult life decisions. Stewart described the film as “about iteration. Getting up and trying again. Repossessing your body, your desires, your ambitions and your dreams.”
14
Eddington (7 Minutes)
Directed By Ari Aster
Ari Aster’s latest feature also premiered at Cannes this year, with audiences giving a standing ovation of “nearly seven minutes” according to Deadline. Starring Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix, and Pedro Pascal, this unique, COVID-era Western is described as one of Aster’s most singular projects to date.
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Eddington Review: Ari Aster’s COVID Comedy Nightmare Is Like A Two & A Half Hour Doom Scroll
Eddington is a galaxy-brained COVID western comedy that bites off more than it can chew, but it still feels admirable for capturing the times.
Though Eddington’s reviews have been mixed, the film was among the most anticipated releases of the festival, and audiences clearly showed up to display their admiration for the cast and crew. Aster joked during the ovation that he was “sorry” for what he’d made everybody watch, while Phoenix was visibly moved by the reception.
13
Fuori (7.5 Minutes)
Directed By Mario Martone
- Release Date
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May 22, 2025
- Runtime
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117 minutes
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Valeria Golino
Goliarda Sapienza
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Matilda De Angelis
Roberta
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Fuori is a powerful character drama inspired by Italian author Goliarda Sapienza’s 1983 autobiography The University of Rebibbia, and following her journey to get her novel The Art of Joy published after nearly ten years of writing.
The story is a fierce exploration of ambition, politics, and authenticity that landed a 7.5-minute standing ovation from audiences at Cannes (via Deadline). The film stars Valeria Golino as the iconic writer.
12
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (7.5 Minutes)
Directed By Christopher McQuarrie
The final Mission: Impossible movie may have opened to mixed reviews, but that didn’t stop audiences showing their adoration for Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie at the film’s premiere. The movie received a 7.5-minute standing ovation after it screened out of competition, with Cruise and McQuarrie expressing their gratitude to audiences after the film (via Deadline).
The long-awaited sequel follows Cruise’s protagonist Ethan Hunt as he undergoes his deadliest mission yet: infiltrating a sunken submarine to find the source code of a dangerous “entity” that has the power to destroy the entire world.
11
The Phoenician Scheme (7.5 Minutes)
Directed By Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson’s latest feature was another highlight of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and the film seems to have been received just as positively as most were expecting. Deadline reports another 7.5-minute applause for the film, which sees Anderson reunite with long-time collaborators Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, and Willem Dafoe.
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The Phoenician Scheme is a zany but hollow thriller with a breakout performance from its central star Mia Threapleton.
The Phoenician Scheme’s reviews have been mostly mixed, with most critics agreeing that it represents much of the same from the acclaimed filmmaker. This movie tells the story of a wealthy businessman whose enterprise quickly comes under fire when he appoints his daughter as the sole heir of his estate.
10
Dossier 137 (8 Minutes)
Directed By Dominik Moll
- Release Date
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November 19, 2025
- Director
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Dominik Moll
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Guslagie Malanda
Alicia Mady
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Laurent Bozzi
Monsieur santoni
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Dorothée Martinet
Chrystelle
Dossier 137 may not have been the most anticipated release going into this year’s Cannes Film Festival, but it certainly had one of the best receptions. Deadline reports that the film received an eight-minute standing ovation, with the audience promptly ushered out of the theater to make room for the next screening.
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Dossier 137 delivers the pieces necessary to remind us that bad apples are merely born from their rotten systematic tree.
Dominik Moll’s police thriller tells the story of a detective looking into the case of a young man who was injured during a violent demonstration in Paris, exploring themes of police brutality and the dangers of misinformation.
