The2025 Cannes Film Festivalhas come and gone, and several ofthis year’s most anticipated filmswere being shown at the prestigious event. With world premieres including Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie’sMission: Impossible - The Final Reckoningand Wes Anderson’sThe 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 thelongest standing ovation at Cannesis held by Guillermo del Toro’sPan’s Labyrinth, which received an astonishing 22 minutes of clapping following its premiere in 2006. Since then,films likeFahrenheit 9/11andMudhave come close to breaking the long-standing record, managing 20 minutes and 18 minutes respectively. Audiences have continued to show their respect and admiration for the Cannes premieres, and one even challenged for a spot in the top three ever recorded.
Sound of Fallingmay 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 (viaVariety). The film marks Mascha Schilinski’s follow-up to her 2017 debut,Dark Blue Girl.
Sound of Fallingfollows the lives offour young girls on a farm in rural Germany, whose lives become intertwined when they discover important truths about their past.ScreenRant’s review ofSound of Fallingmirrors the consensus that it’s one of the festival’s finest offerings.
The opening film of this year’s Cannes Film Festival wasLeave 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.
The film received an impressive 5-minute standing ovation from the crowd after its premiere (viaDeadline). The film was preceded by the festival’s opening ceremony, in whichRobert De Niro was awarded an honorary Palme d’Orfor his contributions to cinema.
Scarlett Johansson has starred in plenty of great filmsthroughout the years, fromAvengers: EndgametoMarriage Story, butnow she’s decided to direct her own.Eleanor the Greatfollows 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 (viaDeadline). The movie has received overwhelmingly positive reviews, with many critics praising its sense of humor and sincerity.
Starring Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright, Spike Lee’s newest movie isa modern adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’sHigh and Low, which follows a wealthy businessman who finds himself extorted when his chauffeur’s son is kidnapped.
The film reunites Lee and Washington for the first time since 2006’sInside 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 (viaDeadline).
Best known for her performances inSpencerand theTwilightsaga, actress Kristen Stewart has turned her attention to directing, with her debut featureThe Chronology of Waterreceiving a 6.5-minute standing ovation at Cannes (viaDeadline).
The movie is adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir of the same name, whichfollows her journey growing up in the Pacific Northwestthrough 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.”
The final official selection movie to play at Cannes in 2025 came from the Midnight Screenings section.Honey Don’t, the second entry in director Ethan Coen’s “lesbian B-movie trilogy” that began withDrive-Away Dolls, stars Margaret Qualley as private investigator Honey O’Donahue, who finds herself unraveling a series of murders tied to a church. The film was received warmly with a late-night, 6.5-minute standing ovation (viaDeadline).
21Resurrection (7 Minutes)
Directed By Bi Gan
Bi Gan’s second Cannes feature,Resurrection,received a 7-minute long standing ovation this week, with many critics calling it one of the festival’s best chances of receiving the Palme d’Or (viaDeadline). The film centers around a world where humanity has lost the ability to dream, interrogating the power of our subconscious and what life would look like without this natural creativity.
Ari Aster’s latest feature also premiered at Cannes this year, with audiences giving a standing ovation of “nearly seven minutes” according toDeadline. 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.
ThoughEddington’s reviews have been mixed, the film wasamong 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.
Fuoriis a powerful character drama inspired by Italian author Goliarda Sapienza’s 1983 autobiographyThe University of Rebibbia, and following her journey to get her novelThe Art of Joypublished after nearly ten years of writing.
The story is afierce exploration of ambition, politics, and authenticitythat landed a 7.5-minute standing ovation from audiences at Cannes (viaDeadline). The film stars Valeria Golino as the iconic writer.
The finalMission: Impossiblemovie 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 (viaDeadline).
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.
