Cannes 2025: Out of Competition Brings Spectacle, Stars, and Sharp Storytelling

This year’s Out of Competition slate at Cannes blends red-carpet glamour with filmmaker-driven entertainment. Leading the pack is Tom Cruise with Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the explosive final chapter in the legendary action franchise, premiering May 14.

Opening the festival is the charming debut Partir un Jour by Amélie Bonnin, a nostalgic road trip dramedy marking a confident first feature.

Martin Bourboulon’s thriller 13 Jours, 13 Nuits promises high-tension geopolitics, while Cédric Klapisch’s La Venue de l’Avenir (Colours of Time) explores time travel with his signature humanism.

Spike Lee returns with Highest 2 Lowest, a provocative take on American inequality, and Rebecca Zlotowski offers an intimate domestic drama in Vie Privée (A Private Life). Thierry Klifa brings intrigue and opulence with La Femme la Plus Riche du Monde.

Together, these films prove Cannes still knows how to mix cinema as art with cinema as event.