Special Screenings 2025: Icons, Debuts, and Singular Visions

The Special Screenings at Cannes 2025 offer a rich mix of tributes, political documentaries, and distinctive first features.

Andrew Dominik returns with Bono: Stories of Surrender, a raw, poetic portrait of the U2 frontman. Pierre Richard’s whimsical doc L’homme qui a vu l’ours qui a vu l’homme explores folklore with humor and heart.

First features take center stage, from Ugo Bienvenu’s animated odyssey ARCO, to Or Sinai’s intimate Mama, and the imaginative Amélie et la Métaphysique des Tubes (Little Amélie) by Maïlys Vallade & Liane-Cho Han.

Joséphine Japy’s debut Qui Brille au Combat (The Wonderers) and Romane Bohringer’s Dites-lui que je l’aime (Tell Her I Love Her) tackle resilience and memory.

Also on offer: Eugene Jarecki’s The Six Billion Dollar Man, a searing satire on masculinity and economics, and Sylvain Chomet’s animated homage Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol (A Magnificent Life).

This year’s Special Screenings invite audiences to celebrate cinema’s capacity to surprise, question, and reflect — in forms as diverse as their makers.