The 25 Most Anticipated Films Of The 2016 Cannes Film Festival

“Graduation” (“Bacalaureat”)
Director: Cristian Mungiu
Synopsis: A young woman has her bright future prospects put in jeopardy when she is violently assaulted, and her father, who has raised her according to strict moral principles, must decide how much he is willing to sacrifice to resolve the situation.
What You Need To Know: Perhaps the biggest name to come out of the Romanian New Wave over the past decade or two, Mungiu has a long and successful history with the festival: his debut “Occident” was in the Director’s Fortnight,” second film “4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days” won the Palme d’Or in 2007, and 2012’s “Beyond The Hills” won both Best Actress and Best Screenplay. From the logline alone, his latest, previously titled “Family Photos,” sounds like it’ll have a similarly uncompromising moral thrust as his abortion and exorcism-themed dramas, while the trailer suggests it will be as meticulously shot and composed as anything he has made. This time out, Mungiu has said the film was directly inspired by what was happening in his own life, and so the feeling we get from that first footage is achingly personal and touching. The film stars Lia Bugnar, “The White Ribbon” actress Maria-Victoria Dragus, and returning “4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days” star Vlad Ivanov, and brings the tally of previous Palme winners in the 2016 competition to 3 (alongside the Dardennes and Ken Loach).

“The Handmaiden”
Director: Park Chan-wook
Synopsis: A wealthy heiress in 1930s Korea falls for her new maid, who is a petty thief.
What You Need To Know: Of all the twisted, atmospheric and moody stories that pioneering Korean director Park Chan-wook (“Oldboy,” “Thirst,” “Stoker”) could have alighted upon, Sarah Waters‘ very British novel about pickpocketing and lesbianism in Victorian England “Fingersmith” might have seemed like a less obvious choice. But strip away the story’s trappings —which is exactly what Park did, transposing it to Japanese-occupied Korea in the pre-WWII years— and the bare bones of the narrative seem peculiarly suited to his drowsy but perfectly controlled, sensuous aesthetic. It’s a story full of betrayals, seductions and secrets, all keyed even higher by the rigid social hierarchies and class divisions they transgress, and with Kim Min-hee from Hong Sang-soo‘s “Right Now, Wrong Then” taking the lead along with “A Hard Day” actor Jo Jin-woong and Ha Jung-woo from Korean blockbuster “Assassination” in the cast, this is one of the festival’s foreign-language films we’re most looking forward to this year, especially having glimpsed the first trailer as well as the sexed-up snappily edited new one, both of which suggest that at the very least it will be a sumptuous visual treat.

“It’s Only the End of the World” (“Juste La Fin Du Monde”)
Director: Xavier Dolan
Synopsis: A young writer diagnosed with a terminal illness returns home to tell his family he is dying.
What You Need To Know: Quebecois wunderkind Dolan has been a regular and often petulant presence at Cannes since 2009, working his way up from Directors’ Fortnight to Un Certain Regard (twice) to the main Competition with “Mommy” in 2014, followed by a stint on the Jury headed by the Coens in 2015. He was reportedly disgruntled that “Mommy” (which we adored) “only” picked up the Jury Prize, though he was apparently mollified in that he shared that honor with none other than Jean-Luc Godard. That means that anything less than the Palme itself will doubtless be a disappointment to him this year, but we’re just looking forward to another slice of his trademark messy, exuberant humanism and the kind of empathetic performances that invariably overcome the soap opera-style storylines he favors. Featuring French superstars Gaspard Ulliel (from the better “Saint Laurent” biopic), previous Palme winner Lea Seydoux and Vincent Cassel and giving Cannes one of its two chances to ignore Marion Cotillard again (she’s been robbed/snubbed a couple of times and also stars in Nicole Garcia‘s competition title “From the Land of the Moon“), it looks like a very enticing package.

“Julieta”
Director: Pedro Almodovar
Synopsis: Unfolding in two different time periods, 2015 and 1985, we follow the story of Julieta, whose current crisis may be related to events from 30 years ago, when she was in a more prosperous and positive place.
What You Need To Know: Possibly as a rebound from the gaudy, silly excesses of his last film and first ever all-out misfire “I’m So Excited,” Spanish national treasure and Cannes fixture Almodovar returns to the Croisette with a competition title that is apparently among the most austere and sober dramas he’s made (this we know because Almodovar is one of the only directors for whom an exception is made to the rule that the Cannes competition will only accept world premieres; the film has already opened in Spain). Inspired by three short stories by Nobel Prize-winning Canadian author Alice Munro, the film stars Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte as Julieta at two different times in her life, and with its narrow focus on its female leads and with melodrama and histrionics kept to a minimum, it could prove the perfect combination of elements for Cannes. But it also could be that we will miss the brash, pulsating liveliness of Almodovar’s most celebrated Cannes titles (he won Best Director for “All About My Mother” and Best Screenplay for “Volver“).

“The Last Face”
Director: Sean Penn
Synopsis: Against the backdrop of a revolution occurring in an African nation, the director of an international aid agency and a doctor must reconcile their humanitarian aims with the dangers of civil unrest and a budding relationship.
What You Need To Know: Never the most lighthearted of directors, Penn’s latest film comes freighted with the kind of heavy political and moral context that the actor-turned-director is clearly very passionately engaged with. But he has also attracted an amazing cast: Oscar winners Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem headline, but Adele Exarchopoulos, Jared Harris and Jean Reno also feature, and the script is by Erin Dignam, whose next credit is on “Submergence” and which is currently filming with Wim Wenders at the helm and Alicia Vikander and James McAvoy starring. With this caliber of talent involved, we can definitely see this film getting an awards push later in the year after its In Competition premiere. Penn last contended for the Palme d’Or as a director with “The Pledge” in 2001, and his only theatrical feature since then has been “Into The Wild,” probably his best film to date, so if that trajectory continues, “The Last Face” could prove better than its slightly worthy logline suggests.