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The 2025 Cannes Film Festival is here. And on its first day we got a Quentin Tarantino mic drop, the first casualty of the festival’s new no-nudity-or-big-trains rule for the red carpet and even “Godzilla” made a surprise appearance.

Here’s what went down on the first day of the fest.

Quentin Tarantino Closes Out the Opening Ceremony in Typical Fashion

Quentin Tarantino, seemingly doing everything he can to not make his tenth and final film, attended the festival’s opening ceremony at the Grand Lumiére Theatre. His only job – besides walking the red carpet with wife Daniella – was to introduce the festival as officially starting. (It will run for the next 12 days.) “It’s my honor to declare the 78th festival open!” Tarantino shouted into the microphone before dropping it. True to form, he pulled it off with aplomb and the kind of borderline-cartoonish energy that characterizes his very best work.

On Monday, top executives from several major Hollywood studios will converge on Las Vegas for CinemaCon, the group formerly known as the National Association of Theatre Owners’ annual trade show. NATO, now known as Cinema United, hosts the week-long event at Caesars Palace, where executives from Sony, Warner Bros., Paramount, Lionsgate, Universal, and Amazon MGM Studios are expected to tease their upcoming slate of films and entice theater owners with the prospect of future blockbusters and awards contenders.

“Our members feel good about the future and the direction we’re heading,” Cinema United boss Michael O’Leary recently told The Hollywood Reporter. With several top filmmakers readying movies for this year, including Paul Thomas Anderson, James Cameron, and many others, how could they not? Ahead, the potential Oscar contenders with the most to gain during CinemaCon next week.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Sony/Tristar)

Why it matters: Sony kicks off...

George Miller wrote down the saga of Furiosa, the greatest survivor of his twisted vision of the apocalypse, more than 20 years ago. And now after concluding her story—at least for the time being—he is going back to its beginning with Furiosa, one of the most anticipated blockbuster epics of 2024. And at last it has a trailer. Oh, what a day, what a lovely day!

Filmed over six months last year, and across vast stretches of Australian deserts and outback, Furiosa (as the trailer will explain in all caps) is set 45 years before the events of Fury Road and the other Mad Max films and will track how a young child stolen from the Green Place of Many Mothers will rebuild her body and soul into a legendary driver of the Citadel, and one of the Wasteland’s fiercest warriors. The film also amounts to a bold swing for...

A select few humans got a glimpse into Barbie World on Sunday night at the world premiere of Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated “Barbie,” starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.

Social media exploded with reactions. ScreenRant writer Joseph Deckelmeier called the film “funny, bombastic and very smart,” adding that “Greta Gerwig aims for the fences and hits a home run.” Deckelmeier praised Robbie’s performance as “great” and noted that Gosling and Simu Liu are “pure entertainment.”

#Barbie caught me off guard & I mean that in the best way possible. It’s funny, bombastic, & very smart. Greta Gerwig aims for the fences & hits a home-run. Margot Robbie’s performance is great & @RyanGosling & @SimuLiu are pure entertainment! The whole cast is brilliant! pic.twitter.com/oXH965aUIF

— Joseph Deckelmeier (@joedeckelmeier) July 10, 2023

Collider writer Perri Nemiroff praised the craftsmanship of the film, particularly the costume and production design. When it came to the story,...

As a global audience starts to tune in for the 95th Academy Awards, one thing that is guaranteed to surprise viewers is the creative decision not to have a red carpet, but a champagne-colored runner instead. But can this bold choice withstand the traffic on Hollywood’s biggest night? Update: It cannot, and the backlash is already brewing.

“I think the decision to go with a champagne carpet rather than a red carpet shows how confident we are that no blood will be shed,” joked Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel at the unrolling ceremony.

This is the first time since 1961 that the famous Oscars red carpet has not been red, one of the many big changes made for this year’s ceremony including a new dress code and the addition of an Academy Award “crisis team.”

Here's a look behind the scenes at the #Oscars champagne carpet. https://t.co/i5wEon5M8t pic.

M3GAN's unexpected "Titanium" musical moment has spurred much fan appreciation online during the film's opening weekend. The Blumhouse horror flick, which just hit theaters, follows robotics engineer Gemma (Allison Williams) after she is forced to become the guardian for her young niece Cady (Violet McGraw). She uses Cady as a test subject for an android doll named M3GAN who is equipped with advanced AI. As Cady and M3GAN grow more attached, it soon becomes clear that the doll's directive to protect Cady at all costs includes a willingness to kill anyone who gets in M3GAN's way.

Although the film is best known for M3GAN's viral dance scene shown in the trailer, a completely different scene has also captured the attention of folks who saw it in theaters this weekend. The scene where the killer dolls sings David Guetta and Sia's "Titanium" (which was also featured...

Most actors are no strangers to the idea of the characters they play undergoing some sort of identity crisis. Chris Hemsworth knows all about that, having portrayed the Marvel superhero Thor during his most drastic on-screen transformation yet: the "Dude"-inspired deadbeat from "Avengers: Endgame." But, on the other hand, every performer's worst nightmare rears its ugly head when they themselves can't quite get a handle on the intricacies of the individual they're meant to play. Panic time.

Hemsworth found himself in exactly that unenviable position in the years leading up to filming for "Furiosa," writer/director George Miller's long-awaited prequel film to "Mad Max: Fury Road." Initially described only as playing "totally against type" in the role of the film's primary antagonist, it's little surprise that the "Thor" actor would feel a little out of his element under the guidance of the convention-defying Miller (although Hemsworth did play...

The concept of auteur theory stipulates that directors are the true authors of their films – and if that’s true, then is it any wonder that some of the industry’s top filmmakers have turned their gazes inward in recent years to tell incredibly personal stories? From Greta Gerwig with “Lady Bird” to Alfonso Cuaron with “Roma” to Paul Thomas Anderson with “Licorice Pizza” to Kenneth Branagh with “Belfast” to this year, where James Gray (“Armageddon Time”), Sam Mendes (“Empire of Light”), and Alejandro G. Inarritu (“Bardo”), auto-fiction is all the rage for the world’s top auteurs. But based on the early responses to “The Fabelmans” on Saturday night following its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, perhaps Steven Spielberg has topped them all.

Based on his own life – Spielberg co-wrote the script with Tony Kushner, his frequent collaborator; it’s Spielberg’s first screenwriting credit since...

Paul Verhoeven’s lesbian nun drama “Benedetta” just premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, and early viewers took to social media to praise the film and the filmmaker’s direction.

“Absolute Verhoeven,” World of Reel’s Jordan Ruimy said. “Erotic, violent, religiously sinful and absurdist. You have never seen a movie quite like this one. It’s a feminist take on Christ. If Virginie Efira doesn’t win Best Actress then there is no God.”

Fandango’s Brian Formo added: “Is ‘Benedetta’ one of Paul Verhoeven’s best? No. But is it one of his most subversive? Absolutely. It’s a riot. Let yourself be surprised. It makes sense that it’s released same day in France as #Cannes premiere. ‘Lesbian nuns’ is only the half of it.”

“Benedetta” is an erotic drama directed by Verhoeven about a young nun in 17th century Italy who carries on an affair with another nun,...

Welcome to Oscar Experts Typing, a weekly column in which Gold Derby editors and Experts Joyce Eng and Christopher Rosen discuss the Oscar race the same way you’ve been communicating with your coworkers for the past year: via Slack. This week, on Oscars weekend (finally), we, like everyone, still can’t stop talking about Best Actress.

Christopher Rosen: Joyce, we’ve made it to the finish line of an awards season like no other before. Earlier this week, we made our final Oscar predictions with a giant asterisk and while I stand by all that we discussed during that lively discussion, I think we both feel things remain — shall we say — unsettled in the Best Actress race. We both have Andra Day winning in what we’ve both said will be a nailbiter to the finish. The 2021 Best Actress winner is likely to have maybe 20 percent of the vote,...