Cannes 2019 Palme d’Or Contenders: Here’s a Look at the Likely Winners

Since 1955, the Cannes Film Festival has awarded the Palme d’Or to some of the greatest filmmakers of all time, from Frances Ford Coppola to Jane Campion. However, the prestigious golden leaf remains one of the hardest prizes to predict. While Oscar season involves thousands of voters and aggressive, months-long campaigns, the Palme d’Or race among the 20-odd films selected for Official Competition screen across 10 days for a jury of celebrated actors, filmmakers, and other influencers, some of whom can be fickle about their tastes. The jury typically watches two or three films per day, convening throughout the festival before deliberating at the very end. And while the jury president can wield some influence over the outcome, everyone gets a vote.

That means there’s no precise science for predicting the Palme d’Or contenders, but that doesn’t mean we can’t give it a shot. Each year, IndieWire ranks the Palme d’Or contenders as they screen throughout the festival. The list is updated daily as new films premiere and the buzz evolves. The odds are based on a range factors, from the identity of the jurors to the overall reception of the films at the festival and the profile of the talent involved.

This year’s jury stands out for being particularly filmmaker-centric. Cannes veteran Alejandro G. Iñarritu is serving as president, marking the first time a Latin American has served in that role. He’s joined by fellow directors Kelly Reichardt, Alice Rohrwatcher, Maimouna N’Diaye, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Pawel Pawlikowski — as well as Elle Fanning, the youngest Cannes juror in history. Almost all of them have screened work at the festival, and their projects suggest a jury composed of complex, disparate sensibilities.

Needless to say, anything can happen. Some jury decisions are unanimous; others stem from divided reactions. The most acclaimed movie of the festival can reach the finish line with ease — as with last year’s “Shoplifters,” which later scored an Oscar nomination — or the prize can fall to a late surprise, as it did in 2008 with “The Class.” The most recent surprise may have been 2014’s “Winter Sleep,” a three-hour plus Turkish drama from Nuri Bilge Ceylan that barely got a U.S. release.

So anything can happen. Stay tuned as this list grows over the course of a festival filled with unpredictable ingredients.

1. “Les Misérables” (Review)

The directorial debut of Ladj Ly is a relentless tale of mounting tension between tough police officers and an oppressed Muslim population in modern-day Paris. Ly’s jittery, naturalistic style spends much of its running time focused on several officers as they clash with the neighborhood youth, and one conflicted new recruit (Damien Bonnard) with a moral conscience. The suspense builds to an anxiety-inducting showdown involves the bubbling frustrations of a local Muslim boy (Issa Perica) whose pithy crimes receive a nasty comeuppance.

In the immediate aftermath of the movie’s wrenching finale, audiences were immediately drawing thematic parallels to “Do the Right Thing,” and while that may point to some of the more reductive qualities of the story, the combination of socially relevant storytelling and intense filmmaking could yield a lot of jury support akin to the wave of enthusiasm for Jacques Audiard’s “Dheepan” in 2015, which culminated with its Palme d’Or. The two movies have much in common beyond French directors, and it’s safe to assume that “Les Misérables” will remain a sturdy contender for some sort of prize throughout the festival.

2. “Bacurau” (Review)

Brazilian critic-turned-filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho returns to Cannes competition three years after his acclaimed Sonia Braga vehicle “Aquarius” with co-director Juliano Dornelles for an ambitious, bloody Western set in the near future. The movie revolves around the events of a remote desert village maintaining their parochial way of life in the face of a debilitating water crisis, and a mysterious group of dangerous vigilantes — led by a psychotic Udo Kier — who begin to attack the vulnerable settlement from afar.

Braga returns as a hard-drinking doctor whose eventual showdown with Kier marks one of the many, many absorbing moments in this enigmatic genre hybrid, which levels a sharp critique against American imperialism and Brazilian political corruption alike. It also stuffs in UFOs and psychedelic drugs into a surreal plot that forces viewers to chase its wavelength, and even then leaves them with many questions.

It’s an exciting cinematic experience that in some situations could alienate or divide a jury, but the director’s distinctive, dreamlike vision could just as easily set it apart from more familiar (and less topical) storytelling at this year’s festival. If that’s the case, we could be look at this year’s “Apichatpalme” — that is, a throwback to the year Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” impressed Tim Burton with its otherworldly qualities and took the festival’s top prize. “Bacurau” would be a bold pick for the Palme, but not an indefensible one.

3. “The Dead Don’t Die” (Review)

Cannes chose to open with a Competition film for the first time since “Moonrise Kingdom,” but this time, it didn’t go over quite as well. Jim Jarmusch’s deadpan zombie romp succeeded at bringing out a snazzy ensemble of beloved stars to the red carpet, including Bill Murray, Adam Driver, and Tilda Swinton, all of whom deliver amusing turns in Jarmusch’s wry anti-capitalist satire.

But Jarmusch’s maximalist approach results in a jumble of self-referential jokes, kooky tangents, and blunt jabs at America’s consumerist obsessions that played well enough in the room but left many audiences wanting more from this Cannes mainstay, and plenty of audiences questioning whether the film belonged in competition in the first place. This is the kind of off-the-wall selection that a quirky jury might award for its screenplay, but don’t bet on it for the Palme.

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