A March 15 Academy Awards may feel late. By then, it will be almost a year since “Sinners” sunk its teeth into moviegoers last April. Some nominees have been on the campaign trail since the Cannes Film Festival in May.

But the upside of a prolonged Oscar race has meant some unexpected late drama. Think about the same movies long enough, and minds can change. For months, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” sailed through awards season, picking up prize after prize. But the wins for “Sinners” and Michael B. Jordan at Sunday’s Actor Awards — along with some other recent developments — have given the Oscar race what Smoke or Stack might call fresh blood.

An Academy Awards that had looked like a runaway might be a close call, after all. With Oscar voting ending Thursday, let’s survey the top categories.

“One Battle After Another” has won at the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, the Producers Guild and the Directors Guild. But its nearly unblemished record was shaken up at Sunday’s Actor Awards (formerly the SAG Awards), where “Sinners” took the top prize. You’d have to have quite a few rounds at the “Sinners” juke joint to convince yourself that anything else has much of a chance.

WHAT HAS THE EDGE

The tea leaves are strongest for Anderson’s “One Battle After Another.” The Producers Guild, which uses a preferential ballot like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does, is among the most predictive of bellwethers. Their winners have matched the last five years and in eight of the last 10 years.

The actors guild best ensemble prize, on the other hand, has a shaky track record. In the last 31 years, the SAG winner has matched the Oscar champ only 15 times. The win for “Sinners,” though, came right in the midst of Oscar voting. It was a good time to show out. So this race feels close to a coin flip, with a Warner Bros. movie on both sides. The awards season resume makes “One Battle After Another” the front-runner. But “Sinners,” even with a record-setting 16 Oscar nominations, gets to play the underdog.

Best Actor
WHERE THINGS STAND

This has been one of the most competitive and hard-to-call races of the season. Look at Leonardo DiCaprio. He gives one of the best performances of his career, in the best picture favorite, and he’s still a long shot. Instead, Timothée Chalamet was widely perceived as in the lead after early wins at the Globes and the Critics Choice Awards for his frenetic performance in “Marty Supreme.” But the BAFTAs muddied the waters (Robert Aramayo, not in the Oscar mix, was the unexpected winner). And “Sinners” star Michael B. Jordan, much to his surprise, won at the Actor Awards.

WHO HAS THE EDGE

Chalamet’s maybe meta campaign, full of swagger and braggadocio, rubbed some voters the wrong way. At the same time, many in the academy felt the 30-year-old should have won last year, for his Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown” — a year when he won with the actors guild but lost to Adrien Brody (“The Brutalist”) at the Oscars. Chalamet will hope the reverse happens this year. But the academy is notoriously resistant to rewarding young stars. Jordan, 39, isn’t much older. But it now suddenly feels like his moment.

Best Actress
WHERE THINGS STAND

Since the fall festival launch of “Hamnet,” Jessie Buckley has been the favorite. She’s won at the Globes, the BAFTAs and the Actor Awards. Her closest competition is probably Rose Byrne, who won at the Globes in the comedy/musical category for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”

WHO HAS THE EDGE

This one’s easy. Fortunes have fluctuated in most of the top categories, but Buckley has been entrenched as the front-runner for months.

Best Supporting Actor

WHERE THINGS STAND

Sean Penn, a two-time Oscar winner, has done nearly no campaigning, yet he finds himself the favorite after winning at the Actor Awards and the BAFTAs. But several other nominees remain in the mix. Stellan Skarsgård (“Sentimental Value”) won at the Globes and is the kind of widely-liked veteran actor the academy likes to reward. But so is Delroy Lindo (“Sinners”), who was a surprise Oscar nominee. In the eyes of many, Lindo has quickly joined the contenders.

WHO HAS THE EDGE

Penn’s recent wins put him clearly in the lead, and he might stay there. But this remains a category rife with possibilities. The academy’s strong international leanings should help Skarsgård. And it wasn’t an accident that when “Sinners” won best ensemble at the Actor Awards, Lindo gave the acceptance speech.

Best Supporting Actress

WHERE THINGS STAND

This category has been all over the map. Teyana Taylor (“One Battle After Another”) won at the Globes. Wunmi Mosaku (“Sinners”) won at the BAFTAs. And Amy Madigan (“Weapons”) won at both the Actor Awards and the Critics Choice Awards.

WHO HAS THE EDGE

Any of those three could win. Two of them — Taylor and Mosaku — have the benefit of co-starring in films the academy obviously loves. “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” have 29 nominations between them, while “Weapons” has only the one. Yet the 75-year-old Madigan, another celebrated character actor who’s been great for decades, has the momentum thanks to her charming Actors Award speech.

AP

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Iran has summoned France’s representative in protest after the French foreign minister praised a prize-winning Iranian film as “a gesture of resistance against the Iranian regime’s oppression.”

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot had praised “It Was Just an Accident” after it won the prestigious Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival. The Iranian film centers on a man who abducts his suspected captor after being tortured in prison.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the French charge d’affaires was summoned over the minister’s “interventionist, irresponsible and instigative allegations,” the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

“Spare us Iranians the lectures. You have no moral authority whatsoever,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on “X,” citing France’s approach to Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. France last week threatened “concrete action” against Israel if the country didn’t halt the offensive in Gaza and lift restrictions on humanitarian aid, but the statement was mostly dismissed as empty threats.

Immediately following the award’s announcement, the Iranian state news agency had announced a more muted celebration of the award, crediting the country’s film industry for winning a second Palme d’Or after Abbas Kiarostami’s 1997 drama, “Taste of Cherry.”

In Iran, film productions need to receive script approval from the government to shoot in public. Dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi refuses to do that, knowing they won’t allow him to make the films he wants to, and “It Was Just an Accident” was filmed without cooperation. Iranian state TV called the film a mixture of “lie and smearing” as well as an “underground” film produced without required permits in Iran. State TV also chastised Panahi for not mentioning the plight of the Palestinians in his acceptance speech.

The film follows a man named Vahid, played by Vahid Mobasser, who believes he sees his former captor, who tortured him in prison and ruined his life. He abducts him, takes him to the desert and begins to bury him in the ground.

But to satisfy pangs of doubt, Vahid decides to confirm his suspicion by bringing the man, locked in his van, to other former prisoners for identification. In a strange and emotional journey, they are all forced to grapple with revenge and forgiveness. Panahi drew on the experiences from his own imprisonment as well as the stories of detainees around him.

Other state media were more critical of the win. The Mizan news agency, an arm of the country’s judiciary, reported on the win as part of the “Political Cannes Film Festival,” suggesting that the prize was given to Panahi because of his political leanings.

Pro-reform media outlets and activists praised Panahi. “This victory is no accident — it is the result of a tireless dedication to exploring humanistic values and human rights,” said Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, who was also previously imprisoned at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. Inmates at the prison include those with Western ties and political prisoners.

Panahi, one of the leading international directors, was banned from traveling out of Iran in 2009 for attending the funeral of a student killed in anti-government protests, a judgment later extended to two decades. But even when placed under house arrest, Panahi kept making movies, many of which are among the most lauded of the century. He made 2011’s “This Is Not a Film” on an iPhone in his living room. “Taxi” (2015) was clandestinely shot almost entirely within a car.

Panahi was arrested in 2022 when he went to the Tehran prosecutor’s office to inquire about the arrests of two other Iranian filmmakers. A judge later ruled that he must serve six years for an earlier sentence on charges of propagandizing against the government from 2011 that had never been enforced. In early 2023, Panahi went on a hunger strike and was released from Evin Prison.

Panahi said he would not seek asylum in another country, despite the risks of additional imprisonment.

“It’s simple. I’m unable to live here,” he said last week from the Cannes festival. “I have no ability to adapt to a new country, a new culture. Some people have this ability, this strength. I don’t.”

On Monday, Panahi landed in Tehran to cheers and applause from fans.

AP

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There’s no sufficient way of explaining what it’s like to be around Spike Lee, but his new film, “Highest 2 Lowest” comes pretty close.

The main character, played by Denzel Washington, is a Knicks fan who won’t tolerate Celtics green in his house. A framed jersey of Jalen Brunson hangs in his Brooklyn apartment. There are movie references peppered throughout, of “The French Connection,” “The Defiant Ones” and “The Sweet Smell of Success.” Yankee Stadium plays a pivotal setting. In one scene, Nicholas Turturro even yells directly into the camera: “Boston sucks!”

“We’re not counting on Boston for box office!” Lee says with a roaring cackle during an interview on a rooftop terrace in Cannes. “We might as well just write that off.”

Some of Lee’s most deeply felt passions — filmmaking and the New York Knicks — have collided at the Cannes Film Festival. The premiere of “Highest 2 Lowest,” a reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s “High to Low,” came shortly before the Knicks begin their Eastern Conference finals matchup with the Indiana Pacers. Everywhere Lee has gone at the French Riviera festival, he’s gone in blue and orange, including a pinstripe suit on the red carpet.

“It’s a film by a New Yorker who loves New York. But if you’re not that, it doesn’t detract from you enjoying it. You could be from … (Lee raises an eyebrow) … Indiana,” Lee says before letting out a maniacal roar. “Wait a minute, we got to write off another market, too!”

The Denzel fracas on the red carpet

“Highest 2 Lowest,” which A24 releases in theaters Aug. 22 before it streams on Apple TV+ on Sept. 5, was one of the most eventful premieres of Cannes. Washington was surprised with a Palme d’Or. (“That wasn’t acting,” Lee said. “He didn’t know. Only three or four people knew.”) Washington also got in an angry tangle with a photographer on the red carpet after his arm was grabbed.

“I wish I could’ve told that photographer: ‘Do not touch Denzel Washington or it’s going to be a (expletive) problem,’” Lee says, laughing. “The headline, ‘Man on Fire,’ hoooooo! That was a good headline.”

Lee then picks up the digital recorder lying in front of him and says in a calm, professional voice: “Ladies and gentleman, this is a public service announcement. Do not put your hands on Mr. Denzel Washington. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Thank you very much.”

But Lee, 68, has been more than happy to mix it up in Cannes. Before an interview, he taunted European journalists about his adopted Premier League team, Arsenal. At the press conference earlier in the day, he quoted Yoda for his primary message to film students: “There is no try, only do.” Said Lee: “Are you faking the funk or are you serious?”

Lee’s history with Cannes

Lee, who last debuted 2018’s “BlacKkKlansman” in Cannes, tried to avoid saying anything too pointed about President Donald Trump. But couldn’t help himself when asked about the moral decisions that mark “Highest 2 Lowest.”

“I don’t know how much we can talk about American values considering who is president,” Lee told reporters.

Lee was also on an apology tour at the festival. Four years ago, he was the head of the jury that awarded Julia Ducournau’s “Titane” the Palme d’Or. Only Lee, confused by the French-language ceremony, accidentally revealed the winner too soon. “Oh, that’s a big one,” said Lee, shaking his head. “That’s going down in the history of Cannes.”

Just ahead of Lee’s interview with The Associated Press, Ducournau, in Cannes with her “Titane” follow-up, “Alpha,” crossed the terrace to warmly embrace him. Recalling “Titane,” Lee said, “A car impregnates a woman? You gotta win. You got my vote.”

An ode to Kurosawa that’s uniquely Spike Lee

“Highest 2 Lowest” has been referred to as a remake of “High and Low,” but the degree to which it’s a Spike Lee joint surprised festivalgoers. Washington plays David King, a wealthy record label executive whose son, along with the son of his friend and driver (Jeffrey Wright), is kidnapped for ransom. The kidnapper, played by A$AP Rocky, accidentally releases the wrong young man, leaving King with the decision to fork over the $17.5 million ransom for a young man who’s not his son.

The film is, in part, an ode to Kurosawa, whom Lee discovered as a film student at NYU. He credits his “Rashomon” as the basis of “She’s Gotta Have It.” He met Kurosawa briefly once and has an autograph from the Japanese master signed with a paint brush. “I got to shake his hand,” says Lee.

“I grew up with my mother taking me to musicals,” he says. “The Sound of Music” was one. If you listen to that great song by Rogers and Hammerstein with Julie Andrews singing it. What did Coltrane do to it? That’s my analogy. What Coltrane did to ‘My Favorite Things,’ I think that’s what we did with this.”

“Highest 2 Lowest” is less driven as a Kurosawa homage than by Lee’s own obsessions: New York, music, the moral dilemmas of a Black entertainer and, yes, that Boston sucks. Above all, it’s another Lee protagonist forced to do the right thing.

“I’m glad you said that. I never thought about that connected to the decisions David King has to make,” Lee says. “But what you see is the turmoil he’s going through. He’s going through it. A moral decision. Money on one hand, a life on the other.”

A (maybe) last hurrah for Spike and Denzel

More than any recent film of his, you can sense Lee having fun. Back in New York. Back with Denzel. “Highest 2 Lowest” is Lee and Washington’s fifth film together but the first in 19 years after 2006’s “Inside Man.” “It’s not like we had to catch up,” Lee says. “We never lost a step.”

But Lee suspects “Highest 2 Lowest” marks the end of their collaboration — one of cinema’s greatest actor-director pairings, spanning “Mo’ Better Blues,” “Malcolm X” and “He Got Game.”

“That’s what he says,” Lee shrugs, citing Washington’s retirement plans. “And then the other day he’s doing a film with the guy from ‘City of God,’ so. Denzel put that on himself: ‘I’m doing this thing and then I’m retiring.’ I’ll believe it when he hangs it up.”

“Highest 2 Lowest” reaches a blistering crescendo when King confronts Rocky’s kidnapper in a basement recording studio. A kind of rap battle ensues that Lee gives much of the credit to Washington for. The actor improvised many of his lyrics, drawing heavily from Nas. (“That was not scripted,” says Lee. “We had to pay for that!”)

“People don’t understand. Denzel is such a powerful force. Not a derogatory term, but he’s a beast. If you got somebody who don’t got it, Denzel is going to slaughter them. SLAUGHTER,” Lee explains. “Rocky is from Harlem, uptown. So I knew that he’s not going to punk out. He’s going to stand there, feet planted to the ground, as a heavyweight fight, blow to blow to blow.”

For Lee, the scene is a summation of what he loves about moviemaking and what delights him so much courtside at Madison Square Garden.

“People want to see a championship fight, and that’s what it is. That is, in boxing terms, a slugfest,” says Lee. ”That makes great cinema. It makes great sports. You’ve got conflict. It’s a battle, and they’re slugging it out.”

AP

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Last year, the Cannes Film Festival produced three best actress nominees at the Oscars. This year’s edition may have just supplied another.

In Lynne Ramsay’s “Die, My Love,” Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson play a married couple with a newborn who move into an old country house. In Ramsay’s messy and moving marital psychodrama, Lawrence plays an increasingly unhinged young mother named Grace whose postpartum depression reaches darkly hallucinatory extremes.

For Lawrence, the 34-year-old mother of two, making “Die, My Love” was an intensely personal experience.

“It was really hard to separate what I would do as opposed to what (Grace) would do,” Lawrence told reporters Sunday. “I had just had my firstborn, and there’s not really anything like postpartum. It’s extremely isolating. She doesn’t have a community. She doesn’t have her people. But the truth is, extreme anxiety and extreme depression is isolating, no matter where you are. You feel like an alien.”

“Die, My Love,” which is in competition for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, was one of the most anticipated premieres of the festival. That was owed partly to the widely respect for Ramsey, the Scottish director of “Ratcatcher” (1999), “Movern Callar” (2002) and “ You Were Never Really Here” (2017). Lawrence sought her out for the film

“I’ve wanted to work with Lynne Ramsay since I saw ‘Ratcatcher’ and I was like, ‘There’s no way,’” said Lawrence. “But we took a chance, and we sent it to her. And I really, I cannot believe that I’m here with you.”

In Ramsay’s “Die, My Love,” adapted from Ariana Harwicz’s 2017 novel, is disorienting experience, pulsating with animalistic urges and manic spurts of violence. As a portrait of a marriage in trouble, it makes “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” look tame.

“Die, My Love” was quickly snapped up by Mubi on Sunday. In easily the biggest sale of the festival, the indie distributor plunked down $24 million for distribution rights to the film in the U.S. and multiple other territories.

Lawrence’s performance, in particular, drew the kind of raves in Cannes that tend to lead to Oscar consideration. Lawrence has been nominated four times by the Academy Awards, winning once for 2013’s “Silver Linings Playbook.”

Since then, much has changed for Lawrence, including becoming a mother. On Saturday, Lawrence said parenthood has been such an enriching experience for her that, she joked, “I highly recommend having kids if you want to be an actor.”

“Having children changes everything. It changes your whole life. It’s brutal and incredible,” Lawrence said. “I didn’t know that I could feel so much.”

“My job has a lot to do with emotion, and they’ve opened up the world to me,” she added. “It’s almost like feeling like a blister or something. So sensitive. So they’ve changed my life, obviously, for the best, and they’ve changed me creatively.”

Pattinson, who recently had his first child with Suki Waterhouse, chimed in that he found having a baby “gives you the biggest trove of energy and inspiration.”

Lawrence mockingly pounced on him: “You get energy?!”

Pattinson let out a sigh. “This question is impossible for a guy to answer correctly,” he said, to laughter.

AP

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Buyers and sellers are heading into this year’s Cannes Film Market under a cloud of uncertainty as the initial shock of U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed 100% tariff on foreign-made films has faded into a cautious business-as-usual approach.

While the Cannes Film Festival conjures visions of glamorous celebrities on the red carpet and yacht parties, the film market, the world’s largest, is the main attraction, bringing together industry players, big and small, to do business.

With over 15,000 participants from more than 140 countries, this year’s market is set to match last year’s record attendance, with the United States still the top participating country despite the recent shifts in international policy.

The market has become even more important as the indie film industry – still struggling in the wake of the pandemic and the 2023 Hollywood double strike – has to be more selective about where to put resources when pursuing deals, according to Scott Roxborough, European bureau chief for The Hollywood Reporter.

The American Pavilion, which represents U.S. interests at the market, said it expected tariffs would be brought up during panel discussions but did not plan any talks dedicated to them.

“We continue to try to understand what this will mean for our industry,” said pavilion president and founder Julie Sisk.

Cinthya Calderon from the Berlin-based boutique sales outfit m-appeal said the tariff announcement was “a momentary shock.”

“For now, it seems that everyone is maybe not brushing this information off, but everybody’s just thinking, ‘well, you know, it is what it is,’ but nothing’s settled,” she said.

Nobody knows how this is going to play out, said Rich Wolff, CEO of Philadelphia-based independent distributor Breaking Glass Pictures, which buys multiple foreign-language films annually.

Wolff, whose company also produced about 15 films in the U.S. last year, said he hoped Trump’s stated desire to revive the domestic film industry would translate to fiscal incentives.

“I would hope as our government wants to bring film-making back into the United States that there would be some sort of level of support given to those who need and deserve it, similar to what is going on in the European Union and the UK,” he said.

LASTING APPEAL

Lifting the market’s spirits are last year’s commercial and popular success of independent films like “The Brutalist” and Oscar blow-out “Anora”, as well as the strong consumer demand for international content, particularly on streaming services.

Noah Segal, co-president of Canadian distribution and production company Elevation Pictures, suggested consumer preferences could ultimately transcend political blockades.

“Trump can put up barriers all he wants, but consumers still want to watch ‘Squid Game,'” he said.

“I would argue there is enough momentum as a side that the magnetism of international content will drive us to a better solution than just an absolute turning off the taps.”

Marc Iserlis, head of film at the Republic investment platform, said those indie successes were a sign audiences wanted more than just reboots and sequels, and were moving away from the current “de-globalised moment” following the pandemic.

Iserlis heads Republic’s new film financing vertical that allows fans to invest in filmmakers’ projects, which he said offered a new way to make films amid industry-wide disruption.

“This is offering a third new direction, a new channel for investment other than just the high net worth individuals and the studio deals that a lot of film-makers have to take.”

The market, which opened Tuesday, will run through May 21.

Reuters

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New films from Wes Anderson, Ari Aster, and Richard Linklater will compete for the Palme d’Or at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, organizers announced Thursday.

Coming off a 2024 edition that produced the Academy Award best-picture winner “Anora,” as well as a number of Oscar contenders in “Emilia Pérez,” “The Substance” and “The Apprentice,” the French film festival responded with a 2025 lineup bursting with big-name auteurs.

Thierry Frémaux, Cannes’ artistic director, announced the selections in a news conference in Paris with festival president Iris Knobloch.

Entries include Aster’s “Eddington,” a pandemic-set Western starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone; Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” starring Benicio Del Toro as a European profiteer and Linklater’s appropriately French-language “Nouvelle Vague,” about Jean-Luc Godard and the French New Wave.

Julia Ducournau, whose “Titane” won the Palme d’Or in 2021, making Ducournau only the second female filmmaker to ever receive Cannes’ top honor, will return to the festival with the 1980s New York-set “Alpha,” about an 11-year-old with a parent who has AIDS.

Other previously Cannes regulars coming back include two-time Palme winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The Belgian filmmaking brothers’ latest is titled “Young Mothers.” Joachim Trier, whose “The Worst Person in the World” was a highlight of the 2021 Cannes, is back in competition with “Sentimental Value,” which likewise stars Renate Reinsve.

Playing outside of competition is Scarlett Johansson’s “Eleanor the Great” — the actor’s directorial debut.

Among the films some had hoped might show up in Cannes but that weren’t announced were Terrence Malick’s long-awaited Jesus drama “The Way of the Wind” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another.”

Cannes earlier announced that “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning” will launch at the festival, which three years ago bestowed an honorary Palme d’Or on Tom Cruise. This year, Robert De Niro is set to receive one during the festival’s opening ceremony.

Following in the footsteps of Greta Gerwig, Juliette Binoche will head the jury that decide this year’s Palme d’Or. Knobloch said it’s the first time in 60 years that two women succeed each other in this role.

The festival runs May 13-24.

AP

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