6 queer movies premiering at the Cannes Film Festival that we’re seriously hyped for
A number of LGBTQ+ films premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. (Andrejs Strokins/Universal Pictures/The PR Factory)
A number of LGBTQ+ films premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. (Andrejs Strokins/Universal Pictures/The PR Factory)
The 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival kicked off today (13 May) and will host some thrilling premieres, including several much-anticipated LGBTQ+ films such as The History of Sound and Kristen Stewart‘s directorial debut.
Cannes 2025 will see the return of Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater and the final Mission Impossible series, but the French Riviera will also witness the arrival of a diverse range of queer stories, characters and themes.
As we approach the middle of 2025, there are still some major queer films on the horizon, and Cannes features some premieres for the most exciting LGBTQ+ features. With Sorry Angel director Christophe Honoré as the President of this year’s Queer Palm, keep an eye out for these movies coming to local cinemas, hopefully, soon.
Alpha
Julia Ducournau’s last film, body horror epic Titane, premiered at Cannes in 2021. It was a historic moment where Ducournau won the Palme d’Or (the festival’s top award), becoming the second woman director to win and the first female filmmaker to win solo. So, Ducournau’s return to the south of France is sure to be one of the buzziest movies of the festival.
Alpha, set in the 1980s in a fictional city inspired by New York, follows an 11-year-old girl faced with devastation when one of her parents becomes ill during the AIDS crisis. While it’s not confirmed that this film will be explicitly a queer story, Ducournau’s previous films have orbited LGTBQ+ characters so there’s a high probability this new film could follow suit. Ducournau has labelled the film her “most personal, profound work” to date, so be prepared for the unexpected.
The Chronology of Water
Kristen Stewart’s highly anticipated directorial debut, The Chronology of Water, is set to premiere in Cannes on Friday (16 May), and we’re holding our breath to hear the early reviews. Stewart’s biographical romantic drama was co-written with Andy Mingo and based on the memoir of the same name by Lidia Yuknavitch.
Stewart has said the film will be “hard to watch.” It follows a young Olympic hopeful who flees her abusive home for a swimming scholarship in Texas. However, as she faces a series of obstacles, she must tackle addiction, motherhood and finding her voice through the written word. British star Imogen Poots, known for 28 Weeks Later and Need For Speed, is taking the lead role. The film will likely lean heavily on Yuknavitch’s memoir, which examines topics of violence, sexuality, addiction, self-destruction, and survival.
Stewart’s dedication to this film has been massive; she previously stated that she would refuse to act in any future project if she couldn’t get funding for The Chronology of Water made.
Kristen Stewart told Net-a-Porter: “My movie is about incest and periods and a woman violently repossessing her voice and body, and it is, at times, hard to watch… but it’s gonna be a f**king thrill ride. And I think that’s commercial, but I don’t think that I have any gauge on what that means.”
The History of Sound
The History of Sound will see a meeting of the internet’s boyfriends that is sure to break the internet.
Starring Challengers’ Josh O’Connor and All of Us Strangers’ Paul Mescal, this WWI-set period drama will follow a romance between the two men, Lionel (Mescal) and David (O’Connor). The pair begin a tender love affair at a music Conservatory in New England before they embark to record the lives, voices, and music of their fellow American countrymen.
South African director Oliver Hermanus, who previously won the Queer Palm in 2011 for his film Beauty, is returning with The History of Sound which is an adaption of the Pulitzer Prize-winning short story of the same title written by Ben Shattuck.
Speaking to Vanity Fair ahead of The History of Sound‘s premiere, Hermanus shared: “I’m a gay man. I would love to go to the movies and watch a movie about a same-sex relationship that maybe makes me cry, but feels fulfilling. So much of queer cinema—and I’ve made queer cinema like this—is about the struggles… We’re not going to make a movie about the problematising of their relationship or their sexuality.
“There is a kind of real sense of companionship, and the joy and loss that comes with the presence and absence of that,” Mescal added. “It’s not just about sex and the intensity of falling in love. It’s deeper than that.”
La Petite Dernière
La Petite Dernière, which roughly translates to “the baby of the family” or “youngest female child”, is Hafsia Herzi’s coming-of-age errata adapted from Fatima Daas’s 2020 semi-autobiographical novel The Last One. The film follows 17-year-old Fatima, who is the youngest of three daughters in a French-Algerian family, as she prepares to begin a new chapter in life at university in Paris.
With the pressure of her family more distant, she begins to navigate her emerging desires, including her attraction to women and her loyalty to her family. La Petite Dernière is in competition for the Palme d’Or and the Queer Palm. Previously, Herzi won the Un Certain Regard with her 2021 film Good Mother.
Love Letters
Alice Douard’s Love Letters (Des preuves d’amour) may not be one of the most hyped titles at the festival, but the quietly moving drama is one that should not be overlooked. The lesbian film follows married couple Céline (Ella Rumpf) and Nadia (Monia Chokri) preparing for their first child.
Set in 2014 France, while Nadia is pregnant and will be on their daughter’s birth certificate, Céline will not be. The other mother must go through a long legal process to adopt her own daughter to become a mother on paper officially.
Douard’s film spotlights how even a decade ago the system was not prepared for queer parents. Love Letters charts Céline having to gather 15 testimonies from friends and family to prove she will be a ‘good mother,’ leaving her questioning what that term even means.
Douard shared that she has a personal connection to the plot; she had to adopt her daughter, who her wife gave birth to in 2018. The specific story has universal themes of acceptance and societal recognition that are entangled with the queer experience.
Pillion
First-time feature director Harry Lighton is arriving in Cannes with a kinky, BDSM-infused romance starring Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling. Pillion, named after a motorcycle’s passenger seat, follows quiet Colin (Melling) falling for the handsome, sexually liberated motorcycle club leader Ray (Skarsgård), who takes him on as his sexual submissive.
The steamy drama sees Collin leave behind his dreary suburban life and become increasingly entrenched in Ray’s world of mysteries, to the point that he questions whether the life of a 24/7 submissive is really for him.
The 2025 Cannes Film Festival runs from 13 to 24 May.
