5. Sicario

Denis Villeneuve is deliciously unpredictable. He can roll out a straight up Hollywood film such as Prisoners, he can do respectable art house cinema with Incendies and even weird flicks like Enemy. Villeneuve is also on-board for the sacrilegious sequel to Blade Runner too. But before that, he brings this highly anticipated CIA versus drug lord affair set in a Mexican border town with Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin. And Blunt has bid adieu to her Devil Wears Prada oomph for low-glam and high octane performances in her recent film choices. This is going to be a crackling joyride.


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Oscar-hungry, are we? Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara bring Patricia Highsmith’s provocative novel about a lesbian love affair in 1950s New York to life on screen. Directed by Todd Haynes, this is bound to be gorgeous if nothing else. And knowing Haynes (and because Blanchett and Mara are co-workers at a high end department store), fashion enthusiasts are surely going to have a ball. Two outrageously talented actors in one film? – Now that’s the kind of stuff we like.


3. The Lobster

Greek director, Yorgos Lanthimos’s oddball family drama, Dogtooth, left us panting for more. This follow-up, with Colin Farrell, John C. Reilly and Rachel Weisz, is an absurdist rom-com in which characters must mate or else they are transformed into crustaceans. Someone took Pheobe’s theory of being lobsters for life a tad too seriously.


2. Macbeth

Michael Fassbender as Macbeth. Marion Cottillard as Lady Macbeth. *Mouth-gaping-drooling-can’t-wait-to-watch-OMG-fanboy-moment-happening*


1. The Sea of Trees

It’s a Gus Van Sant film with McConaughey travelling to Japan to commit ritual suicide. Where’s the Surfer, Dude? This guy is becoming the Academy’s darling these days. And have you seen True Detective season 2? All right, all right, all right…

Also: The grand daddy of them all, The Woody of Allen, brings his latest – Irrational Man – to Cannes (starring Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone). Natalie Portman will present her first feature as director, an adaptation of Israeli author Amos Oz’s memoirs A Tale of Love and Darkness. She also stars as the young writer’s complex mother.