The Cannes Film Festival has announced that Halle Berry, Payal Kapadia, Alba Rochrwacher, Leïla Slimani, Dieudo Hamadi, Hong Sangsoo, Carlos Reygadas and Jeremy Strong will join Jury President Juliette Binoche on the main Competition jury for this year's 78th edition, which runs from 13-24 May.
Together, this diverse jury will award the Palme d’Or to one of the 21 films in the main Competition, as well as the Grand Prix, Jury Prize, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Actor awards.
Last year, the jury headed by Greta Gerwig awarded Sean Baker’s Anora the Palme and it went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture and four other Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Mikey Madison.
Here’s the breakdown of this year’s jury:
Halle Berry
The US actress was the first African-American woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Marc Forster’s Monster’s Ball (2002). Some of her standout performances include roles in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever (1991), the X-Men series (2000-2014), Gothika by Mathieu Kassovitz (2003), Cloud Atlas by the Wachowski sisters (2012), Kingsman: The Golden Circle by Matthew Vaughn (2017) and John Wick Parabellum by Chad Stahelski (2019). In 2020, she directed her first film, Bruised. She starred most recently in Alexandre Aja’s Never Let Go (2024).
Payal Kapadia
Indian director and screenwriter Payal Kapadia won the Grand Prix in Cannes last year for her first film All We Imagine As Light. The film had a great run to the Golden Globes 2025 (nominations for Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film) and won numerous awards, including Best Film Prize at the Asian Film Awards 2025 in Hong Kong. Sadly – and somewhat bafflingly – it was not nominated to represent India at the Oscars.
Alba Rohrwacher
Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher is a Cannes regular whose credits include Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love, Saverio Costanzo’s The Solitude of Prime Numbers, Marco Bellocchio’s Dormant Beauty and Laura Bispuri’s Sworn Virgin. She has presented several films in the Cannes Competition, especially with her sister, director Alice Rohrwacher including The Wonders (Grand Prix 2014), Happy As Lazzaro (Best Screenplay 2018) and La Chimera (2023).
Leïla Slimani
French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani is best known in cinema circles for second novel "Lullaby", which won the Prix Goncourt 2016, and was adapted for the cinema in 2019, starring Karin Viard and Leïla Bekhti. She campaigns for sexual rights, and in 2020 was awarded the Prix Simone de Beauvoir for her fight for women’s rights. In 2024, she co-wrote the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games with Thomas Jolly.
Dieudo Hamadi
Congolese director, documentarist, producer Dieudo Hamadi screened his documentary Downstream to Kinshasa in the Official Selection at Cannes in 2020. He is currently working on the series 'Milimo, les âmes errantes de Kinshasa' which he is producing and directing for Canal +, and on his next feature film La Vie est un chemin de fer.
Hong Sangsoo
Prolific South Korean director and screenwriter Hong Sangsoo is more of a Berlinale regular than a Cannes one, even if he has had four films in Competition: Woman Is the Future of Man (2004), Tale of Cinema (2005), In Another Country (2012), The Day After (2017).
Carlos Reygadas
Mexican director, screenwriter and producer Carlos Reygadas won Caméra d’Or Special Distinction for his first film Japon in 2002. He was also in Competition at Cannes in 2005 with his second feature, Battle in Heaven, and returned in 2007 with Silent Light, which won the Jury Prize. He has also won the Palme for Best Director in 2012 for his stunning Post Tenebras Lux.
Jeremy Strong
Multi-award nominated American actor was in Cannes last year with The Apprentice – a role which earned him Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. Also last year, he returned to Broadway in An Enemy Of The People, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. His previous film credits include Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, Adam McKay’s The Big Short, James Gray’s Armageddon Time, Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. For many, he is still best know for his iconic portrayal of Kendall Roy in HBO’s hit series Succession. He will star in Scott Cooper’s Bruce Springsteen biopic, Deliver Me From Nowhere - to be released later this year.
The 2025 Cannes Film Festival will run from 13 – 24 May. This year’s festival will open with Amélie Bonnin’s directorial debut Leave One Day, marking a historic moment as the first debut film to open the festival in its 78-year history. Check out the line-up, here are our thoughts on this year's poster and how it compares to others images of the past 20 years, and stay tuned to Euronews Culture for the full preview of this year’s edition.
This year’s Cannes winners will be announced during the Closing Ceremony on Saturday 24 May.
