US director Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague, leads the nominations announced on Wednesday by the César Academy. The ceremony will take place on 26 February with a César d'Honneur to be awarded to actor Jim Carrey.
After a year marked by a lack of major successes for French cinema in 2025, the César Academy revealed on Wednesday the list of nominees for its 51st ceremony.
Nouvelle Vague, a film by American director Richard Linklater, leads the way with ten nominations, including for Best Film and Best Director, followed by three other films with eight nominations.
Filmed in black and white and in French, Nouvelle Vague brings back to life several legendary figures of French cinema such as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
Linklater, a leading figure in American independent cinema (Boyhood, the Before trilogy), follows the director's first steps on the set of Breathless, a masterpiece of cinema shot in 1959 in twenty days with only a rough draft of the script.
For his first film role, Guillaume Marbeck, who plays the young Godard, was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actor - a prize he won at last week's Lumières Awards.
Postcard from Cannes #3: Surfing a wave of French cinematic nostalgia
Carine Tardieu's feature film L'Attachement (The ties that bind us), which tells the story of a relationship that develops between a woman in her fifties and a recently bereaved family living on the same floor, has received eight nominations, as have Dominik Moll's Dossier 137 (Case 137) and Stéphane Demoustier's L'Inconnu de la Grande Arche (The Great Arch).
La Petite Dernière (The Little Sister), directed by Hafsi Herzi, received seven nominations, including Best Promising Actress for Nadia Melliti.
It Was Just an Accident by Jafar Panahi, winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year and representing France at the Oscars, only received two nominations.
Cannes 2025 ends on a high as director Jafar Panahi claims the Palme d'Or
Leïla Bekhti, the actress in one of the few box office hits of the year, Ma Mère, Dieu et Sylvie Vartan (My Mother, God and Sylvie Vartan) (1.5 million tickets sold), is nominated in the "Best actress" category.
And with his flamboyant portrayal of photographer François-Marie Banier in La femme la plus riche du monde (The Richest Women in the World), Laurent Lafitte is nominated in the "Best actor" category.
A César d'Honneur will also be awarded to US actor Jim Carrey for his career.
The ceremony, initially scheduled for 27 February, has been brought forward to 26 February, according to a statement released by French broadcaster Canal+. Camille Cottin, the actress best known for 10% TV series, will chair the event.
(with newswires)
