Observing the past year, it truly feels like the tenor of the decade we’re in has been established, as we cope with the “new normal” of generative AI, and increased geopolitical strife. Since the mainstream emergence of ChatGPT in early 2023, discourse has shifted from more alarmist concerns about what AI can potentially do in years to come, to greater realism about what it’s capable of now. For the European film industry, this means disruption and potentially evolution at a rapid rate, with AI tools now fully prevalent to affect all aspects of its supply and value chain. 

Yet, it unquestionably can’t magic up a feature film from scratch - at least not quite yet. In a year when “slop” became a pervasive and accurate descriptor of much AI content clogging our feeds, real human creativity and craft seems ever-more vital. And the visibility of the festival films covered by Cineuropa is stronger than ever before, with their presence in the awards race now muscling out US studio pictures, and a newer audiences primed by Letterboxd and TikTok to discover cinema from now and eras past. Every year, doomsaying in the film industry is countered by surprising breakthroughs and narratives that counter received wisdom, and the cultural impact we see from new European cinema - especially launched through the traditional theatrical model - still provides enrichment for us all.

Looking at the commonalities across our 20 most anticipated films, it’s stacked with directors making their most vital work in the here and now, and not resting on laurels and goodwill from previous decades. Boutique platforms like MUBI are developing more content at the production stage, becoming an indispensable option for filmmakers seeking international reach. There are many actors in the English-language films (and not all from anglophone directors) plucked from HBO’s The White Lotus and Euphoria - are these shows de rigeur viewing for arthouse filmmaking’s own elite?

But first, our honourable mentions missing the final 20 include Felix van Groeningen’s Let Love In, Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beloved and Florian Zeller’s Bunker (both starring Javier Bardem), Bruno Dumont’s Red Rocks, Werner Herzog’s fiction return Bucking Fastard, Danny Boyle’s Ink, László Nemes’ Moulin, Nanni Moretti’s It Will Happen Tonight, avant-gardist Ulrike Ottinger’s The Blood Countess with Isabelle Huppert, Karim Aïnouz’s delayed Bellocchio remake Rosebush Pruning, Angela Schanelec’s Thomas Le Fort, Yann Gonzalez’s I’ll Forget Your Name, Léa Mysius’ The Birthday Party, Mees Peijnenburg’s A Family, screenwriter Alice Birch’s directorial debut Sweetsick, with Cate Blanchett, and Cédric Kahn’s A Place to Heal. Some European co-productions from major non-European directors this year are Lisandro Alonso’s La Libertad Doble, Kantemir Balagov’s Butterfly Jam, James Gray’s Paper Tiger and Carlos Reygadas’ Wake of Umbra. Kaouther Ben Hania’s Mimesis was shot late last year, but will apparently launch in 2027.

Now, on with the show!

Bitter Christmas - Pedro Almodóvar (Spain)

If a spring domestic release seems a little late for a film called “Bitter Christmas”, early plot summaries show this is when its tragic inciting incident occurs, with all the Almodóvarian melodrama arriving in the sunnier months after. The first trailer provides the upscale interior design, silver fox male leads, and sexual tension we rely on this filmmaker for, returning to his native language, whilst employing a lesser-known and more millennial cast, following his divisive Golden Lion winner The Room Next Door [+lire aussi :
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Coward - Lukas Dhont (Belgium/Netherlands/France)

After his Cannes triumphs with Close [+lire aussi :
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interview : Eden Dambrine
interview : Lukas Dhont
interview : Lukas Dhont
fiche film] and Girl [+lire aussi :
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interview : Lukas Dhont
fiche film], the precocious Belgian talent takes his cinema a century into the past, setting his new film amongst soldiers in the trenches during World War One, attempting to "keep up their morale” amidst the wartime rhetoric. With the precedent of his last films, and this one’s title in mind, the pressures of loyalty, conformity and independence should affect the soldiers’ group dynamic. The director and his producer sibling Michiel have also talked up its larger and more ambitious scale, and an ensemble mixing recognised actors with younger newcomers.

Full Phil - Quentin Dupieux (France)

As Sondheim wrote, send in the clowns… Quentin Dupieux is one of a small number of comedy specialists on this list, it notoriously being amongst the most difficult genres to do well. Returning to the English language -  incidentally where he began his career - Woody Harrelson, Kristen Stewart and Emma Mackey have heeded the call, and hopefully they’ll thrive like the French A-listers he previously cast. Harrelson and Stewart play a wealthy tycoon and his estranged daughter attempting to reconcile in Paris, before wacky Dupieux digressions get in their way.

Parallel Tales - Asghar Farhadi (France/Italy/Belgium/USA)

Now a few years shy of a high-profile plagiarism scandal involving his previous film A Hero [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], the Iranian master returns to French cinema for what is rumoured to be one of his most topical and politically charged works to date, with the screenplay allegedly tackling the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. Isabelle Huppert, Vincent Cassel, Virginie Efira, and Catherine Deneuve are among the French acting luminaries queuing up to take part, in a story dovetailing between multiple perspectives.

Wuthering Heights - Emerald Fennell (UK/USA)

Fennell’s third feature is a unique one for being highly anticipated by the industry and the broader theatrical audience, but not particularly by critics. Yet Promising Young Woman [+lire aussi :
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The Dreamed Adventure - Valeska Grisebach (Germany/France/Belgium/Austria)

The acclaimed German filmmaker returns with just her third feature in as many decades, which will be highly welcomed by the audience cultivated at festivals for her rigorous and sensitive cinema, that tends to rely on non-professional casting. Taking the lead from her last film Western [+lire aussi :
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interview : Valeska Grisebach
interview : Valeska Grisebach
fiche film], it actually surveys the East of the continent, as an intrepid woman in the border region between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey agrees to assist an old friend, and follows him on an adventure into “dangerous territory”, where she’s also faced with her own desires.   

Dao - Alain Gomis (France/Senegal/Guinea-Bisseau)

With reports of the shoot concluding a few years back, the Franco-Senegalese director is finally ready to unveil his long-awaited fiction follow-up to Félicité [+lire aussi :
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interview : Alain Gomis
fiche film], perhaps with a Berlinale premiere. Finding the right cut may have contributed to the delays, but a bit of patience feels apt for this tale of a family recovering their heritage across time and space, with narrative strands intertwining a wedding in France, and a “commemorative ceremony” in Guinea Bissau.

A Long Winter - Andrew Haigh (UK/Canada)

Haigh made a forceful comeback two years ago with All of Us Strangers [+lire aussi :
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All of a Sudden - Ryusuke Hamaguchi (France/Japan/Germany/Belgium)

Hyperbole is part of a critic’s job description, so permit us some here: this is the return of an era-defining filmmaker, seemingly compromising none of his individuality as his career moves forward. With the Japanese director finally making a long-mooted film in French, All of a Sudden will revolve around the bond between a Japanese theatre director (the model Tao Okamoto), and a French nurse (Virginie Efira), a set of roles also harking back to Bergman’s Persona. Last year in an onstage conversation at the Marrakech Film Festival, Efira promised “astonishing formal choices”, and a three-hour runtime, which won’t worry anyone who loved Drive My Car.

The Unknown - Arthur Harari (France)

Science-fiction films are all about the “look" - it’s the most production design-heavy form of cinema. Which makes the prospect of Arthur Harari’s The Unknown all the more interesting, as from its plot synopsis to his excellent past films, you can’t really envisage its likely aesthetic in your mind. The first of two Léa Seydoux star turns on our list, she’ll play a mysterious woman spotted at a party by a down-on-his-luck photographer (Niels Schneider); the next morning, he wakes up in her body. More genre classifications come from an official synopsis, promising a mix of a “realist urban chronicle, a fantastic film, an investigative movie, a melodrama and a waking dream.”

Diary of a Chambermaid - Radu Jude (France/Romania)

Radu Jude again takes an old piece of intellectual property for remodelling, in a spirit of absolute self-awareness, irony and savviness about industry realities. Yet, we can guarantee it won’t be abrasive like last year’s Dracula [+lire aussi :
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interview : Radu Jude
fiche film], with its high-end French backer in Saïd Ben Saïd on board - which could finally grant him an elusive Cannes Official Selection spot. Loosely based on the novel by Octave Mirbeau, previously filmed by Renoir and Buñuel, Jude’s take follows a young Romanian woman employed by a French family who joins an amateur theatre troupe adapting that very text.

Gentle Monster - Marie Kreutzer (Austria/Germany/France)

Following her breakthrough film Corsage [+lire aussi :
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interview : Marie Kreutzer
interview : Marie Kreutzer
fiche film], Marie Kreutzer finds another top actress to partner with in Léa Seydoux, who plays an eminent pianist who moves to the countryside with her husband, only to discover a shocking secret. Her story dovetails with that of a police investigator caring for her dementia-ridden father, who also becomes privy to a dark realisation. Given the troubled circumstances of Corsage’s release, concerning revelations about its lead Florian Teichtmeister, it’s likely this film is Kreutzer’s indirect response to the major national scandal it provoked.

A Day In The Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra - Jacqueline Lentzou (Greece/Germany/France)

Recently present in several major development labs including Cannes Critics’ Week’s Next Step II, and Les Arcs’ Industry Village, this will be an anticipated one for those who saw Lentzou’s last feature Moon, 66 Questions [+lire aussi :
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interview : Jacqueline Lentzou
fiche film], a Berlinale 2022 premiere, and her run of well-travelled shorts. With Lentzou exhibiting a ludic and indirect sensibility far from the Greek “Weird Wave” of the previous generation, it will be set across one whole day, as the title suggests, tracking a 15-year-old tomboy called Jo, who plots to ask out a female chorister with an angelic voice.

Wild Horse Nine - Martin McDonagh (UK/USA)

After The Banshees of Inisherin [+lire aussi :
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Fjord - Cristian Mungiu (Norway/Romania/Sweden/Finland/Denmark/France)

A film that’s already received great publicity prior to its launch, Fjord is Cristian Mungiu’s first to be set outside his home nation, having famously revitalised Romanian cinema with his Palme d’Or for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days [+lire aussi :
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interview : Cristian Mungiu
interview : Oleg Mutu
fiche film]. Sebastian Stan continues his eye-catching run of parts as the Romanian spouse to Renate Reinsve’s native Norwegian, who re-settle in the remote village of her birth, only to encounter suspicion and xenophobia from the locals.

The Entertainment System is Down - Ruben Östlund (Sweden/Germany/France/Denmark/Switzerland/Norway/UK/USA/Hungary)

As the double Palme d’Or winner director has revealed on his latest feature as it wrapped and entered post, he’s still fully committed to his career-long mission of provocation. After the titular breakdown of the long-haul flight’s entertainment system, his camerawork and compositions sound like they’ll be bolted-down and static, with certain passenger extras appearing on-screen longer than some of its principal cast, which includes Keanu Reeves (as the pilot, surely bringing his best deadpan), Kirsten Dunst and Daniel Brühl. Can our ostensibly evolved selves cope with true boredom, he asks, or will they go ape like The Square [+lire aussi :
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interview : Ruben Östlund
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1949 - Paweł Pawlikowski (Poland/Germany/France/Italy/UK)

The Polish auteur’s latest looks set to be another rich meditation on a divided Europe, adapting another Tóibín text (after Haigh), and dramatising a road trip taken across Germany in the titular year by the great author Thomas Mann and his queer daughter Erika (Mann was indeed closeted himself). Hanns Zichler and Sandra Hüller play them respectively, uniting two generations of German acting greatness, and homaging the former’s captivating performance in Wim Wenders’ own post-war road movie Kings of the Road.

Her Private Hell - Nicolas Winding Refn (Denmark/USA)

Despite what you read, it’s not 2016: no question, we’re a long way from Nicolas Winding Refn’s ubiquity in European cinema, where he divided audiences with his taciturn, neon-soaked tales of ultra-violence. Marking his first official feature after two little-loved streaming series, rising US stars Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton unite for another stylishly sordid thriller shot partly in Tokyo, although no further plot details have been released. A genuine comeback for Refn would make his 2010’s output seem not in vain.

Out of this World - Albert Serra (France/Spain/Portugal/Germany/Latvia/USA)

Conversely, here is a filmmaker who’s really seized the moment, with his pivots to present-day settings in Pacifiction [+lire aussi :
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interview : Albert Serra
fiche film] and Afternoons of Solitude [+lire aussi :
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interview : Albert Serra
fiche film] consolidating his acclaim and winning over doubters. Riley Keough, enjoying a semi-comeback recently, and the always-great F Murray Abraham play American diplomats on a delegation to Russia, as they hope to resolve an economic dispute amidst the countries’ decades-long rivalry. With Pacifiction’s immersive digital shooting method retained, there will surely be great, profane dialogue, and even more provocative images.

Minotaur - Andrey Zvyagintsev (France/Germany/Latvia)

Also filming in Latvia this year is this long-in-the-works feature by an actual Russian director - Andrey Zvyagintsev, who’s now living in exile in France. Minotaur’s story feels more directly topical than he was permitted to be in his former country, its tone falling between a “thriller and a classical tragedy” as it follows an elite Russian business head in the midst of downsizing his staff, when he discovers his wife’s infidelity. When it most likely lands in Cannes, it should be a major prize contender, with the precedent of its recent honourees.