CANNES 2009

indieWIRE's Best of Cannes Winners and RT's Top 10 Films

by
May 27, 2009
Source: indieWIRE, Rotten Tomatoes

Festival de Cannes - Top 10 Films

As part of my wrap-up on the Cannes Film Festival, I wanted to feature two great articles found around the web today. The first is indieWIRE's Best of Cannes, a list of the best films, best actors, best directors, and worst films from this year, as ranked by critics and bloggers. A group of sixteen people (including me) were polled by indieWIRE and they've comprised the three films in each category with the most votes. The big winner is Un Prophete, which is still my favorite film of the fest. Additionally, Rotten Tomatoes has a great feature looking at the 10 Must-See Movies coming out of the fest. Both lists have some great picks.

If you weren't in attendance at Cannes, it's hard to really care about some of the films that showed there, especially when most of you know nothing about them. Which is why I'm hoping these two lists can help give a few of you some direction and insight into what the best films from the fest are and which films you should be keeping your eye on. There's a lot of foreign features that won't ever come to America, but there are also a lot of great films just waiting to be discovered by American audiences, so read on for the details!

Here is indieWIRE's top lists as chosen by critics and bloggers (myself included) who were at Cannes:

BEST FILM:
1. Jacques Audiard's A Prophet (My Review)
2. Lars von Trier's Antichrist (My Review)
3. Corneliu Porumboiu's Police, Adjective
4. Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon

BEST DIRECTOR:
1. Jacques Audiard (A Prophet)
2. Gaspar Noe (Enter the Void)
3. Lars von Trier (Antichrist)

BEST ACTING PERFORMANCE:
1. Tahar Rahim in A Prophet
2. Giovanni Mezzogiorno in Vincere
3. Ronnie Bronstein in Go Get Some Rosemary
4. Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds

WORST FILM:
1. Brillante Mendoza's Kinatay
2. Lars von Trier's Antichrist
3. Isabel Coixet's Map of the Sounds of Tokyo
4. Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro

As for the Rotten Tomatoes feature, they've chosen 10 films from Cannes that are a bit more mainstream than a few of those on indieWIRE's lists. Overall, it's pretty much the same deal - a good list of films you should keep your eye on if you have an appreciation for independent or foreign cinema. Here they are:

1. Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces
2. Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell
3. Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank (My Review)
4. Jim Carrey's I Love You Phillip Morris (My Review)
5. Ken Loach's Looking for Eric
6. Lee Daniels's Precious
7. Jacques Audiard's A Prophet (My Review)
8. Pete Docter's Up
9. Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon
10. Lars von Trier's Antichrist (My Review)

I suggest heading over to indieWIRE and/or Rotten Tomatoes to get a good look at both features in closer detail. My three picks for best film were actually A Prophet, Adrift, and Inglourious Basterds, though I might add Fish Tank to that, as well. As for actors, I chose Christoph Waltz from Inglourious Basterds, Vincent Cassel from Adrift, and Louis-Do de Lencquesaing from a French film called Father of My Children, but I had forgotten about Tahar Rahim in A Prophet, who deserves that #1 spot anyway. If you haven't seen it yet, be sure to watch my final Cannes video blog with guest Eric Lavallee from IONCinema.com here.

Find more posts: Cannes 09, Hype, Indies

14 Comments

1

hows antichrist #2 on the best and worst, just me or does that not make much sense

tw on May 27, 2009

2

@#1: Makes perfect sense. You either hate it or love it. It's been the talk of the festival because of its polarizing nature.

Rahat on May 27, 2009

3

Shouldn't the RT list be the other way around. Antichrist as #1 .

Angelo on May 27, 2009

4

I was wondering about that too tw, care to shed some light Mr. Billington?

peloquin on May 27, 2009

5

I really want to see I Love You Phillip Morris

Scott McHenry on May 27, 2009

6

#2 already explained it. That list consists of points given to a film, so 5 critics could give antichrist full points for best films, yet 5 others would put it on their #1 spot on worst films, hence it being on both lists.

Angelo on May 27, 2009

7

#1 & #4 - That's because this was organized by how many "mentions" each movie got. So out of the 16 people who submitted votes, 5 thought it was the best, 4 thought it was the worst. It got ranked on both because they were just tallying up how many times it was mentioned. Read more here.

Alex Billington on May 27, 2009

8

Frankly, I'm surprised Worst Film went to Mendoza's Kinatay, yet he won Best Director?

Rahat on May 27, 2009

9

ok, dumb question... how can Antichrist be both best & worst film?

Tony on May 27, 2009

10

nm... I didn't pay attention... sorry 'bout that....

Tony on May 27, 2009

11

Alex, did you happen to catch Tetro?

Al on May 27, 2009

12

I did see Tetro on the first day... And it deserves to keep its place at #4 on the worst films list, unfortunately.

Alex Billington on May 27, 2009

13

I am happy that Filipino director Brillante Mendoza came out as the victor for this years Canne's Best Director. It's a breath of fresh air seeing new directors being recognized for this big event. 🙂

Standing On The Edge on May 28, 2009

14

I'm interested in hearing more about this Safdie movie. Frownland was my favorite movie of the past few years so i'm excited to see how Bronstein fares as an actor. Does he bring much of his own aesthetic to the work?

JD on May 28, 2009

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