Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson are set to make their directorial debuts at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
The two actors have concentrated their focus behind the camera for the debuting titles, featuring in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, announced by Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch at a press conference in Paris on Thursday morning.
Johansson, best known for her Avengers outings in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, will premiere Eleanor the Great. It follows a 90-year-old Floridian woman who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a 19-year-old student in New York City and stars June Squibb, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jessica Hecht and Erin Kellyman.
Meanwhile, Dickinson, Babygirl actor and a relative newcomer to A-list stardom, will debut his feature film Urchin, about a drifter (Frank Dillane) on the streets of London. Dickinson is not turning to directing entirely — he is set to play John Lennon in Sam Mendes’ Beatles biopics for Sony for a 2028 release.
Elsewhere, Cannes’ competition lineup is packed with auteur heavyweights, including Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, an art-heist drama starring Josh O’Connor and John Magaro, set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War; Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier, who returns to the Croisette after his 2021 The Worst Person of the World with Sentimental Value, also featuring Renate Reinsve; and dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who will be back in Cannes competition with his latest drama, A Simple Accident.
Hot features this year include Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme (with Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed and Tom Hanks among others), Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague (Guillaume Marbeck and Zoey Deutch) and Ari Aster’s Eddington (Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Pedro Pascal and Austin Butler) also set to premiere on the Croisette.
The festival screened 2,909 features in its selection process, an all-time record. See the full lineup for the 2025 Cannes Film Festival here.