Has the Cannes film market been as erratic as this year’s festival offerings? While everyone takes sides in the Great Emilia Pérez Discourse of 2024 or comes to terms with the rise of the cult of Megalopolis, we’ve been compiling a list of all the films that sold to distributors at the most prestigious festival of the year. So what found a home after its festival screening? The Seed of the Sacred Fig, directed by Iranian political exile Mohammad Rasoulof, has been planted at Neon for North American distribution. Relative upstart Metrograph Pictures nabbed two buzzy films — Julien Colonna’s The Kingdom and Sandhya Suri’s Santosh — while Sideshow and Janus took Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light. Netflix nabbed the divisive Emilia Pérez in a deal that is in the high seven figures.
Otherwise, packages have sold at the film market for both upcoming films and completed projects, like The Entertainment System Is Down, a Kirsten Dunst–starring Ruben Östlund affair that once again contemplates how rich weirdos trapped on a moving vessel will act in trying times. It went for a vague eight figures to A24, the highest price tag of the festival — that is, until we learned that Apple’s acquisition of Tenzing might have been a $40 million deal. Netflix, eager to show its own deep pockets, snatched up Monsanto for around $34 million. Below, all the titles picked up at Cannes 2024, updating at the top throughout the festival.
Festival Titles
Misericordia (director: Alain Guiraudie)
Distributor: Sideshow and Janus Films
In the latest from the director of Stranger by the Lake, Jérémie heads back to his hometown to pay his respects at his former boss’s funeral. His stay with the widow Martine angers her son Vincent, leading to a violent confrontation between the two men. When things go south, the local priest offers him a lifeline for a price.
Price: Undisclosed
Emilia Pérez (director: Jacques Audiard)
Distributor: Netflix
Audiard’s crime-comedy stars Karla SofÃa Gascón, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, and Edgar Ramirez in a musical romp that prompted strong reactions from critics and Cannes audiences. It tells the story of an “overqualified and exploited†lawyer (Saldaña) at a major firm better at getting criminals free than she is at justice. She is soon offered a new gig–cum–escape route: help a kingpin (Gascón) transition into a woman.
Price: In the high seven figures
Flow (director: Gints Zilbalodis)
Distributor: Sideshow and Janus Films
A cat navigates the end of the world in this animated feature. When his hometown floods, he joins a disparate group of animals taking refuge on a boat. As the animals pass through the wreckage of drowned cities, the members of this newfound community must learn to tolerate one another in the midst of this brave new world.
Price: Undisclosed
The Kingdom (director: Julien Colonna)
Distributor: Metrograph Pictures
A local boss and his teenage daughter go on the run from both their gangster peers and the fuzz as crimes catch up to the Coriscan mob family. In the midst of the drama, the teenager must find her own path — either following her father’s footsteps or escaping his legacy.
Price: Undisclosed
Santosh (director: Sandhya Suri)
Distributor: Metrograph Pictures
After a recent widow inherits her husband’s police-constable position in rural northern India, she gets pulled into an investigation of the murder of a low-caste girl led by a feminist inspector.
Price: Undisclosed
All We Imagine As Light (director: Payal Kapadia)
Distributor: Sideshow and Janus Films
One of four films directed by female filmmakers to screen in competition, All We Imagine As Light follows a nurse receiving a package from her strange husband unprovoked. Her roommate, on the other hand, has other troubles: Try as she might, she can’t find a good spot in Mumbai to hook up with her boyfriend. A trip to the beach might solve all their problems.
Price: Undisclosed
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (director: Mohammad Rasoulof)
Distributor: Neon
As nationwide political protests intensify, an investigating judge at Tehran’s Revolutionary Court begins to suspect his wife and daughters are behind the mysterious disappearance of his gun. Paranoia surrounding the incident leads him to impose increasingly oppressive measures at home. The director behind the topical film fled to Europe from Iran this month after the Revolutionary Court sentenced him to flogging, eight years in prison, and more for making films and political statements that criticized the Iranian government.
Price: Undisclosed
Marché du Film Titles
Monsanto (director: John Lee Hancock)
Distributor: Netflix
Netflix is giving Glen Powell another co-sign after it acquired his project Hit Man on the film-festival circuit last year. Anthony Mackie, Laura Dern, and rom-com golden boy Powell have teamed up for a true story about an ambitious lawyer taking on the titular chemical giant over the safety of its weed killer, Roundup. The film is still in production.
Price: $34-million range
Night Call (director: Michiel Blanchart)
Distributor: Magnet Releasing
A student who moonlights as a locksmith opens a door for a young woman, inadvertently facilitating a robbery of a ruthless crime boss. Blamed for the theft, the student has one night to prove his innocence in a city rattled by protests.
Price: Undisclosed
Sentimental Value (director: Joachim Trier)
Distributor: Neon
Director Joachim Trier and actor Renate Reinsve reunite for their second project after working together on the Oscar-nominated romantic dramedy The Worst Person in the World. The duo’s latest follows two sisters who have no choice but to deal with their estranged father in the aftermath of their mother’s death. Filming is slated to begin in Norway and France in August with Neon gearing up for a 2025 release.
Price: Undisclosed
The Entertainment System Is Down (director: Ruben Östlund)
Distributor: A24
Ruben Östlund’s latest social satire takes place on a long-haul flight on which the entertainment systems go dark, forcing an eccentric group of passengers to contend with the most frightening state of all: boredom. The film, still in production, stars Kirsten Dunst (Civil War) and Daniel Brühl (All Quiet on the Western Front) as an ill-fated married couple.
Price: Eight-figure deal
The Unknown (director: Arthur Harari)
Distributor: Neon
Anatomy of a Fall co-writer Arthur Harari will direct French phenom Léa Seydoux (Dune: Part Two) in his follow-up to the Oscar-winning film. Much like the title, details about the film are unknown, aside from the fact that it’s scheduled for completion in the first half of 2026.
Price: Undisclosed
Memoir of a Snail (director: Adam Elliot)
Distributor: IFC Films
Adam Elliot’s stop-motion drama is about an unlikely friendship between an eccentric elderly woman and a nerdy, depressed girl who collects ornamental snails and obsesses over romance novels while struggling with separation from her twin brother. Sarah Snook (Succession) leads the voice cast.
Price: Undisclosed
Tenzing (director: Jennifer Peedom)
Distributor: Apple
Willem Dafoe (Kinds of Kindness) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) will star in the biopic about the Nepalese mountaineer and his 1953 summit of Everest. Casting for the lead role of Tenzing Norgay is still underway. The film is scheduled for release in the spring of 2025.
Price: A “big deal†(with the streets later saying the number is in the $40 million range)
Alpha (director: Julia Ducournau)
Distributor: Neon
Julia Ducournau’s follow-up to her Palme d’Or–winning Titane will be “genre-defying,†according to reports. Alpha will star Golshifteh Farahani (Paterson) and Tahar Rahim (The Mauritanian).
Price: Undisclosed