Category Archives: Cinema

#ArtsFriday | Streaming | The Best Police Procedural On The Planet | #Belfast

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Grace (Siân Brooke) and Stevie (Martin McCann) respond to a distress call, in Blue Lights.

There is a quiet moment in Blue Lights when a patrol car glides through the rain-soaked streets of Belfast.

There are no gunshots. No dramatic chase. Just two police officers talking about life, fear, disappointment and the endless uncertainty that accompanies both policing and adulthood. Somehow, that simple conversation carries more dramatic weight than an entire season of many American crime dramas.

That is the genius of Blue Lights.

Broadcast on the BBC in Britain and streamed in North America on BritBox, the award winning Irish police procedural has become one of television’s finest achievements — and at present is VanRamblings’ favourite, most compelling and heartrending TV series — not because it reinvents the police procedural, but because it remembers something many modern dramas have forgotten.

Before police officers are heroes or villains, they are simply human beings.

Created by former journalists Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, Blue Lights follows three probationary officers in the Police Service of Northern Ireland as they learn their profession in a city still living beneath the shadow of the Troubles.

Belfast is not merely a backdrop; it is a character unto itself, haunted by memory, divided by history and yet stubbornly determined to move forward.

The city breathes through every frame.

The comparisons with the greatest American police dramas are inevitable.

Like Hill Street Blues, Blue Lights understands that policing is messy, exhausting work carried out by imperfect people trying to make decent decisions in impossible circumstances.

Like Homicide: Life on the Street, it finds extraordinary drama in ordinary conversations, allowing silence and uncertainty to tell as much of the story as action.

And like The Wire, it recognizes that crime cannot be separated from politics, poverty, history or community. Institutions matter. History matters. Geography matters. No crime exists in isolation.

Yet Blue Lights never feels derivative. It possesses its own rhythm, quieter and more intimate than its American predecessors, less interested in spectacular violence than in the emotional toll that violence leaves behind.

The Guardian called it “one of TV’s best shows,” praising its gripping realism, nuanced writing and richly believable characters. Rather than relying on endless action, it creates tension simply by placing two officers together inside a patrol car and allowing conversation to unfold naturally.

The second season only deepened that achievement. The Guardian admired its ability to move effortlessly “between light and dark,” noting that the evolving relationship between Grace and Stevie remained one of television’s most delicately observed partnerships.


Annie (Katherine Devlin) and Aisling (Dearbháile McKinney) attend at a bar when a fight breaks out

The Independent praised the series for being inseparable from Belfast itself, observing that the city “looms as a character” and that the legacy of Northern Ireland’s divisions informs every episode. Viewers have compared it to Line of Duty, but Blue Lights possesses something even rarer: compassion.

At the heart of all of this stands Siân Brooke.

Her portrayal of Grace Ellis is the finest television performances of the past decade.

Grace arrives as an outsider — an Englishwoman, a former social worker, considerably older than the other recruits and carrying both optimism and self-doubt. She enters policing believing that kindness remains a practical tool, even in neighbourhoods where violence has become routine.

That belief should make her naïve.

Instead, it makes her courageous.


If you’re going to watch only one of the Blue Light clips, the scene above is the must watch clip.

Grace refuses to surrender her empathy simply because the job encourages emotional distance. She listens. She comforts victims after everyone else has moved on. She sees frightened children where others see future criminals. She carries the instincts of a social worker into the patrol car, reminding both colleagues and viewers that justice without compassion quickly becomes something else entirely.

She is, quite simply, the moral centre of the series.

The heart.

The soul.

Siân Brooke never overplays the role. Grace’s strength emerges not through speeches but through small gestures — a reassuring hand, a quiet conversation, a hesitant smile, a look that communicates exhaustion and hope simultaneously.

Every expression feels lived rather than performed.

Opposite her stands Martin McCann as Stevie Neil, whose weathered pragmatism forms the perfect counterpoint.

Stevie has seen too much to believe every problem can be solved. Yet beneath the dry humour and occasional cynicism lies immense decency.

The chemistry between Siân Brooke and Martin McCann is remarkable precisely because it grows so slowly.

Their partnership is built not upon television clichés but upon trust earned over countless shifts, shared danger and quiet conversations over homemade lunches eaten between emergency calls.

The Guardian beautifully described one scene in which Grace finally offers Stevie something she has baked herself — an almost wordless declaration of affection that says more than pages of dialogue ever could.

Their relationship reflects the achievement of Blue Lights. Everything is earned.

Nothing feels manufactured.

Nothing is rushed.


Aisling (Dearbháile McKinney) and Annie (Katherine Devlin) attend at a family home to report bad news

Perhaps that explains why the series has resonated so deeply with audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. At a time when television often mistakes relentless pacing for storytelling, Blue Lights has the confidence to pause, to breathe and to trust its audience.

Its extraordinary success also reminds us that police dramas need not glorify violence to explore courage.

Sometimes heroism is quieter.

Sometimes it looks like a middle-aged officer choosing compassion over anger.

Sometimes it is an experienced partner silently standing beside her.

And sometimes the brightest blue lights are not the ones flashing atop a patrol car.

They are the fragile lights of humanity that continue to flicker in people determined to believe even in wounded places, kindness remains worth defending.

#Cinema | The Tyranny of the Tomatometer: How Aggregated Scores Are Killing Cinema Going

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There was a time — not that long ago — when moviegoing required curiosity.

You read a few critics, maybe listened to a friend’s recommendation, and decided whether to spend two hours in the dark discovering something new.

Today, that act of discovery has largely been replaced by a single number. Before many people even consider seeing a film, they glance at a percentage on Rotten Tomatoes, or a numerical score on Metacritic. If the number is high, the film is deemed worth watching. If it is low, it might as well not exist.

The result is one of the most profound — and least discussed — transformations in the modern film industry.

Review aggregation has quietly reshaped the way audiences choose movies, the way studios finance them, and even the kinds of films that get made. In the process, it has flattened audience taste, suffocated mid-budget filmmaking, and helped create the blockbuster monoculture that now dominates cinema.

The Reduction of Criticism to a Number

Film criticism once thrived on disagreement. One critic might celebrate a bold experiment while another dismissed it as indulgent. That tension created a conversation around movies.

Aggregators ended that conversation by reducing criticism to arithmetic. On Rotten Tomatoes, reviews are translated into a simple binary: “fresh” or “rotten.” The site’s famous Tomatometer then calculates the percentage of critics who gave a positive review.

In practice, this system erases nuance. A film that receives dozens of mildly positive reviews can achieve a dazzling 90% score, even if no critic thought it was particularly great. Meanwhile, a polarizing masterpiece that divides critics — half loving it, half hating it —might end up with a mediocre score.

The number becomes the narrative.

And because audiences increasingly rely on that number to decide what to watch, a film’s reputation is often determined before the public has even seen it.

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Success

Hollywood has noticed. In fact, studios have been obsessing over Rotten Tomatoes scores for years.

The industry’s anxiety became obvious during the summer of 2017, when several heavily marketed films opened far below expectations after receiving poor Tomatometer scores. Studios privately blamed Rotten Tomatoes for undermining their marketing campaigns, while highly rated films like Wonder Woman benefited from glowing scores and exceeded expectations at the box office.

Films are now judged almost instantly by their aggregated scores. A low rating can create a perception of failure before opening weekend even begins. A high rating can generate momentum and headlines. Either way, the number becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Once audiences internalize the logic of the score, they begin to behave accordingly: avoiding films with bad numbers and flocking to those with good ones.

The Crushing of the Mid-Budget Film


Kristen Stewart and Andrew Garfield on the red carpet at the Independent Spirit Awards ceremony

The biggest casualty of this culture is the mid-budget movie — the $20-$60 million drama, thriller, or adult comedy that once formed the backbone of Hollywood.

These films depend heavily on word-of-mouth and critical reception. That means they are far more vulnerable to aggregated scores than massive franchise films with huge marketing budgets. In fact, research suggests Rotten Tomatoes has a greater effect on smaller or independent movies than on major blockbusters.

For a mid-budget film, a weak score can be fatal. It discourages audiences from giving the movie a chance and convinces studios that similar projects are too risky.

The lesson Hollywood has absorbed is simple: if audiences are choosing movies based on numbers, studios should make films that are least likely to receive negative numbers.

The safest way to do that is to make movies audiences already know.

Sequels. Franchises. Superheroes.
The Homogenization of Taste

Aggregated scores quietly reshape the psychology of moviegoers themselves.

When audiences use a single metric to choose entertainment, they gravitate toward consensus. The safest choice becomes the one everyone else appears to like.

Over time, this process homogenizes the marketplace. Films that aim for broad approval — competent, inoffensive entertainment — perform better in aggregated scoring systems than films that take risks or challenge viewers.

The result is a feedback loop: audiences follow the scores, studios follow the audiences, and the entire system rewards safe mediocrity.

Gaming the System

Once numbers became powerful, the temptation was to manipulate them.

Studios now carefully manage early screenings to influence aggregated scores. Positive early reactions can create a high initial rating that attracts audiences before more critical reviews appear. In some cases, marketing campaigns have even tried to boost a film’s rating by selectively promoting favorable critics or delaying negative reviews.

Meanwhile, user scores on sites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes can be distorted by organized campaigns known as “review bombing,” where groups flood a site with extreme ratings for political or cultural reasons unrelated to the film itself.

When the system becomes a battlefield of manipulated numbers, the illusion of objectivity collapses.

Yet the numbers remain.

Cinema as Data

Perhaps the most troubling consequence of aggregation culture is philosophical.

Cinema is an art form built on subjectivity. The experience of a film is deeply personal —shaped by mood, taste, memory, and emotion. Turning that experience into a percentage suggests a false precision.

And so cinema — one of the most expressive art forms ever invented — has been reduced to a metric.

Rediscovering Curiosity

The tragedy is not that Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic exist. Aggregating reviews can be useful. The tragedy is how completely those scores have come to dominate the conversation.

A score should be the beginning of exploration, not the final verdict.

If the future of cinema is decided by percentages alone, the industry will continue drifting toward the safest, most predictable movies imaginable.

And the next generation of great films — the strange, polarizing, risky ones that critics initially disagree about — may never get the chance to exist.
The tyranny of the Tomatometer is not just changing how we judge movies.

It is quietly changing which movies get made at all.

#ChatGPT | Raymond Tomlin: The Citizen Journalist of Vancouver

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1977, working as an educator in the Interior. Raymond (26) with Megan in his arms and son Jude

Last evening, VanRamblings asked Open AI ChatGPT LLM (large language model) search engine to write a profile on the author of this blog, Raymond Tomlin.

Directly below, you may read what ChatGPT has to say about Mr. Tomlin.

Photo taken recently by Nick Ellan, at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre

For more than two decades, Raymond Tomlin has occupied a singular place in Vancouver’s civic and cultural landscape.

In the 1970s, Mr. Tomlin was the Executive Director / Co-ordinator of the Tillicum and Fed-Up Co-operatives — the latter, a wholesaler responsible for the import of foods goods from across the globe — as the enterprise became the largest grassroots co-operative movement since the 1930s, Mr. Tomlin growing the food co-op from an initial gathering of 20 families seeking healthy foods, to a multi-million dollar enterprise, serving British Columbians and western Canada, as well as the Cascade region of the states of Washington and Oregon, working to create the Wild West Organic Co-operative, the Mountain Equipment Co-op, Uprising Breads, and the East End storefront co-operative.

In addition, Mr. Tomlin was appointed by the 1970s Barrett NDP government, and the Board of Governors and Student Forum at Simon Fraser University, as a liaison to the investigative committee appointed by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau-led federal government to recommend a made-in-Canada solution to the issue of affordable housing. Mr. Tomlin’s participation in the process was instrumental in the founding of the housing co-operative moment. Mr. Tomlin was also involved in the drafting of the initial terms of reference for the housing co-operatives that would be built across Canada.


Working with the National Farmers Union, Raymond became the BC Co-ordinator of the Kraft Boycott. Pictured, Cathy looking back at Raymond, to Cathy’s left, Laurie Birdsall, a very good friend

Part journalist, part educator, part activist, and part public intellectual, Mr. Tomlin is best known as the founder, publisher, and principal writer of VanRamblings, one of British Columbia’s longest-running independent political and cultural blogs. Since its launch on February 15, 2004, VanRamblings has evolved into a uniquely personal chronicle of Vancouver civic life, provincial politics, film culture, music, social justice activism, and the changing character of the city itself.

To understand Raymond Tomlin is to understand a particular tradition of engaged citizenship that has become increasingly rare in the digital age. He is neither a conventional journalist bound by newsroom constraints nor merely a blogger offering personal opinion. Rather, he has spent decades positioning himself as a participant-observer in the public life of Vancouver, writing from the intersection of activism, education, public policy, and culture.


Raymond, age 19, with Joy, one of his future wife Cathy’s best friends, at Joy and Cathy’s home, located just off the University of Alberta campus, in Edmonton 

Mr. Tomlin’s educational background reflects the breadth of his interests.

1970s & ’80s. Simon Fraser University campus, Burnaby Mountain

Raymond Tomlin earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, Sociology, and Anthropology, followed by a Bachelor of Education degree specializing in Reading and  Early Childhood Education, and later completed a Master of Arts degree in Policy Administration, all at Simon Fraser University. The combination of social sciences, education, and public policy would prove foundational to his later work as both an educator and political commentator.

Before becoming known as an online publisher, Mr. Tomlin established a diverse professional career. Mr. Tomlin taught in the public education system, taking a year away from the public system to work with “gifted children” in a well-regarded private school.

Mr. Tomlin has taught at Vancouver Community College, on East Broadway, as a writing instructor, teaching literature and history, as well. Mr. Tomlin has also taken on instructor positions, not only at VCC, but at Langara College, as well as working at Simon Fraser University as a sessional instructor, focusing mainly on Early Childhood Education, but teaching Educational Psychology, Educational Sociology, curriculum development, and policy administration, as well.

In 1980 through 1982, Mr. Tomlin worked as the assistant administrator of the PDP 401/402 teaching programme at Simon Fraser University, as the primary liaison with faculty associates responsible for students enrolled in the education programme, acting as well as a student advocate when, and if, controversy arose with teacher education students.

Mr. Tomlin has two children (pictured above, and at the top of today’s column).

Megan (49) was a PhD candidates in the neurosciences at the University of Toronto, prior to meeting her husband Maz — an Iranian immigrant who arrived in Canada with his parents and sibling at age 14, going on to secure a degree as an engineer.

Megan and Maz moved to Vancouver, married and have raised three children, two boys and a girl. Megan has been active as a Parent Advisory Committee Chairperson at her children’s schools, working with VSB trustee Christopher Richardson, one of Mr. Tomlin’s best friends.

Jude (51) has played a significant role in British Columbia’s music scene, working as a sound engineer, and a prominent DJ on the underground scene, not only locally, but across British Columbia, Canada, the U.S., and internationally.

Mr. Tomlin’s professional experience extended beyond education.

Mr. Tomlin has worked at all 3 levels of government.

Throughout his educational career, Mr. Tomlin has demonstrated a consistent interest in how culture, politics, and institutions shape everyday life.

Municipally, he was involved in planning and development. Federally, he served as an administrator with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation for a period of 12 years. Provincially, Mr. Tomlin worked within Dr. Ian Carter within British Columbia’s Ministry of Education, taking on the tasks of a policy administrator, and curriculum development. These experiences gave Mr. Tomlin a comprehensive understanding of governmental decision-making, a perspective that would later become evident in his political writing.

In the early 1980s, when Premier Bill Bennett dramatically downsized government — leading to what became known as the Solidarity Movement — Mr. Tomlin was hired as a policy analyst in the Government Division of the  British Columbia Teachers’ Federation.

When Premier Bennett fired 8,000 teachers, Mr. Tomlin would soon be downsized out of a job with the BCTF. Prior to that circumstance, Mr. Tomlin was assigned the responsibility of becoming a liaison to teachers who had been laid off, helping them find new careers. In fact, Mr. Tomlin himself would find a new career as a successful entrepreneur, creating the first arts and nostalgia video store on the North American continent, the business located on Vancouver’s west side, later opening a combined arts video emporium and restaurant, called The Video Café, which also functioned as a theatre and vibrant arts venue.

Mr. Tomlin also built an extensive career in journalism and publishing.

In the late 1960s, not only was Mr. Tomlin the Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper at his east side’s Templeton Secondary School, he also wrote for the city-wide student newspaper. In the 1970s, Mr. Tomlin was an Editor at The Peak student newspaper at SFU, taking on summer intern jobs with the then Southam-owned Vancouver Sun and The Province newspapers.

Mr. Tomlin sat on the executive of the Canadian University Press, working with Vaughn Palmer — who would soon be hired by the Vancouver Sun, going on to become the Sun’s award winning provincial affairs columnist — to establish a “desk system” at Canada’s university, college and technical institute student newspapers. Mr. Palmer would become the first News Editor at The Ubyssey, while Mr. Tomlin established the Arts & Entertainment desk at The Peak, Simon Fraser University’s student newspaper.

In the 1980s, Mr. Tomlin worked as freelance writer, contributing various articles on the arts — film, theatre, dance — to the Vancouver Sun. Mr. Tomlin also wrote for the 23 community newspapers across British Columbia, owned by the Southam family, work that continued through the mid-1990s.

Mr. Tomlin wrote for Vancouver Magazine, where he served as Director of Special Projects. During the 1990s he founded Festival, a Vancouver-based arts magazine he created, working as both publisher and editor, later becoming Arts and Entertainment Editor for Two Chairs magazine. Mr. Tomlin also became a syndicated columnist whose work appeared in numerous urban and suburban newspapers throughout Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, and across the U.S.

Yet it is VanRamblings that is Mr. Tomlin’s most enduring legacy.

Launched in February 2004, at a time when blogging was still in its infancy, VanRamblings emerged from a belief that independent voices could contribute meaningfully to public discourse. Mr. Tomlin has written that friends — current Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen, and his Two Chairs editor, Jay Currie — encouraged him to create a platform after opportunities within traditional media had diminished.

The result was an online publication that would eventually produce thousands of articles covering virtually every aspect of public life.

Over the years, the VanRamblings blog has developed a distinct editorial identity.

Politics remains its core focus, particularly municipal politics in Vancouver.

Few independent writers have devoted as much sustained attention to city council, school board elections, park board politics, housing policy, neighbourhood planning, and local governance. Mr. Tomlin has embraced the role of watchdog, scrutinizing politicians, parties, civic institutions, and development decisions, his coverage frequently extending into provincial, federal, and international arenas.

Alongside politics, VanRamblings has long celebrated arts and culture.

Cinema — for years one of Mr. Tomlin’s great loves — occupies a particularly prominent place in Mr. Tomlin’s journalistic life.

Mr. Tomlin has written extensively about film festivals, directors, actors, and the cultural significance of cinema. At present, Mr. Tomlin continues work he began in 1994 with the prominent Japanese magazine, The Fraser Journal (monthly). Even through his various health travails, Mr. Tomlin has never missed a Journal publishing deadline, in 22+ years.

Music criticism, theatre and dance coverage, technology commentary, and reflections on popular culture also form significant parts of VanRamblings’ identity. In this sense, VanRamblings resembles the alternative weekly newspapers that once flourished in North America, combining civic affairs reporting with arts journalism and cultural criticism.

The writing style itself is also unmistakably personal.

Mr. Tomlin often writes in the third person, a literary device that has become one of the site’s trademarks (as crazy as that makes his detractors), to create ironic distance, he suggests. Mr. Tomlin’s prose can be expansive, passionate, humourous and, in the past, frequently hyperbolic.

Admirers see this as evidence of intellectual independence; critics view it as overly opinionated, or “gossipy”. Either way, it has ensured VanRamblings possesses a voice unlike any other Vancouver publication.


Raymond Tomlin raised Jude and Megan as a single parent

Beyond journalism, Mr. Tomlin has consistently engaged in work as a community activist, a union organizer, president of union locals, and in the 1970s Learning and Working Conditions Chairperson for the BCTF, responsible for the north and south Okanagan.

In VanRamblings, Mr. Tomlin’s interests have centred on democratic participation, social justice, neighbourhood engagement, affordable housing, public education, and civic accountability.

Throughout his writing, Mr. Tomlin has argued that ordinary citizens must be involved in political decision-making rather than leaving governance solely to elected officials, developers, or institutional elites.

Mr. Tomlin’s influence has occasionally extended beyond commentary into the civic arena itself. Over the years, political figures, activists, community organizations, and journalists have regularly engaged with VanRamblings as part of Vancouver’s broader political conversation. During election campaigns, the site has become a destination for candidate profiles, endorsements, campaign analysis, and detailed examinations of local political dynamics.

In recent years, Mr Tomlin’s personal life has increasingly entered his writing, as he writes  candidly about serious health challenges, including two battles with cancer, and other maladies.

Mr. Tomlin’s personal essays, often collected under his Stories of a Life series on his blog, reveal a more intimate side of a writer often associated with politics and public affairs, as he explores the issues of aging, mortality, family, friendship, resilience, and gratitude. Such pieces have added a memoiristic dimension to VanRamblings, transforming it from a political blog into a record of an individual’s life experience.


Raymond and Gala Milne (currently Chief of Staff to Premier David Eby) at a Kits Beach protest

Now in his mid-70s, Mr. Tomlin continues to publish regularly, recent writing demonstrating the same enthusiasm that animated the site’s founding more than twenty years ago. Municipal elections, public policy debates, film criticism, music appreciation, and personal reflection all remain central to his work.

In an era when local journalism faces enormous economic pressures and many independent voices have disappeared, Raymond Tomlin represents a different model of public engagement. He is an educator who became a journalist, a policy analyst who became an activist, and an activist who became one of Vancouver’s most persistent chroniclers. Through thousands of essays published over more than two decades, he has documented the civic life of Vancouver while simultaneously participating in it.

Through VanRamblings, Mr. Tomlin has created an enduring archive of the city’s political debates, cultural life, and social transformations. In doing so, he has demonstrated that a single committed citizen, armed with curiosity, conviction, and a keyboard, can help shape the conversation of a city.

At the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, A New Cultural World Order Emerged

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The Boulevard De La Croisette at the Palais des Festivals, during the 79th annual Cannes Film Festival  

The Cannes Film Festival has never been the Oscars.

For most of its history, Cannes existed in a parallel cinematic universe: a place where auteurs were celebrated, formal experimentation rewarded, and films destined for repertory cinemas received standing ovations from critics long before mainstream audiences had even heard of them. Winning the Palme d’Or once meant prestige rather than popularity.

Yet the gap between Cannes and Hollywood continues to narrow.

The 79th Cannes Film Festival was, at first glance, a quieter edition than many in recent years. There were fewer major studio titles, fewer headline-grabbing celebrities, and a competition lineup that lacked the immediate excitement of some previous festivals. But beneath that apparent calm, Cannes once again demonstrated its ability to identify the artistic, cultural, and commercial currents that will shape cinema over the coming year.

Three themes emerged from the Croisette in 2026: the continued rise of LGBTQ+ storytelling, the growing strength of Japanese cinema, and the enduring vitality of Spanish-language filmmaking.

Queer cinema was unquestionably the dominant force at this year’s festival.

The most discussed films in competition centered on LGBTQ+ characters and experiences, reflecting an industry increasingly willing to place queer stories at the centre rather than the margins of contemporary filmmaking.

Among the standouts was Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love, starring Rami Malek as a gay performance artist navigating New York’s AIDS crisis during the 1980s. The film earned one of the festival’s most enthusiastic receptions and immediately positioned Malek as a potential awards-season contender. Rather than revisiting familiar tragedy, Sachs crafts an intimate story on love, creativity, desire, and mortality.

Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont continued his remarkable ascent with Coward, a World War I drama exploring forbidden love amid the horrors of trench warfare. Following the success of Girl and Close, Dhont delivered another emotionally devastating examination of identity and human connection.

Perhaps no film generated more passion than La Bola Negra from Spanish directing duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. Spanning generations of queer men from the Spanish Civil War to the present day, the film received the festival’s longest standing ovation, emerging as one of the festival’s most acclaimed titles.

The prominence of these films suggests something larger than a passing trend. Queer stories are no longer being treated as niche programming. They have become central to contemporary cinema’s understanding of history, memory, identity, and social change.

Equally notable was the extraordinary presence of Japanese cinema.

Few national film industries are currently operating with the artistic confidence and commercial momentum found in Japan. The country’s box office revenues reached record levels in 2025, while production volume climbed to historic highs. That energy was clearly visible at Cannes.

Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda returned to competition with Sheep in the Box, another nuanced exploration of family relationships.

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, whose Drive My Car became a global phenomenon, presented All of a Sudden, a thoughtful examination of friendship and emotional intimacy.

Meanwhile, Koji Fukada competed with Nagi Notes, continuing his reputation as one of Japan’s most perceptive contemporary directors.

Although stylistically distinct, all three films explored themes of family, loneliness, companionship, and human connection. Their collective presence underscored Japan’s position as one of the most important creative centres in world cinema.

Three Films in Competition, a Thriving Box Office and the Envy of Europe: Spain Is Having Its Moment

Spanish cinema also enjoyed an exceptionally strong year.

From Almodóvar to a new generation of auteurs, Spain arrived at Cannes 2026 in historic fashion — and the industry behind it has never been in better shape: “Spanish cinema is in a very exceptional situation right now.”

Beyond the acclaim received by La Bola Negra, Spanish-language filmmaking demonstrated a remarkable ability to combine artistic ambition with emotional accessibility. The result was a slate of films that connected with critics while remaining accessible to broader audiences.

Director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s new film, The Beloved (El Ser Querido), joined Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad) and Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s La Bola Negra in an unprecedented three-film representation of Spain in this year’s Official Competition at Cannes.

That balance increasingly defines the modern Cannes success story.

The Cannes Film Festival is no longer merely a launching pad for challenging art-house films. It has become a marketplace where prestige, commercial potential, and awards-season momentum intersect.

Several titles emerged from Cannes as serious Oscar contenders.

One of the festival’s biggest acquisitions came when independent distributor A24 purchased Club Kid for a reported $17 million. Directed by and starring Jordan Firstman, the film follows a gay nightclub promoter who unexpectedly discovers he has a son. What might have sounded like a modest independent comedy became one of the festival’s biggest crowd-pleasers, demonstrating once again that audiences remain hungry for character-driven storytelling.


Scenes from James Gray’s Paper Tiger, starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Miles Teller

Scarlett Johansson generated strong reviews for James Gray’s Paper Tiger, while Léa Seydoux enjoyed a particularly successful festival with appearances in both The Unknown and Gentle Monster. Each performance strengthened their standing as potential awards-season players.

Elsewhere, veteran auteurs returned with films that may finally bridge the gap between Cannes prestige and Academy recognition.


Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes last month. Certain to feature in the upcoming Oscar race.

Romanian director Cristian Mungiu captured the Palme d’Or with Fjord, a provocative examination of religious intolerance featuring acclaimed performances from Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve.

Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev earned the Grand Prix for Minotaur, while Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski returned with Fatherland, a postwar road movie featuring another standout performance from Sandra Hüller.

Together, these films reinforced Cannes’ unique role in the cinematic ecosystem. The festival remains a place where future Oscar nominees are discovered, where international auteurs launch their next projects, and where global film culture takes stock of itself.

As the lights dimmed along the Croisette and the crowds drifted away from the Palais, what lingered was not the memory of celebrity sightings or red-carpet spectacle. It was the sense of cinema looking outward once again — toward different cultures, different identities, different ways of seeing the world.

The strongest films at Cannes this year were united not by style or genre, but by curiosity. They crossed borders of language, history, sexuality, and geography in search of common human experience.

And perhaps that is the enduring lesson of Cannes.

Every May, the festival gathers stories from every corner of the world and projects them onto a single screen facing the Mediterranean Sea.

For a brief moment, cinema becomes a conversation between strangers. Japanese families, Spanish lovers, queer artists, wartime dreamers, and lonely souls all share the same flickering light. The waves continue to lap against the shoreline, the projectors fall silent, and the stars eventually depart.

But the stories remain, carried home across oceans and continents, waiting for audiences everywhere to discover them.