Cannes opening night can be hit or miss, but lately, festival director Thierry Frémaux has used the occasion to import Hollywood luminaries like Meryl Streep, tributed by Juliette Binoche last year. (The French star returned in 2025 to preside over the Competition jury.) This year, Frémaux scored big as Leonardo DiCaprio showed up to present a tearful Robert De Niro with his honorary Palme d’Or. He was rewarded with a warm hug.
“It is a great honor to recognize someone who, for me and so many actors, has always been the archetype of who we look up to,” said DiCaprio. “That is Robert De Niro. It’s not just the roles he plays. He inspired actors to treat the craft not as performance but as physical transformation.”
DiCaprio recalled screaming during his “tough” audition for “This Boy’s Life” to break through, and that De Niro recommended him, thus launching his career at age 15. “That changed my life forever.” De Niro also told Martin Scorsese to check out DiCaprio, who, along with De Niro, collaborated with the maestro for his entire career. “He doesn’t say much,” said DiCaprio. “When he does, it matters. He shows up.”
De Niro, the son of a painter, said onstage, “Art is inclusive. It brings people together tonight. Art looks for truth. Art embraces diversity, and that’s why art is a threat.”
His speech also took a characteristically political turn, just as the jury press conference inevitably did earlier that day. “That’s why we are a threat to autocrats and fascists,” De Niro said. “Our philistine president has a self-appointed head of one of our premier cultural institutions. He has cut funding and support to the arts, humanities and education, and now he has announced a 100% tariff on films produced outside the U.S. Let that sink in, for you can’t put a price on creativity, but apparently you can for the tariffs. Of course, this is unacceptable. All these attacks are unacceptable. And this isn’t just an American problem, it’s a global one. Like a film, we can’t just all sit back and watch. We have to act, and we have to act now without violence, but with great passion and determination…We show our strength and commitment by celebrating art in this glorious festival.”
To wind up, De Niro quoted the French rallying cry: “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité!”
After a tribute to the late David Lynch and a moving performance by the late director’s musical collaborator Chrystabell, Binoche, wearing an elegant caped white pant suit, lined up on stage with her jury, and Quentin Tarantino bounded down the stairs to declare the Cannes Film Festival “open!”
The criteria for opening night films at Cannes are arcane. The film has to open the same day in hundreds of cinemas across France. On opening night, it is even screened in places that have not programmed it. Thus, the Ceremonie d’Ouverture is a national event, broadcast on Canal+, with musical guests, the jury procession, and movie stars like DiCaprio and De Niro. That’s one reason why so many opening night films are French — in this case, jukebox musical comedy “Leave One Day,” released by Pathé and directed by Amélie Bonnin.
At a Monday press conference, Frémaux said he’d love to open the festival with a big event movie like “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” (Paramount, May 23), but big studio films book their release dates years in advance. Instead, he is proud to promote rookie woman filmmaker Bonnin, the first debut-feature director to boast an opening night slot. She’s only the third woman filmmaker to open the festival (after Maïwenn, Emmanuelle Bercot, and Diane Kurys), which tends to be less than inclusive of women directors. (Frémaux keeps trying: the Competition this year boasts seven women directors, tying the record.)
After the movie, a sweet romantic comedy interrupted by bouts of the actors singing ’80s French pop hits, guests piled into buses to attend the opening night gala dinner at the Palm Beach Casino. DiCaprio sat with his mentor, while Sean Baker was on hand to celebrate co-writing, producing, and editing Critics’ Week entry “Left-Handed Girl,” which is looking for a home and directed by Baker collaborator Tsou Shih-Ching. Ari Aster (“Eddington”) chatted with Sony Pictures co-president Michael Barker, who’s at the festival with out-of-competition title “A Private Life,” starring Jodie Foster. And Michael Covino (“Splitsville”) reduced me and Searchlight chief Matthew Greenfield to tears of laughter, as he tends to do.
In Cannes, at least, artists communing over fine food and wine is still the last refuge.
Next up, on Wednesday, “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” world-premieres at Cannes at both the Palais’ main venue, the Auditorium Louis Lumière, and at the Cineum in IMAX, a bus ride away for journalists and other attendees.
