Film Festivals

2015 Cannes Critics’ Panel Day 7: Villeneuve Takes Back Cannes with Sicario

Published on May 19, 2015

In the beginning stages of his career (with the exception of Maelstrom showing in Berlin), Denis Villeneuve was an habitual of the Cannes Film Festival. His filmography has been embraced up and down the Croisette with short Cosmos (1996) and Polytechnique (2009) showing in the Directors’ Fortnight section, Un 32 août sur terre (1998) showing in the Un Certain Regard and his savoury short Next Floor (2008) landing at the Critics’ Week, but the Quebecois helmer was left scratching his head when Incendies (2010), Enemy (2013) and possibly Prisoners (2013) failed to receive the same approbation. Going in with zero expectations, especially with a cross-border thriller, his seventh film finally won him an In Comp berth. Considering the amount of Palme d’Or contenders receiving pans from the critic community, Sicario might actually not be so out of place as first conceived.

Starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin, this is receiving great reviews from the trades. We’ve only received a small sampling of grades from our jury — that’ll be updated shortly.

Check back with us twice daily for the latest grades and make sure to click on the grid below for a larger version.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).