Every year, the Cannes film festival acts as a platform for a selection of new movies to premiere with a red carpet, gain international attention and compete for prestigious awards, including the famed Palme d’Or. It’s a celebration of film, and one of the primary ways this celebration manifests is through overly elongated applause. 

At Cannes, the standing ovation is a longstanding tradition and art form in itself. They often last for several minutes ( Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ being the all-time longest at 22 minutes! ) and are filled with exchanges of gratitude and praise, tears, laughter and for our more controversial films these moments can even become an opportunity for crowds to boo or walkout in distaste. They represent both the initial response to a debut film as well as its future prospects at the box office or further down the track, the Oscars. 

That’s exactly why today I will be aiming to critically analyse the length and nature of these applauses in order to very accurately predict our future academy awardees. Here’s this year's contenders: 

A last-minute addition to the festival, this documentary featuring some sort of weird theatre experiment hosted by Shia LeBeouf got a two-minute standing ovation. Yes, this may seem like a lot to the untrained eye, but it’s a low blow for Cannes standards. For someone with allegations of abuse to his name, it does not seem to have worked to display that same abusive behaviour on the big screen in order to woo the audience into hitting their palms together for any longer than necessary. Reports also say many people left halfway, and I probably would’ve too.

With a famous actor going behind the camera, Kirsten Stewart was endearingly awkward while trying to figure out what to do with herself during her film’s long applause. The crowd roared at first before simmering out to a quieter, more sustainable volume, pausing in intervals for speeches such as praise from actress Imogen Poots on Stewart’s untapped directorial talent. 

Stewart also co-wrote the screenplay based on the memoir of an Olympic swimmer attempting to escape her abusive home through athletic talent. It’s a film well-suited to all our athletically inclined blitzens… or anyone who likes Twilight.

Ari Aster’s COVID-era Western produced by our beloved household name A24 has a stellar cast including Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Pedro Pascal and Joaquin Phoenix. Despite some people in the gallows walking out just prior to the credits (maybe to skip the traffic jam on the way home?), the majority of the audience graced the team with a long and scattered applause.

Notably, our Joker 2 phenomenon, Joaquin, who plays an asthmatic sheriff refusing to wear a COVID mask, was moved to tears near the end of the applause, prompting both a crescendo in volume and a chain reaction of tears. It was all quite emotional, and after being a Golden Raspberry nominee earlier this year, I reckon he deserves the Oscar contention.

A comedy picture featuring Dakota Johnson and the topic of open marriage, director Michael Angelo Covino cried with his partner during the hearty and warm-toned seven-minute applause. I wasn’t there, but it seemed like the air was filled with the hope and excitement one gets after laughing from a good soulful comedy film. Looks like humour was a refreshing change that successfully gained the approval of our live audience. 

The film is also backed by studio NEON, which has managed to distribute the last 5 Palme d’Or winners, including Anora and Parasite. Talk about a winning streak. Splitsville’s theatrical release is scheduled for August this year; mark your calendars!

It’s specific, I know. 7.5 is an average value of the varied times submitted by different reporters, which is amusing because this movie involves math. With his fourth debut at Cannes, director Wes Anderson’s new film is about a wealthy businessman named ‘Zsa Zsa Korda’ who learns to be a better man by spending time with his daughter. It features the stellar cast of Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, Michael Cera, Benicio Del Toro and Mia Threapleton. 

In the midst of the applause, Anderson graciously named ‘12 words that stand for everything in the movie’ and proceeded to point to 12 of the cast members, how lovely. Overall? Steady, thunderous claps. Threapleton left in tears. Wes Anderson fans are excited.

Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattison’s Horror/Comedy about a woman who falls into psychosis after developing postpartum depression received our second longest ovation of this year's festival with a whopping nine minutes of applause filled with smiling faces and a few enthusiastic mouth whistles. 

The cast and their plus ones hugged and kissed each other consensually, and the aftermath of the ovation has produced awards buzz for Lawrence’s ‘captivating’ performance. The decision’s in, and it looks like it’s ‘No Hard Feelings’ from our audience, so this one’s a must-watch.

An homage to Jean Luc-Godard’s ‘Breathless’, the ‘Before’ trilogy director Richard Linklater received an enduringly loud applause. Although the increased proportion of French people in the audience might be inherently biased towards putting their hands together for a french film about the French New Wave, there’s no doubt that this black and white dramatic comedy struck a chord with an international Cannes audience too and is bound to be well-received by film-lovers around the world. 

Videos have also been circling around of Quentin Tarantino passionately embracing and conversing with Linklater during the applause, clearly loving the film. This either reaffirms that the film is really good, or just means that he included a shot of feet.

I wonder if, by the end of the two weeks, they start getting blisters on their palms from clapping. 

Happy watching!

Rachel studies a double degree in Engineering and Arts. When she’s not catching up on her math lectures from weeks ago, she consumes as much media as humanly possible, including feminist literature, international cinema, Sidemen YouTube videos and the occasional horror video game.