Cannes 2025: First Reactions to Ari Aster’s EDDINGTON

The Cannes Film Festival got underway earlier this week, and reactions to some of the highly-anticipated world premieres are starting to arrive. Today marked the premiere of EDDINGTON, which will be distributed by A24 later in the summer.

From writer-director Ari Aster comes a modern Western and paranoid thriller set in the American Southwest during the tumultuous summer of 2020. Isolated and sheltered in place, in a global pandemic, a nation under pressure found itself sifting reality through the haze of social media and lost its collective mind.

Eddington stars Joaquin Phoenix as small-town sheriff Joe Cross, who runs for mayor when progressive incumbent Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) attempts to modernize their dusty hamlet by attracting a new artificial-intelligence data center. Aster’s fourth feature takes the form of a classic showdown between two opposing forces over the future of Eddington, New Mexico (population 2,345), as spiraling conspiracies and standoffs derail a citizenry pushed to the brink.

In addition to Phoenix and Pascal, the film also stars Luke Grimes, Deirdre O'Connell, Micheal Ward, Austin Butler, and Emma Stone. A24 will release the film nationwide on July 18th, 2025. You can find the film on our In Theaters calendar.

Here are the first reactions to Eddington after today’s Cannes premiere:


EDDINGTON - Ari Aster's acidic, unrelenting vivisection of American culture, from guns to protests to mask mandates and signalled virtues, it's an excoriation and the most bleak kd satires, easily eschewed by same audience that it Mick's that it's bred to entice. #cannes2025

— Jason Gorber (@filmfest.bsky.social) May 16, 2025 at 1:24 PM

EDDINGTON: A magnificently off-the-rails poison pill of a film that skitters around from reactionary satire to FIRST BLOOD chaos to deliver what might be the first and last ANTIFA farce. Bless Emma Stone, forever playing deeply traumatized wives stuck in New Mexico. #Cannes

— Barry Hertz (@hertzbarry.bsky.social) May 16, 2025 at 1:30 PM

Today in #Cannes is also known as The [Ari] Aster. EDDINGTON is a brilliant Covid western that is (to quote my favorite “While We’re Young” line) “really about America.” Joaquin Phoenix embodies some of US’s worst instincts & in the relentless finale, proves he is among our best. Loved it.

— Tomris Laffly (@tomilaffly.bsky.social) May 16, 2025 at 1:47 PM

Here's the official teaser trailer:


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