Cannes 2025: First Reactions to Julia Ducournau’s ALPHA

More big Cannes premieres today, including Julia Ducournau’s ALPHA, which is her follow up to the 2021 Palme d’Or winning film TITANE. The film premiered In Competition and will arrive in US theaters via NEON in October.

Alpha is written and directed by Ducournau, and stars Mélissa Boros, Golshifteh Farahani, Tahar Rahim, Emma Mackey and Finnegan Oldfield.

In the film, Alpha, is a troubled 13-year-old living with her single mom. Their world collapses the day she returns from school with a tattoo on her arm.

Check out the film’s newly released teaser trailer and the first reactions out of Cannes below.

'Alpha' Review: 2021 Palme d'Or Winner Julia Ducournau’s AIDS-Era Horror Parable Is Arrestingly Original and Numbingly Over-the-Top https://t.co/Qpxm7jSCpw
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) May 19, 2025

'Alpha' Review: Squalor And Sublime Performances Dominate Julia Ducournau's Follow-Up To Palme d'Or Winner 'Titane' - Cannes Film Festival https://t.co/0M7zpZ1ed9
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) May 19, 2025

ALPHA: Julia Ducournau’s body horror metaphor for the AIDS epidemic is bold, bleak and angry with a pervading, devastating sadness. Her direction is even more accomplished than in TITANE, loud but intimate and with an unexpected poetry. An emotional gut-punch #Cannes2025 pic.twitter.com/mNS37kyqON
— FilmLand Empire (@FilmLandEmpire) May 19, 2025

'Alpha' Review: A Potentially Infected Tattoo Sparks a Tortured AIDS Allegory in Julia Ducournau's Rotten Follow-up to 'Titane' https://t.co/itTKT0BBvr
— Variety (@Variety) May 19, 2025

‘Alpha’ Review: ‘Titane’ Director Julia Ducournau Adopts a More Grounded Form of Body Horror for This Dour and Dismal AIDS Allegory https://t.co/yxTiGr5iX3
— IndieWire (@IndieWire) May 19, 2025

Julia Ducournau throws enough ideas for a hundred movies at ALPHA to try to make something stick, but it’s too much for anything to cohere. The emotional strength of the performances keeps it watchable, but this is a raw mess of titanic proportions. #Cannes2025 pic.twitter.com/unxPgU82xw
— Dancin' Dan in Cannes-land (@dancindanonfilm) May 19, 2025

#ALPHA: Palme ’21 laureate Julia Ducournau trades body horror for bedside manner. Mélissa Boros, Golshifteh Farahani & Tahar Rahim navigate lethal
marbling disease in a world more real than “Titane” or “Raw” — but for all its sincerity, the film struggles to engage. #Cannes2025 pic.twitter.com/vyV4yuiiGV
— Peter Howell 🖊 (@peterhowellfilm) May 19, 2025

Alpha: Julia Ducournau's follow-up to Titane is absolutely dismal.

my #cannes2025 review: https://t.co/KhUD5tZ9ba pic.twitter.com/CjS8WAsJuR
— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) May 19, 2025

'Alpha' Review: I Think Julia Ducournau Just Locked in Another Palme d'Or | Cannes 2025 https://t.co/j8qoy1LqXw
— Collider (@Collider) May 19, 2025

It brings me no pleasure to say that Julia Ducournau’s third feature film is her weakest to date. As an obvious allegory for the AIDS epidemic, ALPHA is so tedious in how its narrative structure unfolds while also cramming in a family melodrama and coming of age story. Despite… pic.twitter.com/IoNkvbQiw2
— Matt Neglia @Cannes (@NextBestPicture) May 19, 2025