Annette

Leos Carax's Annette opened the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in July of that year, where Carax received the Best Director award and the film competed for the Palme d'Or. It is the French director's sixth feature in nearly four decades, his first in English, and his first to be released within five years of its predecessor (Holy Motors, 2012). The story and original songs are by Ron and Russell Mael of the American art-pop duo Sparks, who began developing the project as a stage piece more than a decade before shooting.

Adam Driver plays Henry McHenry, a Los Angeles stand-up comedian whose performances feel closer to confrontational performance art; Marion Cotillard is Ann Defrasnoux, the celebrated soprano he marries. Simon Helberg appears as the conductor of Ann's orchestra, and the title role is shared between a marionette and the young Devyn McDowell. Cinematographer Caroline Champetier shoots Los Angeles and the Pacific in deep, theatrical greens and blues; Sparks's score moves the dialogue almost entirely into song, including a long, much-discussed birth-aria duet.

The film polarised critics and audiences, but the establishment came around quickly. At the Césars it won five prizes (Best Director, Best Original Music, Best Editing, Best Sound and Best Visual Effects); at the Lumière Awards Carax took Best Director; the European Film Awards nominated him in the same category. Sight & Sound, Cahiers du Cinéma and The Guardian placed it on their year-end lists, and it has since become a fixture in writing about contemporary art-pop cinema and post-musical form.