I didn’t cry when “Titane” won the Palme d’Or in 2021. I smirked. A car-sex fever dream snagging Cannes’ top prize? Ballsy. But “Alpha,” Julia Ducournau‘s latest gut-punch, might’ve made me misty-eyed—if only because it almost didn’t get its shot.
Let’s get this straight: “Alpha” isn’t here to play nice. The selection committee at Cannes 2025 was so split they nearly banished it to a sidebar. Polarizing? Sure. Shocking? That’s Ducournau’s brand. After “Raw” (2017) turned cannibalism into a coming-of-age metaphor and “Titane” made us question our relationship with machinery, “Alpha” takes a hard left into the AIDS-ravaged ‘80s. It’s an 11-year-old girl—Alpha—staring down loss in a fictional New York-esque sprawl. Golshifteh Farahani and Tahar Rahim anchor the chaos, but it’s Ducournau’s refusal to compromise that’s the real story. She turned down opening night vibes for a competition slot. Boom. Mic drop.
The buzz isn’t about acclaim—it’s about division. Neon’s distributing, banking on that Palme d’Or glow from “Titane,” but even they must know this one’s a gamble. “Most personal and profound work yet,” they say. Translation: It’s gonna piss some people off. Good. Art should.
Flashback to 2021. “Titane” rolled into Cannes like a Molotov cocktail—half the room cheered, half ran for the exits. Telluride flat-out rejected it. Spike Lee‘s jury still handed it the Palme, proving Ducournau thrives in teh messy cracks of consensus. “Raw,” her debut, had already hinted at it: a vegetarian vet student eating her sister’s finger wasn’t exactly popcorn fare. Now, “Alpha” doubles down. The ‘80s setting isn’t nostalgia bait—it’s a crucible. AIDS wasn’t just a disease; it was a cultural earthquake. An 11-year-old grappling with that? It’s “E.T.” meets “Angels in America”—but with Ducournau’s signature edge.
External voices back this up. A Variety piece from March 2025 called her “the enfant terrible of French cinema,” noting how “Alpha” blends “visceral body horror with a child’s fractured innocence.” Meanwhile, a Screen Daily insider whispered that Cannes hesitated because “it’s less marketable than ‘Titane’—too raw, too real.” And a 2024 Film Comment retrospective on Ducournau argued she’s “rewriting trauma as rebellion,” a thread “Alpha” clearly pulls tighter.
“Alpha” isn’t what people think—a tidy follow-up to “Titane’s” wild ride. It’s messier, thornier, maybe even braver. Ducournau’s not chasing applause; she’s daring you to feel something—rage, grief, awe, whatever. You’ll either love this or hate it. Here’s why: it’s not safe, and it’s not sorry. Would you risk watching it? Comment below.
