The Hollywood cavalcade descended on Cannes Saturday for the premiere of Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese’s Native American crime epic, Killers of the Flower Moon, which received rave reviews.
The three-and-a-half-hour movie sees DiCaprio play alongside Scorsese’s other long-time muse Robert De Niro, and charts a wave of murders among oil-rich Osage Indians in the 1920s and the birth of the FBI.
After hours of waiting in the rain that has drenched the French Riviera town all week, fans went wild as the trio arrived for the premiere alongside several native Americans in traditional outfits.
Co-star Jesse Plemons arrived with his wife Kirsten Dunst, while Salma Hayek, Cate Blanchett, and Tobey Maguire were also present.
Based on a nonfiction bestseller, the film sees DiCaprio play a weak-willed man who marries a wealthy Osage Indian and is drawn into the deadly schemes of his kingpin uncle (De Niro).
Words like “searing”, “triumph” and “masterpiece” were bandied about by critics who managed to get their hands on a ticket.
IndieWire said DiCaprio gives “his best-ever performance”, while The Guardian awarded five stars for a “remarkable epic about the bloody birth of America.”
There were some dissenting notes, with The Times calling it “a damp squib” and Little White Lies saying Scorsese “guts the story of anything that might sully the high seriousness of the subject matter”.
Killers of the Flower Moon, funded by Apple, was screening out-of-competition in Cannes.