Cannes 2026 (Directors’ Fortnight): 9 Temples to Heaven (dir. Sompot Chidgasornpongse) | Review
Realism at its finest. A smooth-sailing study of death, Buddhism, and the philosophical questions that surround them, director Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s 9 Temples to Heaven delivers a cinematic nirvana on the Croisette this year.
Fans of The White Lotus will remember that season three focused on a group of tourists in Bangkok and generated plenty of buzz. Look closer at its themes, though, and you’ll see that the globally celebrated series treated Buddhist culture with genuine respect, even amid its wild plot twists. That is exactly how Thailand tends to shape you – constantly. On the subject of Buddhism, director Sompot Chidgasornpongse elevates it into a world unlike any other in 9 Temples to Heaven – a place you may not feel ready to enter. And yes, you will be stunned.
A fortune teller’s prophecy about Grandmother Saluay has the family worried: apparently, the end of her days is nearing. The head of the family, Sakol (Surachai Ningsanond), decides to visit nine temples on a one-day pilgrimage in hopes of lengthening her life. As the journey unfolds – with Saluay, her children, her grandchildren, and their partners – the pilgrimage begins to teach everyone something profound, especially Saluay herself, who seems to be drifting away from her family and into a world entirely her own.
Director Sompot Chidgasornpongse, who previously made Railway Sleepers, possesses a remarkable talent for portraying human interactions and the morality embedded within them, and this is where the film truly grips us with depth. And by depth, I mean concentrated, inexhaustible depth. The film lays bare the intimate conversations family members have within themselves, alongside the deeper debates younger generations hold about rituals and the meaning behind them. Chidgasornpongse never takes sides here – not even for a moment – but instead offers a foundational, thought-provoking, and quietly astonishing examination of belief and subjectivity. What struck me most was the portrayal of Saluay – a rare window into elderly compassion and an unvarnished understanding of the world. The film generates a kind of comfort that radiates outward, affecting her family members – or any family, for that matter – and her silence becomes the film’s quiet turning point. Perhaps it is hope, perhaps it is relief from pressure. Either way, it is precisely how Chidgasornpongse transforms subjectivity into the film’s central human element.
There is more. The film also focuses on the architecture of temples and the structural framework of Buddhism itself – how its teachings apply to death and to those who continue living. The screenplay carries whispers of Tsai Ming-liang, echoes of Apichatpong Weerasethakul – who also serves as producer – and traces of the late Rituparno Ghosh. These influences blend like subtle seasonings hidden throughout the film. Chidgasornpongse presents the temples as spaces for exchanging ideas, cultivating hope, inspiring reflection, and reconciling differences as part of a broader philosophy of life – and he accomplishes this seamlessly through each temple visit. Yet the film is not entirely light. It also explores perceived inequalities within systems of merit and the ways religion can blind individuals to their own choices, creating fractures within faith and tradition themselves.
Selected for the Directors’ Fortnight and produced by Kissada Kamyoung and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 9 Temples to Heaven represents realist cinema at its peak – arguably one of the year’s finest entries. Director Sompot Chidgasornpongse crafts a cinematic nirvana that enlightens, awakens, and mesmerizes throughout its runtime, resulting in an experience that feels impossible to forget. The film delicately captures the irony of how human life can begin to feel unreal when death approaches – the denial, the readiness, or even the awareness that death exists for everyone, though few of us carry that awareness daily. With 9 Temples to Heaven comes an inexplicable feeling: the realization that many of our perceptions and debates are ultimately chambers of doubt, ones that collapse when reality steps forward and everything falls silent. And in that silence lies the answer to every doubt humanity has ever known.
Our team is on site for the 79th Cannes Film Festival, from May 12 to 23, 2026.
