German filmmaker Mascha Schilinski’s “Sound of Falling” debuted on Wednesday afternoon in Cannes, the first film from the competition slate to premiere at the Grand Lumière. If the rave reviews are any indication, it appears the festival already has a major Palme d’Or contender on its hands. The drama is Schilinski’s follow-up to her 2017 debut “Dark Blue Girl.”

While “The Sound of Falling” was met with a standing ovation on the shorter side for the festival (three-and-a-half minutes), the post-screening reaction was more or less hobbled by the theater turning over for the next showing: Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” premiere. Schilinski also quieted the audience down when she took the microphone to thank her cast. The crowd continued to cheer as they exited the theater to make way for the “Mission” premiere.

Variety’s Guy Lodge hailed the movie as a “shattering...