His first feature film, with a screenplay written jointly with Gilles Marchand, was "Ressources humaines" ("Human Resources", 1999) about a management trainee working in his father's factory. This achieved both critical and popular success, and it won two César awards. His next film "L'Emploi du temps" ("Time Out", 2001) continued his interest in employment issues, drawing upon a real-life case about a professional man who concealed his redundancy from his family. The screenplay was written jointly with Robin Campillo, who also worked on several of Cantet's later films. Social issues took on a more international perspective in "Vers le sud" ("Heading South", 2005) about sexual tourism in Haiti. In "Entre les murs" ("The Class", 2008) Cantet made a film which blended fiction and documentary exploring the daily life of a class of students in a Parisian school. The cast was composed entirely of non-professionals, including the teacher on whose book the film was based. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival. Subsequent projects have taken Cantet to Canada for "" (2012) and to Havana for "Retour à Ithaque" ("Return to Ithaca", 2014), working in English and Spanish respectively.