Atlantics (French: Atlantique) is a 2019 internationally co-produced supernatural romantic drama film directed by Mati Diop, in her feature directorial debut. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Diop made history when the film premiered at Cannes, becoming the first Black woman to direct a film featured in competition at the festival.

The film is centered around a young woman, Ada, and her partner, Souleiman, struggling in the face of employment, class, migration, crime, family struggles, and ghosts. Working mostly with unknown actors, Diop focused in the film on issues such as the refugee crisis, remorse, loss, grief, class struggle, and taking responsibility (or not) for one's actions. The Atlantic Ocean is used in many ways throughout the film, including as a symbol and as an engine for change, growth, life, and death.

In a suburb of Dakar that lies along the Atlantic coast, a futuristic-looking tower is about to be officially opened. The construction workers have not been paid for months. One night, the workers decide to leave the country by sea, in search of a brighter future in Spain. Among them is Souleiman, the lover of Ada. However, Ada is betrothed to another man – the wealthy Omar. Ada is deeply worried about Souleiman, as she waits for news of his fate in the run-up to her wedding. On her wedding day, Omar's bed mysteriously catches fire in a suspected arson attack, and a young detective is assigned to investigate the case.

In the coming days, Ada falls under suspicion and is subjected to interrogations and a virginity test. Meanwhile, her friend Fanta and the young detective are both suffering from a mysterious illness. It slowly emerges that the spirits of the men lost at sea have returned and each night take possession of the bodies of other inhabitants of Dakar. Most of these spirits are focused on the tycoon whose withholding of their pay had forced them to go across the Atlantic. They demand their pay, threatening to burn the tower down otherwise. Once they receive their pay from the tycoon, the possessed force him to dig their graves so that their spirits may rest, but Souleiman wants only to be with Ada. Unfortunately, he has possessed the young detective, which initially scares Ada. But as she meets the other spirits, including one who possesses Fanta, she comes to understand them and spends a last night with the new Souleiman.

While reviewing footage from the wedding, the detective sees that he, under the possession of Souleiman's spirit, was the one who committed the arson. He closes the case.

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 95% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 155 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "An unpredictable supernatural drama rooted in real-world social commentary, Atlantique suggests a thrillingly bright future for debuting filmmaker Mati Diop." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100 based on 30 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Hannah Giorgis of The Atlantic commented, "In Atlantics, the Cannes Grand Prix–winning film by the French-Senegalese director Mati Diop, the water is both a threat and a source of comfort. With soft camerawork and pointed dialogue, Diop casts a shadow over the sea and all its possibilities... The result is a transportive love story with an undercurrent of social critique that manages to be at once haunting and hopeful." K. Austin Collins writing for Vanity Fair stated, "Atlantics stuns and surprises because it tries to pull off something slippery and hard to define, a ghost story (or is it a zombie story?) that’s rooted in the material reality of Dakar and its lower classes, that’s openly political, accordingly, but which also seems flickering and unreal, alive to whatever these mysteries have in store." Bilal Qureshi of NPR said, "Atlantics is a ghost story about migration. It dramatizes the stories of the young men who leave countries like Senegal in hopes of reaching Europe, and how their absence — and their loss — haunts the women they leave behind." Jay Weissberg writing for Variety stated, "The capricious ocean is a recurrent, mesmerizing image in Mati Diop’s feature debut Atlantics, but given its perfidious connotations for the people of Senegal, who’ve lost so many souls to its depths, the director ensures the rolling waves remain hypnotic rather than beautiful. It’s the right decision for this romantic and melancholy film, more apt than some of the flawed narrative choices that frustrate though don’t compromise the atmosphere of loss and female solidarity in the story of a young woman whose love has died at sea."

Justin Chang in his review for the Los Angeles Times noted, "Drawing on a potent vein of local mythology, Diop weaves these paranormal elements into her canvas with thrift, ingenuity and bracing matter-of-factness. In her hands, a vengeful ghost seems no more absurd or irrational than, say, the futuristic high-rise tower that’s being erected on the coast." Kelsey Adams of Now gave the film four stars out of five and wrote, "Although it’s a migrant story, it focuses on those left behind. As the distressed women grapple with the departure of their men, things turn increasingly uncanny. Unexplained arson and illnesses shift Atlantics into supernatural territory, and Diop incorporates elements of Muslim mysticism and French folklore without being gimmicky. The deft blend of fantasy and drama uses supernatural elements to home in on the abundant, unjust realities the characters face." David Fear of Rolling Stone gave the film four and half stars out of five, commenting "even when things start to dip into supernatural territory, Atlantics remains oddly grounded, still dedicated to tackling a topical subject without being dogmatic. You feel as if you’re watching something that’s region-specific, yet it never makes its characters feel like “others.” Nor do you ever sense that the act of giving these often agency-less females a voice is something based in charity, because Diop makes the endeavor feel like a necessity." Namwali Serpell of The Nation stated, "In its origins in Arabian thought, a djinn can be good or bad. In its origins in the black diaspora, a zombie is a slave forced to do the bidding of others. Diop mixes the two phenomena to the same counterintuitive end: The dispossessed—male and female, management and labor—rise up not as the enemy but as the communal hero."