Cannes Film Festival 2026 Lineup Revealed

This year's selection (so far) is heavy on auteurs and arthouse, from Asghar Farhadi to Hirokazu Kore-eda.

The Cannes Film Festival returns to the Côte d’Azur beginning May 12 through May 23. As the last few Cannes have shown — with Neon responsible for the North American release of six consecutive Palme d’Or winners — the competition lineup will yield an Oscar winner or two.

The festival will open on May 12 with Pierre Salvadori’s French-language “The Electric Kiss,” as per festival tradition to launch with a local title. Receiving honorary Palme d’Ors this year will be filmmaker Peter Jackson and actor/filmmaker Barbra Streisand. A surprise addition to the selection already announced is the feature directorial debut of John Travolta, playing out of competition. Otherwise, we could only come up with reasonable guesses for the films we’ll most likely see in Cannes — until today.

Super-early Thursday morning stateside time, we received our first wave of Cannes titles, as outlined below. These aren’t all, though. Knowing artistic director Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch, however, these are far from the final films announced. Plus, Critics’ Week, Directors’ Fortnight, ACID, and more have their sidebar selections to unveil soon, too.

This year’s Cannes will take a focus on international auteurs, with very few films by American directors revealed so far. Buzzy names include: Andrey Zvyagintzev, with his first film since 2017’s “Loveless” was also at Cannes and after being hospitalized for COVID complications in 2021-2022; Ira Sachs with the queer New York musical “The Man I Love”; Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Fatherland”; Cristian Mungiu with “Fjord”; Ryusuke Hamaguchi with “All of a Sudden”; Pedro Almodóvar’s “Bitter Christmas”; Asghar Farhadi’s French-language “Parallel Tales”; and more below in a lineup that’s heavy on arthouse features this year.

Notably out of competition, Nicolas Winding Refn returns with “Her Private Hell,” plus Steven Soderbergh has a John Lennon documentary, and Ron Howard premieres a Richard Avedon doc. Frémaux said that 2,541 feature films were submitted to Cannes this year, which is “1,000 more than 10 years ago.” Overall, five women directors are featured in the competition, down from seven last year.

Frémaux said there is “one film” notably absent from the announcement, “but it will be there, I’m telling you!” He’s still screening films at this point. It’s possible James Gray will show up with “Paper Tiger”; doubtful it’s Terrence Malick! Two movies IndieWires was previously assured were not ready for Cannes: Joel Coen’s “Jack of Spades” and Mike Leigh’s untitled new film.

As a refresher, last year’s Palme d’Or winner “It Was Just an Accident,” from director Jafar Panahi, went on to receive Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay nominations. Director Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” winner of the Grand Prize, went on to win Best International Feature. Plus, competition titles “The Secret Agent” and “Sirāt” also became Oscar nominees, though many other films from “Eddington” to “Resurrection” certainly made an impression stateside.

This year’s selections (so far) are below. Frémaux noted that more titles will be revealed in the next week.

Competition

“Minotaur,” Andrey Zvyagintsev

“The Beloved,” Rodrigo Sorogoyen  

“The Man I Love,” Ira Sachs 

“Fatherland,” Paweł Pawlikowski 

“Moulin,” László Nemes

“Histoires de la Nuit,” Léa Mysius 

“Fjord,” Cristian Mungiu

“Notre Salut,” Emmanuel Marre

“Gentle Monster,” Marie Kreutzer  

“Nagi Notes,” Koji Fukada

“Hope,” Na Hong-Jin

“Sheep in the Box,” Hirokazu Kore-eda

“Garance,” Jeanne Herry

“The Unknown,” Arthur Harari

“All of a Sudden,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi

“The Dreamed Adventure,” Valeska Grisebach

“Coward,” Lukas Dhont

“La Bola Negra” (“The Black Ball”), Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo

“A Woman’s Life,” Charline Bourgeois-Taquet

“Parallel Tales,” Asghar Farhadi

“Bitter Christmas,” Pedro Almodóvar

Un Certain Regard

“La Más Dulce,” Laïla Marrakchi

“Club Kid,” Jordan Firstman

“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” Jane Schoenbrun

“Everytime,” Sandra Wollner

“I’ll Be Gone in June,” Katharina Rivilis

“Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep,” Rakan Mayasi

“The Meltdown,” Manuela Martelli

“Elephants in the Fog,” Abinash Bikram Shah

“Iron Boy,” Louis Clichy

“Ben’imana,” Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo

“Congo Boy,” Rafiki Fariala

“Ula,” Viesturs Kairišs

“Forever Your Eternal Animal,” Valentina Maurel

“Words of Love,” Rudi Rosenberg

“All the Lovers in the Night,” Sode Yukiko

Out of Competition

“Her Private Hell,” Nicolas Winding Refn

“Diamond,” Andy Garcia

“Objet du Deli,” Agnes Jaoui

“De Gaulle: L’Age de Fer,” Antonin Baudry

“L’abandon,” Vincent Garenq

“Karma,” Guillame Canet

Cannes Premiere

“Kokurojo: The Samurai and the Prisoner,” Kiyoshi Kurosawa

“Propeller One-Way Night Coach,” John Travolta

“The Third Night,” Daniel Auteil

“The Match,” Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco

“Visitation,” Volker Schlondorff

Special Screenings

“John Lennon: The Last Interview,” Steven Soderbergh  

“Avedon,” Ron Howard

“Les Survivants du Che,” Christophe Réveille

“Les Matins Merveilleux,” Avril Besson

“Cantona,” David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas

“Rehearsals for a Revolution,” Pegah Ahangarani

“L’affaire Marie-Claire,” Lauriane Escaffre and Yvo Muller

Midnight Screenings

“Roma Elastica,” Betrand Mandico 

“Full Phil,” Quentin Dupieux 

“Colony,” Yeon Sang-ho

“Jim Queen,” Nicolas Athane and Marco Nguyen

“Sanguine,” Marion Le Coroller

Opening Film

“The Electric Kiss,” Pierre Salvadori (previously announced)