The 2026 Cannes Film Festival has announced its lineup

According to the CinemaDrame news agency, this year’s selections (so far) place a strong emphasis on auteur filmmakers and arthouse cinema, from Asghar Farhadi to Hirokazu Kore-eda.

The Cannes Film Festival will take place from May 12 to May 23 on the French Riviera. As seen in recent editions of Cannes—given that Neon has handled the North American distribution of six consecutive Palme d’Or winners—the festival’s competition lineup is likely to produce one or two Oscar winners as well.

The festival will open on May 12 with the French-language film “Electric Kiss” directed by Pierre Salvadori, continuing the tradition of opening with a local production. This year, the honorary Palme d’Or will also be awarded to Peter Jackson and Barbra Streisand. A surprise addition to the announced lineup is John Travolta’s directorial debut, which will be screened out of competition. However, it is still possible to make informed predictions about the films that will appear at Cannes—at least for now.

In the early hours of Thursday U.S. time, the first wave of Cannes titles was released, listed below. However, these are not all the films. Given Thierry Frémaux, the festival’s artistic director, and Iris Knobloch, the festival president, this is by no means the final lineup. The parallel sections, including Critics’ Week, Directors’ Fortnight, ACID, and others, will also announce their selections soon.

This year’s festival places a particular focus on international auteur filmmakers, with very few American directors represented so far. Notable names include Andrey Zvyagintsev with his first film since 2017’s “Loveless” (which also screened at Cannes), returning after health issues related to COVID-19 during 2021–2022; Ira Sachs with the New York queer musical “The Man I Love”; Paweł Pawlikowski with “Homeland”; Cristian Mungiu with “Fjord”; Ryusuke Hamaguchi with “Suddenly”; Pedro Almodóvar with “Christmas Bitter”; Asghar Farhadi with the French-language film “Parallel Tales”; and others in a lineup heavily focused this year on arthouse cinema.

In the Out of Competition section, Nicolas Winding Refn returns with “His Private Hell,” Steven Soderbergh presents a documentary about John Lennon, and Ron Howard screens a documentary on Richard Avedon. Frémaux stated that 2,541 feature films were submitted to this year’s festival—“1,000 more films than ten years ago.” In total, five female directors are included in the main competition, down from seven last year.

Frémaux also stated that “one film” is missing from the announced list, “but it will come, I’m telling you!” He is still reviewing films. It is possible that James Gray’s film titled “Paper Tiger” may be added; however, the inclusion of a Terrence Malick film now seems unlikely. Two films previously reported by IndieWire as ready for Cannes are Joel Coen’s “Riders of the Ace” and Mike Leigh’s untitled new film.

For reference, last year’s Palme d’Or winner “It Was Just an Accident” by Jafar Panahi later went on to receive Oscar nominations for Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay. “Sentimental Value” by Joachim Trier, which won the Grand Prix, was nominated for Best International Feature. Competition titles such as “The Secret Agent” and “Sirât” also received Oscar nominations, while many other films such as “Eddington” and “Resurrection” made an impact in the United States.

This year’s selections (so far) are as follows. Frémaux has stated that more titles will be announced next week.

Competition

“Minotaur”, Andrey Zvyagintsev
“The Favorite”, Rodrigo Sorogoyen
“The Man I Love”, Ira Sachs
“Homeland”, Paweł Pawlikowski
“Mulholland”, László Nemes
“Night Stories”, Léa Mysius
“Fjord”, Cristian Mungiu
“Save Us”, Emmanuel Mar
“The Kind Monster”, Marie Kreutzer
“Nagi’s Notes”, Kōji Fukada
“Hope”, Na Hong-jin
“Sheep in a Box”, Hirokazu Kore-eda
“Garance”, Jean Herry
“Unknown”, Arthur Harari
“Suddenly”, Ryusuke Hamaguchi
“Dream Adventure”, Valeska Grisebach
“The Coward”, Lukas Dhont
“Black Ball”, Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo
“A Woman’s Life”, Charlène Bourgeois-Tacquet
“Parallel Tales”, Asghar Farhadi
“Christmas Bitter”, Pedro Almodóvar

Un Certain Regard

“The Sweetest”, Leïla Marrakchi
“Club Kid”, Jordan Firstman
“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma”, Jane Schoenbrun
“Every Time”, Sandra Wollner
“I Leave in June”, Katerina Rivilis
“Yesterday Didn’t Sleep”, Rakan Mayasi
“Melting”, Manuela Martelli
“Elephants in the Mist”, Abinash Bikram Shah
“Iron Boy”, Louis Clichy
“Ben Imane”, Marie-Clémence Doussaud
“Son of Congo”, Rafiq Farahani
“Ula”, Viesturs Kairišs
“Forever Your Eternal Animal”, Valentina Maurel
“Words of Love”, Rudy Rosenberg
“All Lovers at Night”, Sode Yoshiko

Out of Competition

“His Private Hell”, Nicolas Winding Refn
“Diamond”, Andy Garcia
“Object of Desire”, Agnès Jaoui
“De Gaulle: The Age of Iron”, Antoine Bardou-Jacquet
“Letting Go”, Vincent Garenq
“Karama”, Guillaume Canet

Cannes Special Screenings

“Kurokurojo: Samurai and Prisoner”, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
“One-Way Night Truck”, John Travolta
“Third Night”, Daniel Auteuil
“The Race”, Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco
“The Visit”, Volker Schlöndorff

Special Screenings

“John Lennon: The Last Interview”, Steven Soderbergh
“Avedon”, Ron Howard
“What Che Survived”, Christophe Reveille
“Extraordinary Mornings”, Avril Beson
“Cantona”, David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas
“Exercises for a Revolution”, Pegah Ahangarani
“The Marie-Claire Case”, Lorraine Scafar and Yves Muller

Midnight Screenings

“Roma Elastica”, Bertrand Mandico
“Full Fill”, Quentin Dupieux
“Clony”, Yeon Sang-ho
“Jim Queen”, Nicolas Athen and Marco Nguyen
“Sanguine”, Marie Le Corroller

Opening Film

“Electric Kiss”, Pierre Salvadori (previously announced)