Cannes 2026 pivots to auteur cinema with a star-studded lineup
The 79th Cannes Film Festival unveils an almost exclusively auteur-driven lineup, with Pedro Almodóvar, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Paweł Pawlikowski, László Nemes and Asghar Farhadi among those competing for the Palme d’Or, joined by Andrey Zvyagintsev, Cristian Mungiu and others for high-profile premieres such as Bitter Christmas, Fatherland, Moulin, Fjord and Minotaur; Kore-eda and Ryusuke Hamaguchi also present new works (Sheep in the Box and All of a Sudden). The main competition is notably sparse on American directors, save for Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love; Un Certain Regard features Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, and Cara Delevingne appears in Club Kid. Travolta debuts Propeller One-Way Night Coach, Soderbergh screens John Lennon: The Last Interview, and Cantona is the subject of a special screenings feature. Park Chan-wook will chair the jury as Cannes confirms roughly 2,491 submissions from 141 countries, with more titles likely to be added before the May 12–23, 2026 festival.
