The much-awaited lineup for the 2026 Cannes Film Festival has been announced, with previous Palme d’Or winners Cristian Mungiu and Hirokazu Kore-eda, as well as two-time Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi and veteran American indie director Ira Sachs set to headline.
Following the 2025 edition, which had a large Hollywood presence with Tom Cruise’s ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ and Spike Lee’s ‘Highest 2 Lowest’, the upcoming Cannes will be dominated by international cinema and indie filmmakers, reported Variety.
The only American director to compete this year is Sachs with ‘The Man I Love’ – a musical fantasy featuring Rami Malek. The film follows the AIDS crisis in 80s New York. Farhadi will debut ‘Parallel Stories’ featuring Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira, Pierre Niney, Vincent Cassel, and Adam Bessa.
Among others with the most star power are Cristian Mungiu’s ‘Fjord’ featuring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan, Pawel Pawlikowski’s ‘Fatherland’, Hong-jin Na’s ‘Hope’ with Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander and Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s ‘The Beloved’ headlined by Javier Bardem.
Asia is also well-represented in the Competition with four films, including Japan’s ‘Sheep In The Box’. The most anticipated is said to be Korean Auteur Na Hong-jin’s ‘Hope’, which marks Na’s first feature since ‘The Wailing’ a decade ago.
‘Hope’ features Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. Two-time Oscar winner Pedro Almodovar will screen his latest Bitter Christmas in Competition. The film has already had a theatrical run in the filmmaker’s native Spain.
Notably, the Cannes team is expected to add more titles to the lineup in the coming weeks.
Leading the announcement on Thursday, Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux shared that 95 per cent of the selection has been revealed, while other films will be decided in the next weeks.
“There are sometimes minor delays in certain details, requiring us to finish it a little later and provide the final touches, which will be completed next week or the week after,” he said, as quoted by Variety.
“That’s 1,000 more than just 10 years ago. When I speak of vitality, I’m also referring to a kind of quantitative vitality — with entries from 141 countries, we’re approaching Olympic-level numbers — but here too, the goal is to screen films in a venue where they will be seen by the whole world,” he added.
Cannes is set to run from May 12 to 23, 2026.
