The 79th Cannes Film Festival Lineup is Here, With A Strong Global Slate of Films from Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Cristian Mungiu, Jane Schoenbrun, and More

C’est officiel! The official selection of the 79th Cannes Film Festival was unveiled today, featuring a lineup of Festival veterans and newcomers debuting their films on the Croisette. Iris Knobloch, President of the Festival de Cannes, and Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate, have announced the Official Selection of the 79th Festival de Cannes during the press conference on April 9, 2026. Former Festival Grand Prix, Jury Prize, and Best Director winner Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Thirst, Decision to Leave) is this year’s President of the Jury. His jury will be announced in the coming days.

The twelve-day festival, which runs from May 12th to 23rd, notably has a strong global presence, with highly anticipated films from Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Cristian Mungiu, Pawel Pawlikowski, and dozens more. In a bit of a pivot from the strong North American presence at the 78th edition of the festival, this year’s lineup features strong selections from across Europe, Latin America, and Asia. After its sixth consecutive Palme win last year with It Was Just An Accident, could NEON have another lucky charm in Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, Mungiu’s Fjord, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Sheep in the Box, or even Arthur Harari’s The Unknown? It’s obviously too early to tell, but this year’s exciting lineup surely has some surprises in store. Ira Sachs’ musical The Man I Love is currently the only American production competing for the Palme d’Or, with Cannes mainstay James Gray’s Paper Tiger, starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, curiously missing from the lineup, making it the first time since 2010 that a comp lineup has had just a single American filmmaker. Five women directors made the cut this year, down from a record of seven last year. With twenty-one films in the In Competition section of the Festival, we can still expect a title or two to be added in the coming weeks. Last year, both Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love and Bi Gan’s Resurrection were added to the slate of In Competition titles after the official announcement. 

At the press conference, Knobloch also spoke of the importance of the presence of female filmmakers at the Festival and in the industry writ large. This year, five women will be featured in the main competition, a slight downgrade from the seven women competing in 2025, but still the second-largest presence overall. Speaking of women’s presence at Cannes, the legendary Isabelle Huppert will star in her 23rd main competition film (extending her record for the most appearances in the comp section), Asghar Farhadi’s French-language Parallel Tales, alongside Vincent Cassel, Catherine Deneuve, and Virginie Efira. Efira and fellow Cannes favorite Léa Seydoux will each star in two films in Competition. Efira will also star in All of a Sudden, and Seydoux will star in The Unknown and Marie Kreutzer’s Gentle Monster. This markes Seydoux’s 10th and 11th appearances in comp, tying her with Francisco Rabal, Gian Maria Volonté, Mari Törőcsik and Tilda Swinton.

Fremaux said that 2,541 feature films were submitted for official selection. “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 said.

While recent editions of the Festival have featured large-scale films from major studios, Fremaux noted that this year’s slate still has a “Hollywood” presence, but you won’t see films like last year’s Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning in this year’s Out of Competition lineup. This was largely predicted in recent interviews when Fremaux tipped that blockbusters like Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey would not bow on the Croisette. Perhaps the most surprising inclusion in the Out of Competition section is Nicolas Winding Refn’s Her Private Hell. The Danish filmmaker’s last three films competed for the Palme d’Or, so this inclusion is a bit curious. Widely rumored to have opted not to compete for the Palme, Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas will, in fact, screen in Competition. The film, which has already opened in Spain to positive reviews, will be the director’s seventh film at the festival.

Here is the lineup of the In Competition, Out of Competition, Un Certain Regard, Cannes Premiere, and Special Screenings of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, with Critics’ Week and Director’s Fortnight to come on April 13 and 14, respectively.

In Competition

All of a Sudden, Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Another Day, Jeanne Herry

The Beloved, Rodrigo Sorogoyen

Bitter Christmas, Pedro Almodóvar

The Black Ball, Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo

Coward, Lukas Dhont

The Dreamed Adventure, Valeska Grisebach

Fatherland, Pawel Pawlikowski

Fjord, Cristian Mungiu

Gentle Monster, Marie Kreutzer

Hope, Na Hong-jin

The Man I Love, Ira Sachs

Minotaur, Andrey Zvyagintsev

Moulin, László Nemes

Nagi Diary, Koji Fukada

Notre Salut, Emmanuel Marre

Parallel Tales, Asghar Farhadi

Sheep in the Box, Hirokazu Kore-eda

Stories of the Night, Léa Mysius

The Unknown, Arthur Harrari

A Woman’s Life, Christine Bourgeois-Taquet

Un Certain Regard

All the Lovers in the Night, Yukiko Sode

Benimana, Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo

Club Kid, Jordan Firstman

Congo Boy, Rafiki Fariala

Le Corset, Louis Clichy

Elephants in the Fog, Abinash Bikram Shah

Everytime, Sandra Wollner

I Am Always Your Maternal Animal, Valentina Maurel

I’ll Be Gone in June, Katharina Rivilis

The Meltdown, Manuela Martelli

Strawberries, Laïla Marrakchi

Teenage Death and Sex at Camp Miasma, Jane Schoenbrun (Opening Film)

Uļa, Viesturs Kairišs

Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep, Rakan Mayasi

Out of Competition

L’Abandon, Vincent Garenq

De Gaulle: Tilting Iron, Antonin Baudry

Diamond, Andy Garcia

The Electric Kiss (Opening Night Film), Pierre Salvadori

Her Private Hell, Nicolas Winding Refn

Karma, Guillaume Canet

L’Objet Du Delit, Agnes Jaoui

Cannes Premiere

Heimsuchung, Volker Schlöndorff

Kokurojo: The Samurai and the Prisoner, Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Propeller One-Way Night Coach, John Travolta

The Third Night, Daniel Auteuil

Special Screenings

Avedon, Ron Howard

Cantona, David Treehorn

John Lennon: The Last Interview, Steven Soderbergh

Les Matins Merveilleux, Avril Besson

Les Survivants du Che, Christophe Réveille

Rehearsal for a Revolution, Biga al Ahani

The Survivors of Che, Christophe Réveille

Midnight Screenings

Colony, Yeon Sang-ho

Full Phil, Quentin Dupieux

Jim Queen, Nicolas Athane and Marco Nguyen

Roma Elastica, Bertrand Mandico

Sanguine, Marion Le Corroller

Short Films Competition – To Be Announced

Cinéfondation – To Be Announced

Cinéma de la Plage – To Be Announced

Immersive Competition – To Be Announced

ACID – To Be Announced

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Sophia Ciminello

Sophia is a lifelong film enthusiast who considers herself a scholar of Best Actress winners, the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, and 1970s cinema. She hosts and produces the podcast "Oscar Wild," where she celebrates her love of cinema with retrospectives, deep dives on all 23 Oscar categories, and interviews with directors and creatives. She thanks her mother for her love of Old Hollywood and her father for letting her stay up late to watch the Oscars when she was in preschool. Her favorite Best Picture winners are All About Eve and Ordinary People. You can follow her on Twitter @sophia_cim.

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