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 wealth 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. At the time of the Cannes announcement, Ira Sachs’ musical The Man I Love was the only American production competing for the Palme d’Or. Now, Cannes mainstay James Gray’s Paper Tiger, starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, joins the lineup as part of the final slate of films. Five women directors made the cut this year, down from a record of seven last year.
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 marks Deneuve’s 13th in comp film (tying her with Michel Piccoli) and 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.
After British filmmaker Molly Manning Walker last year, Leïla Bekhti will serve as President of the Un Certain Regard Jury at the 79th Festival de Cannes. She and her four jury members, Senegal’s producer Angèle Diabang, Lebanon’s composer Khaled Mouzanar, Italy’s director Laura Samani, and France’s director Thomas Cailley, will be tasked with selecting the winners of this selection, which celebrates young, auteur-driven cinema and new discoveries.
Last year, Chilean filmmaker Diego Céspedes won the Un Certain Regard Prize with his highly acclaimed debut film, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo.
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
Paper Tiger, James Gray
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
A Girl’s Story, Judith Godrèche
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)
Titanic Ocean, Konstantina Kotzamani
Uļa, Viesturs Kairišs
Ulysse, Laetitia Masson
Victorian Psycho, Zachary Wigon
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
Aqui, Tiago Guedes
The End of It, Marina Martinez Bayona
Heimsuchung, Volker Schlöndorff
Kokurojo: The Samurai and the Prisoner, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Mariage au Goût d’Orange, Christophe Honoré
Mary Magdalene, Gessica Généus
Propeller One-Way Night Coach, John Travolta
Si Tu Penses Bien, Géraldine Nakache
The Third Night, Daniel Auteuil
Special Screenings
Ashes, Diego Luna
Avedon, Ron Howard
Cantona, David Treehorn
Groundswell, Joshua and Rebecca Tickell
John Lennon: The Last Interview, Steven Soderbergh
Les Matins Merveilleux, Avril Besson
Rehearsal for a Revolution, Biga al Ahani
Spring, Rostislav Kirpičenko
The Survivors of Che, Christophe Réveille
Tangles, Leah Nelson
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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