Loud and Clear Reviews picks 20 movies to watch at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, from anticipated world premieres to the most promising hidden gems!
Which movies should you watch at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival? As you return to the Croisette, we have you covered with some recommendations of films to watch this year! It’s going to be an exciting festival, with world premieres of many anticipated titles and promising hidden gems. The 79th Festival de Cannes will take place on May 12-23, 2026, and you can check out the full line-up right now on the official site. But before you do that, let’s take a closer look at what you don’t want to miss this year.
Pierre Salvadori’s The Electric Kiss will open the 2026 Cannes Film Festival out of competition. There will be 22 movies in competition this year, joined by 19 films in Un Certain Regard, 6 out of competition, 5 midnight screenings, 12 special screenings, and 10 “Cannes premiere” movies. Fans of virtual reality will be thrilled to hear that the Immersive Competition is coming back for its third edition, which will be bookable on Cannes’ portal together with the other movies this year. And let’s not forget the collateral strands: Directors’ Fortnight (Quinzaine des Cinéastes), Critics’ Week (Semaine de la Critique), and l’ACID.
Keep scrolling for our list of 20 movies to watch at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival! They are recommended by our writers Bethany Lola, Philip Bagnall and Serena Seghedoni, listed in alphabetical order. Come back soon for our reviews from Cannes and don’t forget to follow us on our socials to get our updates from the festival!
1. All Of A Sudden
Cannes 2026: In Competition
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Country: France
Ryusuke Hamaguchi returns to Cannes after winning the Screenplay prize for Drive My Car in 2021. His latest, his first made outside his native Japan, sounds like it might offer plenty of food for thought, not least because of its three-and-a-quarter hour runtime. Set in Paris, All Of A Sudden sees Virgine Efira play a nursing home director who enters into correspondence with a terminally ill Japanese playwright (Tao Okamoto), discussing matters of chance, risk and mortality. Slow cinema adherents will be enamoured, but whether it can repeat Drive My Car’s crossover success remains to be seen. (P.B.)
2. Ashes (Ceniza en la Boca)
Special Screening
Director: Diego Luna
Countries: Mexico/Spain
Andor star Diego Luna returns to Cannes after bringing his directorial debut, Abel, to the festival in 2010, and being in the Un Certain Regard jury in 2016. This time, he brings us Ashes (Ceniza en la Boca), adapted from Brenda Navarro’s bestselling novel about a young woman named Lucila (Anna Díaz, of La Cocina) who travels from Mexico to Madrid with her younger brother (Sergio Bautista). The aim is reuniting with their mother, who moved there a few years before to look for a better life, but Lucila soon finds out that things aren’t that easy.
It’s a film about migration and cultural identity that promises to tackle all the themes you might expect, from racism to workplace discrimination and more. But it also focuses on a young woman’s feelings of loneliness and alienation, and her strive to survive this new world. Ashes will tackle very timely themes, and we’ll be watching. (S.S.)
3. Bitter Christmas
Cannes 2026: In Competition
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Country: Spain
Pedro Almodóvar is another Cannes favourite, returning for his seventh attempt at the Palme d’Or (having previously won the Best Director and Best Screenplay prizes). The film centres on two parallel plot threads, one about a mourning advertising executive (Bárbare Lennie), the other focused on a film director (Leonardo Sbaraglia). The film opened in Almodóvar’s native Spain in April, albeit to mixed reviews. The narratives appear to be revisiting familiar territory for Almodóvar (Depression, creative blockage, multiple storylines), but there may be nuggets of gold to be found herein. (P.B.)
4. Coward
Cannes 2026: In Competition
Director: Lukas Dhont
Countries: Belgium/France/Netherlands
After winning the Caméra d’Or for Girl in 2018 and the Grand Prix for the universally acclaimed Close in 2022, director Lukas Dhont returns to the Croisette. The titular ‘Coward’ is Pierre (Emmanuel Macchia), a young Belgian soldier determined to prove his heroism in the trenches of the First World War. That’s where he meets Francis (Valentin Campagne), who’s tasked with boosting morale.
Dhont describes Coward as “film about love and death, creation and destruction, […] survival and how, sometimes, even in darkness, something beautiful manages to grow.” If you’re familiar with his previous work, you’ll know to expect a quietly powerful gem that focuses on its characters’ inner world as much as what’s happening on the outside. Don’t miss it! (S.S.)
5. Butterfly Jam
Directors’ Fortnight (Quinzaine des Cinéastes), Opening Film
Director: Kantemir Balagov
Countries: France/USA
This year’s Directors’ Fortnight features Butterfly Jam, Kantemir Balagov’s third feature film to premiere at Cannes after Closeness in 2017 and Beanpole in 2019. Pyteh (newcomer Talha Akdogan), a 15-year-old who is training to be a wrestling pro whilst balancing shifts at his family’s Circassian diner, is forced to act like an adult when his father messes up and he’s left to take the fallout. A coming-of-age story that homes in on cultural identities. Also starring Riley Keough, Barry Keoghan, Harry Melling and Monica Bellucci. (B.L.)
6. Double Freedom
Directors’ Fortnight (Quinzaine des Cinéastes)
Director: Lisandro Alonso
Country: Argentina
Perhaps as unlikely a sequel as you can imagine, Double Freedom (La Libertad Doble) follows Eureka and Jauja director Lisandro Alonso’s minimalist La Libertad, which was screened in Un Certain Regard in 2001. 25 years later, this follow-up is in the Director’s Fortnight selection, charting the ongoing exploits of lumberjack Misael (Misael Saavedra) as he grapples with new responsibilities. The original film observed Misael as he went about his work, and banked on hypnotising audiences with footage of a professional doing his job well. It succeeded, and if this follow-up can work similar magic, Alonso fans will lap it up. (P.B.)
7. Fatherland
Cannes 2026: In Competition
Director: Paweł Pawlikowski
Country: Germany
Paweł Pawlikowski returns to Cannes with his first feature in eight years. His previous film, Cold War, won him Best Director at the festival, and he’ll be hoping to leap to the top prize with his latest. Fatherland sees author Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller) travelling across the still war-scarred Germany of 1949. Shooting in gorgeous black-and-white, Pawlikowski will once again challenge himself to milk generous helpings of emotion from simple but elegant filmmaking, and all in less than 90 minutes. Will he succeed? (P.B.)
8. Fjord
Cannes 2026: In Competition
Director: Cristian Mungiu
Countries: Romania/Norway/Denmark/Finland/France/Sweden
Four-time Palme d’Or nominee and one-time prize winner for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Cristian Mungiu once again finds himself presenting a film in Competition at Cannes. Fjord follows two neighboring families in small town Norway whose children become close friends despite their parents having conflicting views. This difference in opinion could put one family at jeopardy when they are accused of something sinister. If the one teaser image from the film has any hints for what’s to come, it’s that everything may not be as happy as it seems. Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan reunite after their brilliant performances in A Different Man back in 2024. (B.L.)
9. Her Private Hell
Out of Competition
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Countries: USA/Denmark
Ten years after his last feature film The Neon Demon, Nicolas Winding Refn returns with a sleek new thriller Her Private Hell. Lost and in search of her father, a young woman transcends through a futuristic world on a journey to get her life back on track, battling whatever arcane obstacles stand in her way. If it’s anything like Refn’s previous films, it will be saturated in mystery and a gorgeous colour palette. A stacked cast of Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Kristine Froseth, Havana Rose Liu and Diego Calva star. (B.L.)
10. Karma
Out of Competition
Director: Guillaume Canet
Country: France
A woman (Marion Cotillard) with a troubled past is trying to rebuild her life in a remote Spanish village, but her godson suddenly disappears and she finds herself as the primary suspect. It’s a simple but ripe setup, and writer-director Guillaume Canet has made excellent thrillers in the past (Tell No One). Observers will be keen to see if he can break a poor streak of films in recent years, as well as looking for signs of anything that signalled the end of Cotillard and Canet’s near-two decade relationship post-shoot. Gossip aside, this has potential as a nifty thriller outside the main competition. (P.B.)
11. The Man I Love
Cannes 2026: In Competition
Director: Ira Sachs
Country: USA
Writer-director Ira Sachs returns to Cannes after Frankie (2019), having spent these past years charming festival audiences with a string of gems. Co-written with frequent collaborator Mauricio Zacharias, The Man I Love takes place in 1980s New York City, where Jimmy George (Rami Malek) a respected artist in the theatre world, is sick. But as he’s stuck in a moment where he’s neither dead nor fully alive, he strives to live, love, and create while he still can.
Ira Sachs’ cinema is introspective, often revolving around domestic realities and poignant interactions between artists with a shared love for creativity and creation. After Passages and Peter Hujar’s Day, The Man I Love feels like a natural evolution for a director whose work seems to be becoming more introspective, and with Rami Malek, Rebecca Hall, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Tom Sturridge attached to the project, we couldn’t be more excited. (S.S.)
12. The Meltdown
Un Certain Regard
Director: Manuela Martelli
Countries: Chile/USA/Spain/Mexico
Manuela Martelli’s debut feature Chile ‘76 was full of secrets and her second film to hit Cannes is no different. Snow drenched mountains in 1992 Chile is the backdrop for The Meltown, where our protagonist, nine-year-old Inés, makes a new friend, Hanna, a skier. One night, Hanna disappears from the ski resort in which they’re both staying, leaving Inés, and the rest of the hotel to search for her whereabouts. Martelli’s cold, bleak drama screens in Un Certain Regard.
13. Moulin
Cannes 2026: In Competition
Director: László Nemes
Country: France
Two films in as many years is quite an uptick in workrate for director László Nemes. His last foray at Cannes was in 2015 with acclaimed Holocaust drama Son of Saul, which took the Grand Prize of the Jury. Following the lovely but underseen Orphan, Nemes chooses to tell the tale of Jean Moulin, the French Resistance leader who united the various networks of resistants, and withstood capture and torture under Gestapo leader Klaus Barbie. Gilles Lelouche plays Moulin, alongside Lars Eidinger as Barbie. It’s the kind of material that has brought out Nemes’ best in the past, and hopefully will do so again. (P.B.)
14. Paper Tiger
Cannes 2026: In Competition
Director: James Gray
Country: USA
Paper Tiger is a late addition to the Competition line-up, with James Gray as one of only two American filmmakers in a selection heavy with European and East Asian auteurs. Miles Teller and Adam Driver play two unassuming American brothers who get roped into a scheme with Russian mobsters. Scarlett Johansson co-stars, and the film follows in the footsteps of Gray’s other down-and-dirty crime sagas (The Yards, We Own The Night). This is Gray’s sixth film to play in competition at Cannes, but it remains to be seen if it can transcend its perceived middlebrow leanings to challenge for a prize. (P.B.)
15. Parallel Tales
Cannes 2026: In Competition
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Countries: France/USA/Italy/Belgium
Two-time Oscar winner and three-time Palme d’Or nominee Asgar Farhadi is back at Cannes with Parallel Tales, five years after his last competing film A Hero won the Grand Prix. It stars a hefty lineup of French acting icons, including Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira, Vincent Cassel and Catherine Denueve. Billed as a mystery thriller, it follows a young man who becomes obsessed with an older woman. It’s a loose remake of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog: Six, where a teenager spies on and becomes fixated on a woman in her 30’s. (B.L.)
16. Propeller One-Way Night Coach
Cannes Premiere
Director: John Travolta
Country: USA
The movie with the most interesting title at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival comes from writer-director John Travolta, who adapts his 1997 children’s book of the same name for his directorial debut. Propeller One-Way Night Coach revolves around a young aviation enthusiast named Jeff (Clark Shotwell) and his mother (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett), who are on the titular one-way trip to start a new life in Hollywood. The film is a coming-of-age story that focuses on the journey rather than the destination. Seeing John Travolta return to the same festival that awarded Pulp Fiction the Palme d’Or back in 1994 has us excited, but we’re also anticipating a very promising film. (S.S.)
17. The Station (Al Mahattah)
Critics’ Week (Semaine de la Critique)
Director: Sara Ishaq
Countries: Yemen/Netherlands/France/Jordan/Germany/Norway
After winning the top prize at Venice Production Bridge’s Final Cut awards for post-production projects, Yemeni-Scottish filmmaker Sara Ishaq brings The Station (Al Mahattah) to Cannes’ Critics’ Week. The film is about a woman named Layal (Manal Al-Mulaiki) who runs a women-only petrol station in Yemen. With only three simple rules – no men, no weapons, no politics – her station serves as a safe haven in a war-torn country. When our protagonist’s younger brother faces enlistment, Layal and her estranged sister join forces to try and save his life. Don’t miss it! (S.S.)
18. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Un Certain Regard, Opening Film
Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Country: USA
Hot off the press from directing two of the best LGBTQ+ films of the decade (I Saw the TV Glow and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair), Jane Schoenbrun returns with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, a horror film destined for a cult fan following. Hannah Einbinder stars as budding director, Kris, who is ready to take on remaking a new Camp Miasma film, a franchise which hasn’t had a good sequel in years. In comes Gillian Anderson as the mysterious Billie, the original scream queen from the first Camp Miasma film, who gives inspiration to Kris for the movie. Schoenbrun described the film as a mix of Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Friday the 13th. If you want a psychosexual slasher full of obsession and gore, this one’s for you. (B.L.)
19. The Unknown
Cannes 2026: In Competition
Director: Arthur Harari
Country: France
After winning an Oscar for co-writing Anatomy of a Fall with Justine Triet, director Arthur Harari returns to Cannes, back on co-writing duties but with frequent collaborators Lucas Harari and Vincent Poymiro. Léa Seydoux plays a mysterious woman that the film’s protagonist, reclusive photographer David Zimmerman (Niels Schneider), becomes obsessed with after attending a wild party with friends. Things take a turn for the weird when, at dawn, he awakens in her body. The Unknown is one of the most compelling projects at Cannes 2026 and should definitely be on your watch list. (S.S.)
20. Victorian Psycho
Un Certain Regard
Director: Zachary Wigon
Countries: USA/UK
Maika Monroe’s filmography has bloomed tremendously since her first, and only acting credit in a film to premiere at Cannes in 2014 with It Follows. She’s back, this time with a horror film set in 1858, directed by Zachary Wigon. A governess (Monroe) moves to Ensor House, an eerie, gothic manor, and begins to settle in. However, those who already reside at the property begin to disappear one by one after her arrival, leading others to wonder if she’s the reason behind their vanishing. With Thomasin McKenzie and Jason Isaacs as her co-stars, Victorian Psycho is an assured hit for the Un Certain Regard strand. (B.L.)
More Movies to Watch at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival:
- A Girl Unknown, Zou Jing – Critics’ Week
- A Girl’s Story, Judith Godrèche – Un Certain Regard
- A Woman’s Life, Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet – In Competition
- All the Lovers in the Night, Yukiko Sode – Un Certain Regard
- Another Day, Jeanne Herry – In Competition
- Avedon, Ron Howard – Special Screening
- The Beloved (El Ser Querido), Rodrigo Sorogoyen – In Competition
- The Black Ball (La Bola Negra), Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi – In Competition
- The Birthday Party, Léa Mysius – In Competition
- Club Kid, Jordan Firstman – Un Certain Regard
- Colony (Gun-Che), Yeon Sang-ho – Midnight
- Diamond, Andy Garcia – Out of Competition
- The Diary of a Chambermaid, Radu Jude – Directors’ Fortnight
- Hope, Na Hong-jin – In Competition
- Full Phil, Quentin Dupieux – Midnight
- Iron Boy, Louis Clichy – Un Certain Regard
- John Lennon: The Last Interview, Steven Soderbergh – Special Screening
- Marie Madeleine, Gessica Généus – Cannes Premiere
- Minotaur, Andrey Zvyagintsev – In Competition
- Orange-Flavoured Wedding, Christophe Honoré – Cannes Premiere
- Roma Elastica, Bertrand Mandico – Midnight
- Sheep in the Box, Hirokazu Koreeda – In Competition
- Species (Sanguine), Marion Le Corroller – Midnight
- Strawberries, Laïla Marrakchi – Un Certain Regard
- Tin Castle, Alexander Murphy – Critics’ Week
The 78th Cannes Film Festival will take place on May 12-23, 2026.