“We’ve been seeing films that make us happy,” Thierry Frémaux, director of Cannes film festival, said after revealing the 2026 selection a few weeks ago. “Cinema is in a state of constant creativity and renewal.”
All true. And the world’s most important film festival continues to reflect those changes. It is more important than ever. At no point in the event’s lengthy history has it had such an influence on the Academy Awards. Visit the French city this month and, with thousands of movie professionals buzzing about, it would be easy to dismiss all suggestions of cinema’s ill health. The Palme d’Or is the award every highfalutin director wants to win, and few previous editions have had such a distinguished line-up of auteurs.
The 2026 official selection has, nonetheless, kicked up a few questions. Chief among them is …
1. Where are the studio blockbusters?
For the first time in some years, Cannes is conspicuously short of the biggest stars in the biggest movies. Recent editions have boasted new films in the Mad Max, Top Gun, Mission: Impossible and Indiana Jones franchises.
Frémaux was clearly hoping that Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, which opens in June, would make it to the Croisette, but Universal Pictures wasn’t interested.
“Quantitatively, studios are producing fewer blockbusters,” the Cannes director said. Well, maybe. This may just be a question of timing. Disclosure Day aside, no obvious contenders present themselves. Toy Story 5, arriving on June 19th, might have been a goer, but animated films don’t have the same oomph. The Odyssey is due in July, but Christopher Nolan rarely opens at festivals.
2. But there are Americans here, right?
Oh sure. James Gray, one of the competition’s most regular visitors, is back with Paper Tiger, a crime drama starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Miles Teller. That film will be up against Rami Malek and Rebecca Hall in Ira Sachs’s The Man I Love, a musical set during New York’s Aids years.
In what seems to be a recurring phenomenon here, movie stars are back behind the camera. Andy Garcia directs Vicky Krieps and Brendan Fraser in the thriller Diamond. John Travolta makes his feature-directing debut with a family drama entitled (deep breath) Propeller One-Way Night Coach. Both of those are out of competition. Many more of our US cousins are scattered across the programme.
3. What is in it for the Irish?
No doubt many of our film-makers were pitching for spots, but there was, alas, no repetition of the 2024 announcement, when an unprecedented six Irish productions made it into the festival.
The only Irish film in the selection is Alexander Murphy’s documentary Tin Castle. Telling the story of the O’Reilly Traveller family, the film will play in the prestigious Critics Week strand, aimed at first- and second-time film-makers. It was there, in 2022, that Paul Mescal launched Aftersun, for which he eventually scored an Oscar nomination.
Tin Castle, a documentary about Irish Travellers by Alexander Murphy
“It’s a beautiful documentary,” Eamon Hughes, the film’s producer, told The Irish Times. “And screening it to these audiences means a lot to both us the film-makers and, also, to the O’Reilly family.”
4. But isn’t there plenty of Irish talent about?
You bet. We can’t pretend all Irish actors involved will have time to tread the red carpet, but there are certainly plenty of thespians on the cast lists.
Barry Keoghan will surely want to be there to see Kantemir Balagov’s Butterfly Jam, in which he stars opposite Riley Keough, open the Directors’ Fortnight strand.
Balagov blew everyone away with Beanpole, a tale of Leningrad during the second World War, at Cannes in 2019. Many eyes will therefore be on this study of life around a Circassian diner in New Jersey, the cast of which also features Harry Melling and newcomer Talha Akdogan.
5. Did we hear that Clio Barnard’s new film features a string of Irish stars?
Barnard, the Yorkshire-born director of the celebrated The Arbour, has, indeed, cast Ireland’s finest in her take on Keiran Goddard’s novel I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning. Written with Enda Walsh, the film stars Anthony Boyle and Lola Petticrew, both from Belfast, opposite the Nenagh actor Daryl McCormack in a tale set in Birmingham.
Daryl McCormack stars in I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning. Photograph: Hoda Davaine/Getty Images
That plays in Directors’ Fortnight, as does Reed Van Dyk’s Iraq War drama Atonement, starring Kenneth Branagh.
Michael Fassbender turns up in the main competition alongside his wife, Alicia Vikander, in Na Hong-jin’s Hope. The Korean action flick has already generated deafening buzz.
6. Is that our Ruth Negga on the main jury?
Ruth Negga takes on prestigious role. Photograph: Pierre Suu/Getty Images
It certainly is. Limerick’s proudest daughter will be treading the red carpet nightly as the films competing for the Palme d’Or screen. It’s a prestigious gig that has involved a few former jurors in famous fights.
Joining her around the table will be actor Demi Moore, the Swedish great Stellan Skarsgård and the Ivory Coast star Isaach de Bankolé. Three international film-makers flesh out the bones: Laura Wandel, from Belgium; Diego Céspedes, from Chile; and the Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao, from China.
Paul Laverty, writer of Palme d’Or winners The Wind That Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake, will also be under the watchful eye of the jury’s president, Park Chan-wook. Jacob Elordi was all set to serve before breaking a foot.
7. So is it really the battle of the auteurs?
It looks that way. You can see that as a good or a bad thing. A host of previously honoured directors are in competition. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Pedro Almodóvar, Lukas Dhont, Pawel Pawlikowski, Andrey Zvyagintsev, László Nemes and Asghar Farhadi have all won big prizes here.
Two former Palme d’Or winners reappear: Hirokazu Kore-eda with the science-fiction puzzler Sheep in the Box and Cristian Mungiu with the hotly tipped family drama Fjord.
[ Hokum review: Adam Scott excels in this Irish ghost story with a sly sense of funOpens in new window ]
This presumably means the standard will be high, but it also speaks of a return to familiar faces. For newer voices one need look towards the sidebars and satellite strands. On which topic …
8. Teenage Sex and Death What Now?
For many, the hottest ticket at the event will be Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. The American film-maker has already dragged up a fervent cult following for their self-conscious horror movies We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow.
It was much predicted that Schoenbrun would premiere in the main competition, but, in the event, they open the parallel Un Certain Regard sidebar. Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson star in (as you probably guessed) a riff on 1980s slasher flicks. The trailer promises another collision of broad shocks and graduate-school chin-rubbing.
9. What will be the big subjects of discussion on the Croisette?
Two big topics will dominate. Shareholders at Warner Bros Discovery recently approved a takeover by Paramount (Skydance) that looks to involve the exchange of some $111 billion. Many on the ground here will be among the 4,000 Hollywood professionals who signed a letter opposing the merger.
Then there is the growing threat from AI that caused the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to tweak its rules last week.
With all that in mind, one might expect attendees to be pushing carts up Rue d’Antibes while yelling “Bring out your dead.” (“Faites ressortir vos morts.”)
10. What will win the Palme d’Or (or secure an Oscar nomination)?
Sandra Hüller could secure an Oscar nomination for her performance in Fatherland. Photograph: Kate Green/Getty Images
As ever, at this time of year, we turn to the busy film programmer Neil Young. The Wearside man, now resident in Vienna, has Pawlikowski’s Fatherland, the monochrome tale of Thomas Mann’s later years, as Palme favourite, at 4-1. That film could surely also land a best-supporting-actress nomination at the Oscars for Sandra Hüller. Pawlikowski won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film with Ida in 2015.
Young follows that up with Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur, at 5-1, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, at 6-1.
Many already have Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, down as a likely best-picture nominee, but the Romanian director’s vision may yet prove too bleak for the academy.
The 79th Cannes film festival runs from Tuesday, May 12th, until Saturday, May 23rd