For decades, Cannes has occupied a unique place in the cultural imagination \u2013 not just as the world\u2019s most prestigious film festival, but as Hollywood\u2019s most glamorous overseas outpost.<\/p>\n
From Grace Kelly on the Croisette, Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman at the Pulp Fiction premiere, Julia Roberts walking barefoot up the red carpet, to Tom Cruise shutting down the Riviera with fighter jets overhead, Hollywood has made its mark on Cannes.<\/p>\n
But the 2026 festival, which opens on Tuesday and runs until 23 May, tells a very different story. When the lineup was announced last month, one aspect immediately stood out<\/a>: the near-total absence of major Hollywood studio films.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no big American movie this year,\u201d said Scott Roxborough, the European bureau chief of the Hollywood Reporter and a festival veteran. \u201cUsually there\u2019s at least one major tent-pole title premiering at Cannes or using the festival to launch its European release.\u201d<\/p>\n In recent years, Cannes has hosted premieres for Mission: Impossible \u2013 the Final Reckoning, Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. This year there is no major studio blockbuster on the slate.<\/p>\n Only two American films are competing for the Palme d\u2019Or: Ira Sachs\u2019s Aids-era musical fantasy The Man I Love, starring Rami Malek and Rebecca Hall, and James Gray\u2019s crime drama Paper Tiger, featuring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson \u2013 both majority-financed outside the US.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in the Un Certain Regard slot, there will be premieres for Jane Schoenbrun\u2019s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, starring Gillian Anderson, and Jordan Firstman\u2019s directorial debut Club Kid. The Hollywood star Andy Garc\u00eda\u2019s noir-ish Diamond, starring Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman, will be shown out of competition, as will John Travolta\u2019s directorial debut, Propeller One-Way Night Coach, an adaptation of his own 1997 book about a young aviation enthusiast.<\/p>\n The festival\u2019s director, Thierry Fr\u00e9maux, has argued Cannes is simply reflecting wider industry changes. \u201cQuantitatively, studios are producing fewer blockbusters and fewer auteur films than in the past,\u201d he said recently<\/a>.<\/p>\n Roxborough believes studios have also grown wary of the risks that festival premieres carry. \u201cThe studios have found you can release a major movie without the help of a prestige film festival,\u201d he said, pointing to awards contenders that bypassed festivals and still succeeded, such as One Battle After Another and Sinners.<\/p>\n There is also the issue of control. At a festival, critics decide how your movie will be framed. That can backfire spectacularly \u2013 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny underperformed at the box office after it was trashed by Cannes critics in 2023. \u201cNowadays, a bad review can go viral on social media instantly,\u201d Roxborough said.<\/p>\n Then there is the politics. This year\u2019s Berlinale was dominated by questions about the geopolitical situation \u2013 which even led to an intervention by the German government. For the studios, viral moments from press conferences can be deeply damaging.<\/p>\n Instead, this year\u2019s competition marks a return to the kind of international auteur-driven lineup Cannes built its reputation on. Pedro Almod\u00f3var returns with Bitter Christmas, about a group of film-maker friends who cannibalise each other\u2019s lives for their work.<\/p>\n Almod\u00f3var criticised the Oscars for being too apolitical before his appearance at Cannes. He told the Los Angeles Times it was \u201cquite notable watching the Oscar telecast where there were not many protests against the war or against Trump\u201d.<\/p>\n The Iranian Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi brings Parallel Tales, starring Isabelle Huppert and Vincent Cassel.<\/p>\n The Hungarian director L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Nemes returns with the French resistance drama Moulin, the Romanian director Cristian Mungiu makes a comeback with Norway-set Fjord, and the exiled Russian auteur Andrey Zvyagintsev premieres his political thriller Minotaur.<\/p>\n Film posters on the Croisette during the 79th annual Cannes film festival. Photograph: Aurore Marechal\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Sandra H\u00fcller stars in Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski\u2019s Fatherland, set around the novelist Thomas Mann\u2019s return from American exile after the second world war. The Japanese masters Hirokazu Kore-eda and Ryusuke Hamaguchi have new films in competition.<\/p>\n The jury, led by the South Korean director Park Chan-wook and including Demi Moore and Chlo\u00e9 Zhao, reflects the same international outlook.<\/p>\n \u201cFunny enough, I\u2019ve never been more excited for a Cannes lineup,\u201d said Chris Cotonou, the deputy editor of A Rabbit\u2019s Foot magazine. \u201cCannes can sometimes fall into a trap of industry spectacle. This year feels much more focused on cinema from global auteurs.\u201d<\/p>\n Cotonou said younger audiences \u2013 shaped by platforms such as Letterboxd and Mubi \u2013 were increasingly drawn to international directors once considered niche: \u201cPlenty of younger viewers are more excited by a Hamaguchi film than by a Coppola or a Tarantino. Perhaps the festival, seeing a new type of worldly cinemagoer, is coming to terms with the fact it doesn\u2019t need the studios any more.\u201d<\/p>\n The absence is not limited to Hollywood. British cinema also has a surprisingly muted presence this year<\/a>, with no UK directors in main competition. The only British film in the official festival section is Cantona<\/a>, a documentary about the French footballer by Ben Nicholas and David Tryhorn, which is showing in the special screenings section, while Clio Barnard premieres I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning in Directors\u2019 Fortnight and Yemeni-Scottish film-maker Sara Ishaq brings The Station to Critics\u2019 Week. Barnaby Thompson\u2019s documentary Maverick: The Epic Adventures of David Lean is screening in Cannes Classics.<\/p>\n