Cannes Film Fest 2026: Asghar Farhadi, Pedro Almodóvar, Kore-eda Set for Auteur-Driven Competition

Cannes Film Fest will focus on foreign directors this year, with Asghar Farhadi, Almodóvar, Paweł Pawlikowski, Hirokazu Kore-eda, László Nemes and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, all respeted art directors but limited commercial appeal, premiering new films in competition.

After a 2025 edition which had a large Hollywood presence with Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” this year’s Cannes will be dominated by international art and indie filmmakers.

Sachs is the only U.S. director in competition with The ManI Love, a musical fantasy starring Rami Malek about the AIDS crisis in 1980s New York.

Competition films include Cristian Mungiu’s English-language debut “Fjord,” featuring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan as a couple moving to a remote Norwegian town;

Pawlikowski’s Cold War drama “Fatherland,” starring Sandra Hüller; Hong-jin Na’s “Hope” with Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander (their first time starring together as a married couple);

Farhadi’s Paris-set “Parallel Tales,” led by Isabelle Huppert and Catherine Deneuve;

Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beloved,” headlined by Javier Bardem playing an acclaimed director estranged from his daughter.

Almodóvar will return to the fest to present his Spanish-language tragicomedy “Bitter Christmas,” which has already premiered in Spain to positive but not great reviews.

Fremaux noted that 2,541 feature films were submitted for official selection. “That’s 1,000 more than 10 years ago, with entries from 141 countries.

But here too, the goal is to screen films in a venue where they will be seen by the right audience,” he said.

Dominated by French-Lamnguage Films

There is a large number of French-language films in competition, three of which are directed by foreign helmers: Farhadi with “Parallel Tales,” Nemes with “Moulin” and Hamaguchi with “All of a Sudden.”

Emmanuel Marre will present “Notre Salut,” a historical drama about Vichy France starring Swann Arlaud.

Five Films by Women Directors (Three French)

There are five films from female filmmakers in the competition, including three from French helmers: Léa Mysius with “Histoires de la nuit,” Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet with “A Woman’s Life” and Jeanne Herry with “Garance.” Austrian director Marie Kreutzer’s “Gentle Monster” and German helmer Valeska Grisebach’s “The Dreamed Adventure” also made the cut. “It’s a rather a high number of female directors in competition,” Fremaux said.

Asia is well represented in this year’s competition, with four films from Japanese and Korean directors vying for the Palme d’Or under the gaze of jury president Park Chan-wook.

The most anticipated is Na’s “Hope,” his first feature since “The Wailing” a decade ago and the first Korean film in competition in four years. Alongside Vikander and Fassbender, the film boasts an international cast including Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Hoyeon and Taylor Russell, and marks the rare distinction of Na having every one of his features invited to the Croisette.

Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda returns with “Sheep in the Box,” a sci-fi e drama in which a couple takes in a humanoid as their son.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi, whose “Drive My Car” won the 2022 Oscar for international feature, competes with “All of a Sudden,” a French-language film starring Virginie Efira as the director of a Parisian nursing home whose life is transformed by her encounter with a terminally ill Japanese playwright played by Tao Okamoto.

Rounding out the Asian presence is Koji Fukada’s “Nagi Notes,” set in the bucolic town of Nagi and centering on a sculptor living in the shadow of a past love, whose life is upended by the arrival of a recently separated former sister-in-law from Tokyo. It marks Fukada’s first foray into competition proper, having previously shown work at Un Certain Regard.

Notably absent from the lineup was James Gray’s Paper Tiger – starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Miles Teller — which was rumored to be in competition and would be the starriest film at Cannes this year. Fremaux hinted that “there’s one film you’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s not there!’ But it will be there, I’m telling you. It’s not fake suspense, but there’s always contracts that are not yet signed, things that should be settled before the show in Cannes.”

Fremaux observed that “studios are producing fewer blockbusters and fewer auteur films than in the past,” and pointed out that the festival was “dependent on nothing other than the films themselves.” While the 2025 roster showcased many U.S. movies, the most buzzy that came out of Cannes where non-English-language movies such as Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” which won the Oscar for international feature and earned best picture nod alongside Wagner Moura’s “The Secret Agent.”

Of the lack of American and studio movies, Fremaux said: “When studios have a smaller presence at Cannes, it’s because they’re simply less active in the kind of cinema that used to allow them to come here.” But he also stressed that this year’s lack of studio films wasn’t part a trend.

Un Certain Regard

The Un Certain Regard sidebar has several U.S. films, including “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” by Jane Schoenbrun and starring Hannah Einbinder (“Hacks”) and Gillian Anderson (“Sex Education”);

Jordan Firstman’s directorial debut “Club Kid” featuring himself, Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva and Eldar Isgandarov.

Soderbergh and Ron Howard will also each present new docus in the Special Screenings section about John Lennon and photographer Richard Avedon, respectively.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s feature comeback “Her Private Hell” — a thriller starring Charles Melton and Sophie Thatcher — will bow out of competition.

“Full Phil,” Quentin Dupieux’s father-daughter romp with Kristen Stewart and Woody Harrelson, is set as a Midnight Screening.

Cannes will kick off on May 12 with Pierre Salvadori’s 1920s-set comedy “The Electric Kiss” (“La Venus électrique”).

See the full lineup below.

COMPETITION

“Minotaur,” Andrey Zvyagintsev

“El Ser Querido” (“The Beloved”), Rodrigo Sorogoyen

“The Man I Love,” Ira Sachs

“Fatherland,” Paweł Pawlikowski

“Moulin,” László Nemes

“Histoire de la nuit” (“The Birthday Party”), Léa Mysius

“Fjord,” Cristian Mungiu

“Notre salut,” Emmanuel Marre

“Gentle Monster,” Marie Kreutzer

“Nagi Notes,” Koji Fukada

“Hope,” Na Hong-Jin

“Sheep in the Box,” Hirokazu Kore-eda

“Garance” (“Another Day”), Jeanne Herry

“The Unknown,” Arthur Harari

“All of a Sudden,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi

“Das Geträumte Abenteuer” (“The Dreamed Adventure”), Valeska Grisebach

“Coward,” Lukas Dhont

“La Bola Negra” (“The Black Ball”), Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo

“A Woman’s Life,” Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet

“Parallel Tales,” Asghar Farhadi

“Amarga Navidad” (“Bitter Christmas”), Pedro Almodóvar

OUT OF COMPETITION

“The Electric Kiss” (“La Venus électrique”), Pierre Salvadori — Opening Film

“Her Private Hell,” Nicolas Winding Refn

“Diamond,” Andy Garcia

“Karma,” Guillaume Canet

“L’Objet du Delit,” Agnes Jaoui

“La Bataille de Gaulle: L’Âge de Fer,” Antonin Baudry

“L’Abandon,” Vincent Garenq

UN CERTAIN REGARD

“La más dulce” (“Strawberries”), Laïla Marrakchi

“Club Kid,” Jordan Firstman

“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” Jane Schoenbrun

“Everytime,” Sandra Wollner

“I’ll Be Gone in June,” Katharina Rivilis

“Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep,” Rakan Mayasi

“El Deshielo” (“The Meltdown”), Manuela Martelli

“Siempre Soy Tu Animal Materno” (“Forever Your Maternal Animal”), Valentina Maurel

“Elephants in the Fog,” Abhinash Bikram Shah

“Benimana,” Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo

“Le Corset” (“Iron Boy”), Louis Clichy

“Congo Boy,” Rafiki Fariala

“All the Lovers in the Night,” Yukiko Sode

“Ben’Imana,” Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo

“Uļa,” Viesturs Kairišs

“Words of Love,” Rudi Rosenberg

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

“John Lennon: The Last Interview,” Soderbergh

“Avedon,” Ron Howard

“Les Survivants du Che,” Christophe Dimitri Réveille

“Les Matins Merveilleux,” Avril Besson

“Rehearsals for a Revolution,” Pegah Ahangarani

“L’Affaire Marie Claire,” Lauriane Escaffre and Yvo Muller

“Cantona,” David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS

“Roma Elastica,” Bertrand Mandico

“Full Phil,” Quentin Dupieux

“Gun-Che” (“Colony”), Yeon Sang-ho

“Jim Queen,” Nicolas Athane and Marco Nguyen

“Sanguine,” Marion Le Coroller

CANNES PREMIERE

“Propeller One-Way Night Coach,” John Travolta

“The Samurai and the Prisoner,” Kiyoshi Kurosawa

“Heimsuchung” (“Visitation”), Volker Schlöndorff

“The Match,” Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco

“La Troisième nuit” (“When the Night Falls”), Daniel Auteuil

Cannes Film Fest 2026: Focus on Foreign Art Directors, No Hollywood Stars, No Major Indie Directors

Cannes Film Fest 2026: Asghar Farhadi, Pedro Almodóvar, Kore-eda Set for Auteur-Driven Competition

PROFESSOR / CRITIC / AUTHOR