The Cannes Film Festival unveiled its official selection for its 79th edition on Thursday in Paris. The festival will take place from May 12 to 23, 2026. The competition jury will be presided over by Park Chan-wook, Eye Haïdara will host the ceremonies, and The Electric Venus Pierre Salvadori's film will open the Festival on May 12. Two honorary Palme d'Or awards will also be presented this year: one to Peter Jackson at the opening, the other to Barbra Streisand at the awards ceremony.
A very "auteur" vintage
The competition lineup is now complete: 21 feature films have been announced to compete for the Palme d'Or. The selection confirms a very auteur-driven year, marked by the return of Asghar Farhadi, Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Cristian Mungiu, Paweł Pawlikowski, Andrei Zvyagintsev, Lukas Dhont and Pedro Almodóvar, as well as a strong French presence with Léa Mysius, Jeanne Herry, Arthur Harari and Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet.
The most striking aspect of this announcement is also Spanish: for the first time, three Spanish films are entering competition in the same year, with Amarga Navidad by Pedro Almodóvar, El ser querido by Rodrigo Sorogoyen and La bola negra by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo.
The 21 films in competition :
• Minotaur – Andrei Zvyagintsev
• The querido – Rodrigo Sorogoyen
• The Man I Love – Ira Sachs
• 1949 – Paweł Pawlikowski
• Mill – László Nemes
• Night Stories – Léa Mysius
• Fjord – Cristian Mungiu
• Our salvation – Emmanuel Marre
• Gentle Monster – Marie Kreutzer
• Nagi Notes – Kōji Fukada
• Hope – Na Hong-jin
• Sheep in the Box – Hirokazu Kore-eda
• Garance – Jeanne Herry
• The Unknown Woman – Arthur Harari
• Suddenly – Ryūsuke Hamaguchi
• The Dream Adventure – Valeska Grisebach
• Coward – Lukas Dhont
• The black bola – Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo
• A Woman's Life – Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet
• Parallel Histories – Asghar Farhadi
• Amarga Navidad – Pedro Almodóvar
Around the competition, the official selection also includes Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma by Jane Schoenbrun, opening the Un Certain Regard section. Her Private Hell by Nicolas Winding Refn, out of competition, as well as Night flight for Los Angeles, John Travolta's first feature film directed by him, presented at Cannes Première.
Thierry Frémaux also indicated that 2,541 films from 141 countries had been submitted to the selection committee. This confirms, beyond the star-studded lineup, the global scope of the 2026 edition, which promises to be particularly dense, international, and highly competitive.
