For indie films all over the world, the Cannes Film Festival is like a sacred pilgrimage, helping them ascend from the world of the ordinary and enter a new realm of recognition and acclaim. Filmmakers, actors, and critics from all over the world come to Cannes with hopes and dreams for their work to be showcased among the best in the world.

Last year, it helped Oscar nominees and winners Sentimental Value, It Was Just an Accident, The Secret Agent, and Sîrat to soar out of their regional boundaries and into the international eye. Looking at how the award season turned out for them, the 2026 lineup will also be vigorously sifted by the distributors and audiences for such breakout cinema pieces.

The festival's selection, as always, is a little bit of everything, a token from directors ranging from veterans like Hirokazu Kore-eda to exclusive Cannes premiering Kiyoshi Kurosawa. 

In front of the whole world to see on Thursday in Paris, the lineup for the 2026 Cannes Film Festival was finally disclosed at last. At a press conference in the French capital, festival director Thierry Frémaux, accompanied by president Iris Knobloch, revealed the official selection, the well-liked Un Certain Regard sidebar, and other categories of the schedule for the 79th edition of the most beloved film festival in the world.

The 79th annual Cannes Film Festival is scheduled to take place from May 12 to 23. Here is the complete list of officially selected movies going to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival 2026 in these twelve days:

Competition

Minotaur, Andrey Zvyagintsev

El Ser Querido (The Beloved), Rodrigo Sorogoyen

The Man I Love, Ira Sachs

Fatherland, Pawel Pawlikowski

Moulin, Laszlo Nemes

The Birthday Party, Lea 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

Another Day, Jeanne Herry

The Unknown, Arthur Harari

All of a Sudden, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

The Dreamed Adventure, Valeska Grisebach

Coward, Lukas Dhont

The Black Ball, Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo

A Woman's Life, Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet

Parallel Tales, Asghar Farhadi

Bitter Christmas, Pedro Almodovar

Out of competition

Diamond, Andy Garcia

Her Private Hell, Nicolas Winding Refn

L’Abandon, Vincent Garenq

Karma, Guillaume Canet

L’Objet Du Delit, Agnes Jaoui

La Bataille de Gaulle: L’Âge de fer, Antonin Baudry

The Electric Kiss, Pierre Salvadori (also the opening film)

Midnight Screenings

Colony, Yeon Sang-ho

Roma Elastica, Bertrand Mandico

Sanguine, Marion Le Coroller

Full Phil, Quentin Dupieux

Jim Queen, Nicolas Athane, Marco Nguyen

Cannes Premiere

Propeller One-Way Night Coach, John Travolta

Kokurojo: The Samurai and the Prisoner, Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Heimsuchung (Visitation), Volker Schlondorff

When the Night Falls, Daniel Auteuil

The Match, Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco

Special Screenings

John Lennon: The Last Interview, Steven Soderbergh

Rehearsals For A Revolution, Pegah Ahangarani

L'affaire Marie-Claire, Lauriane Escaffre & Yvo Muller

Avedon, Ron Howard

Les Survivants du Che, Christophe Réveille

Les Matins Merveilleux, Avril Besson

Un Certain Regard

Elephants in the Fog, Abinash Bikram Shah

Everytime, Sandra Wollner

Forever Your Maternal Animal, Valentina Maurel

I’ll Be Gone in June, Katharina Rivilis

Yesterday The Eye Didn’t Sleep, Rakan Mayasi

Congo Boy by Rafiki Fariala

The Meltdown, Manuela Martelli

Club Kid, Jordan Firstman

Teenage S** and Death at Camp Miasma, Jane Schoenbrun

La más dulce (Strawberries), Laïla Marrakchi

Le Corset (Iron Boy) by Louis Clichy

Ben’imana, Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo

Uļa, Viesturs Kairišs

Words Of Love, Rudi Rosenberg

All these films are handpicked by the institution to be displayed to celebrate the best that world cinema has to offer. With all these movies, some influential figures in the film industry are also set to be celebrated. Actress/singer/director and EGOT winner Barbra Streisand, as well as The Lord of the Rings fame Peter Jackson, will both be honored with an honorary Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes. While some of the notable misses from the Croisette will be Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day, Pixar's Toy Story 5, Lucasfilm's The Mandalorian & Grogu, and Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.

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With premiers and recognitions all in place, the question might arise as to why honor films and filmmakers at all in a time when the world seems to be in chaos.

The world is currently going through tough times - times of uncertainty and loss of hope. In a time like this, getting together to celebrate cinema might not be on the list of priorities for many. However, the festival president, Iris Knobloch, presents a view that helps people understand the role of cinema in society and in the lives of everyone.

She explains that Cannes was established in 1939, a time of extreme uncertainty and mass hysteria. According to her, bringing together filmmakers at that time was essential to showcasing people's potential for dreaming and their best qualities. Additionally, Knobloch emphasized the necessity of a free space that makes people and significant concerns visible.

The Cannes Film Festival 2026 lineup will surely bring people’s attention to the fact that sometimes cinema can offer something for them to anchor their hopes to. This quality and this universal appeal are supposed to be celebrated in their full glory, and the festival gives the chance to do exactly that with its intricately picked cluster of films.

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Which films are you most excited about from the Cannes Film Festival 2026? Do let us know in the comments.