D'OR
79th Cannes Film Festival · May 12–23, 2026
6 Films I Am Most Excited About
A summary before the final day — the Palme d'Or is announced tomorrow
Remaining
Every May I do the same thing. I open my laptop, I follow the updates from the Croisette, I watch the reaction videos and read the reviews coming in from journalists who are actually there, and I think to myself: one year I am going to be sitting in that cinema. One year I am going to be in Cannes. And until that day comes, I will keep watching from here.
This year feels special. No big Hollywood studios. No blockbusters dropped in for the premiere buzz. Just 22 films from directors who have spent their whole lives making exactly the kind of cinema that Cannes was built for. Park Chan-wook is the jury president, which already tells you the kind of films this jury is going to respond to. And I am genuinely excited. Already thinking about the 80th next year.
This is the kind of lineup you dream about. Pawlikowski, Hamaguchi, Kore-eda, Farhadi, Mungiu, Almodovar, Dhont and Na Hong-jin all in the same competition in the same two weeks. I have been following each of these directors for years. Seeing them all in one place is genuinely thrilling. Here are the six films I cannot stop thinking about.
When the festival opened, everyone was talking about Na Hong-jin's Hope, the Korean sci-fi thriller with Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. It was sitting at +450 in the early betting markets and the buzz around it was loud.
By May 20 everything had changed. Fatherland by Pawlikowski has quietly climbed to the top of the predictions. Hamaguchi's All of a Sudden is the film the press corps keeps talking about. And James Gray's Paper Tiger, with Adam Driver giving what people are calling one of his best performances, has come out of nowhere to join the conversation.
The jury includes Demi Moore and Chloé Zhao alongside Park Chan-wook. We find out who wins on May 23. I will be watching.
All 22 Films in Competition
★ marks my 6 personal picks · Flag shows film's country · Main cast and studio listed
"Every May I follow Cannes from my screen. This year, watching Fatherland, All of a Sudden and Fjord all in the same competition, I am already thinking about next year. The 80th edition. I want to be there."
6 Films I Am Most Excited About
These are the films I will be watching the moment they are available
I watched I Saw the TV Glow [USA] alone late at night and I could not sleep after it. Schoenbrun makes films that get inside you in a way you did not ask for and cannot explain. This one is about a young director who takes over a dying slasher franchise, goes to meet the original star, and the two women fall into something dark and strange and obsessive. Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson. That combination alone should not work and yet somehow I know it is going to be one of the most talked-about films of the festival.
Drive My Car [Japan] changed the way I think about grief and time and what we owe each other. This is Hamaguchi's first film outside Japan and it shows two women, a nursing home director and a playwright who is dying, writing letters to each other about mortality. That is the whole film. Letters about dying. And knowing Hamaguchi, it is going to be one of the most alive things I have seen all year. The early word from Cannes is extraordinary. This is the one I am most nervous to watch.
Leviathan [Russia] broke my heart. Loveless [Russia] was even harder to sit with. Zvyagintsev disappeared for years after the invasion of Ukraine made it impossible for him to work. His return here is one of the most meaningful moments of this whole festival for me personally. I do not know much about what Minotaur is. I do not need to. He has earned every bit of my blind trust. Whatever he made, I will be there.
Ida [Poland] and Cold War [Poland] are two of my favourite films of the last twenty years. Both black and white. Both short. Both about the weight of history on ordinary people. Fatherland is about Thomas Mann and his daughter driving through a destroyed Germany in 1949, trying to understand a country they left behind. And Sandra Hüller is in it. After Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest [UK], she is simply one of the best people alive at standing in front of a camera. This is the current favourite to win the Palme d'Or and honestly I would not complain.
I have watched 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days [Romania] twice and both times I had to sit quietly afterwards for a while. Mungiu does not let you off easily. This time he is working in English, in Norway, with a Romanian family who move to a remote fjord village and slowly the community around them starts to turn. Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve are both in it and after A Different Man [USA] they are one of the most interesting screen pairings around. Look at that photo. The mountains, the water, the family looking happy. You already know it is not going to stay that way.
Not many people know Koji Fukada and that is a shame. Harmonium [Japan] is a quiet devastating film that deserved far more attention than it got. This is his first time in the main competition and almost nothing has been revealed about what Nagi Notes actually is. But look at that image. The woman holding the clay head. The figure in the background watching. There is something haunting in it already. Sometimes the most exciting films at Cannes are the ones you know the least about going in.
- ▶ Hope [South Korea] · Na Hong-jin · Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, HoYeon · Korean sci-fi thriller. Was the early Palme frontrunner. Still might win.
- ▶ Paper Tiger [USA] · James Gray · Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson · Back together after Marriage Story [USA], set in 1986 Queens. Early word says Driver is extraordinary.
- ▶ Sheep in the Box [Japan] · Hirokazu Kore-eda · Haruka Ayase · Parents who lose their child are offered a robot version of him. Sounds almost too painful to watch. That is exactly why I will watch it.
- ▶ La Bola Negra [Spain] · Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo · Penélope Cruz, Glenn Close · A queer García Lorca story across three time periods. The most ambitious project in the lineup.
My Top 3 to Win the Palme d'Or Tomorrow
Based on reviews, press corps buzz and general conversation coming out of Cannes
The consensus pick. Critics are calling it Pawlikowski's best since Cold War. Sandra Hüller in black and white, tracking through a destroyed Germany. Historically rich, emotionally controlled, exactly the kind of film Cannes juries have been rewarding. If I had one bet this is where I would put it.
The press corps love it. Described as quiet, devastating and deeply felt. Hamaguchi already won Best Screenplay here in 2021 and this feels like a step up. Park Chan-wook as jury president will respond to this kind of restrained, deeply human filmmaking. A very real contender.
Nobody expected this. American critics are calling Adam Driver's performance one of the best of his career. A crime thriller set in 1980s Queens is not the typical Palme d'Or profile but Gray's last Cannes film Armageddon Time [USA] underperformed and there is a sense he is owed one. Dark horse but a real one.
Why This Cannes Matters
I have been following Cannes from my screen for years now. Every May the same ritual. The lineup announcement, the first reviews, the Palme d'Or ceremony. This year more than any other I felt the pull. Not just to watch but to be there. To sit in those seats. To walk out of a film at midnight and talk about it with strangers on the street.
The Palme d'Or is announced tomorrow. Whatever wins, I will be watching. And somewhere in the back of my head I am already thinking about the 80th Cannes Film Festival. Next year. Maybe that is the year I finally go.