The 79th Cannes Film Festival runs Tuesday May 12 through Saturday May 23 on the Croisette, with the Official Selection announced April 9 by festival president Iris Knobloch and general delegate Thierry Frémaux at a press conference at the Pathé Palace in Paris. The competition lineup features 21 films from three continents and includes five female directors. Frémaux noted that 2,541 feature films were submitted for consideration, the second highest submission count in festival history. The festival opens with The Electric Kiss by Pierre Salvadori and the official poster pairs Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon on the set of Thelma and Louise from Ridley Scott's 1991 film.
The auteur returners are the headline of the competition lineup. Pedro Almodóvar brings his next Spanish language work, his third in competition since 2016. Asghar Farhadi returns with a new film shot in Iran and France, his first competition entry since A Hero in 2021. Hirokazu Kore-eda is back for his eighth competition appearance and is widely considered the bookmakers' early favorite for the Palme d'Or. Ira Sachs brings his first competition film, his strongest career step after Passages premiered at Sundance in 2023. The competition also includes new work from Lynne Ramsay, Cristian Mungiu, Mati Diop, Joachim Trier, and Park Chan-wook collaborator Choi Dong-hoon.
Park Chan-wook taking the jury president role is the strongest endorsement Cannes could give to South Korean cinema's continued global ascent. Park is the director of Oldboy, The Handmaiden, and Decision to Leave, the last of which won him the Best Director prize in 2022. He becomes the second South Korean filmmaker to chair the Cannes jury after Bong Joon-ho served in 2024. The jury also includes American actress Lupita Nyong'o, French director Mati Diop, Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino, German director Christian Petzold, Algerian director Mounia Meddour, Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz, Australian actor Mia Wasikowska, and Canadian actor Sandra Oh.
The honorary Palmes d'Or this year go to Peter Jackson and Barbra Streisand. Jackson is the first New Zealand filmmaker to receive the honor and the second director after Steven Spielberg to be honored for a body of work outside the European art cinema tradition. Streisand becomes the seventh woman to receive an honorary Palme and the first American singer-actress-filmmaker to receive the honor in the festival's modern era. Both will be presented during the opening week ceremonies. The festival has not yet announced whether either will present new work or appear in conversation events on the Palais stage.
The Un Certain Regard sidebar features 18 films selected from a pool of 1,800 submissions and includes the directorial debuts of three actors moving behind the camera. The Special Screenings program includes a documentary on the Surfside collapse from director Geeta Gandbhir, a music documentary on Frank Ocean from filmmaker Sophia Nahli Allison, and a restoration of Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep premiering in the Cannes Classics section. The Director's Fortnight independent sidebar runs in parallel and announced its lineup separately April 22 with 18 features and 10 short films.
Distribution acquisition is what the festival is now most discussed for in the trade press. The previous two festivals saw Neon, A24, Sony Pictures Classics, and Magnolia outbid the major studios for the strongest competition titles. Neon has won three of the last four Palmes d'Or for U.S. distribution and is widely expected to bid aggressively on the Almodóvar, Farhadi, and Kore-eda films. Mubi has expanded its acquisition team for 2026 and now has the cash position to bid against Neon on multiple titles after the company's $1.4 billion valuation funding round in October 2025. Apple TV Plus and Amazon Prime Video are both reported to be increasing Cannes acquisition budgets, with Apple particularly interested in director driven films that could anchor awards season campaigns.
The American studio presence at Cannes has shifted markedly over the last five years. The major studios used to bring summer tentpole premieres to Cannes for global press impact. The 2026 festival has only three studio premieres outside competition: Warner Bros bringing the next Mission Impossible, Disney bringing the live action Tangled, and Sony bringing the third Spider-Verse animated film. The premiere energy has shifted toward Toronto in September for awards positioned dramatic films and toward New York Film Festival for the smaller scale awards plays. Cannes remains the dominant European launch pad for international film and the most important market for international sales agents working on European, Asian, and Latin American titles.
The festival's economic impact on the Côte d'Azur is projected at €213 million in direct spending across the 12 day run per the Cannes Convention Bureau, the strongest projection since 2019. Hotel occupancy across Cannes, Antibes, and Nice runs at 94 percent over the festival window. Roughly 35,000 industry attendees credentialed for the festival, market, or press operations. The festival closes Saturday May 23 with the Awards Ceremony at the Grand Théâtre Lumière, where the Park Chan-wook jury will deliver the Palme d'Or, Grand Prix, Jury Prize, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Actor decisions. Predictions across the trade publications have Kore-eda, Almodóvar, and Diop as the early frontrunners.