Cannes 2026 Video #1: The 79th Cannes Film Festival Begins!

The 2026 Cannes Film Festival starts Tuesday, May 12th, running through May 24th. The Ebert team returns this year with coverage of all of the major films in review and video form. Here’s a look at what to expect, followed by a transcript.

The 79th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is just days away and one of the biggest stories leading into the festival is strangely about a TV show. The 4th season of HBO’s “The White Lotus” is filming right now in the south of France, with plans to shoot in and around Cannes during the festival. The famous Hotel Martinez is even apparently being rebranded to the White Lotus Cannes Hotel for the duration of filming, and actress Laura Dern was just recently added to the cast. Each season of the series features a murder mystery at a 5-star White Lotus resort in some exotic locale and with a lot of poorly behaved wealthy guests and staff. We’re looking forward to see how much of a presence the production has around Cannes during the festival, but, of course, we’re far more interested in the films themselves.

Presenting the awards to those films this year is the jury presided over by Park Chan Wook, director of last year’s international hit “No Other Choice”. Reports came out this week that actor Jacob Elordi was originally slated to be a member of the jury but had to bow out because of an injury. But the jury members who have been confirmed include Producer & Actress Demi Moore, Writer/Director Chloe Zhao, Oscar-nominated actor Stellan Skarsgard, Oscar-nominated actress Ruth Negga, screenwriter of two Palme d’Or winning Ken Loach films, Paul Laverty, French actor Isaach De Bankolé, last years winner of the Un Certain Regard section with “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo,” Chilean director Diego Céspedes, and Belgian writer-director Laura Wandel.

The festival begins May 12th with an opening ceremony featuring an honorary Palme d’Or to be presented to New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson. And the opening night film, traditionally shown in theaters throughout France on the same day as the ceremony, is the French romantic comedy “La Venus Electrique” from director Pierre Salvadori. 

This year’s competition slate features many prominent directors from around the world but only two American directors: Ira Sachs with “The Man I Love” starring Rami Malek, Rebecca Hall, and Ebon-Moss Bachrach… and, as a late entry, James Gray’s new crime thriller “Paper Tiger,” starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Miles Teller.

Two previous Palme d’Or-winning directors return to competition: Cristian Mungiu with “Fjord” starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve and Kore-eda Hirokazu with “Sheep in the Box”.

Two World War II-era dramas are in competition including “Moulin” from director Lazlo Nemes and Pawel Pawlikowski, winner of the Cannes best director prize in 2018 for “Cold War,” returns with “Fatherland” starring Sandra Huller.

Two prominent directors are making their french-language debuts with new films in Cannes. Iranian director Asghar Farhadi seeks his first Palme this year with “Parallel Tales” starring Vincent Cassell, Isabelle Huppert, and Catherine Deneuve. 

And Ryusuke Hamaguchi is in competition with “All of a Sudden”

There’s even a few thrillers in competition to keep us on the edge of our seats. Oscar-winning screenwriter for Anatomy of a Fall, Arthur Harari, directs Lea Seydoux in “The Unknown”. South Korean director Na Hong-jin presents the film “Hope” that includes Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander in the cast, and Oscar-nominated screenwriter for “Emilia Perez,” Léa Mysius directs “The Birthday Party” starring Monica Belucci.

And legendary Spanish director, Pedro Almodovar, brings his special brand of melodrama to Cannes with “Amarga Navidad”.

Out of competition titles include “Diamond” directed by Andy Garcia and starring Brendan Fraser and Dustin Hoffman, “Her Private Hell” from director Nicholas Winding Refn starring Charles Melton and Sophie Thatcher, and the directorial debut from John Travolta, based on his book, “Propeller One-Way Night Coach”.

And director Jane Schoenbrun opens the Un Certain Regard section with her latest film, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma”.

In the Special Screenings section, director Ron Howard showcases his latest documentary about photographer Richard Avedon and Steven Soderbergh presents his documentary “John Lennon: The Last Interview” with material that was recorded just hours before the musician’s death. Soderbergh has courted some controversy by revealing that generative A.I. was used in two sequences of his film to illustrate some of the audio recordings in an abstract way. We’re interested to see how audiences respond.

One of our favorite parts of the festival is the Cannes Classics section that features documentaries about filmmakers and restored prints of cinema classics. “Life Itself” played in the Cannes Classics section back in 2014, and this year a documentary about French film critic Michèle Firk will premiere here. The section will also present documentaries about David Lean and Vittorio De Sica along with restored prints of films by Jerzy Skolimowski, Akira Kurosawa, Roger Corman and Orson Welles among others, along with a 20th anniversary restoration of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, one of Roger’s Great Movies, and the recipient of the longest standing ovation in the history of the Cannes Film Festival: 22-minutes.

This year’s poster for Cannes honors the feminist classic film “Thelma and Louise” featuring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of this image all over Cannes for the next two weeks.

This year, I’ll personally be directing our coverage from Chicago, while our Senior VP of Development, Sonia Evans will coordinate with our critics on the Croisette in France including Managing Editor Brian Tallerico, Associate Editor Robert Daniels, and contributors Ben Kenigsberg, Isaac Feldberg, Zachary Lee and Jason Gorber. Join me as we follow along with the reports and reviews each day at RogerEbert.com/Festivals, anticipating the next cinema classic to come out of the Cannes Film Festival. 

Until then, au revoir!

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