May 24, 2026 12:47pm IST
Cannes Film Festival 2026: The 20 Movies Everyone Is Obsessing Over
The word around the festival beaches was that this year’s Cannes Film Festival felt a bit dialed back. Fewer massive Hollywood blockbusters, slightly less blinding paparazzi flashbulbs. But that just meant the real cinephiles got to dig into the hidden corners of the festival. While the main competition was a bit of a rollercoaster, a handful of returning masters and total wildcards absolutely brought the house down.
From 17-million-dollar queer club dramas to animated tearjerkers and spine-chilling slashers, here are the 20 movies you’ll actually want to put on your radar.
“All of a Sudden”
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi | Cast: Virginie Efira, Tao Okamoto
Ryusuke Hamaguchi takes a simple premise — two women just talking for over three hours — and turns it into absolute magic. It’s the kind of beautifully written, deeply human movie that doesn’t just remind you why you love cinema; it makes you look at life a little differently when you walk out of the theater.
“The Beloved”
Director: Rodrigo Sorogoyen | Cast: Javier Bardem, Victoria Luengo
Directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, this meaty drama follows a famous filmmaker played by Javier Bardem, who heads back to his native Spain to shoot a movie and cast his estranged actress daughter. Bardem sinks his teeth into a role full of psychological mind games, giving us a masterclass in subtle manipulation.
“Clarissa”
Director: Arie Esiri, Chuko Esiri | Cast: Sophie Okonedo, India Amarteifio, Ayo Edebiri, Toheeb Jimoh, Nikki Amuka-Bird, and David Oyelowo
Filmmaker brothers Arie and Chuko Esiri take Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway” and transport it to modern-day Nigeria. Sophie Okonedo is absolutely radiant as a high-society wife trapped in a gilded cage, surrounded by a shallow elite while dealing with a quiet, profound melancholy.
“Club Kid”
Director: Jordan Firstman | Cast: Jordan Firstman, Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva, alongside newcomers Reggie Absolom and Eldar Isgandorov
Jordan Firstman’s debut starts out as a wild, coked-up sprint through the chaotic New York queer club scene, but then it pulls off a massive emotional U-turn. It’s surprisingly sweet and genuine that A24 immediately snatched it up for a cool $17 million. Turns out, there's a lot more to Firstman than his hilarious internet persona.
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“Double Freedom”
Director: Lisandro Alonso | Cast: Misael Saavedra
Lisandro Alonso returns to his roots with a direct sequel to his 2001 debut, Freedom. We find the same protagonist 20 years later, still chopping wood and living in a shack in Argentina. It’s a quiet, slow-burn reflection on the country's current political state, meant for audiences who love to read between the lines.
“The Dreamed Adventure”
Director: Valeska Grisebach | Cast: Syuleyman Letifov, Yana Radeva, and Velko Frandev
German director Valeska Grisebach doesn't make movies often, but when she does, they break the mold. Using non-professional actors, this social drama starts small and improvisational, but slowly builds into a massive, bone-deep crime epic.
“Elephants in the Fog”
Director: Abinash Bikram Shah | Cast: Pushpa Thing Lama, Deepika Yadav, Jasmine Bishwokarma, Aliz Ghimire and Dura Sanjay Kumar Gupta
Making a stellar feature debut, Nepalese director Abinash Bikram Shah delivers a gentle yet powerful story about a community of transgender women in South Asia. Focusing on a family of adopted mothers and daughters, the film gives its characters a level of dignity and power that society so often steals from them.
“Fatherland”
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski | Cast: Hanns Zischler, Sandra Hüller
Pawel Pawlikowski’s latest is a visually stunning, black-and-white look at the fractured soul of post-war Germany. It follows legendary author Thomas Mann and his fierce daughter Erika, played brilliantly by Sandra Hüller, as they travel from West to East Germany. When Hüller finally lets her character's frustrations fly against her father's narcissism, it is electric.
“Fjord”
Director: Cristian Mungiu | Cast: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve
Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu leaves his home turf for the freezing landscapes of Norway, tapping Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve to lead the cast. It’s a tense, brilliant look at globalization and the cultural friction between Eastern and Western Europe.
“Gabin”
Director: Maxence Voiseux | Cast: Gabin (Documentary Subject)
This incredible documentary by Maxence Voiseux distills ten years of a country boy's life into a fleet, two-hour watch. It’s a moving, beautifully edited time-capsule about the universal fear of growing up and worrying that your life might stall out before it even gets started.
“Hope”
Director: Na Hong-jin | Cast: Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton, Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender
Na Hong-jin’s monster movie is chaotic, long, and downright hilarious. While the alien monster looks like something straight out of an old-school video game, the action filmmaking is so breathtakingly elegant that you won't care. It’s pure, unadulterated cinematic fun.
“La Gradiva”
Director: Marine Atlan | Cast: Antonia Buresi, Colas Quignard, Suzanne Gerin, and Mitia Capellier-Audat.
The undisputed indie darling of Critics' Week, Marine Atlan’s debut follows a chaotic group of French teenagers on a school trip to Pompeii. What starts like a standard classroom comedy quickly dissolves into a dreamy, vulnerable exploration of teenage lust and identity.
“The Man I Love”
Director: Ira Sachs | Cast: Rami Malek
Ira Sachs delivers a delicate, documentary-style drama starring Rami Malek as Jimmy George, a performance artist fighting AIDS at the height of the downtown art scene. Malek completely vanishes into the role, balancing raw anger, tenderness, and defiant grace.
“Maverick: The Epic Adventures of David Lean”
Director: Barnaby Thompson | Cast: Francis Ford Coppola, Paul Greengrass, Celine Song (Interviewees)
Think you know the guy who directed Lawrence of Arabia? Think again. Featuring commentary from heavyweights like Francis Ford Coppola and Celine Song, this doc shows how David Lean was actually a reckless romantic narcissist whose personal madness fueled some of the greatest movies ever made.
“Minotaur”
Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev | Cast: Iris Lebedeva, Dmitriy Mazurov
Shot in Latvia by exiled Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev, this movie acts as a fierce, metaphorical stand-in for his homeland in the midst of war. It’s a movie brimming with rage, despair, and pitch-black gallows humor.
“Paper Tiger”
Director: James Gray | Cast: Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller
James Gray goes back to the tight-knit, loud Jewish domestic settings of Armageddon Time, but injects it with the high-stakes dread of a Sidney Lumet thriller. It’s a masterclass in family trauma simmering just beneath the surface until it finally boils over.
“Rehearsals for a Revolution”
Director: Pegah Ahangarani | Cast: Pegah Ahangarani (Narrator / Documentary Subject)
Iranian actress-turned-director Pegah Ahangarani crushed her debut, winning the festival's top documentary prize and getting snapped up by Sony Pictures Classics. Using incredible audio and video archives, she narrates a beautiful, bittersweet history of 40 years of hopes and letdowns in Iran.
“The Station”
Director: Sara Ishaq | Cast: Manal Al-Mulaiki, Rashad Khaled, Fariha Hassan,
Shorooq Mohammed
Sara Ishaq brings us a multi-layered fiction debut centered on the women and young boys of Yemen. Instead of the one-dimensional misery we usually see on the news, Ishaq highlights joyful female solidarity and real human depth against the backdrop of ongoing conflict.
“Tangles”
Director: Leah Nelson | Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Voice)
Based on Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir about her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s, this adult animated feature from Leah Nelson is funny, candid, and devastating. Julia Louis-Dreyfus lends her voice to the mother, capturing the heartbreaking reality of a mind slowly slipping away.
“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma”
Director: Jane Schoenbrun | Cast: Gillian Anderson, Hannah Einbinder
Jane Schoenbrun serves up a glorious, self-aware slasher homage starring Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder. It’s a delightfully kinky, schlocky B-movie ride that secretly uses the "video nasty" horror genre to explore the messy, complicated realities of female and queer desire.
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