Cannes 2026: 12 Must-Watch Films From This Year's Festival
The annual Cannes Film Festival concluded last week. Every year, many films premiering at Cannes are regarded as some of the best of the year and become strong contenders for the year-end awards season, following in the footsteps of last year's Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent. The following twelve films received good reviews at this year's festival and are highly worthy of your attention.
Fjord
This film won the festival's highest honor, the Palme d'Or. It was written and directed by Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu, marking his second Palme d'Or win following 2007's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. The film stars Marvel Cinematic Universe Winter Soldier actor and A Different Man Golden Globe Best Actor winner Sebastian Stan, alongside Renate Reinsve, the Cannes Best Actress winner for The Worst Person in the World.
The Gheorghius, a devout Romanian Norwegian couple, resettle in a village set in a distant fjord where they become close to their neighbours, the Halbergs. Their children bond despite their different education.
When adolescent Elia Gheorghiu shows up at school with some bruises on her body, the community asks itself if the traditional education that the Gheorghiu children get from their parents might have anything to do with it.
Minotaur
This film won the Grand Prix, the festival's second-highest prize. It is directed by Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev, who previously won the Venice Film Festival's highest honor, the Golden Lion, for The Return.
Russia, 2022. When Gleb, a successful company director, finds himself under siege from mounting corporate pressures and an increasingly unstable world, the collapse of his carefully ordered life accelerates toward violence.
All of a Sudden
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the Oscar-winning director of Drive My Car, this marks his first French-language feature. The film stars César Award winner Virginie Efira (Benedetta) and Tao Okamoto (The Wolverine), who jointly won the Best Actress award at this year's festival.
Director of a care facility for the elderly, Marie-Lou strives to introduce an innovative care philosophy based on listening and respecting residents’ dignity, despite resistance from part of her staff. Her encounter with Mari, a Japanese theater director battling cancer, will profoundly reshape her path. By forming a deep, supportive friendship, the two women join forces in a shared struggle to “make the impossible possible.”
The Black Ball
Directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who jointly won Best Director at the festival. The star-studded cast includes Miguel Bernardeau (Elite), two-time Spanish Goya Award Best Actress winner Lola Dueñas (The Sea Inside), Oscar winner Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), and Golden Globe Best Actress winner Glenn Close (The Wife).
‘La bola negra’ tells the interconnected stories of three men in three different eras. Three lives intimately linked by sexuality and desire, pain and inheritance, and one of Federico García Lorca´s last, unfinished works.
Fatherland
Directed by Polish filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski, who previously won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for Ida. This film earned him the Cannes Best Director award once again, following his win for Cold War. The cast includes two-time European Film Award winner Sandra Hüller (Toni Erdmann, Anatomy of a Fall), Hanns Zischler (Munich), August Diehl (Munich – The Edge of War), and Devid Striesow (The Counterfeiters).
FATHERLAND centres on the relationship between the Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika, actress, writer and rally driver. In the summer of 1949, at the height of the Cold War, father and daughter embark on a challenging and emotional road trip in a black Buick taking them across a Germany in ruins – from US dominated Frankfurt to Soviet controlled Weimar. Returning home after sixteen years of exile in the US, Thomas Mann has to face not only a divided fatherland, but also deep fracture within his own family.
Clarrissa
Directed by Arie Esiri and Chuko Esiri, this film is adapted from Virginia Woolf’s classic novel Mrs. Dalloway. The ensemble cast includes Sophie Okonedo (Death on the Nile), India Amarteifio (Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story), Golden Globe Best Actress winner Ayo Edebiri (The Bear), Toheeb Jimoh (Ted Lasso), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Old), and David Oyelowo (Selma).
The film follows society woman Clarissa as she prepares to host a party at her home in Lagos, Nigeria, where she will unexpectedly encounter once-intimate friends from her youth. As the group reflects on their shared past over the course of a single night, memories of their intricate relationships, passionate love, hidden desires, and lost aspirations give rise to bittersweet reckoning.
Club Kid
Written, directed by, and starring Jordan Firstman (I Love LA), the film co-stars Cara Delevingne (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets) and Diego Calva (Babylon). The creative team features cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra, the Creative Arts Emmy winner for The Studio, and composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer, the three-time Creative Arts Emmy winner for The White Lotus.
A washed-up party promoter is forced to turn his life around when an unexpected visitor arrives.
Hope
This sci-fi thriller was written and directed by Na Hong-jin, the Blue Dragon and Asian Film Awards winning director of The Wailing. The film received highly polarized reviews at the festival, particularly regarding its visual effects. It features a massive international cast, including three-time Blue Dragon Best Actor winner Hwang Jung-min (12.12: The Day), Baeksang Arts Award Best Actor winner Zo In-sung (What Happened in Bali), Jung Ho-yeon (Squid Game), Oscar winner Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl), Michael Fassbender (the X-Men franchise), Taylor Russell (Bones and All), and Cameron Britton (The Umbrella Academy). Three-time Blue Dragon winner Hong Kyung-pyo (Harbin) serves as the director of photography.
In the remote South Korea village of Hope Harbor, police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung- min) and officer Sung-ae (Hoyeon) are called to find a mysterious creature that has wreaked havoc on the village. In the nearby forest, a coterie of hunters, including Sung- ki (Zo In-Sung) set out to track the beast and find themselves hunted instead. But all is not as it seems, and perceptions can be misleading. What begins as ignorance plants the seed of disaster, escalating through human conflict into a tragedy of cosmic proportions.
La Gradiva
This film is directed by French filmmaker Marine Atlan. A group of French high-school students travel to Naples on a school trip to discover the ruins of Pompeii and the bodies petrified by Vesuvius. There, they are drawn into a dizzying descent. One by one, they are swept up in desire and anger, until they surrender to them completely.
The Man I Love
Directed by Ira Sachs (Love Is Strange), the film features Oscar Best Actor winner Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody), Tom Sturridge (The Sandman), Luther Ford (The Crown season 6), Rebecca Hall (Godzilla x Kong series), and two-time Emmy winner Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear).
Set in the vibrant era of late 80s New York, the film follows Jimmy George, a Downtown performance artist in an extraordinary moment between great illness and death when, still, all beauty and love is possible.
Paper Tiger
Written and directed by James Gray (Ad Astra), the film stars Venice Best Actor winner Adam Driver (Star Wars sequel trilogy), BAFTA Best Actress winner Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow and Lost in Translation), and Miles Teller (Top Gun: Maverick).
In James Gray’s deeply felt and intense drama, two brothers become entangled in a scheme that turns out to be too good to be true. As they try to navigate their way through the dangerous world of the Russian mafiya, family bonds begin to fray with life-altering consequences.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, to be released on August 7 in North America
This film won the Queer Palm at this year's festival. It was written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow). The cast includes Emmy winner Hannah Einbinder (Hacks), Emmy Outstanding Lead Actress winner Gillian Anderson (The X-Files), Eva Victor (Sorry, Baby), Zach Cherry (Severance), Dylan Baker (Dream Scenario), Jasmin Savoy Brown (Scream franchise), Quintessa Swindell (Black Adam), and Jack Haven (Atypical).
After years of slapdash sequels, the Camp Miasma franchise is handed over to an enthusiastic young director for resurrection. But when she visits the original’s star, a now-reclusive actress shrouded in mystery, the two women fall into a blood-soaked world of desire, fear, and delirium.
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Photo and Source: Festival de Cannes