Exploring the festival programme in more depth, let’s take a look at some other new films of offer this year at Cannes.
Out of competition
LA BATAILLE DE GAULLE : L’ÂGE DE FER | Antonin BAUDRY
For lovers of French history Antonin Baudry’s sensibly splits this ambitious biopic into two parts charting the military life of Breton hero (and later President) Charles de Gaulle. Opening in 1940 the film explores his military and political gamble when he to London to raise support for France’s future with resistance fighters joining the cause from France and North Africa. Based on the book by British historian and academic Julian Jackson it stars French actor Simon Abkarian in the lead role, alongside Simon Russell Beale and Benoit Magimel.
KARMA | Guillaume CANET
Best known for his award-winning role in Tell No One (2006) Cannet has moved behind the camera for this Spanish-set psychological thriller starring his ex wife Marion Cotillard and Denis Menochet.
Diamond – Andy Garcia
DIAMOND | Andy Garcia
Andy Garcia, another seasoned actor turned writer/director, comes to Cannes taking the lead role in his 1940s-set noir thriller as a troubled detective alongside a solid cast of Brendan Fraser, Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman.
HER PRIVATE HELL – Nicolas Winding Refn
Inspired by wacky soundscapes and known for his imaginative, often outlandish, style of auteur cinema, this latest outing from Nicolas WINDING REFN is already creating buzzy interest on the Croisette. HER PRIVATE HELL is described as another “Hypnotic, unhinged thriller with plenty of sex and violence” involving a woman on a quest to find her missing father. Stars Sophie Thatcher and Dougray Scott.
Un Certain Regard
EVERYTIME
In 2020 Austrian auteuse Sandra Wollner created THE TROUBLE WITH BEING BORN once of the most bizarre, surreal and distinctive thrillers for quite some time, and winning multiple awards. Her eagerly anticipated follow-up EVERYTIME screens in this year’s Un Certain Regard, once again starring Birgit Minichmayr.
Cannes Premiere
LA TROISIÈME NUIT
Daniel AUTEUIL will make several appearances at Cannes this year, in Agnes Janis’ comedy drama AN OBJECT OF DELIGHT, and with his own 1942-set wartime drama that looks at an attempt to save over 100 Jewish children held captive in Lyon’s Vénissieux internment camp in the clutches of Marechal Petain’s Vichy regime (under Nazi occupation). Resistance fighter Jean Moulin was held prisoner in nearby internment prison Montluc amongst other anti-establishment figures (more about this is Lazlo Nemes’ main competition film MOULIN). Gregory Gadebois and Antoine Reinartz star alongside Auteuil in the main role as a Schindler-style saviour.
HEIMSUCHUNG (VISITATION) Volker SCHLÖNDORFF
The French director won the Palme d’Or for The Tim Drum in 1979 and has since returned to Cannes twice with films in Un Certain Regard. Heimsuchung, inspired by German novelist Jenny Erpenbeck’s ‘Visitation’ reflects on the changing political and social landscape surrounding a lakeside house in Berlin that has weathered the Nazis, Soviet occupation and Germany reunification and where its occupants simply want to live in peace. Martina Gedeck (The Wall) and Lars Eidinger star.
NIGHT FLIGHT TO LOS ANGELES | John TRAVOLTA | 1ST film
Best known for his dancing moves, John Travolta is now a novelist and director, his first film – based on his own 1997 book, set during the golden age of aviation – features daughter Ella Bleu, Kelly Eviston and Clark Shotwell as Jeff, a young boy mad about aeronautics who sets off with his mother on a one-way trip to Hollywood, crossing the United States. What could have been just a simple flight becomes the journey of a lifetime.
Seances Speciales
JOHN LENNON : THE LAST INTERVIEW de Steven SODERBERGH
An interesting idea for the new generation of Lennon fans from Soderbergh, another Palme d’Or winning director who, with the aid of artificial intelligence has cobbled together archival material surrounding Lennon’s final chat with RKO in December 1980. Soderbergh stretches it all into a feature length ‘surreal documentary’ encapsulating the social, political and artistic zeitgeist of the era. So largely aimed at young kids who may not ‘get’ the Beetles phenomena. Of course we all did and it remains etched in our memories.
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2026 | 12 – 23 MAY 2026