Cannes Film Festival 2023 – Programme complete

The 76th Cannes Film Festival is set for a legendary year with Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon starring Robert De Niro and Leo DiCaprio, and an out-of-competition world premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. 

Bernardo Bertolucci makes his final bow winning an honorary Palme d’Or in 2011

Some of the best names in cinema will be crowding the Croisette this year – in fact, it’s hard to think which stars won’t be on the famous Red Carpet for this year’s epic celebration announced by Thierry Fremaux.

The 2023 competition lineup includes new films from Jonathan Glazer, Wes Anderson, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Todd Haynes, Nanni Moretti and Aki Kaurismäki. The programme also includes the latest from cinema greats Wim Wenders, Takeshi Kitano, Victor Erice and Catherine Breillat. Five female directors and one first time film will compete for the coveted main prize the Palme d’Or.

Palme d’Or hopefuls include Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, who won in 2018 with Shoplifters and is now back in Cannes competition with Monster, and Nanni Moretti with Il Sol Dell’Avvenire after winning the main prize with The Son’s Room in 2001. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, won the Palme in 2014 Winter Sleep, and comes back with About Dry Grasses, another story set between Istanbul and small town Anatolia.

Wes Anderson’s latest Asteroid City promises to be as quirky as ever and stars Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, Tilda Swindon, Jason Schwartzman. Todd Haynes’ May December features Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore in another emotional rollercoaster. But humour will undoubtedly come from Aki Kaurismäki and Dead Leaves, his first film in six years. Veteran Wim Wenders returns to Cannes with his Japan-set feature Perfect Days together with his documentary Anselm, a portrait of German painter Anselm Kiefer, one of two films about artists, the second being Martin Provost’s drama Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe that explores the love story between the renowned French painters Pierre Bonnard and his wife Marthe.

Jessica Hausner is one of six female directors in competition this year, with Club Zero. She joins Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher, who directs her sister Alba, Josh O’Connor and Isabella Rossellini in Chimera. French filmmaker Justine Triet will present her thriller Anatomy of a Fall. Catherine Breillat, another seasoned French director will be there with with L’été dernier starring Léa Drucker; Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania (The Man Who Sold His Skin) is coming with Four Daughters; and a feature debut for Senegalese-French director Ramata-Toulaye Sy with Banel & Adama will premiere in competition this year.

One of this year’s most anticipated films in the Palme d’Or lineup is from English auteur Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Under the Skin): Zone of Interest is a Nazi-themed thriller based on the novel by Martin Amis. One time lovers Benoit Magimel and Juliette Binoche team up for La Passion de Dodin Bouffant from Vietnam-born French director Tran Anh Hung.

It takes a Brazilian/Algerian director to make a film about Henry the VIII, but forget Hilary Mantel, Firebrand is billed as a ‘history horror story’ and stars Alicia Vikander, Eddie Marsan, Jude Law and Simon Russell Beale. Oscar winner Steven McQueen will be there with Occupied City, a documentary that explores Amsterdam under Nazi-occupation. Also from England comes Molly Manning Walker with her debut feature (in UCR) which goes by the buzzworthy title of How to Have Sex. Let’s just hope that this and all the other live up to expectations.  MT