by Nathaniel R
Almodóvar will be competing for the Palme for the seventh time with "BITTER CHRISTMAS"
The Cannes competition lineup is here. There's been a lot of scuttlebutt online that it's disappointing. I don't know how that can be the case yet when the films are unseen. It is true that it is very expected in that it is mostly auteurs that they have programmed in the past but that is literally ALWAYS the case since Cannes isn't exactly known for straying from their favourites. What's interesting -- at least to me -- is that the lineup feels gayer than usual with multiple LGBTQ+ filmmakers in the mix. If we're lucky the Queer Palm race will be as spoiled for quality choices as the Palme d'Or!
Cláudio is planning his regular "Cannes at home" series in which he'll revisit previous features from this year's returning auteurs. What else would you love to see?
COMPETITION LINEUP 2026
Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden, Oldboy) who we just celebrated right here at the Film Bitch Awards for his latest masterpiece No Other Choice will preside over the jury determining the Palme d'Or this year. Here are the 21 films up for that highly coveted prize. Who takes Director, Actress, Actor, and the Palme?
ALL OF A SUDDEN by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
The Drive My Car auteur is back. The curveball is that his new feature is in the French language. My current Gallic obsession Virginia Efira (Benedetta, Other People's Children, Vie Privee) headlines as the Director of a Nursing home whose life is changed when she meets a dying playwright (Japanese star Tao Okamoto). Despite regaining a sense of economy with the 90 minute Evil Does Not Exist, Hamaguchi is back to his Drive My Car longwindedness with a 3 hour plus running time.
ANOTHER DAY by Jeanne Herry
Don't know much about this French film yet but the oft-employed Adele Exarchopolous headlines. Herry is one of 5 female filmmakers in Competition this year and she's been twice-nominated for the César for Best Director. I don't know her filmography yet so I've just learned that she's the daughter of classic French actress Miou Miou of Entre Nous and Memories of a French Whore fame!
THE BELOVED (EL SER QUERIDO) by Rodrigo Sorogoyen
Oscar nominated and Goya winning Sorogoyen (of Madre and The Beasts fame) is back with a father-daughter drama starring Javier Bardem and Victoria Luengo. The plot sounds similar to Sentimental Value in that the father is an auteur and the daughter an actress and though they've been estranged for years they are reuniting to make a film together.
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY by Léa Mysius
Mysius (Five Devils) returns with a family drama starring Hafsia Herzi (who directed last year's Queer Palm winner The Little Sister), Bastien Bouillon, Benoît Magimel, and Monica Bellucci.
BITTER CHRISTMAS (AMARGA NAVIDAD) by Pedro Almodóvar
Almodóvar has been in "Competition" six previous time at Cannes (All About My Mother, Volver, Broken Embraces, The Skin I Live In, Julieta, Pain & Glory). He's won Screenplay (Volver) and Director (All About My Mother) but the top prize has eluded him. Might 2026 be the year?
LA BOLA NEGRA
THE BLACK BALL (LA BOLA NEGRA) by Javier Calvo & Javier Ambrossi
Is this the first time co-directors who are husbands have competed at Cannes?! Calvo & Ambrossi (most famous stateside for the trans tv series Veneno) are bringing a gay drama set in three time periods. Calvo who is also an actors is also in Bitter Christmas, so he'll have exciting May in the South of France. The cast here is enticing: Julio Torres, Glenn Close, Penelope Cruz, Lola Duenas, and many hot Spanish men including the musician Guitardelafuentas! If you don't know him, please look him up. His most recent album "Spanish Leather" is just yummy... no skips!
COWARD by Lukas Dhont
Dhont is a Cannes regular and his first two films - the controversial trans drama Girl and coming-of-age proto-gay tragedy Close both had prominent awards cycles with Close nabbing a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Best International Feature Film. Will he go three-for-three in terms of awards attention? His new film is about two young Belgian soldiers during the Great War. While the synopsis is vague we hope it's Queer Palm eligible.
THE DREAMED ADVENTURE (DAS GETRÄUMTE ABENTEUER) by Valeska Grisebach
Grisebach who made the utterly fantastic but largely ignored German film Western (2017) deserves more international praise / eyeballs. She's back with... well the synopsis is so vague that we really have no idea. Something about a woman agreeing to help an acquaintance and being confronted with her own desires.
FATHERLAND by Pawel Pawlikowski
Did Pawlikowski spoil his awards momentum by just vanishing? After consecutive sensations Ida (2013) which won a well-deserved Oscar and the very popular Oscar nominate Cold War (2018) he has been nowhere to be seen. Finally he's back. His new film is a drama about Thomas Mann (Hans Zicchler) and his daughter (Sandra Huller) and their exile from Germany after resisting the Nazi regime.
FJORD
FJORD by Cristian Mungiu
The great Romanian director reunites the Oscar nominated co-stars of A Different Man Sebastian Stan (in bald cap!) and Renate Reinsve as a Romanian man and his Norwegian wife. The couple are in trouble with the Norwegian judicial system. From the looks of the first still they have had a lot of children together!
GENTLE MONSTER by Marie Kreutzer
Kreutzer's last feature film was the delicious Austrian anachronism Corsage. Her Cannes return stars two of the greatest French actresses Catherine Deneuve and Léa Seydoux. (We think they're playing mother and daughter but not sure?) The drama is about a reknowned pianist who relocates to the countryside and uncovers unsettling truths.
HOPE
HOPE by Na Hong-jin
Na Hong-jin of The Wailiing and The Yellow Sea is back to Cannes for the third time but this time he's in Competition. His latest horror/mystery/thriller takes place in a harbor town and is in Korean and English with an eclectic mix of stars: Kwang Jung-min, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Hoyeon, Taylour Russell, Zo In-Sung, Eum Moon-suk, and Cameron Britton.
THE MAN I LOVE
THE MAN I LOVE by Ira Sachs
A "musical fantasy" from one of NY's mainstay queer filmmakers whose best films (Little Men, Love is Strange) can be intimate and truly affecting though he has yet to break out beyond the Spirit and Gotham Awards in terms of prizes since his movies are often truly niche in their appeal (Peter Hujar's Day). Rami Malek, Tom Sturridge, Ebon-Moss Bachrach and Rebecca Hall star in his latest.
A MAN OF HIS TIME (NOTRE SALUT) by Emmanuel Marre
Marre follows up his contemporary debut Zero Fucks Given (2021) with a WW II drama. It's the first of two French resistance pictures in the Competition lineup. The always watchable Swann Arlaud (Anatomy of a Fall) stars as a man hoping to bring an end to the Vichy regime.
MINOTAUR
MINOTAUR by Andrey Zvyagintsev
Russia's greatest (current) filmmaker of Leviathan (2014) and Loveless (2016) fame has laid low for the past ten years but we're hoping for a stellar comeback for his latest which is a political thriller. The Ukrainian actor Anatoliy Beliy (Two Prosecutors, Metro) and Russian actress Varvara Shmykova (Loveless, Petrov's Flu) co-star. With Russia protesting the Academy Awards for the past handful of years, it's unlikely Zvyaginstev can factor into the Oscars despite his two previous well-earned nominations in Best International Feature Film.
MOULIN by László Nemes
While Hungary has submitted all three previous features from the director of Oscar winning Son of Saul (2016) that's unlikely to continue this year. As it turns out Nemes's fourth feature is his first in the French language. It's a biopic about French resistance fighter Jean Moulin in World War II. Gilles Lelouche has the leading role and ubiqitous international thespian Lars Eidenger is playing the notorious "Butcher of Lyon" Klaus Barbie. Will the Césars bite at least? It's scheduled for release in France after the Oscar submission cut-off date for Best International Feature Film so unless things change it won't be France's Oscar submission either.
NAGI NOTES
NAGI NOTES by Koji Fukada
The latest film from Fukada (Love Life, Harmonium) is a drama about the relationship between two women, one an artist in the country, and the other an architect from the city.
PARALLEL TALES by Asghar Farhadi
Farhadi has won Best International Film twice for Iran (A Salesman, A Separation) but now that he's relocated to France as his filmmaking home, can he regain the old magic? His first French language film The Past was not as artistically successful as his Iranian features. His new drama is centered on interconnected characters during the 2015 Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris. The cast is a who's who of world class Gallic talent: Virginie Efira, Isabelle Huppert, Catherine Deneuve, Vincent Cassell, and Pierre Niney among others.
SHEEP IN THE BOX by Hirokazu Kore-eda
Kore-eda, who won the Palme for his incredible found family drama Shoplifters (2018) and later earned an Oscar nomination is always worth watching. He follows up the critically acclaimed Monster (2023) with a sci-fi drama about a couple (Haruke Ayase and Daigo Yamomota) who welcome a robot baby after their son passes away. Acclaimed character actor Min Tanaka (The Twilight Samurai, Kokuho) is also in the cast.
THE UNKNOWN (L'INCONNUE) by Arthur Harari
He's already an Oscar winner by way of the screenplay for Anatomy of a Fall and his new film is billed as a "psychological fantasy". What that means remains to be seen. Léa Seydoux and Nils Schneider lead the cast.
A WOMAN’S LIFE by Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet
Two-time César winner Léa Drucker (of Close, Case 137, Late Summer, and Custody fame) stars as a middle-aged surgeon whose life is changed when a novelist begins to observe her work. 82 year old Oscar nominee Marie-Christine Barrault (Cousin-Cousine) is in the supporting cast.
So we have a lot of possibilities for the Queer Palm and a lot of possibilities (at least on paper) for a French thespian to take Best Actress with Drucker, Exarchopolous, Herzi, and Huppert in the mix alongside Efira, Seydoux, and Deneuve in multiple films.
Which of these 21 films are you most intrigued by sight unseen?