2026 Cannes Winners + Oscar Submission Speculation

by Nathaniel R

FJORD wins the coveted Palme d'Or. Will Oscars nominations follow for Cristian Mungiu, Renate Reinsve, and Sebastian Stan? ?

Will the 2026 Cannes Festival have lasting impact on this cinematic year? With the oft-reported absence of major Hollywood outings at the 79th festival, the best we might hope for (for those of us on the other side of the ocean) is a similar or muted echo to last year when the four non-English features that dominated the Cannes conversation (It Was Just An Accident, Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent, Sirāt) proved to have incredible staying power, wowing audiences from their May 2025 premieres all the way through the culmination of awards season on Oscar night in March of 2026. Not all of the award-winning films from a year ago held strong the whole film year, of course; Sound of Falling, The President's Cake, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, award-winning in May, struggled to make a big impact several months later with quieter distribution and media reactions.  Now that the 2026 edition of the festival has wrapped Fjord, Fatherland, The Black Ball, Minotaur, A Man of His Time, All of a Sudden, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, as well as all of the non-winning films will now face the broader audience endurance test as they make their way through international markets. Will we see any of the 2026 Cannes titles in the mix come Oscar season, still building large devout fanbases? Not every film that wins big at Cannes "plays" elsewhere and some which come up empty-handed on the Croisette become awards players in other contexts (like Oscar or equivalent awards in their home countries).

The winners from the 79th Annual Cannes Film Festival and some commentary after the jump... 

MAIN COMPETITION
Director Park Chan-wook (South Korea) presiding. The jury didn't give any prizes to high profile Competition titles like Bitter Christmas (Almodóvar), Parallel Tales (Farhadi), Hope (Na Jong-Jin), The Man I Love (Sachs) and Paper Tiger (Gray) but given the auteurs behind those films they will certainly find distribution (if they don't have it lined up already) and could make an impact with audiences and critics later in the year.

PALME D'OR - Fjord (Romania/Norway) by Cristian Mungiu
The Romanian auteur has now joined the slim ranks of directors who've won the Palme d'Or twice. His first was for the abortion drama classic 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007). His latest is about a deeply religious and conservative Romanian/Norwegian couple (Oscar nominees Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve) and their legal troubles in progressive Norway. 
Oscar Submission Possibility? High! Though the question is whether Romania or Norway will submit it? Or maybe with the new Oscar rules it'll show up regardless. Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan sure are on fire of late, aren't they? 

GRAND PRIX - Minotaur  (Russia) by Andrey Zvyagintsev
The two time Oscar nominee (Leviathan, Loveless) returns to the big screen after a nine year absence. Given his filmography we're super excited to see this one. It's a drama about an executive at a breaking point with his career, marriage, and global chaos all shaking him. 
Oscar Submission Possibility? Sadly no. Russia has been boycotting the Oscars since 2022 though they were previously a major force, regularly placing on the finalist list in addition to their 7 nominations and 1 win since 1992. Until Russia is freed from Putin, we probably won't see them at the Oscars again. 

JURY PRIZE - The Dreamed Adventure  (Germany/Bulgaria) by Valeska Grisebach
Speaking of long-awaited nine-years-later comebacks. I'm also thrilled for Grisebach who made the altogether excellent but still largely underappreciated Western back in 2017. Her films have been well received (Be My Star in 2001 and Longing in 2006 are the others) but there's so much time inbetween them that momentum hasn't built for an international following. She's finally made another film though frustratingly for my excessive-running-time-aversion this is nearly 3 hours long and from the available stills looks to be set in a rather non-descript desert (just the kind of place you want to look at for 167 minutes!). It's about an archeologist who is pulled into "dangerous territory where she is confronted by her own desire".
Oscar Submission Possibility? Unlikely. Germany always has multiple high profile titles to choose from and Bulgaria didn't choose to submit Western in its year (and it would have been such a great choice). 

BEST DIRECTOR [tie] -Javier Calva & Javier Ambrossi for The Black Ball AND  Pawel Pawlikowski for Fatherland 
These two films, from available descriptions and reviews, sound like the most likely candidates for upcoming Oscar interest in the Best International Feature Film category (if submitted). The Black Ball is a queer Spanish epic starring lots of male beauties (including the great musician Guitarricadelafuenta) and small roles for Penelope Cruz and Glenn Close. Fatherland from Pawlikowski (who Oscar voters already love thanks to Ida and Cold War) is a drama about Thomas Mann and his family in post-war Germany.

BEST SCREENPLAY - Emmanuel Marre for A Man of His Time (France) 
Set during World War II and starring the always watchable Swann Arlaud as a writer with a self-published manifesto in Vichy, France.
Oscar Submission Possibility?: It has a real shot at France's selection shortlist. We'll see. 

BEST ACTRESS - Virginie Efira AND Tao Okamoto for All of a Sudden (France/Japan) 
Efira is one of the greatest French actress and deserves a sizeable international fanbase like Huppert, Deneuve, Binoche, Cotillard, and Seydoux all enjoy! Each year I keep hoping "this will be the one to do it" since she sure is prolific. In her latest film she plays a woman working at a care facilitiy who meets a Japanese director (Tao Okamoto) with terminal cancer. It's from Ryusuke Hamaguchi of Drive My Car fame, so settle in; it's 196 minutes long. 

Efira and Okamoto are mild surprises since the buzz seemed to be circling Lea Seydoux who stars in both The Unknown and Gentle Monster in Competition. Other actresses that had reason to hope from the Competition titles included Ayase Haruka in Sheep in the Box, Yana Radaeva in The Dreamed Adventure , and Scarlett Johansson in Paper Tiger.

Oscar Submission Possibility: It's difficult to say. France won't have an issue with this being partially Japanese (they regularly submit co-productions) but maybe Japan will think it's too French. That said Hamaguchi has won the Oscar in this category so it's a distinct possibility that he'll get another shot. 

TRIVIA NOTE: While shared wins are not uncommon for an acting prize at Cannes, this year we had a bit of a shock in that BOTH acting prizes were shared. That's highly unusual and hasn't happened since 2006 when that year's jury gave the acting prizes to the female ensemble of Volver and the male ensemble of Days of Glory. Both of those films had an Oscar nomination in their future, though Volver was grotesquely snubbed of the Best International Feature Film nomination, a competition it ought to have won in full. 

BEST ACTOR - Valentine Campagne AND Emmanuel Macchia in Coward (Belgium)
Lukas Dhont's movies have had a strong reception internationally so expect to be seeing this feature at some point within the next year wherever you live (well, provided you live in a city with a healthy amount of movie theaters). The director of Close and Girl is back with a queer drama about two soldiers during The Great War.
Oscar Submission Possibility? I would put money on it. If the past is predictive than Belgium will submit this for the Oscars and the film will make the finals... maybe even all the way to a nomination.

Earlier festival speculation suggested that this prize was going to either Javier Bardem (The Beloved) or Swann Arlaud (A Man of His Time) with some minor 'if there's a surprise' style thoughts suggesting Rami Malek (The Man I Love) might benefit. The jury wanted this duet instead. 

HONORARY PALMES D'OR - (previously announced) Peter Jackson, Barbra Streisand, John Travolta

UN CERTAIN REGARD  
Actress Leïla Bekhti (France) presiding. The jury did not give out Director and Screenplay prizes as they usually do. Perhaps they were cutting back after awarding more films than usual with the extra "Special Jury Prize"?

EVERYTIME © TheBarricadesPanamaFilm_GregoryOke

UN CERTAIN REGARD - Everytime  (Austria/Germany) by Sandra Wollner
A drama about a family holiday following a tragedy.  Birgit Minichmayr stars. 
Oscar Submission Possibility? Tough competition. Austria and Germany have a lot to choose from. 

JURY PRIZE - Elephants in the Fog  (Nepal) by Abinash Bikram Shah
The matriach of a Nepalese village must choose between her missing daughter and her own freedom in this drama. (This film was also eligible for the Queer Palm)
Oscar Submission Possibility? It seems probable! Somewhere between 40-60 Nepali films are released each year. This is a directorial feature debut for Abinash Bikram Shah but he has Oscar submission history. He previously wrote the screenplays to two Nepali Oscar submissions, 2016's The Black Hen and 2024's Shambhala, both directed by Min Bahadur Bham, the only Nepali director to be submitted twice into the Oscar race. Shah comes to his own debut with plenty of prestige already given that history. Once more he also has the distinction of being the very first Nepali director to win a prize at Cannes since he received a Special Jury Mention for his short film Lori (2022) and Elephants in the Fog is the first Nepali feature to be an Official Selection at Cannes.

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE - Iron Boy (France/Belgium) by Louis Clichy
A 10 year old boy must wear an iron corset to stand upright in rural France in this animated film. 
Oscar Submission Possibility? Unlikely. France and Belgium generally don't submit animated films (too much prestigious live action to choose from) but we might see this pop up at the European Film Awards or the Oscar race for Best Animated Feature if it's lucky and gets a committed distributor. 

BEST ACTRESS (shared) - Marina de Tavira, Daniela Marín Navarro, and Mariangel Villegas in Forever Your Maternal Animal (Belgium, France, Mexico) by Valentina Maurel 
A film about a young woman returning to Costa Rica after studying in Europe and finding her family more distant with her sister suddenly reclusive and her mother focusing on republishing writing from her youth. Oscar Submission Possibility? Maybe! Maurel was previously submitted by her home country Costa Rica for I Have Electric Dreams in 2023.

BEST ACTOR -Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset as "Robert" in Congo Boy (The Democratic Republic of the Congo) by Rafiki Fariala
Bradley plays a 17 year old boy who dreams of a career in music but whose dreams are derailed due to a raging civil war and having to care for his younger siblings. 
Oscar Submission Possibility? Unlikely but we hope. African countries have extremely sporadic participation in Best International Feature Film. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has only submitted one film in Oscar history, 1997's Macadam Tribu. 

CAMERA D'OR - Debut films 
Actress/Writer/Director Monia Chokri (Canada) presiding. The jury defied expectations that a queer film called La Gradiva had this in the bag. 

CAMERA D'OR - Ben' Imana  (Rwanda) by Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo
This feature-length debut from 39 year old director Dusabejambo is set in Rwanda circa 2012 following a woman involved with community-justice after the 1994 genocide. It's the first Rwandan film ever to play as an Official Selection at Cannes. 
Oscar Submission Possibility? We think it'll happen. If Rwanda submits this it will be the first time the country has ever done so. That said they did just form a 15 member Oscar Selection Committee in 2025! I suspect we'll hear more about this film in the coming months.

Short Film Palme d'Or - Federico Luis for For the Opponents (Chile/Mexico)
This 15 minute short is about a boy who dreams of becoming a boxing champion . Federico Luis is a 36 year old filmmaker from Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

LA CINEF - short films
Writer/Director Cárla Simon (Spain) presiding...

LASER-CAT

1ST PRIZE - Laser-Gato (Laser-Cat) by Lucas Acher (US/Brazil/UK)
A laser pointer prank goes wrong in this 22 minute chaotic short, which mixes live action and animation about a teenager and an injured cat one night in São Paulo.

2ND PRIZE - Silent Voices  by Nadine Misong-Jin (South Korea/US)
A 17 minute short about a Korean immigrant family in New York. This film was also honored with a prize from the Queer Palm shorts jury. See below. 

 3RD PRIZE (tie)- Aldrig Nok (Never Enough) by Juilus Lagoutte Larsen (France) which is 25 minutes long about best friends and roommates in the aftermath when one of them moves out.
And...
Growing Stones Flying Papers by Roozbeh Gezerseh & Soraya Shamsi (Germany) which is 12 minutes long and about a writer hiding in his apartment during the rise of a dictatorship who much choose between silence and action. 

QUEER PALM -LGBTQ+ films from any section
The features jury was composed of Anna Mouglalis, Thomas Jolly, Raya Martigny, Jehnmy Beth, and André Fischer and the Short Films Jury of Imène Benlachtar, Juan Enrique Villarreal, Renato Sircili, Hong Anh Nguyen, and Alexander David. As usual what qualifies a film is if it spotlights LGBTQ+ themes, feminist perspectives, or challenges gender norms. 

Gillian Anderson, Jane Schoenbrun, and Hannah Einbinder at the Photo Call (from Cannes official site)

QUEER PALM - Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma by Jane Schoenbrun
(from the Un Certain Regard section)
Jane Schoenbrun is building quite a filmography already. Her first three features We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021), I Saw the TV Glow (2024), and Teenage Sex and Death... (2026) are all award-winning films. Her 2021 debut won three small festival prizes plus the Dorian Award for "Undersung LGBTQ+ Film of the Year" alongside many nominations from festivals and critics group, the follow up was an even more high profile awards magnet including multiple Gotham and Independent Spirit nominations. Teenage Sex and Death... is starting strong with a Cannes win and two big stars Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder ready to promote it. It opens in US theaters on August 7th from MUBI. 

FLESH AND FUEL

DISCOVERY - Du Fioul Dans Les Arteres (Flesh and Fuel) by Pierre Le Gall 
Le Gall's directorial debut (after a César nomination as a short film director) is a romantic drama sent amongst the invisible community of long-haul truck drivers.  It's a France and Poland co-production. Alexis Manenti and Julian Swiezewski play the central lovers.
Oscar Submission Possibility: Unlikely. France and Poland both have too many prestige directors to get around.  

SHORT FILM - Silent Voices - Nadine Misong Jin
The jury describes this having both tension and tendereness as it follows "a torn family, whose bond is expressed solely through silence"  

The Queer Palm never gets enough press so here were the feature films that were eligible so you (and I) can try to see them all later -- you'll notice that the Competition slate was MUCH more robust for queer themes than usual (we're lucky if we get, say, two or three, usually in the main competition and this year there were seven! 

Competition: Bitter Christmas (Pedro Almodóvar), The Black Ball (Javier Ambrossi & Javier Calvo), A Woman's Life (Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet), Coward (Lukas Dhont), Another Day (Jeanne Herry), Nagi Notes (Koji Fukada), The Man I Love (Ira Sachs); Un Certain Regard: Elephants in the Fog (Abinash Bikram Shah), Club Kid (Jordan Firstman), Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Jane Schoenbrun); Critics Week: La Gradiva (Marine Atlan), Flesh and Fuel (Pierre Le Gall), Six Months in a Pink and Blue Building (Bruno Santantaria Bazo; Directors Fortnight: Clarrisa (Chuko Esiri & Arie Esiri); Acid: Summer Drift (Celine Carridroit & Aline Suter), A Secret Heart (Tom Fontenille); Cannes Premieres: Marie Madeleine (Géssica Généus); Special Screenings: Marvelous Mornings (Avril Besson), Tangles (Leah Nelson); Cannes Classics: L'âge D'or (Bérenger Thouin)

PALM DOG

LA PERRA

Palm Dog - Yuri in La Perra (Chile) by Dominga Sotomayor
The film, which played in Director's Fortnight, is about a quiet woman who harvests seaweed who adopts a stray puppy that fills her life with joy but triggers long surpressed memories. Sotomayor has been fairly prolific but hasn't quite broken through internationally. Her biggest success was arguably Too Late to Die Young (2018) which won prizes at multiple festivals including Rotterdam and Locarno. 
Oscar Submission Possibility? Who knows. Chile always has plentiful films to choose from but Sotomayor's career is growing.

Other dogs hitting Cannes (at least onscreen) these past two weeks that were eligible for this prize include three pugs in the Joan Collins-led biopic about the Duchess of Windsor My Duchess, a terrier in I See Buildings Fall Like Lightening, an alsation in the film Karma, and a labrador in Goodbye Cruel World.  (Last year's winner Panda from Iceland's wonderful Oscar submission The Love That Remains is available to fall in love with on the Criterion Channel. )

WHICH OF THE CANNES FILMS ARE YOU MOST EXCITED TO SEE AND WHICH DO YOU THINK HAVE OSCAR FUTURES? 

And, yes, I realize the first round of Oscar predictions are a month late.