Apr 9, 2026 1:50am PT

Cannes Film Festival 2026 Lineup: Asghar Farhadi, Pedro Almodóvar, Ira Sachs, Hirokazu Kore-eda Set for Auteur-Driven Competition

Elsa Keslassy, Ellise Shafer

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Cannes Film Festival will favor the auteurs this year, with Asghar Farhadi, Pedro Almodóvar, Paweł Pawlikowski, Ira Sachs, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Laszlo Nemes and Ryusuke Hamaguchi all premiering new films in competition.

After a 2025 edition which had a large Hollywood presence with “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” and Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest,” this year’s Cannes will be dominated by international cinema and indie filmmakers. Sachs is the only American director in competition with “The Man I Love,” a musical fantasy starring Rami Malek and dealing with the AIDS crisis in ’80s New York. However, Un Certain Regard has several U.S. films including “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” helmed by Jane Schoenbrun and starring Hannah Einbinder (“Hacks”) and Gillian Anderson (“Sex Education”); and Jordan Firstman’s directorial debut “Club Kid” featuring himself, Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva and Eldar Isgandarov.