If you suffer from FFSAD (Film Festival Seasonal Affective Disorder), good news: the 2026 Cannes Film Festival is nearly upon us. So, from May 12 to 26, when summer arrives and much-needed sunshine can warm up your deadened face, it’ll be time to hide out in the darkest, most exclusive cinemas possible in France, where the best films of the next 12 months will world premiere. What’s more, there’ll be a dress code to make it even more inconvenient – if you can even afford to make it to the Croisette in the first place.

Truth is, that’s all part of the fun and tradition of Cannes, whether you actually sneak into any of the invite-only screenings, or simply bed rot while refreshing trade publications on your phone. In recent years, the Palme d’Or has been significant for Oscar play, but, more importantly than that, Cannes is where the hottest auteurs from world cinema reveal their latest masterpiece, or undiscovered names kickstart their career. (Alternatively, when films do badly, they slip away and don’t get a UK cinema release, and then you end up pirating a badly subtitled version of it a few years later.)

Thierry Frémaux, the festival’s director, has revealed that this year’s Cannes was whittled down from 2,541 feature-length entries from 141 countries, and to pick the Palme d’Or winner will be a jury headed by Park Chan-wook. Unlike last year, which had Tom Cruise and Mission: Impossible, the 76th edition of Cannes has cut down on Hollywood A-listers (or perhaps that’s in reverse, but that’s another conversation), and is placing more emphasis on the films themselves.

Last year, Cannes premieres included Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent, It Was Just an Accident, Sirat, Sound of Falling, and basically everything that was discussed for the rest of the year. Below, we list the 10 films we’re most excited to see from this year’s lineup.

HER PRIVATE HELL (DIR. NICOLAS WINDING REFN)

Refn is an expert when it comes to love/hate reactions. So with Her Private Hell, the Danish director’s first film in a decade, the results could easily prompt a standing ovation, loud boos, or a quiet acknowledgement that it lived up to the title. Personally, it sounds enticing: set in a futuristic Japan, the thriller stars Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton as Americans on deadly missions that – if it’s anything like Refn’s previous films – will probably involve them looking extremely cool under neon lights while not saying much. Hopefully, it’s closer to Drive than Only God Forgives.

HOPE (DIR. NA HONG-JIN)

Arriving a decade after the sensational 2016 horror The Wailing, Na’s partly English-language debut stars Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, and Taylor Russell in a sci-fi thriller set in Korea. Upon news of a tiger lurking at night, a village near the DMZ inadvertently ends up discovering a different kind of danger. Given Na’s previous work, Hope will be gnarly and nail-biting, especially as its cinematographer also lensed Burning, Parasite and, of course, The Wailing. A bonus will be if Vikander speaks Korean – she did, after all, learn Japanese for Earthquake Bird.

ALL OF A SUDDEN (DIR. RYUSUKE HAMAGUCHI)

After Drive My Car and Evil Does Not Exist, Hamaguchi has continued to confound expectations by shooting a 196-minute movie in France. Virginie Efira (the main nun from Benedetta) stars as a nursing home director in Paris who incorporates “Humanitude” – a French care methodology that’s also used in Japan – in her practice. The script was loosely adapted from the book When Life Suddenly Takes a Turn: Twenty Letters Between a Philosopher with Terminal Cancer and a Medical Anthropologist. Notably, the film co-stars model-turned-actor Tao Okamoto as a terminally ill playwright.

TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA (DIR. JANE SCHOENBRUN)

Speaking to Dazed for I Saw the TV Glow, Schoenbrun teased that their next film would be a teen slasher about “trans sexuality” in the style of Sleepaway Camp and Psycho. Now shot, the horror movie’s plot has been revealed to star Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder as a director and actor attempting to reboot a fake film franchise, Camp Miasma, which leads to, according to plot leaks, “a frenzy of psychosexual mania”. If it’s anything like I Saw the TV Glow, then expect to be moved, frightened, and baffled – often within the same scene.

FULL PHIL (DIR. QUENTIN DUPIEUX)

France’s most prolific filmmaker, Dupieux – yes, Mr Oizo himself – has wrangled an all-star cast that pairs Woody Harrelson and Kristen Stewart with the alt comedy duo Tim and Eric. The official synopsis promises a plot involving a 1950s horror film and French cuisine. What’s more likely is that Dupieux (Deerskin, Mandibles), who writes, directs, and edits all his films, will confound expectations at every point for full comedic potential. Let’s not forget the several fake-out endings of Daaaaaalí!

SHEEP IN THE BOX (DIR. HIROKAZU KORE-EDA)

Eight years ago, Kore-eda won the Palme d’Or for his stunning family drama Shoplifters. However, the Japanese auteur has been reliably delivering knock-out films for decades, often delving into sci-fi and fantasy in a grounded, humanistic manner. Case in point, Sheep in the Box tackles AI, with grieving Japanese parents (Haruka Ayase and Daigo Yamamoto) adopting a humanoid when their son dies. It might be the first Kore-eda film to have you both crying and debating the ethics of robot technology as the end credits roll. Or second, if you saw Air Doll.

BITTER CHRISTMAS (DIR. PEDRO ALMODÓVAR)

Even Almodóvar himself acknowledges that his experimentation with English-language filmmaking wasn’t perfect. So, at 78, he’s returned to what he does best: a Spanish-language drama about grief, ageing and artists resorting to autofiction to process their problems. Starring Bárbara Lennie and Leonardo Sbaraglia, the film is two stories: one concerning a screenwriter, and the other the artwork she conjures up. As it’s Almodóvar, further surprises await.

THE MAN I LOVE (DIR. IRA SACHS)

After the grounded nature of Passages and Peter Hujar’s Day, Sachs has co-written and directed a musical fantasy starring Rami Malek, Rebecca Hall, and Tom Sturridge. Shot in New York, the 80s period-drama follows an actor called Jimmy George who’s dying of Aids and is preparing for a final film role. According to a press release, it’ll unfold “in an extraordinary moment between great illness and death when, still, all beauty and love is possible.” Perhaps, then, a counterpart to Peter Hujar’s Day.

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (DIR. LÉA MYSIUS)

Based on an acclaimed novel by Laurent Mauvignier, Mysius’s follow-up to The Five Devils promises to be tense and unnerving. In a remote French village, a family (including Benoît Magimel and Monica Bellucci) throw a party for Nora (Hafsia Herzi), only for brutal violence and painful secrets to unspool into the night. As a screenwriter, Mysius is known for her collaborations with Claire Denis and Jacques Audiard. Now, she’s proving what she can do behind the camera.

FJORD (DIR. CRISTIAN MUNGIU)

Mungiu, who won the Palme d’Or for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, is rightfully a Cannes legend, and Fjord would be automatically tantalising given the director’s wry, witty social commentary. However, it’s the Romanian auteur’s first time with established Hollywood actors: Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve star as a couple in Norway at war with their neighbours. Mungiu previously told Dazed he was ready to reinvent his style; with Fjord, he’ll at the very least remind you that Stan knows how to speak Romanian.