Little glitz and underachieving auteurs: how Cannes 2026 went – and who will win | Cannes Film Festival

The 2026 Cannes Film Festival it comes to an end with an uneasy agreement that this has not been the year of the vintage. It’s a Cannes ordinary.

There have also been dark mutterings of older veterans comparing 2026 to 2003 Cannes, the year of Vincent Gallo’s infamous road movie The Brown Bunny.

Did the Cannes shopping center lack one essential item… the glitz of Hollywood?

Well, the shiny Hollywood movies of the previous years, like Mission: Impossible or Elvis, all ended up without competition. Their presence or absence will not make any difference to the shiny prizes at the end.

But there is no doubt about it. The A-lister’s biggest studio picture wouldn’t have gone amiss in an official nomination somewhere. Are studios too afraid of Cannes reviews damaging their big films’ PR? Do they really have Rotten Tomatoes and their ridiculous amounts? Maybe.

In any case, no show in Tinseltown was not a problem with Cannes in 2026. The real problem was with the great auteurs: the protected silverback gorillas of international cinema who can be relied on to show on the Croisette with the best and perhaps the best film.

Not this year. László Nemes, Pedro Almodóvar, Asghar Farhadi, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Cristian Mungiu and Ira Sachs all gave us films that, in my opinion, were almost average. Even Mungiu Fjord about the abusive parent was loved by many, and there was praise for Hamaguchi’s little eyes. Suddenlyits fictional and absurd tale of a friendship between an actor and a caretaker of a care home.

On the other hand, I enjoyed the cheerful – and absurd – humor of Farhadi’s little film. Similar Issueswhich has a mature look between Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert, a film that some argue is terrible.

But I’m sorry to say that there was a lot of consensus on the concept of sci-fi Sheep in a Boxfrom the dangerous Japanese general Hirokazu Kore-eda. It arrived at Cannes with a deafening splat – a small group that has been largely forgotten.

For me, the problem is often the mixture of Europudding, which I suspect is due to the celebrated filmmakers who spend a lot of their time on international events and talking to dignitaries from all over the world who want to work with them. Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden and Mingiu’s Fjord created two parts with two national identities – France and Japan in Hamaguchi, Romania and Norway in Mungiu – and they managed to tell us about the benefits of each.

French films were (as often) very flexible, and surprisingly we had two films about the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, the best of the two being Emmanuel Marre. Our Salvationa fascinating study of the organization of Vichy France.

But there were great movies. The now-exiled Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev gave us the victory Minotaurabout the hurt of the Russian community and denial about the big mistake of their leader in Ukraine. And Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski returned to Cannes with Dadthe best story about Thomas Mann coming to Germany after the Second World War with his daughter Erika: a film full of sadness, depression and history – great performances from Hanns Zischler and Sandra Hüller.

Rodrigo Sorogoyen Beloved was a chilling, unsettling film about emotional abuse in the movie business, by Marie Kreutzer. The Quiet Beast she was brutally learning about a married man’s terrible secret.

Here are my predictions for Cannes 2026, followed by my thoughts on the Cannes Braddies, my awards for categories that should be but aren’t.

Palme d’Or Minotaur (dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev)

Grand Prix Fatherland (dir. Paweł Pawlikowski)

Jury prize Black Ball (dirs. Javier Calvo, Javier Ambrossi)

A very good director Marie Kreutzer of Gentle Monster

Excellent screenplay Emmanuel Marre for our salvation

A very good player Javier Bardem for Beloved

A very good player Léa Seydoux of Gentle Monster and The Unknown

And now… a Braddies for award categories that don’t exist but should

A very good assistant Miles Teller of Paper Tiger (

Best supporting actress Lola Dueñas of The Black Ball

Very good videos Mikhail Krichman of the Minotaur

Very high quality design Antxón Gómez of Bitter Christmas